So Long IRC

In a week my CEO went from "yeah, we'll stick it out and help rebuild" to "Enough of this, cheque please!". I don't know what the straw is that broke the camel's back, but I've seen and heard enough to understand where he is coming from.

When I announced we were joining IRC in May, X1376 commented:

I should wish you all the best, good luck, iron nerves, balls of steel and especially a good stomach. The last one will be needed, when you enter IRC full of incompetency, secrecy and drama. I grown there and left IRC when patience with leadership run out.

I don't know about drama as I've been in political situations with far more drama over less happenings. I can't comment on incompetency as those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. But the secrecy of IRC high command has got to be the most insane.

Yes, we were infiltrated by spies and I can understand not wanting to announce plans publically on the forums. But at the same time, not announcing anything left most of the membership in the absolute fracking dark and virtually helpless to prepare for events.

Couple that with the ultimate debacle that has been the withdrawal from the dronelands and I can see how my CEO just got fed up with it. Since he wasn't part of the High Command he knew barely more than we did, and after the announcement that we were withdrawing to Curse region we pulled our stuff out immediately only to watch the rest of the alliance flounder. No organization breakouts, no alliance coordination, half in Curse, half stuck in DIZ, and then one after another corp leaving.

IRC has (had?) some good people in it, and some great FCs. But High Command has got to go. I mean, come on: when high command doesn't even understand the proper way to move 30+ BILLION isk worth of BPOs then its time for new leadership (I'll give you a hint Oldma... it involves a scout... for 1 billion ISK I'll show you and the rest of HC how its done).

In the end though, the greatest failure of High Command has been the inability to keep neighbours friendly. Its great that you're best friends with Ethereal Dawn and all, but not keeping xXDeathXx happy was a recipe for disaster. Joined at the hip and blue up until the opening of major hostilities, they knew all the spots of where to hit jump bridges and cyno beacons and had time to build up the resources to hit hard when we were exhausted from the war with RA. In all frankness, they tore us apart like we were paper towel. The fact we couldn't muster the effort to defend DIZ consistently spoke volumes of how long the fight was going to last.

Ah well, its in the past now. Good luck to the remains of IRC... they're going to need it.