The Troll Wars

Introduction
The Troll Wars (2006-2007) was a major period of strife, thread combat and pot-shot trolling within Twelve's flavourful history. Before the relative calm of the present day, the peace was won through grit and sacrifice. It officially began on August 3rd, 2006 when the troll batallion fleet led by Moradim was officially formed.Fighting for control over various forums, subforums and even individual threads carried on until the ceasefire on July 28th, 2007. Technically, small scale skirmishes against other forum users began as early as October 2006.

The war was fought by a variery of parties, but the major players were: The Troll Fleet (which possessed the largest army of users), The Forum Gods (particularly Spoon, who greatly opposed the trolls and the more neutral Fork) and The Moderates (Such as Remedial and Sarobando, who sometimes refused to take sides and decided to make the other two power bases cry tears).



The motive of the war was to cause mischief, but towards the end of the war - it was fought to gain independence from the WoW-dominated subforums. During the early 2007 period, many Troll Fleet members had quit World of Warcraft and did not have a place to post, except an overcrowded "Wow Off-Topic" forum.

Combat was usually done by image bombing threads, derailing them, quote pyramiding (before it was restricted) and also posting in large all CAPS text.

The trolls would always begin by posting normally, feigning good behaviour - before overwhelming the thread with a barrage of anime pictures, image macros and other toxic replies.

The Troll Fleet
The Troll Fleet was formed by a triumvirate of mischief makers, most notably Moradim, Darkshaunz and Retsgip. The idea was to misbehave and romp around the forums, taking advantage of the then small moderator force. Threads were raised from the dead, and current ones were bombarded with all manner of inane replies.

The Troll Fleet operated via a simple Creed:

"No Thread Unreplied.

No Reply Unquoted.

No Forums Unconquered."

This creed, would in effect set the precedent for a year-long campaign to wrest control from the powers that be (admins) and to finally subjugate the moderate posters that also opposed the trolls. Members of the Troll Fleet were assigned target/objective forums or major threads to "oversee". The Fleet strength comprised of most of the active members of the Twelve Forums at the time, meaning much of the community had little avenue to resist. Ironically, many of the well known troll commanders of the past would eventually become mainstay "moderate" posters in the present day.

Entry Requirements for the Troll Fleet

 * Must have sound regular trolling skills
 * More than 300 posts (which was quite a lot at the time)
 * Demonstrate capable derailing skills

Successful Conquests
Thes following forums were ceded to Troll control at the end of the war on July 2007. Naturally, they belong to all Twelvians at the present day.
 * General chat
 * Anime
 * TV/Movies
 * Video

Troll Fleet Commanders & Officers
The following members were known as "The 8 Trolls", who commanded all the troll deployments within the Twelve Forums. Moradim was the leader of the trolls until early 2007, when he had to leave the forums due to real life obligations. Darkshaunz was then instated as the leader of the trolls until the end of the conflict.

*Lardman was later banned.
 * Darkshaunz (Admiral, Supreme Commander)WW2pinup.jpg
 * Moradim (Fleet Commander)
 * Retsgip (Admiral)
 * Xant (Admiral)
 * Lardman* (Rear Admiral)
 * Clownshoes (Captain)
 * Pakuz (Captain)
 * Ralphie (Captain)

The eight individuals on the list (and several unlisted troll officers) - comprised the large majority of posting and activity within Twelve forums. The staying power was only enhanced by the fact that the Troll Fleet often recruited new forum recruits into the fold as soon as they registered. This meant numbers were constantly replenished, allowing the troll fleet to remain in active combat for an extended period of time (sometimes even taking shifts).

Ships of the Fleet

 * Aircraft Carrier "The Mothership" (Moradim)
 * Battlecruiser "The Dark Fist" (Darkshaunz)
 * Battlecruiser "The Backdoor" (Retsgip)
 * Battlecruiser "The DPS" (Xant)
 * Light Cruiser "The Lard" (Lardman)
 * Destroyer "The Annoyance" (Clownshoes)
 * Artillery Platform Ship "Jenny" (Pakuz)
 * Aegis AA Light Cruiser "The Pwnface" (Ralphie)

Ceasefire & Victory
The bloodshed officially came to an end on July 28th, 2007. By this stage of the war, both sides were weary of the constant changing of hands between the troll fleet, the forum gods and the moderates who firmly held on to mainly WoW-related strong points (such as Recruitment). Fork realized that the civil war, if continued - would have devastating consequences for the relatively new community. So a ceasefire treaty was drawn up between Fork, Spoon & Darkshaunz. The result was an entirely new branch of completely non-WoW subforums that would be ceded to the trolls, and it is still considered to be a major victory to the present day.

Over time, all three previously warring parties united to become "Twelvians". The forums that began with only WoW forums went through a war - and then grew to hold WoW and Non-WoW forums. At the present day, this structure was expanded further and now all Twelvians can browse through an even larger variety of forums.

Post-War Implications
Although the war has been over for many years, the effects of it have translated into many positive changes to the forums. The trolling demonstrated in the one-year war was a structureless mess of chaos and images (it was dirty). It did well to sow confusion and disarray - but it soon fell out favour with even the most ardent of trolls. Instead, trolling in Twelve evolved to a more refined, targeted and precise form of assault. Subtle trolling was a more intelligent approach to masking the action and extracting the maximum amount of tears from the victim.

It was also realized that although dirty trolling produced a burst of short-term activity, it did little to retain members and promote good and meaningful discussions. As such, the savage form of trolling died out and was replaced by the new and more subtle form. The war also resulted in more self-policing within the Twelve community, and also re-integration of all the different parties of the war to a singular purpose - the progress of Twelve as a community.