Tok'ra
The Tok'ra Alliance was created in round 2, as a galaxy alliance. Most of the members were "newbies" and had no idea how to play. Hell, I still don't!. The name derives from the Stargate SG1 universe, based upon the race called the "Tok'Ra". The Tok'Ra were rebellious and for thousands of years, fought against the Goa'uld, the main "bad guys" of the TV show. I created Tok'ra with the same mindset. Fury, Legion, WolfPack etc.... Far more powerful than us, but together, we stood a chance.
In Round 3, it was a somewhat successful "Cluster Alliance". Again, many newbies.
Round 4 is where Tok'ra took off. Whilst never a "famous" alliance, Tok'ra in Round 4 had the distinction of being the ONLY alliance to every win every battle, offensive or defensive. No other alliance in Planetarion's history can match that achievement.
We grew quickly, and our website and structure changed often. Too often. I was too concerned with looks over effectiveness. The problem with alliances, or so I perceived at the time, was putting up a public relations image, and ignoring the core participants.
We didn't win the round and we didn't ally with a "great power". We did ally with Territorial X ([TX]) and defended each other quite nicely.
In Round 5, we were destroyed. There were many reasons, not least being the fact that I deleted our entire database and website because I got bored. There's no other excuse.
We shared with TX, in good will, our co-ordinates, to avoid "friendly fire". I was only 17 though and at that age, I thought I knew everything. I heard rumours that TC was going to attack us, so things went downhill. TX, as it turns out, never had any plans of attack, but after many accusations and many IRC meetings later, we decided to dissolve our bond.
After much messing around, and many members leaving, I, one day, after a lot of alchohol and weed, decided to destroy the website* and database of people. We never recovered. I tried to re-create Tok'ra with Project Black-Star, but it failed.
A few split off and formed "Black Ice". I joined Deus Ex Machina. I don't know how things went for BI.
- it was voted sexiest site.
I hope this is useful for someone, and I take full responsibility for Tok'ra failing.
- Garshaw
I don't want to add too much. Just a few details.
I joined TK early round 4, having just started playing PA. As Garshaw mentioned, round 4 was TK's most successful. The alliance grew, and most of the members who would make up the squads derived from TK joined during round 4. We had more than 200 members, and were quite successful. The alliance was under Garshaw's control at this point, with Setesh (aka sokar) as second in command. I got much more involved at this point, and partway through the round was made defensive coordinator. Sokar was granted full authority, equal to Garshaw's, and I moved to his prior position. I only remember a few names, so I can't fill in our other officers. But we successfully defended every attack made against us, and participated in combined strikes with ViruS and other alliances successfully.
At this point, we officially were NAPed with ViruS and several other alliances. Near the end of the round, I was granted full authority as well (so sokar, garshaw, and I controlled the alliance on equal ground). The start of round 5 marked the start of pay-to-play in Planetarion. If I remember correctly, Garshaw paid for accounts for myself, Sokar, and several officers (though I could be mistaken). We lost a lot of members but survived, and I don't think we were 'destroyed' as Garshaw put it above, but I don't remember very well.
We were, however, a fairly small alliance at that point (I don't remember the numbers, but in the neighborhood of 100-150 members in a galaxy of 20000 players). As such, we were anxious to form alliances and NAPs. We also had several intelligence leaks at this point (and near the end of round 4 as well), which were dealt with by Zither and myself. Of course, we had our own intelligence gathering operations going on as well, with operatives in several major (and minor) alliances, as was traditional at the time.
In december of 2001, we were in the midst of negotiating a merger with another alliance (I really don't remember the name), a process that had been ongoing for a while. We were on the verge of an agreement when Garshaw inexplicably decided to delete our website (of course, there were huge discussions between he, sokar, and I immediately afterward, but I don't remember what any of us said and it doesn't matter anyways). We managed to partially restore our database on a website through PA's built-in squad site hosting facilities, but the alliance did not stay together past that point.
Hallix (aka Xillah) and some other members decided to start a new alliance, and asked me to help out, but I wasn't interested and quit at that point (Dec 2001). I provided some assistance getting it started, but it was their squad. Until last week (March 2006) I'd only been on PA IRC once since then, so I can't fill in anything for in between.
-Data8, TK GC
