Membership Count: 3132

To the loyal members of the Emperor's Hammer:

This is my first of many reports I hope to deliver to you as your new Executive Officer!

There are many in the Dark Brotherhood who have been waiting for my official statement on the current events. The Dark Brotherhood situation has been monopolizing my time so far and hasn't given me a chance to settle down in my new office, but it was important enough to call for my attention. After spending several hours on IRC collecting the facts and doing interviews and having talks with various members from the newer Jedi to the Dark Council and Grand Master Zoraan himself, I now have enough information to make a statement possible.

First of all, everyone wants to know what's going to happen to Grand Master Zoraan. Unless he's making up his own retirement plans in complete secret, he's not going anywhere at the moment.

Most of the complaints I received were in relation to Consul Mav being removed from his position for leading a revolt (the legitimacy of the dereliction of duty thing is a really gray area, which is irrelevant now). Many were confused at how organizing a petition signing can be seen as treason. Allow me to explain. The petition being drafted was for the intention of removing the current GM from his position. There were no reasons for his removal attached to the signers of petition, only names. Mav has told me that he intended on e-mailing all people on his petition to gather reasons, but his topic that he posted in his clan channel shows pretty clearly he was asking for people to sign his petition for Zoraan's removal.

This was a futile effort destined to fail from the beginning. Grand Admiral Ronin has made it quite clear that even if all 800 members of the Dark Brotherhood signed a petition, without any hard evidence of misconduct or dereliction of duty from the GM, he will not remove a standing SGCOM. The head leadership position of the Dark Brotherhood is not a political office where members elect who would hold that position. GM Zoraan was within his right to remove Mav as Consul for organizing the petition asking for his removal.

A petition of "no confidence" in Zoraan's leadership would have been acceptable to show their dissatisfaction with him and the way he runs the Dark Brotherhood, but that's not what it was, despite what some people signing it thought. The decision to remove or demote a Subgroup Commander is not one that is up to membership to decide.

As for Mav, he was placed back into his clan with a small position demotion in the interest of making peace and moving on to start to make amends with the displeased membership and begin to address other concerns that people may have about Zoraan's current leadership. Mav can consider himself lucky. The Grand Admiral would not have been as forgiving. Mav is getting a second chance.

Blade's open action of insulting Grand Master Zoraan on the Dark Brotherhood news page was wrong and his inappropriate conduct in the Dark Brotherhood channel following a few days after where he continued to insult the GM in front of the general membership with crude profanity was inexcusable as well and he deserved whatever punished was delivered.

So...how does one properly complain or "gather evidence"?

One of the biggest complaints I received about Zoraan is that he doesn't reply to e-mails fast enough or at all. I don't have as large of volume of e-mails as he probably does and I don't even reply to all of them. People make suggestions for the TC Database or report bugs and I'm rushing so I just write down the problem/suggestion in my little notebook and move to the next e-mail, especially if I'm checking my e-mail away from home. I've made personal reforms to fix this in myself to at least say "thank you" or *something* to every e-mail I get, but sometimes during really busy periods of my life, even that's not possible for me.

If you wrote an e-mail to the Grand Master or any superior officer and you don't get a reply within a few days, send another one and state specifically in your e-mail that this is your second letter and you would like a reply. If you still don't get a reply, send another and CC his/her commanding officer and say politely that you sent two e-mails on this date and this date and you still didn't get a reply and you would like one now. If that doesn't work, send a fourth, CCing his/her commanding officer and the commanding officer's commanding officer. And this goes on until you read the top of the chain-of-command. Yes, it is slow and painful to do this, but it's the system we have and the system we use. The collection of e-mails would also be considered "evidence" of officers neglecting duties. So far, nobody has been able to provide me with this sort of evidence, even though there is no shortage of accusations. Keep in mind, though, that being rude and insulting through your correspondence won't help your case.

Grand Master Zoraan isn't perfect, none of us are, but we do what we can to better and improve ourselves. If there's something wrong, let him know. If a DC member if giving you problems, let that member know. And if you feel you're not getting across, follow the procedure I said before. IRC logs, dates, saved e-mails, specific incidents...very very few members have been able to give me anything like these and those that did I have addressed to proper parties involved. I have already given the GM a few suggestions and some future expectations. There are a few things that members have pointed out to me that I will be watching to see if they're corrected.

In the meantime, I will now be focusing the next week with getting better acquainted with the other subgroups. I also have LoAs to award, the Fiction Compendium to complete, the TC Database to upgrade and repair (those poor FCHG listings), the IS Medal system implementation, EH Senate updates, the finishing touches on kawolski.com, and several other things as well.

I would like to ask all of the members of the Emperor's Hammer to be strong, faithful, and loyal during this brief moment of turbulence as I assure you the negative incidents of the days past will be nothing more than a faded sour memory that will be remembered as an example of how the Emperor's Hammer and its Dark Brotherhood can remain strong and resolute even in moments of seemingly great peril.

Ahead, a great and brilliant future awaits us. It's a future I am greatly honored, blessed, and thankful to be the one to help lead the brave men and women of this organization through. I cannot do this alone, however, and I call upon you to take the initiative to perform your best in your appointed duties and expand your horizons if necessary so we can secure our position in the Internet community as THE largest Star Wars gaming organization in the entire galaxy!

Glory to the Empire…

= High Admiral Kawolski, Executive Officer and Fleet Systems Engineer =
- XO-FSE/HA Kawolski/CS-2/VSD Stalwart (#691)
- MoH/ICx2/OoR/GOE/GSx4/SSx3/BSx2/PCx6/ISMx6 [EXCR]
- MoI-DC/MoT-7rh-1gh-89bh/LoCx3/MoC-1BoC
- CoSx3/CoE/CoL/CoB/LoAx3/OV-3E {IWATS-GFX-IIC/1/2/3-M/1/2-NS-SM/1/2-TM}
- http://www.kawolski.com - http://www.tiecorps.org