Rook
| Alliance | The Omega |
|---|---|
| Former Alliances | None |
| Former Positions | President, Minister of Strategy & Training |
| ICQ | 4884617 |
| Forum-PM Link | [Message] |
| Aliases | 1997-99: Mr. Niphty |
| Joined Earth | Late 1997 |
Rook is a former Swirve moderator, co-founder of The Omega, and former Minister of Strategy & Training. His first name is Andrew. He lives in Kailua-Kona, Hawai'i, where he works as a helicopter pilot.
Early Earth and Founding of The Omega, 1997-1999
Rook started playing Earth: 2025 in 1997, while in high school in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, under the name of Mr. Niphty. He introduced it to a friend, who played under the name of Castejon. (The two remain good friends to this day.) Both played with between one and five accounts apiece during a time in the early days of Earth when multiple accounts were in common use. Niphty was discovered running multis and became involved in a debate with Mehul Patel on the public boards. He had a vivid reaction to being exposed, coming out of the experience with a strong anti-cheating stance. At a time when Castejon was getting involved with alliance operations in the Universal Brotherhood of Nations (UBN), the two went to work creating an alliance to excel at netgaining and to oppose large scale multi-runners, the most notable group of whom were RD. Taking a faction of UBN, they formed a new alliance, which Rook named The Omega. It was the first alliance to oppose cheating.
Castejon and Mr. Niphty had a falling out early in Omega's first reset, and Castejon left the alliance with Mr. Niphty in charge. (Castejon would go on to help found LCN.) Omega's open recruitment through the Solarianet forums was effective, but had the unpleasant side effect of peppering the alliance with spies. The netgaining potential of the alliance's first roster in November 1998 was not liked by the establishment, particularly leaders involved or associated with RD, who also resented Omega's anti-cheating stance.
LaF and RoCK were the most hostile to the nascency of The Omega, forcing harshly inequitable landgrabbing arrangements out of Mr. Niphty's desire to keep the newborn alliance in a state of peace. Out of frustration at the diplomatic pigeonhole he found himself in, the young Niphty made a post on RoCK's public forum telling them to do a certain thing to a certain part of the male anatomy. This was all the pretense necessary for the war Omega's opponents wanted. The ensuing attack was a slaughter, and many Omegans (including most of the spies) left the alliance, reducing it to a faithful core of about a third of its initial size. Niphty remained in Omega as a semi-active regular member for a short while after being ousted from leadership due to the lack of confidence resulting from the alliance's rocky start. He then worked with the Earth News Network as a Senior Editor before retiring his name and taking a brief hiatus from Earth activities. Upon his return he adopted his permanent name of Rook.
General Talk and Moderator, 1999-2004
Effectively retiring from gameplay for several years, Rook became a regular participant in discussions on Earth General Talk (EGT). During that forum's golden age, civil and constructive debates on metaphysics, ethics, and philosophy of religion frequently spilled over the 100 post thread cap and spanned several threads. EGT customarily ran a full cycle through the visible thread limit of 100 threads in two to three days without spam, but without a regular mod presence, it was susceptible to spam attacks. When coordinated spam attacks by patrons of Utopia General Talk began wiping EGT clean of its intriguing, multi-thread discussions, it became clear that the board needed a native moderator. Rook began moderating, but under a separate name -- so as not to create an overt mod presence and influence the tenor of discussion on the lightly moderated forum.
Later Earth and Retirement, 2004-Present
Rook rejoined The Omega in 2004, reacquainting himself with the game on the forums of which he had posted for years, but hadn't played. After quietly settling into the rhythm of his old alliance for several resets, he followed a natural inclination to experimentation and began working on techer, farmer, and MBR strategies. As Minister of Strategy and Training, Rook created a mentoring and strategy development system that functioned thoroughly and efficiently for the alliance's size of 120-125 members, and worked as part of an excellent team effort to guide Omega through its 10K FS on Steel in 2004. Much of his MBR work was theoretical and involved a great deal of number crunching, but the practical aspects of it were translated into a team ("Ascension") created for the purposes of comparing strategies. Considerable gearhead work was also done during this period by Tafkas, Iccyh, and Reuben. Rook was very active in these roles until moving to New York in 2005, then Hawai'i in 2006, at which point he retired from active gameplay to focus on flying and spending time at the beach.
Rook still occasionally posts at The Omega and entertains a fondness for lurking about the various Earth boards. His alma mater is the University of Florida, his favorite drink is the bloody mary, and he has nothing against vegemite.
