Zyklesian Pirates

The Zyklesian Pirates (commonly referred to as the ZP) were an infamous group of board "pirates" who supposedly threatened the TPSB during the summer and fall of 2005. Very little is known about them. It is worth noting that their legacy has lasted considerably longer than their accounts.

=History=

Ultraman and the Original ZP
The entire ZP incident began when a new TPSB user named KnockoutOne (also known as Knockout1 and KnockoutWon) made several topics on the board for the game Ultraman for WonderSwan Color, then made a topic on the TPSB asking users to come and post in his topics there. Some users, including JAWBREAKERS and crazydeku, went and participated in the topics. However, just a few hours after the topics had been made, a group of interlopers calling themselves the "Zyklesian Pirates" arrived from another Ultraman board for a different system and declared that their Ultraman was superior. Soon enough, a "battle" (if there is such a thing on the internet) broke out, with a special appearance by Captain Pollution. The battle topic, along with all the other topics, was closed just as the combatants were discussing the ASCII Captain Pollution's undergarments. All four invaders were visited by Mr. Ban Hammer, and were never seen again.

During the "battle," it was stated by one of the TPSBers that the WSC Ultraman-ers were from the TPSB.

The Grewk Mass Bumping
Soon after the Ultraman incident, a user named Grewk, who was at the WSC Ultraman, but neither a TPSBer nor a member of the ZP, began mass-bumping topics on the TPSB. Most of the posts had cryptic messages such as They're coming... and Heh... you cannot defeat them.... Grewk later revealed that he was referring to the ZP. Grewk and his/her various alts bumped around two dozen topics before being usermap axed.

It is unclear why Grewk did what he/she did. The most likely explanation is that it was for kicks and had nothing to do with the ZP. Later incarnations of the ZP claimed to have blackmailed Grewk, but that is questionable, since it would be very hard to find a way to blackmail someone you don't know over the internet.

In light of this incident, the TPSBers who were at Ultraman told the rest of the board what had transpired there. It became clear that the ZP could become a major annoyance if they were behind this and were to attempt a similar stunt in the future.

The Zyklesian Impersonators
After the mass bumping, the TPSB was content to live and let live. After all, it is the Internet, and all the ZP could really do is be annoying. However, a group of copycats (it might have even been one person) soon came and re-opened the ZP conspiracy. It all started when a person using the AIM screen name Lonehunter73 instant messaged TPSBer RePmGu, asking to talk to the user JAWBREAKERS. RePmGu passed along the message, and soon Jaw and "Lonehunter73" discussed the ZP over AIM.

Mythology
Lonehunter claimed to be someone who was after the ZP to avenge Grewk's blackmailing, and revealed information that made the ZP problem seem a whole lot bigger than it initially was. With every conversation, the tapestry of the ZP mythology was woven wider and wider.

To summarize the mythology as told mostly by Lonehunter and his companion GravityZ90: ''The ZP formed years ago on a secret social Commodore 64 board. Their future Emporer, called Zyklus, had a falling-out with one of the users, named MeteorLionheart. They had a large, week-long "battle" similar to the one at Ultraman. The loser had to close their account. Zyklus lost, and closed his account. Zyklus (using another account) and several other users then moved to the board Zyklus. He then proceeded to harass Meteor on and off GameFAQs, until he was finally KOSed. The battle between Zyklus and Meteor still continued even until the Ultraman incident. Over the years, the ZP eventually amassed around 50 followers. Meteor himself gained followers, the main ones being Lonehunter73 and GravityZ90, among others.''

Even though a lot of thought must have been put into it, this mythology is still too ridiculous and flawed to be taken seriously. This is exacerbated by the fact that Lonehunter and Gravity constantly changed their stories, and displayed little to no knowledge of what actually happened at Ultraman. Their numerous contradictions made their testimony less credible than that of the Duke rape case's plaintiff. The fact is, the ZP met on their Ultraman board, and nobody, no matter how pathetic, would spend years trying to amass a cyber-army to take over GameFAQs. Even assuming that such a thing were possible, the person responsible would likely not act as childish and animated as "Zyklus."

So the story is fake. This could mean several things, but the general conclusion to be drawn is that the "Resistance" and the new and improved "ZP" were one and the same. Whether they were the products of an individual or a group remains unknown. The AIM screen names Lonehunter73 and GravityZ90 also belonged to the same person. There is numerous evidence to support this, not the least important of which being that Zyklus's and Lonehunter's IP adresses were the same. Even though these people were not the ZP, they still had potential to be irritating, as well as a history of AIM harassment (see The ZP and Clipper), and so several users attempted to get to the bottom of this story to find out who exactly these fake ZP and the equally fake "Resistors" were.

Neutral Characters
Along with the "Resistors" and the new "ZP," whoever was behind this also created two "neutral" characters as plot devices. The first and most prominent was someone named "Unknown Advice" (owner of the misspelled screen name "UnknownAdvise"). Obviously the Internet is such a big place that the ZP could have been congregating anywhere, so Unknown Advice was created to "leak" information to the resistors. The story behind this is that Unknown Advice was supposedly a spy from within the ZP.

The second of which went by the name of "Shadowy Figure." Mr. Figure showed up at the InvisionFree boards (see InvisionFree Boards) and claimed to be a member of neither the ZP nor the resistors, but instead a member of a mysterious third organization unrelated to the ZP conflict. He claimed that he functioned as a messenger who was assigned to tell the ZP that his organization would destroy them. This was probably a storyline the impersonators never got around to.

The ZP and Clipper
One tactic employed by these fake ZP were to impersonate the TPSB's resident troll at the time: clipper8. Clipper was contacted by the ZP via AIM during September 2005. The person he was contacted by went under the screenname "Emperor ZP". Emperor ZP tried to recruit Clipper to his cause, but Clipper, not being aware of who or what the ZP were, turned down his offer quickly and harshly. However, the ZP still claimed Clipper was on their side, leading to accusations by several users.

InvisionFree Boards
Part of the elaborate story that unfolded was the use of InvisionFree boards as ZP headquarters. This was likely because GameFAQs was too risky due to moderation, and the fact that the accounts the resistors named themselves after did not actually belong to them. Therefore, they could not post on GameFAQs without revealing their true identities.

ZP Headquarters
The first of such InvisionFree board was simply named "ZP Headquarters." Its address was revealed by none other than "Unknown Advice." Most of the time the board was locked with a message displayed. One day, for no apparent reason, the board was opened (of course, the information was supplied by Unknown Advice), and was found to be empty, save for two topics. In one, Zyklus claimed that the ZP had moved on to a different board, among other things, including claiming to have a GameFAQs moderator on their side.

The second topic was a conversation between Zyklus and a clipper impersonator (that may even have been the same person as "Zyklus").

The resistors came and started a "battle." Of course, the ZP's supposed 50 members were nowhere to be seen. Only four or five so-called ZP members showed up, and had a "fight" (again, if there can be such a thing on the internet) with the resistors. Depending on how many people were involved in the conspiracy, there may well have only been one person fighting him/herself multiple times over.

RePmGu rounded up some RRO members to watch what was going on with the board, but they didn't really do anything, considering that the "fight" consisted of ridiculous RPing between the ZP and resistors.

A password-protected topic called "Meteor vs. Zyklus" was established, but since odds are very high that Meteor and Zyklus were the same person, it is safe to assume that nothing actually happened.

Shadowy Figure made an appearance, and posted several cryptic messages.

Neo Pandora
Of course, soon after the ZP Headquarters board was deleted, news came from (who else?) Unknown Advice of the new ZP baord, code-named "Neo Pandora." Again, the board was locked with a message out front. Nobody outside the conspiracy ever saw it open, since soon after its creation, the spearhead of the real anti-ZP movement, JAWBREAKERS, grew tired of going around in circles and getting no closer to finding out the identities of the impersonators. He soon dropped the entire issue, blocked the screen names of the impersonators, and forgot about it. He told all those involved what he knew about the impersonators: that they were not really the ZP, and that the resistors were the same as this supposed ZP; everybody dropped it at that. The ZP conflict thus practically ended in December 2005.

About a month later, when JAWBREAKERS saw fit to clear his block list, some of the resistors (as well as Unknown Advice) contacted him again, inquiring about his absence. Jaw, annoyed that the incident was being brought up again, suggested to the resistors that he knew they were not who they said they were. At first they attempted to appear confused and ignorant of what Jaw was referring to, but gave up rather quickly and were never heard from again.

After this, the message outside Neo Pandora changed to what it remains today, and it seems clear that during that month they were still scheming and coming up with new stories, as well as excuses to explain the contradictions in their previous stories. That message can be viewed [http://z14.invisionfree.com/Neo_Pandora_Castle/index.php? here].

=The Truth of the ZP= True account of an ex-ZP member, 2 years after the incident:

Most of what is said by the members of the TPSB is true. Most of their assumptions are correct; this entire "fight" was, in fact, a hoax. There were only six of us, not fifty. In the beginning, our group (not known as the ZP yet) had about 10 members. We had two main goals; 1) complete control over many trolls active in the message boards that we visited. Well, control may not be the right word here, but rather something like an organized group where everyone had equal power and decided effective, yet annoying ways to bother people. Yeah, pretty stupid, I know. And 2) to claim boards all across GameFaqs abandon C64 (and other systems) boards. According to our captain, Luminex, accomplishing these two these would make us "famous". Of course, I personally thought it was kinda of... out there... but the part that interested me the most was claiming as many boards as we possibly can. That's what really kept us together.

Sometime in the month of March/05, Luminex and I claimed an Ultraman board. There, we met with two others, Rena and Phazon Materia, who were board hunters as well. So Luminex told them what we were trying to accomplish and they seemed fascinated, especially Phazon Materia. PM, having been on the boards since 2004, told us an interesting story about some users named Meteor Lionheart and Crono Paladin, both of which came from LUE. PM, who wasn't around during the ExcLUEsion, told us that ML and CP became "victims" of it and didn't get into LUE. PM didn't really know what precipitated the following events, but apparently though, ML and CP were good friends and they both decided to place a bet, and whoever lost would have to close their account. I personally thought that this was bull**** the first time I read it, but he actually gave us the proof. It ended with CP losing and closing his account. After that, he created a new account named after the board he claimed with his old CP account, now named Zyklus. He asked ML to join his group of board hunters, but he kindly declined, saying that he would create a more famous group of hunters and become well know on the boards.

There were many truth's that the fake stories that we fabricated were built on, such as Meteor Lionheart and his friends; Phazon Aura (IRL Meteor's best friend. Also worth noting that there was no connection b/w her and PM), Gravity Zed, and Hunter 03. Zyklus, creating a real group called the ZP, and Meteor, creating a group called LB, the Lionheart Brigade, never got famous like they claimed they would.

PM told us the story because it seemed similar to what Luminex was trying to accomplish (minus the troll part, obviously). Luminex, upon hearing the story, wanted to make a group with a large membership and great influence over the boards. Luminex dropped one of the main goals of our group, which actually lowered our membership. He even went so far as ridding trolls on some boards; though I can't confirm this for sure (I was away on a Spring Break). But most importantly, his main goal was to become well known.

Month's past without seeing each other, and our group only had two people in it, four if you count PM and Rena. We finally came back to the Ultraman board one last time (by now, our old topics got purged) and reacquainted ourselves. Luminex, having given up on the idea of becoming famous, was around just to have some fun. We're mostly joking around. That is, until PM noticed another Ultraman board that was claimed by some TPSBers (I knew them because I used to frequent the Zelda: Working Title board and recognized them, but I was sure that they didn't know me. Lurking ftw, I thought). We decided to have some fun with them and wage war, Captain Planet/Pollution style. It started to die out as soon as Rena, who assumed the role of captain of this "battle”, started arguing with PM's Cap. Pollution. Luminex and I honestly thought that this would be a funny, memorable way to go. This was far from over.

I'm going kind of long here, so I'll try to end it quickly. Everything that happened to us and the TPSB was orchestrated by Phazon Materia and Rena. PM convinced Luminex and I to follow with his plan, telling us that we can still be famous on the boards. We adopted the ZP name, despite the fact that they were never evil. Rena "hired" two more people, to play the parts of Grewk, Gravity Z90, Lonehunter73 (Was meant to be Hunter 03, this was actually a mistake on the impersonators part) and others. Rena herself played the part of Unknown Advise, while they told me and Luminex to make Neo Pandora, and get a head start on making look like it was really made up of 50 members. Conflicting stories result from PM and Rena wanting to do different things, to put on "the best show for these gullible idiots" as PM put it. He didn't want to seem all bad, so he tried to remove Clipper, the troll at TPSB at the time. After that, however, I wanted to back out. By this time, though, I had already finished Neo Pandora though it wasn't used right away. Bad news for PM and Rena that the REAL Zyklus and Meteor Lionheart were informed on what was going on. After the other two that we hired no longer had any use with the impersonations, and Luminex and I left after the completion of Neo Pandora, Rena decided to throw in the towel and leave one last message at Neo Pandora. PM, all by himself, did not want to end it that way. He tried to scheme a way to get back at this "RRO", but nothing ever came of it.

There was one thing we never understood. This "Shadowy Figure" was not part of the story that PM conjured up, and according to the info that the TPSB has, they don't know him either. That's really it.

Luminex and I never wanted to be remembered like that, so we closed our accounts and began anew. We don't know what became of PM or Rena, but it's safe to say that they probably can't do anything like that again. Though it wasn't all bad, Rena justified it by saying "we're only doing it to bring that board to life. It's so dull". Finally, you can take what you want from PM story on Meteor Lionheart Crono Paladin. I personally don't believe in it, after all the **** he's pulled off. But one thing is for certain, that ML and CP a.k.a. Zyklus are real, but really had hardly anything to do with the TPSB version of the "ZP Incident".