141 lines
8.1 KiB
Plaintext
141 lines
8.1 KiB
Plaintext
______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
_________________
|
||
|\ \
|
||
\ \ * a \
|
||
\ \ t - g \ _______________________
|
||
\ \ h f e \ |\ ___________________ /|
|
||
\ \ e y n \ | | | |
|
||
_\ \ t d \_____| | Byte Bastards BBS | |
|
||
/| \ \ e a \ | | (201) 697-7001 | |
|
||
| | \ \ r \ | |___________________| |
|
||
| | \ \________________\ |/_____________________\|
|
||
| | \|________________| |
|
||
| | _ |
|
||
| | An Analysis by |he Ramsacker |
|
||
| | October 7, 1991 |
|
||
| |___________________________________|
|
||
|/____________________________________/
|
||
|
||
______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
|
||
Yes folks, you have just witnessed the cheeziest textfile intro design
|
||
ever conjured up in G-phile history.
|
||
|
||
______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
|
||
A couple years ago in 1989 when life was simple and I was just a "c0dez
|
||
d00d", I chanced upon calling a BBS called Third Planet in 516, the official
|
||
Star League headquarters. It must have been around 2:00 AM my time (West
|
||
Coast) when I was logging in new and the sysop broke in to chat. Being a
|
||
typical c0dez d00d, I immediately dropped carrier...no actually I thought I'd
|
||
humor the sysop and see what the hell he was doing up at 5:00 AM his time. He
|
||
told me he had been working on the system and must have fell asleep in his
|
||
chair (comfortable chair). Curious about this entire Star League concept that
|
||
I had come into limited contact with from time to time and wanting to know
|
||
more, I began asking the sysop questions about it. He proceeded to tell me, as
|
||
best as my recollection allows, the following, (which is my summary of what I
|
||
remember him telling me):
|
||
|
||
The Star League concept was born out of the frustration of
|
||
calling different BBS' across the country only to encounter endless
|
||
rag wars and egotistical competition amongst pirates. The pirate
|
||
world was supposed to be a united community, dedicated to getting
|
||
new wares out to everyone instead of embroiling the release of
|
||
them into a overly-competitive rat race where every group was trying
|
||
to undermine and out-do the other. The idea behind the League was
|
||
to promote cooperation between different pirates and groups and to
|
||
provide a haven for those people who were alienated by all the
|
||
hostility they encountered. Those pirates and groups allied under
|
||
the Star League banner would cooperate in cracking and distributing
|
||
wares rather than compete for all the glory. After all, the pirate
|
||
world was founded on the concept of hackers cooperating to achieve
|
||
a common goal, and it was supposed to be fun.
|
||
|
||
The Star League member structure was based upon a hierarchy.
|
||
There were different levels and ranks assigned to persons based on
|
||
their accomplishments and contributions to the pirate community at
|
||
large. Methods of increasing your ranking within the hierarchy
|
||
included cracking wares, distributing wares, or being an outstanding
|
||
contributor to different Star League bases in the way of uploading
|
||
and posting messages. Those aligned with the Star League called
|
||
themselves "*-fyters" and usually accompanied their handles with
|
||
this label.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Rylos, the sysop of Third Planet and founder of the Star League, was a
|
||
school teacher (of what grade level, either he didn't tell me or I forgot).
|
||
Keeping this in mind, when one ponders it, everything about the Star League was
|
||
like being in grade school; you were always taught to be kind and sharing to
|
||
your fellow students...the same principals that Rylos adopted and applied to
|
||
the Apple pirate world as the basis for the Star League. He wanted to promote
|
||
sharing and kindness amongst pirates to try and bring order to the chaos of the
|
||
Apple pirate world, but he didn't totally succeed.
|
||
|
||
There are several reasons why the Star League concept never became as
|
||
widespread and successful as Rylos would have desired. First of all, it was a
|
||
utopian idea, and utopias don't always work the way you expect them to.
|
||
Secondly, a lot of the members of the Star League were, plain and simple,
|
||
geeks. They were mostly those dreadful Christmas modemers. You know, those 14
|
||
year olds that get a Volksmodem from Mom and Pop on the 25th of December (or
|
||
The Chanukah Modemers for the Jewish amongst you). Lastly, and most important
|
||
of all, the Apple pirate community was an anarchy, and it was therefore a
|
||
paradox and an impossibility to try and govern it. Most everyone involved was
|
||
in it for THEIR own reasons, whether to get wares, to show off ones talent in
|
||
cracking wares, to simply rag on others because of inferiority complexes in
|
||
real life, or whatever. To survive you had to be able to hold your own. Those
|
||
who couldn't joined the Star League. In all fairness, the Star League
|
||
federation never had the talent it needed to advance its ideals. Who would
|
||
want to be governed by an organization that encouraged "niceness" when you
|
||
could start your own group and dominate the Apple ][ pirate world with a
|
||
cracking empire? Simply the fact that it is a given that most people who
|
||
became heavily involved in the pirate community had large egos, its not very
|
||
likely that any one person would be able to get everyone to submit to one
|
||
solitary confederacy.
|
||
|
||
Although I never read the book, I do know enough about the story to say
|
||
that Rylos had a "Catch 22" idea in mind. He wanted to see if he could
|
||
successfully create a federation of persons dedicated to the ideals that he
|
||
laid out for them, that of cooperating to achieve a common goal, the common
|
||
goal being the cracking and distribution of wares. Based upon the fact that
|
||
the only contribution from the Star League that I am aware of is an Edu-ware
|
||
called Planetary Construction Set, I wouldn't call Rylos' experiment a very
|
||
successful one, although I can see how an older person, especially a school
|
||
teacher, would be fascinated with the experience. But because of the reasons I
|
||
have pointed out above, the idea was doomed from the start. I personally don't
|
||
believe the idea could have ever worked.
|
||
|
||
I don't know if the Star League still exists. The Byte Bastards used
|
||
to be aligned with them, but quit soon after I joined the group, and that's the
|
||
last major contact I came into with the Star League. If you think you'd still
|
||
like to try calling a Star League BBS, here's the number for Third Planet:
|
||
(516) 361-6744. I don't know if it is up any longer so call at your own
|
||
discretion.
|
||
|
||
______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|
||
|
||
Thanks to Guns-N-Roses and The Moody Blues for kindly playing on my
|
||
dilapidated Sears stereo while I typed this file (even though I wasn't a fan, I
|
||
bought Use Your Illusion I & II anyway and found them to be pretty good
|
||
listening). Thanks also go out to my Penis for being there when I needed it.
|
||
Ok, on to...
|
||
|
||
THE END
|
||
|
||
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
||
|
||
You'd think the American Government would get a clue from the events
|
||
going on in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and leave our rights alone.
|
||
But they're fucked in the head and think they have the right to control us.
|
||
Well, they'll soon discover that they can't take away rights they never owned
|
||
in the first place.
|
||
|
||
The Ramsacker
|
||
October 7, 1991
|
||
2:51 PM
|
||
|
||
______________________________________________________________________________
|
||
|