Unmasking the Aeazen Combine

[Manson]

Originally posted here on the NS Forum by Elias Greyjoy on September 13, 2013, this essay provides some insight on the Aeazen Combine.

The following is a private media production and is in no way associated with or sanctioned by the government of Europeia



Unmasking the Aeazen Combine

How propaganda, fear, and living in the shadows hyped up one of the worlds most well-known and yet little-know groups.

by Elias Greyjoy

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The Aeazen Combine is one of the bedtime horror stories that old NSers tell their younger counterparts.

"Back in my day, wars were really wars! It took cunning, brains, and an in-bred desire to do evil. The Aeazen Combine, now that was a group to fear!"

And yet, for all the hype and mystique surrounding the Aeazen Combine, not much is known about the group, their numbers, or their influence in the world. In this Europeia Times exclusive, we go undercover with Aeazer himself who reveals that the AC mythos was propelled not by actual action, but inaction and seeding of rumors.

Firstly, some background. The Aeazen Combine was originally formed as a raider group in either 2005 or 2006 with a self-professed goal of "war on defenders." Notably, the Aeazen Combine led attacks that caused the fall of The Commonwealth. Besides that, the only real claim to fame the group holds is that of being some of the fastest DoS users in the game.^[1]

Since the end of roughly 2009, no notable AC activity had taken place until very recently. Supporting the coup and Gatesville in Osiris, a handful of AC members made an appearance, sparking both interregional outrage and whisperings of the return. The Aeazen Combine had earned a nasty reputation when the group all but disbanded in 2009 and many members regrouped to form The Ascendancy, a haven for forum-crashers and general douchebaggery. Gatesville enlisting the help of the AC was strongly condemned across the world, but to Aeazer, this was only part of the propaganda.

Speaking as Alistair Ghent, Aeazer's alter ego,^[2] Aeazer had the following to say on the matter:

A good chunk of the stories were put out there to stir people up, probably by me. It's hard to remember what fits in where. I'm getting on in years. But of course, from what I've read, that's part of our charm, being inscrutable. Keeps people on their toes and all that.

On how the discordance between huge activity and then months or years of inactivity would actually fuel the rumors that the AC was planning the next big assault:

I joined way back in the distant aeons of 2005, and since then I've probably "retired" and disappeared 5 or 6 times, sometimes for a few months, a year here and there... after a while people sort of just assumed that anytime me and my pals "left", we were really just laying the groundwork for some vast and evil conspiracy, which was of course rarely true, but always an assumption we encouraged.

Indeed, the perpetration of the mythos of the AC, which was all the group has left to claim at this point, is only based on rumors and half-truths started and spread by the thin membership of the AC. And I do mean thin.

Well right now we've got about 15 or something nations supporting our Gatesville pals in the whole Osiris debacle. Apparently that's enough to turn a lot of heads and get a lot of people very worked up. Which is, of course, the classic AC way - doing a lot with very little. Of course what we seem to have done is give Nev a huge headache, which I feel a little bad about. But hey.

Aeazer goes on to describe that most of the AC troops "have only the dimmest idea of what NS is. They're mostly offsite transfers who carried out the most stripped-down raiding functions possible because I asked." Further dispelling the myth of the the AC, Aeazer finishes up by saying

There are, at this point, basically just two other "official" Combine members.

Ever digging himself deeper in the delusional hole he has settled in for the better part of nearly five years, Ghent goes on to say to our undercover source:

Of course, if you were a spy, fishing for information, you'd probably take all this, report it back to base, and they'd tell you it was a load of nonsense, and you'd have no way of verifying that because we don't have a region or a forum or any other public presence other than 15 soldiers in Osiris who haven't even been trained to speak. That's what I love most of all. No matter what I tell people, they'll always assume some grand, malevolent scheme is at work and I'm just trying to downplay it. And maybe I am! Who knows! Isn't life grand!

The charade, it seems, might have even consumed Aeazer himself at this point. Even after multiple telegram exchanges revealing the inner workings of his outfit, the man simply can't let go of the facade he has created for himself that is sustained, literally, by no relevant action in the modern world.

And, as soon as our conversation with Aeazer started, it was promptly ended by tactical mod-bomb.

Aeazer wanted me to pass this on to you:
"You had perfect timing. Just as we were reminiscing about the old days, the mods decided to join in on the nostalgia action and delete me. We're thinking it had something to do with the recent Osiris controversy. Anyway, it's no big deal - been a part of doing business for a long time now. If you've got Skype or whatever, we should keep taking. Big things in the works.

Yours,
A"

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Editor's note: Telegram screenshots have been altered slightly to protect the anonymity of undercover nation

Telegram Communiques

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