Archive:Ehtya/Victory Address

By Ehtya, Acting Major Executive, Minor Executive, Chief Ambassador, Founding Executive

February 23, 2011

It is with great relief I can now tell you that the Triumvirate is, once again, as it is meant to be, one power, independent, strong, and free. We are safe, we are proud, and we are honored. At approximately ten PM on this night, the Universal Triumvirate has ended the conflict between it and our attacker: Countdown.

On February fifth, the Triumvirate was attacked by Countdown and the Executive Branch was split up, struggling to get back into communication. In the week following that we lost contact with Ascencia, attacks were made on individuals and data, and Major Executive Arnold Ogamon was forced to temporarily resign and hand over the responsibilities of his position to me. On February twelfth, Countdown told us his demands. His demands were that control of the Triumvirate would be handed over to him. The Executive Branch stood united against doing this and we managed to find a way to communicate with Countdown. We told him that I would speak to him privately in order to make an agreement, and so he did contact me with the intent to do so. Never before have I been so glad of my diplomatic experience, for I used every ounce of it in talking with him, and the deal Countdown and I agreed to is one that will stay in the history books for a long long time.

Countdown and I agreed that we two would play a single match of chess. One leader against the other. If I won, Countdown would leave the Triumvirate, never come back, tell me how he attacked us, and release everything back to us. If he won however, I would leave the Triumvirate forever and never come back. The game of chess has a sense of poetry to it, legend has it that the Triumvirate truly started over a game of chess, if the step to victory or defeat was over a chess game, perhaps it would mean something.

The game began the morning of February twenty-first. By the next day, almost certain defeat for myself was imminent. Now I don't consider myself a bad strategist, I used to take pride in being decent at strategy, but I underestimated our opponent, whoever Countdown is, he is very good at the game of chess. Countdown was exceptional at moving his and my pieces exactly as he wanted and, unusually, he was very aggressive with his own king, putting it out in the open. This evening, Countdown had me down to three pieces, one king, one knight, and one bishop. He held many of his pieces still. Within several moves this evening, Countdown cornered my king and said something very daunting: "No matter what move you make, you will be in checkmate on my next turn". I looked for nearly an hour before doing anything, trying to find any small way out but there was none. Countdown had thought of it all, he deserves credit for that, his feat in chess was not something I have ever seen. I then replied "Eventually everyone, even I, will fall, but the Triumvirate never will" and I made a move. There was no reply for quite a while, I sat there waiting for the end, just sitting and waiting, for my life in the Triumvirate to be over in any single second.

Then Countdown replied, saying "Fare thee well Ehtya, and fare thee well to the honorable Triumvirate", and then Countdown surrendered the chess game. He had me cornered, one move away from the end, and then he lay his king down. I tried to ask him what he meant but there was no answer, and I haven't heard anything from him since. I checked our sites and found that everything had been returned to the way it was. Within the next few hours, Ascencia, who we had not heard from in many days, sent an email to the Executive Branch, asking what happened when he was unable to get in communication with us. I then told him the very long story of what was going on and what had happened since we lost contact with him, so I'm sorry this explanation is reaching you later.

After going through our sites, information, and trying to talk to several people, I had some time to settle. I got to thinking, Countdown had indicated this game between us two would have some underlying meaning, but I wonder what that was. I looked at the game, what had happened in the game, and then noticed something almost terrifying: Countdown manipulated me. Countdown had planned this game out, and he forced me to make moves he wanted me to make, and I fell right into it without noticing. After thinking about this I wondered why, and then it hit me, the clue was right in front of me: Countdown said it earlier, "I have taken control of the man". Then I noticed more, Countdown intentionally took pieces of mine in a specific order, he took both my queen and a rook within a move of each other, then forced my king into a corner, then let one knight to stay deep within his territory for the entire game, and then finally cornered the king forcing both kings to come very close to each other. It may be purely coincidence, and I know that this speech isn't an appropriate place to explain my theories about what's happened here, but assume the Queen is Ascencia, powerful but prone to power; The Rook is Arnold, stubborn and rigid but very strong; The Knight is Red, scouting and jumping, always coming at things at an angle; And the King was me, leading the Triumvirate through this. Think about what I explained here and what happened to each of those pieces in the order I stated he made those moves.

We all have our theories about what might have happened, who Countdown was, what his motive was, and what has happened here. I have mine. Eventually it will be the time to discuss everything in more depth but what is important now is that we bring the Triumvirate back together, regroup with those we lost, and rebuild all that we must. Please give your support and work with me and the other Executives in this time of recovery. In the grand scheme of time, this is one scratch in the history of the Triumvirate, there will be more, nothing we do can stop that. As time moves on, this may be forgotten, and we'll go through worse events, this is only one event in our history.

I hope I could serve you well as a leader in these troublesome times. I did everything I could do, and the Triumvirate was never out of my mind, not for a minute. I have sent a message to Arnold Ogamon telling him what has happened as well and telling him that when he is ready, I will hand over all responsibilities and powers of the Major Executive back to him. There is no man I would trust more to lead us through this path to mending and regenerating the Triumvirate.

I am so thankful to you all for everything you did. Stavrok who kept on with business by going about managing things in the Triumvirate despite this crisis, Red who stayed in the field risking a lot to try and give us information, Ascencia and Arnold who both went down fighting, and everyone else for staying with our cause and never backing down. The Triumvirate never backs down, it's not in our nature, and if we ever stray from that, we will have lost the true Triumvirate.