StormSky

"Pew Pew."

StormSky was a major PvP faction on Empire Legacy, and is arguably the last superpower of the Golden Age of PvP. It existed from its founding on January 10th, 2013 by PrincessSlaya23 to its conversion to peaceful status on July 15th, 2013 by falco0909.

The Early Days
StormSky was founded on 10 January 2013 by PrincessSlaya23, sarge41, and CrazedM00n. The faction originated as a dependency of Exicidum, headed by PrincessSlaya23 (who had close ties to the leader of Excidium, Slumzy). After the fall of Excidium, the faction began to evolve as a rising superpower, picking up many influential members of the server community (such as TehUndying and imabeastyjew), as well as many rising players who would later largely impact the server (such as falco0909 and kradx123). StormSky had also acquired several vassal states, most notably Amicorum and Exodus, led by falco0909 and imabeastyjew, respectively. The earliest period of StormSky is characterized as a period of massive growth of both server influence and military might. Server influence was dramatically increased through the presence of notable players in the faction, namely Slaya and CrazedM00n. Military might grew with unprecedented speed, due to TehUndying being the owner of the only endfarm before the End Reset of the Industrial Update.

Decline of the First Era
Although military power and server influence continued to grow exponentially, PrincessSlaya's willingness to lead the faction waned. She also engaged in frequent quarrels with sarge41, the effective lieutenant of the faction at the time. (It is unknown whether she staged these fights, as Slaya's identity was later found to have been entirely false.) These conflicts eventually erupted in what is known today as the Leadership Crisis, a large argument involving Slaya, sarge41, and multiple members of the staff, most notably Exagerate and Klosjaarrr. Slaya had transferred the faction leadership to Sarge, but then desired it back, wanting to disband the faction, claiming that a pact was made to do so when the faction was created. Due to Klosjaarrr's apparent favoritism toward Slaya, the conflict erupted into a four hour discussion, in which Slaya and Klosjaarrr managed to maintain that faction leadership should be transferred back to Slaya so she could disband the faction. The conflict concluded when Exagerate employed his executive power as server owner and ruled that the faction's leadership should remain with sarge. The only concession made was that the faction name had to be changed. This was easily done; the faction's name had been altered when merging with its vassal states, and the name was simply changed back to its original.

The Golden Age
The Golden Age of StormSky is characterized its peak, along with many other friendly factions.

The First Community
With Slaya no longer in power, and no internal conflicts remaining, the faction looked onward to a bright future. Shortly after the Leadership Crisis was over, the Gods Plugin was implemented, and StormSky became a part of one of the largest pantheons of the server history, ''UnrealDMG. The original followers of the pantheon were the factions StormSky, Outcasts, and ARCHAIC''. The mutual participation in the pantheon greatly strengthened relations between its constituent factions. Furthermore, on 13 March, 2013, CrazedM00n moved from StormSky to Outcasts, further solidifying the union between the factions. Other greatly influential players soon joined as well, such as Jackxthexbuilder, epkdnb, xLegendaryRaven, and'' terenceb. ''The players that participated in the pantheon eventually formed a tight-woven society, now known as the First Community. The First Community was known to meet on password-protected channels on Teamspeak, most of them named with references to BBC shows (due to CrazedM00n being a notable member). Due to the high proportion of server staff in the First Community, StormSky remained in good standing with server law enforcement during this period, making affairs significantly easier.

Notable Members of the First Community:
 * UnrealDMG
 * ererereric
 * TehUndying
 * Caleb755
 * grantego93
 * CrazedM00n
 * sarge41
 * falco0909
 * terenceb
 * epkdnb
 * Jackxthexbuilder
 * thecore23456

Power and Prosperity
During the Golden Age, StormSky fell under a considerable amount of wealth, accumulated by players such as thecore23456, a member of Pax who joined StormSky on an alternative account. StormSky had also recently defeated FallenKingdom, one of the factions headed by LOBSTER9900, a longstanding rival. A newer, safer, and better-looking base had also been built, with chest rooms stocked with valuable goods and war gear. StormSky was also the most active faction during this time, rarely leaving the #1 spot in the faction list, and not once falling to the second page. The faction boasted an average of 4 to 5 members on at a time, with an all-time high of 8. New recruits were also abundant; the faction picked up well-known players such as __Indie_Nate__ (under the guise of the alternative account Cryptian), Vhtiny, who had earlier broke off from FallenKingdom, and Zefellas, a veteran of Excidium. Rising stars such as setokaiba81, who would later become a well-known fighter, and kin1117, an extremely efficient industrialist, also joined. The faction was also arguably the strongest faction of its period, due to the fact that it had extremely high McMMO skills that were only topped by members of Armageddon (which was largely inactive during this period), and the best fighting techniques of its time. Sarge41 and falco0909 are especially recognized for both their high statistics and degree of fighting skill. Faction nationalism was also at an all-time high.

This period of great strength and prosperity, along with the social influence from the First Community, is regarded as the Golden Age of StormSky, and is arguably one of the greatest degrees of power ever attained by a faction.

Fall from the Sky
The power of StormSky during the Golden Age was virtually uncontested. However, this period of happiness did unfortunately come to an end due to many factors, both internal and external.

Diminishing of the First Community
As time went on, the importance of the First Community diminished, as its constituents became less and less active. New players gained prominence (including Rubix_Cube92, Lubert the Great, pall911, and mojo205). StormSky generally refused interaction with new players, even when their influence grew. But the focus of the server's community slowly shifted, and StormSky failed to notice this fact until their influence in the community had already diminished too greatly.

Ultimately, the diminishing importance of the First Community contributed to a decrease in StormSky's overall influence.

Failure to Organize
More significant, perhaps, was the inability of StormSky to organize. StormSky had always been largely unorganized; there was never a need to, as its skill on the battlefield was unmatched, and the officers' personal interests were always satisfied.

However, during the month of May 2013, StormSky faced numerous threats. Two powerful fighters, KappaRicki and iReapx, had seceded from Armageddon and combined forces with a suprisingly skillful new-player faction called Muds in a coalition against StormSky. Armageddon and Excidium, its longstanding allies, were inactive. Saignus and Triforce were the only friendy factions, but their amity was questionable, as both were owned by rival players.

Despite these threats, StormSky refused to change its conduct. Officers continued to act on their own interests, which led to a. Raids continued to commence without approval, spreading a negative attitude toward StormSky in a time when good allies were desperately needed. Disagreements among members sparked disunity, and faction activity continually declined due to an increase in players' workloads outside of the server.

This extreme lack of coordination significantly weakened StormSky's military might and overall server support, which ultimately led to an inability to sustain itself.

Poor Diplomacy
Perhaps the most devastating cause of all was StormSky's lack of competent diplomacy. StormSky had thrived on the goods provided by its peaceful allies, who were the most technologically advanced players of the period. But during the turbulent month of May 2013 (and onward), there was a large suspicion that StormSky's peaceful benefactors were no longer interested in supporting them. Crude ways of evaluating the peaceful factions' will to continue support were carried out by faction officer falco0909, and led him to believe that the peaceful factions of the First Community wished to cut ties with StormSky. This conception was the driving force behind StormSky's diplomatic actions for the next few months, which involved numerous substandard attempts at lobbying for peaceful faction support.

It was also during this period that serious talks of PvP reform were discussed among the community. Most notable of these talks were the implementation of Obbybreaker and the restriction of Mob Disguise to player-size animals. These changes were desperately needed in the eyes of many, but the majority of staff disagreed, most notably clip68. This led to a constant cycle of conflict, in which PvPers brought their concerns to the staff, who in turn rejected them, citing the common argument that "players would complain no matter what changes were made." This cycle deepened the wedge between staff and PvPers, which meant that StormSky had fallen out of staff favor.

These three factors combined ultimately sapped StormSky of much of its strength, allowing Saignus to take advantage of a weak StormSky on 31 May 2013, forcing its leaders into exile. StormSky would return to lead the STEAM coalition in the Second Muds War from June 19 to July 15, a period in which the same issues plagued StormSky.

Last War of Excidium
The last war of Excidium was fought between Excidium and its dependencies (among them StormSky and Amicorum) against VolT and Vis. Little records have been kept regarding this war, but it is known that VolT was convicted of duping and banned, and Vis succumbed to Excidium's forces shortly afterward.

Excidium's forces were led by Slumzy and Quanix, while VolT's forces were led by B0MEN31.

Crackdown Period
Shortly after Excidium emerged victorious from war with VolT and Vis, Slumzy himself was convicted of harboring duped items (although not actually duping himself), and permanently banned with the chance of appeal in three months. This led to the effective fall of Excidium, as most of its members became inactive afterward. StormSky, which was previously a dependency of Excidium, became increasingly autonomous.

In the weeks following the fall of Excidium, StormSky began a series of continuous raids on factions suspected to have worked against Excidium in the war. The most notable of these raids were the hunting-down of Hawkzone and oliverlaurudsen. It is believed that various new factions with no affiliation with the war were also hit, such as fuflymufler's TheAssassins.

This period saw the beginning of an alliance with falco0909's Amicorum, which became a vassal state of StormSky and was later fully integrated. Imabeastyjew, who was an enemy of Excidium but friend of Sarge, was also integrated. Much of the First Era in which military might increased exponentially took place during the Crackdown Period as well.

War of the Fallen Kingdom
The War of the Fallen Kingdom refers to the clashes between StormSky and the faction owned by LOBSTER9900 (which was known as CreeperBrigade, FallenKingdom, and Rebellion). Though StormSky and LOBSTER9900 appeared to work well together on the surface in the beginning, tensions between the two eventually erupted. Falco0909 initially acted as a middleman to mediate the conflicts between StormSky officers and LOBSTER, but eventually gave up after it became apparent that the two would inevitably go to war.

Kirsch War
A raid by StormSky's allies on the PvP faction ImperiousLegion commenced in March. The attack caused collateral damage to a peaceful faction, Imperious, owned by Chris_Kirsch. Kirsch appealed to the staff to punish StormSky and its allies for damage to a peaceful faction, but the staff rejected Kirsch's pleas on the grounds that Kirsch's peaceful faction was clearly in league with the raided faction, and the lands were so close to each other that it was impossible for collateral damage not to occur. Kirsch became angry and vowed revenge, and the Kirsch War began.

StormSky and its allies won 100% of the battles in this war. Kirsch's faction had 4 branches: Legion, Troubadours, Glaverin, and Alycon. All four branches were annihilated by StormSky forces, and Kirsch, despite his vows of revenge, fled numerous battles by mob-disguising as a baby chicken.

Legendcrafter Wars
The recurring Legendcrafter Wars between Legendcrafter and StormSky happened during the leadership of Sarge, and was characterized by a high degree of mudslinging rather than actual fighting. However, it is largely significant because of the great stir in the community it caused, and because it motivated thecore23456 to abandon his peaceful PaxArtifex and later join StormSky.

The Standoff
After LOBSTER9900 retreated to peaceful status, StormSky enjoyed a period of peace. During this time, however, its allies began weakening. KappaRicki and iReapx, two seasoned fighters, left Armageddon to start their own faction, which became an enemy to StormSky. This event simltaneously weakened one of StormSky's most powerful allies and gave birth to a new, formidable enemy. Muds, a faction that was initially friendly but turned enenmy after an altercation between its leader, CoreyJoe, and Sarge, rose to power. StormSky initially underestimated Muds, which allowed it to gather strength and eventually become the first faction to successfully raid the StormSky headquarters.

During this time, formerly rival factions became friendly due to a mutual desire to combat KappaRicki and iReapx, who were notorious for their chaotic nature and lack of moral fiber. Saignus, a new PvP faction created by LOBSTER9900, and Triforce, a faction created by Kradx123 after his secession from StormSky, became allies.

StormSky, Saignus, and Triforce formed an alliance, and KappaRicki, iReapx, and Muds formed a counteralliance, As a result, a "Standoff" between two axes of power dragged on throughout May.

The Saignus Ploy
On 31 May 2013, Saignus took advantage of the fact that falco0909 was the only remaining active faction member that had significant fighting skill, and betrayed StormSky. StormSky was then forced into exile in Outcasts, and later, Emperors, until 19 June 2013. This betrayal is commonly attributed to the fact that StormSky refused a deal to merge factions with Saignus. However, most of StormSky's members considered it common sense that the deal was an attempt by Saignus to absorb StormSky's power.

The Second Muds War
After the Saignus Ploy, the leaders of StormSky were exiled to the faction Outcasts, but returned to fight the conclusive Second Muds War (the First being a part of the Standoff).

Advantages vs. Disadvantages
StormSky had more allies, and therefore outnumbered Muds almost 5 to 1. Most of StormSky and their allies were made up of server veterans, and therefore they had great experience. StormSky also had what was probably the most secure base on the map, a large underground obsidian base at bedrock near the edge of the map under an ocean. Although the odds appeared in their favor, their bad organization and total absence of unity hindered them severely. StormSky also possessed popular server support, but this diminished as time went on.

Although Muds was severely outnumbered, they had the advantage of being friends in real life, giving them excellent coordination skills. They were seasoned players as well, being by far the more productive side. Most of the war was fought on their home territory. However, they had but one ally, Saignus, and had neither staff nor community support. This, along with StormSky's agenda of spreading an anti-Muds attitude throughout the server, made diplomacy extremely difficult. Their base was also in plain sight, made of heaps of cobblestone and easily penetrable.

Both sides boasted a very high degree of skill in fighting, which were nearly equal. However, Muds did manage to win the majority of battles.

Early Strikes
Shortly after leaving Outcasts and joining Klosjaarrr's Emperors, Sarge and Falco received the location of Muds' Headquarters from PetrayVirus. After launching several small strikes, it became apparent that a larger force was needed. This led to the enlistment of several other factions, including Triforce, MobileInfantry, and Armageddon. Assaults on the main base continued with the enlistment of these factions, facilitated by Skype calls that sometimes lasted as long as eight hours.

The Tregmine Affair
On 7 June 2013, StormSky members commenced an unsolicited raid on the new faction Tregmine. This raid was stopped by falco0909, who recognized that such a large new faction could provide a great advantage in a strike against Muds. An argument ensued between Falco, Jackxthexbuilder, and Dr_Slate, and eventually resulted in a forced alliance with Tregmine. This incident marked the starting point from which internal stability of StormSky and its allies declined.

Operation Avenger
StormSky adopted a different strategy in the Second Muds War; before, the main protocol was to defeat the enemy in a short skirmish in their home base, then spawnkill its members until they were sufficiently humiliated. However, due to StormSky's belief that Muds was a blight on the server community at the time, the war goal was their absolute annihilation.

Because Muds was the first opponent that was equal in skill to StormSky, a plan of attack was adopted for the first time. The plan would be to first locate the spawn point, allowing for immediate spawnkilling. Then, a surprise attack would be launched, hopefully catching the enemy in separate locations, so they would be split up and easily defeated by the much larger StormSky forces. Spawnkilling would then commence until the faction's power became a minimum. Due to Muds' large amount of landclaims and low number of member, it was calculated that approximately 30 chunks could be claimed. The plan called for the main chest rooms, faction spawn, and head collection to be taken.

This plan was never in fact carried out, due to StormSky's failure to breach the spawnpoint, and of course, a lack of coordination.

Chunk Hunting
So great was StormSky desire to wipe the enemy off the map, that efforts were made to locate every single chunk on the map that was claimed by Muds, so that they could not retreat to these bases should their headquarters fall. The exact number of chunks not held by the main base was calculated, and efforts were made to locate every single extra chunk.

Clashes with Saignus
Though it was never considered a huge threat to StormSky during the Second Muds War, there were frequent clashes involving Saignus. StormSky and its allies managed to locate and eliminate many Saignus-controlled bases using infiltration and sabotage tactics in which they snuck alternate accounts into the faction or convinced low-ranking members to defect. Finally, ElectroCube92, who was an officer in the faction, unclaimed all of Saignus in mid-June. Although its land was returned by admins, Saignus was converted to a peaceful faction and henceforth knocked out of the war. The fall of Saignus marked the beginning of an era of PvP in which sabotage tactics became grossly overused.

Infiltration Attempts and the Creation of STEAM
One obvious structure, surrounded by a wall of stone, a wall of obsidian, and a wall of locked furnaces around that, appeared to be the clear location of the spawn point. Numerous efforts were made to enter the structure, including attempts to blow a hole under the structure, or to travel to a cave location directly under the structure and enderpearl upwards about 50 blocks. Eventually, PetrayVirus managed to enter by tricking Corey, the leader of Muds. He asked Corey to send a /tpahere request to him to the arena for a 1v1 fight, then said that he didn't need it. The arena fight then commenced, in which Corey was killed. Petray then accepted the /tpahere request while Corey was at spawn, allowing him to reach the spawn point and spawnkill Muds that night. Although Petray's ploy is commendable, it should be noted that if he had waited and told StormSky of his plot, StormSky may full well have been able to launch a full-scale raid with all of its allies, and complete their plan. The overuse of this ploy in the times to come later caused a 60 second teleport timer to be implemented.

Shortly after this incident, however, Muds played a similar trick, and was then able to infiltrate the spawn of Emperors. This led Sarge and Falco to speed up their plan of abandoning Emperors and recreating StormSky, which they finally did on 19 June 2013. This newly created StormSky is generally known as the Third StormSky (the first being owned by Slaya, and the second by Sarge), and consisted of nearly all its old members. With StormSky now formally back in action, a formal alliance was created, with the name STEAM (StormSky, Triforce, Excidium/Emperors, Armageddon, MobileInfantry).

Notable Members of STEAM:
 * falco0909 (StormSky)
 * sarge41 (StormSky)
 * FlamingCore1 (StormSky)
 * Jackxthexbuilder (Triforce)
 * kradx123 (Triforce)
 * PetrayVirus (Excidium)
 * klosjaarrr (Emperors)
 * Erroroflog (Armageddon)
 * playaplace (Armageddon)
 * Dr_Slate (MobileInfantry)

Banning of Muds
Muds had managed to fall into bad favor with the staff of the time, and the inevitable ban happened on 14 June 2013; the sentence was two weeks, first with Tony, then the rest of the faction. StormSky used this period to have free reign over Muds base, often sporting their glee by choosing to AFK inside the enemy base rather than in their usual spots. There was great evidence that the spawn was not in the largely protected structure after all (though it may well have been the case before Petray's trick), but instead in a small compartment located far above the base's ground. The compartment was colloquially referred to as "The D" by members of STEAM due to its shape.

The days of Muds' ban were then devoted to attempting to breach this compartment. As many as fifty unsuccessful attempts were made on it, with many creative ideas. The most used method was Falco's suggestion of jumping off the nearest high point in the faction with Jump Boost II and having another player shoot at them with a Punch II bow, which would then rocket them high enough to pearl into the chamber. This tactic never worked, and was reportedly tried thirty-three times.

Dissolution of STEAM
After continued failure to breach the spawn, the alliance's will to win diminished. Internal fights became more common and severe. The most radical of them were generally between sarge41 and Jackxthexbuilder, whose disagreements often reached threats of secession and had to be put down repeatedly with great effort by falco0909. Eventually Sarge did secede, moving to Outcasts. On 15 July 2013, StormSky was converted to peaceful status at the request of falco0909, who had lost the will to lead due to continuing quarrels and diminishing support.

An later version of StormSky (sometimes called the Fourth StormSky) was later created by setokaiba81, which was largely unsuccessful, but a largely significant factor in the later creation of the faction Batavia.

Economic Status
StormSky was a fairly wealthy faction throughout its lifetime. Abundant materials were provided by TehUndying's endfarm until the End reset for the Industrial Update. During the Golden Age and onward many materials were provided by ARCHAIC and FlamingCore1, who were some of the server's wealthiest sources.

Market-Stall Crisis
After Deiscorides became inactive on the server sometime in March 2013, Kradx123, who was in StormSky at the time, noticed that his market stalls (which made up 90% of the main market) were to soon expire. When they finally did, StormSky managed to claim much of the wealth left in the market stalls, leading to a period of great economic planning. However, this period soon ended, when Kradx decided that since he had claimed the stalls, he alone should reap the spoils. Sarge, in an angry outburst, said that if Kradx was not to help the faction, he should leave. This caused a schism between Kradx and StormSky, creating the faction Triforce. StormSky was later pleased when Kradx was found exploiting a glitch that drained Deiscorides of his balance and banned for three weeks. Unfortunately for them, however, imabeastyjew was later given the same sentence for working with Kradx.

Time Periods

 * First Era: Lasted from the Creation of StormSky (10 Jan 2013) to the Leadership Crisis (date unknown). Characterized by PrincessSlaya23's leadership and a rapid rise in power.
 * Second Era: Lasted from the Leadership Crisis (date unknown) to the Saignus Ploy (31 May 2013). Characterized by constant warring with major factions and a high degree of nationalism.
 * Period of Exile: Lasted from the Saignus Ploy (31 May 2013) to the establishment of STEAM (19 June 2013). Characterized by the exile of notable StormSky officers sarge41 and falco0909 in Outcasts, and later Emperors.
 * Third Era: Lasted from the establishment of STEAM (19 June 2013) to the conversion to peaceful status (15 July 2013)

Notable Members

 * PrincessSlaya23, founder
 * sarge41, original member and later leader
 * CrazedM00n, original member and officer
 * TehUndying, creator of the faction's endfarm
 * falco0909, leader of vassal Amicorum and later leader
 * kradx123, major member
 * FlamingCore1, major member and later co-leader
 * vhtiny, leader of vassal Glacios and later officer
 * Cryptian, alternate account of __Indie_Nate__
 * imabeastyjew, leader of vassal Exodus and later officer
 * setokaiba81, major member
 * kin1117, major member
 * zefellas, Excidium veteran, honorary officer
 * ninjakiwis23, major member

Trivia

 * StormSky has taken on many different names, most notably StormCorum, and ExStormCorum, after its merging with its vassal factions Amicorum and Exodus, respectively.
 * StormSky was the only warring faction in the First Community and the UnrealDMG pantheon.