Fall of the Dark Empire

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Hidden away in the farthest corner of Battle.Net lies a clan. A clan that would strike fear into the toughest marine or the mightiest Zealot - they are the DARK-EMPIRE-. You hope they would never come for you, you prey they would never show themselves, but hey I guess every clan needs new recruits on occasion : D

First Contact

I had been accepted into clan DE the previous night after quite easily beating a member in a recruitment game. I joined up with the legit name of DE-TotalNewb. We sat around in their channel, but I found it quite boring : ( so I logged off and went to bed.
The following evening I saw the familiar beacon, so, under a different name, I joined the DE recruitment game.
The DE clan's representative was DE-Mastermind, a guy who had been present in the channel the previous night. If no third player was to join the game, I would have found myself against Mastermind. Fortunately, a third came and we began.

To no suprise the map was Lost Temple. I was Protoss at 12, and in for quite a shock.
Now being that DE-Mastermind was the obs, I shared vision but didn't take notice of his colour, which meant when I scouted the 3 position,
obs as Zerg?

I figured brown was my opponent. While taking a good look around, I didn't notice anything that indicated aggression, which was a head scratcher. I checked the 3 natural thinking perhaps of a quick expo, but nothing. Only then did I notice an orange overlord floating over my base. Errrr, I checked the alliance screen and realised that Mastermind was Zerg!
Hehe, I had just spent 30 seconds scouting the obs' base. I checked the empty 6 base then found my Zerg opponent I-NeVeR-W1n at 9, sunkening up and teching.

Time passed, my natural expo was up and running and I felt I could expand again, and since DE-Mastermind was occupying prime real estate, I thought I would try the 3 natural,
wtf?

What was this guy doing? I put my expo on hold and spent it on troops.

An observer had discovered I-NeVeR-W1n trying to naked expand at 6 main, I sent a few troops to kill it.
My attention was quickly drawn to my minimap where I saw a group of orange dots just outside my main, a hydra/lurker drop.
oby doo, where are you

My troops were close by but my observers were not, so I horded a few goons/zeals until one was in range. A few lost buildings later, my observer arrived and exposed the lurkers. My probes were dealing quite well with thier hydra counterparts and with that, the last few zerg units died and my base returned to normal.

I built back up and went all out on troop production while another expansion denial at 6 natural allowed me to contain my opponent. I sent in pretty much all of my troops, first clearing the lurker ridden cliffs above the 9 ramp.

My troops stormed I-NeVeR-W1n's main with little resisitance. I-NeVeR-W1n and I exchanged GG's just before he was defeated.

DE-Mastermind told me to go to channel 'clan dark-empire-' after the game, then he shared vision,
hmmm

RRRRRiiiiiggggghhhhhttttt.

Deception

I went to the channel and was told to change my name. Before doing so, I took a look at Clan DE's web site.
I poked around and saw that there were 3 leaders, DE-B, DE-Michelle and DE-TheGame. I thought I could have some fun with this and made my new clan name - "DE-GrandLeader", posing as DE-TheGame.

As I entered the game, DE-Mastermind asks about a little DE history, I did my best to answer non suspisciously.

After a short while, -EvilGryphon- joined our game, I wasn't observant enough at the time, but Gryphon was already an associate of "our" clan. Anywho, we set the game and began.

Now unlike my clanmate, I knew the correct way to obs - ie. Choose Terran and lift off your Command Centre.

The game was quite boring, so I decided to occupy myself with some Terran activities.
-EvilGryphon- cannoned up his choke aswell as the top of his ramp at 3 while empty teching. DE-Mastermind took advantage of this by quick expanding and setting up for a hydra drop.
yes you are

What a boring game, I thought that I should liven things up a bit,
that's better

I think it went down alright with both players : ) I finished off Mastermind in moments.
Being the respoinsible one, I told Gryphon to drop by our channel after the game and with that, finished him off.

The post-game chat turned from friendly banter to downright hostility,
$clans -evil- and DE are allies : \$

DE v -Evil-

I accepted -EvilGryphon-'s challenge and joined his game. I guess he performed better on Money Maps,

Never the less, I was ready to play but apparently Gryphon wasn't : (

Gryphon was tired, otherwise he would have had carriers by that time self accordingly. I wasn't very sympathetic and either were my hydras.

After the game we both returned to the DE channel. I started to really put an act,

Yeah so we played again, this one was a bit closer. He sent M&M before I had lurkers which was quite stupid of me, but redeemable. Once I had lurkers, it was a one way street.

By this time you'd think a person would give up right?

I arranged for Mastermind and Gryphon to play once again on Temple, but with UMS obs settings.

Enforcing The Rules

For some reason, Mastermind was obsessed with the thought of playing me. Me being a stupid little pussy, I made up excuse after excuse for why I couldn't play him.

I had a feeling I was in for another snoozer, so to speed things up, I gave my clanmate some inside info,

As you can see, Mastermind stopped giving me vision, so I was forced to watch Gryphons single tech toss.
obsing is fun with no vision : (

Stiring Up The Wasp Nest

During the lengthy period of my de-obsing, I checked out Clan DE's page a little more. I even posted on their forum : o
we'll see if this gets any response

A little while after I returned, my gentle persuasion got through to Mastermind and he gave me vision back. Heh aww, I had missed all the action, all I got to watch was orange's last few buildings(spread over the map) being consecutively sought and destroyed.
My ongoing flame war with Mastermind continued, with both sides making mature and valid arguments!

The Showdown - DE v DE

I had finally given DE-Mastermind what he wanted, a 1v1 match.

10 seconds into the game, -EvilGryphon- lagged out. Unphased, I worked on a makeshift TvZ build order. Mastermind's scouting overlord gave away his 6 position. I sent an SCV to take a look. He went extractor trick, and early hatch above his ramp with a pool on shortly after. I harrassed the still-morphing hatch with my SCV and tried to get marines down there aswell. My SCV killed one drone but died from a second, and by the time my marines were there, so were Mastermind's first 6 lings.

I got MMF as quickly as I could and sent them to attempt contain. Heh, what do you know, it worked.

There were several sunkens on the cliff, all covering the ramp. I was not prepared to send my infantry up there just yet so I waited for my first siege tanks. The pair did a good job. I loaded up some infantry to relocate above the cliff, but this allowed a sneak group of lings to take out my tanks. A pair of lurkers gave the landing party a hard time and forced an evacuation.

I was still very much in control of the game. I had expanded to 12 main and was grouping up a medium attack force.
I sent 3 shuttles containing 2 tanks, and 16 M&M to the rear of Mastermind's base.

You know what followed. I piled it on thicker than Rosie O'Donald with a ham sandwich.

The Aftermath

The following day I visited the Clan DE forum,

The End.

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