Members Not Forgotten

[JerseyJohn]

As it seems we've got an interim period in anticipation of SC2, I thought it would be a good time to reminisce about some of our AWOL members. Those who haven't posted in a long time but who, while active here, left a favorable impression – at least with me.

Zeres, who posted an AAR thread on October 31, ’02 that developed into a running parody of World War II. It started off normal enough, till Carl G. E. von Mannerheim and myself began writing our own remarks into the story. Very strange as it was a solo game!

Rather than seeing us as an intrusion, Zeres welcomed our input and asked for more. This went on through two AAR threads with some confused and insane plot involving a pair of ET-type aliens impatiently seeking the self-destruction of the human race so they could move on to a party they were late for.

General Billote came aboard toward the end of the first thread and dominated the second, assuming the role of the allies and the playboy alien while I wrote the Axis and the work-a-day alien who came up with brilliant ideas like disguising himself as Albert Einstein. He did this in order to present his plan to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, appealing to their sense of efficiency by adapting his plan to destroy twenty or thirty earth cities per day. When Eleanor asks what became of his sense of pacifism he reverts to his huge buggy form and runs off, leaving them dazed and semi-hypnotized.

Meanwhile, Carl Mannerheim wrote for the U. S. S. R., Finland, Japan and various others. Immer Etwas joined in after a while with desert poetry and a radio show listened to by FDR, Churchill and Hitler, all of them believing him to be a brilliant secret agent as no one really understood his messages.

All those involved did a balancing act, combining absurdity with history in a game whose course we were never quite sure about. For Zeres stopped reporting on it sometime after the Fall of France!

The AAR was never finished. It was pure ad lib with only one rule. If you felt like being a part of it you were welcomed in and appreciated! A few people only contributed a single post, the only ones they ever made at BF. One of the best was from Eva Braun, languishing in unrequited love.

It was a unique adventure and produced some great results.

So, my first two missed members are Zeres and General Billote.

My next choice is disorder. He wasn’t around long, only a few months, but he did a ton of posting, including some really funny PBEM AARs with myself and Kuniworth. He’d find outlandish photographs, like some Roswell lunatic wearing a helmet with aluminum foil rabbit ears, or he’d introduce characters like German general Johannes Travolta, a private who Hitler took a liking to and promoted to high rank as a way of aggravating the Prussian Junkers officers. His games were always fiascos but a lot of fun and he never lost his wild sense of humor.

He also organized a thematic tournament on the Z-Plan scenario and generally kept the place light-hearted and friendly.

To be continued, hopefully. …