Welcome to the official launch of AusNS2! We’ve already had a bunch of activity thanks to some judicious leaking by a man that will remain unnamed (Mr Charisma Mr Charisma Mr Charisma), but we’ve really only got the site feature-complete in the last few days. Welcome back to those of you from the first incarnation of AusNS and hello to anyone new!
We’ve already got a bunch of content rolling through the doors, most of it generated by the community! We hope we can keep the site pretty active as NS2 gets closer and closer, so make sure you participate in our weekly Top10 polls and whatever else we come up with in the mean time. This site exists as a platform for the Australasian NS2 community, so we’re more than happy to support any NS-related projects you guys undertake yourselves. If you have any suggestions for content you’d like to see, make sure you let us know.
In the mean time, make sure you check out our NS2 mmmmegalist to see what you have to look forward to. Don’t forget to stop by our forums and join us on IRC to celebrate the launch!
Our resident presidenté, Mr Charisma, has plagiarized composed a speech to mark the occasion:
My fellow NSers: I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have requested, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our administrative ancestors.
The words have been spoken during rising tides of phase gates and the still med packs of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging quitters. At these moments, AusNS has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those moderators, but because We the Community have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebears, and true to our founding Forums.
So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Natural Selection 2.
That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our community is at war against a far-reaching network of inactivity and Cialis salesmen. Our server list is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the community for a new age.
Icons have been lost, eggs shed, command consoles shuttered. Our catalyst pack is too costly, our jetpack rushes fail too many, and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use resources strengthen our adversaries and threaten our upgrades.
These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable, but no less profound, is a sapping of confidence across our relocation; a nagging fear that Natural Selection’s decline is inevitable, that the next generation must lower its crosshairs.
Today I say to you that the infestations we face are real, they are serious and they are many. They will not be sieged easily or in a short spam of time. But know this AusNS: They will be sieged.
On this day, we gather because we have chosen spinning skulks over inactivity, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.
On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises of ammo packs, the recriminations and worn-out res whores that for far too long have strangled our gorges.
It has not been the path for the faint-hearted, for those who prefer cloaking over bunny hopping, or seek only the pleasures of ambushes and love shacks.
Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the relocators, the makers of shotgun rushes — some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor — who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards victory and double.
For us, they fought and died in places like Eclipse and Veil; Cargo and Satellite Relay.
Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw AusNS as bigger than the sum of our individual scores; greater than all the differences of clan or e-cred or faction.
This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful community in Australia. Our members are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our posts and articles no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed.
Starting today, we must rejoin our servers, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking Australian Natural Selection.
For everywhere we look, there is work to be done.
The state of our Forum calls for action: bold and swift. And we will act not only to create new threads but to lay a new foundation for replies.
We will build the turret factories and infantry portals, the nano grids and chambers that feed our commerce and bind us together.
We will restore the prototype lab to its rightful place and wield technology’s wonders to raise heavy armour’s quality…
… and lower its costs.
We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our lifeforms and run our arms labs. And we will transform our refineries and cargo holds and research labs to meet the demands of a new hive.
All this we can do. All this we will do.
AusNS2.com is proud to announce it’s official launch. Many of you have returned, but there is still much more to come. Over the coming months, we will provide you, the community with content befitting this once great land. We will remain steadfast until we are rewarded with the fruits of NS2. So say we all.
