MI5 Member Highlight: Bowtie Bob

Hello again everyone! I realize it has been quite some time since I added an entry in this journal. Much has happened, but also much has stayed the same. The endless server war drags on down in the 20s. Meanwhile up here in the 50s we have several smaller ops going on. Good times...

But that is not what I am here to talk about today. This new article will be my first of a series of articles highlighting different MI5 members, starting with core-members and founders, and perhaps later including newer members who distinguish themselves in combat or other areas. Those of you who contributed interviews to this article are probably thinking "about bloody time!" So with that in mind, I present to you the first highlighted member, Bowtie Bob (BCL).

Bowtie Bob's story begins, as any good sci-fi story should, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
B29 to be exact. And 877 days ago, at the writing of this article, making even me feel like a newbie again. He came to beta back in the still frontier days. Before the 50s cluster had even been added. His first guild was BCL (Battle Corps Legion) which was comprised largely of a group of friends from a couple of BattleTech sites, but it grew fairly quickly from there. Back then the beta server was a lot more wild than it is now, much like the new Epsilon and Fenix servers are still, with a great deal of vying for control over various regions with many guilds striving for dominance. BCL was not immune to this, and soon war engulfed B29. Bowtie summarized the situation, "After nearly getting wiped out, we were offered a place in CW (ASG at the time) where we were able to build up our strength and eventually break away as a separate guild again. When BCL finally dissolved, we all went our separate ways, but many of us went back to CW."

During that time there were two individuals that would come to have a great impact on many players in Beta, including all of you reading this article, though many of you newer players do not even know their names. They were Thyriel and Kel-do-rah. Those were among the founders of the Commonwealth and the ones largely responsible for us being where we are today. But that's a story for another article. As it was, they were the ones who brought Bowtie Bob into the new CW fold and had the greatest impact on him. As he puts it, "They had two of the strongest empires in the guild at the time, and I remember thinking how I couldn't ever imagine being that strong... (I don't believe they had reached Lvl 40 at the time)."

But things were not all sun and roses. Bowtie Bob lived through the single largest operation in the history of Commonwealth, perhaps even all of beta. The guild-wide move to the 50s. His summary of the move and the reasoning behind it is as follows...

"To me, the reason behind the move was to strengthen our guild by concentrating our forces. Before we moved, we were spread all over Beta. Originally people were encouraged to spread out across multiple galaxies, and we attempted to get bases in all galaxies to spead up movement with JG's. Unfortunately, this made it extremely difficult to coordinate attacks, and defend each others bases as our fleets were spread too thin to truly be effective. By far, our largest concentration was in B29, but even there we would get attacked because of too many other guilds being there and many people kept their fleets elsewhere.
As a part of BCL, we got to see firsthand just how effective a "stronghold" galaxy could be. When the 40s opened up, we decided to have everyone build at least one base in a new galaxy that would become our new Home. Unfortunately, we chose B47 as that galaxy, and ended up being forced to battle BOB for control. While we fought continuosly for months, we were eventually overwhelmed and forced out.
That one conflict was the cause of BCL's eventual breakup, but it is the reason I'm here in B56 today. I moved every base I had here because I had seen how effective an entire guild can be when they are concentrated in one galaxy."

Indeed a great deal has been learned over the years regarding tactics and guild strength. Beta was very much a guinea-pig for testing new ideas in AE. A lot of what has been established now came out of things like what Bowtie lived through first hand. And it is why we are where we are today. MI5 sprouted out of CW about a year ago, after we'd finished the move to the 50s. Now we dominate B56 and 57, with a good amount of strength elsewhere in the cluster. We are far from in ultimate control here, but we do have an excellent position. And as long as we stick together and work as a team to continue building what we have, MI5 shall reign supreme in the 50s.

Bowtie's closing thoughts on this issue are much the same. He says, "While I despised their tactics at the time, I now understand BOB's goal of removing any foreign guilds from their galaxy. While I don't believe we are ready to attempt it at the moment, eventually, I hope to see us clear B56 of non-allied bases. This would go a long way toward fortifying our position here even more."

Long Live the Spooks!!!