To be edgy and act like us

Note to self: read Goon propaganda very carefully to catch their mistakes. I made the monumental [pun intended] error of ignoring the post Sion wrote after it came to light that indeed Goons vandalised the monument. I just found it more than a year later when I was searching for "CCP Falcon" on their propaganda site for obvious reasons.

You surely seen that in this article Sion openly claims that "CCP Falcon, despite knowing full well that the vandalism was committed by a pair of Goonswarm members, apologized to Goonswarm for people wrongly accusing us." It's important to add that in the linked official dev post CCP Falcon wrote that they [CCP as a company] contact media outlets to "correct their mistakes" where the media blamed Goons (correctly). So Sion (obviously using NDA-d information) claims that CCP Games lied to media to protect Goons.

But that's not the article today. That document contains something much more damning. A copy-paste of the letter what one of the criminals sent to CCP Falcon (which is surely NDA, but Sion could get it from the criminal too). In his letter he confesses the crime and then add:

It had nothing do in game drama, we've just been bad influence and was trying to be edgy and act like us, and I helped because Xenuria just about ruined Fanfest for me last year.

This was the motivation of the criminals, by the own words of the "mastermind", if we can use that word on someone who orchestrates drunken vandalism in broad daylight. Again: his motivation was "to be edgy and act like us". "us" meaning "Goons". They didn't simply did it as Goons, they did it because they were Goons and wanted to be true to the "Goon spirit". To earn Full Patch, so to speak. So it was indeed an escalation of the bee-sticker, just as everyone assumed before CCP Falcon clearly, explicitly and as an official speaker of the company stated that it wasn't.

There are two more things to add. At first Sion didn't bother to inform the criminal or the readers that "it's not something like us". He doesn't seem to be offended by this. He later writes that the permanent bans were reversed by CCP Falcon (which is clearly CSM information) so the criminals are back in the game, therefore - unless kicked or left - in Goonswarm. Neither Sion nor any other Goon source said that they were kicked for their crime, so it's not a long shot that they were not and they are in Goonswarm in this minute. After all, why would you kick someone who just "act like us"? They probably returned as a gangster returns from prison for a crime committed to "protect the honor of the gang": as heroes.

Even worse, Sion claims:

CCP Falcon realized that implicating an entire alliance would have serious consequences for an alliance full of innocent people. He went out of his way to ensure that no one knew who was responsible and fought internally to make sure that it stayed that way. There would be no naming and shaming. There would be no guilt by association. He is the reason why those stacks of articles don’t all say “Goonswarm vandalizes monument”.

We've already known that. But this have a very different light now as CCP Falcon known that the motivation was to "act like us". Not disclosing racial or ethnic group of a criminal (refusing to disclose =/= direct lying) is understandable as it draws hostile attention to a group of people who had no connection with the criminal and has no way to change their common trait even if they wanted to. However hiding the group membership of the criminal when he acts in the name of the group is nonsense. It's like cops saying "the vandal attacking the power plant was not the member of the Green Front" while knowing that he was a member and having a written confession that his attack was motivated by the radical ideas of the Green Front.

By the written confession of the criminal, the EVE monument was defaced to "act like Goons". The term "goon" means "a personal bodyguard or a thug or ruffian employed by a person(s) as a personal enforcer. A goon typically intimidates, assaults, or batters people who oppose their employer", so they were pretty spot-on how to "act like a Goon". The vandals probably were not convicted felons, just guys who got drunk and under the "bad influence": Goonswarm. It seems to be a repeating problem in Fanfest. I'd also add that the criminal felt the need to explain why he picked Xenuria for the name to scratch out. He didn't need to explain why he picked me for the twitter account: it was obvious for every Goon.

Goonswarm isn't a racial or ethnic group you born into. It's a club you join because of their reputation and you can leave if you no longer want this association. The actions of the members rightfully reflect back to the club and other members. If they don't like this reflection, they are in full power to do something about it: remove the deviant member or leave the club. Erotica 1 was kicked from Goonswarm exactly because they did not want to associate with his antics and no one (not even me) called Goons responsible for the Bonus Room scandal.

I'd like to repeat that I do not claim that CCP Falcon did as written here, Sion does, I'm just copy-pasting him. I wouldn't believe Sion that the rain is wet, I think he made the whole story up to create the narrative "CCP Falcon is protecting us, don't dare to mess with us". However, I believe that to clear the taint thrown at them by Sion, CCP now must be what they failed to be at the vandalism: "vindictive, public, and vicious."


PS: too many people say "conspiracy theory" while I have no theory at all, I'm just copy-pasting Sion here. But if the readers want conspiracy theory, here it is: I believe the post that aired the story on the same Goon site was written and published for one reason, to allow Sion to "set the record straight". "Goons vandalized the monument" was leaked by Goons, as part of a Goon plan, because they realized that the backslash half year after the incident wouldn't be so bad as the gain from painting Falcon as their inside man to intimidate enemies and reinforce friendlies.