Greetings to you all,
My friends on Vector had the pleasure of me going through this with them, however you all get the benefit to read this through at your own pace.
It's about time something concrete was set up to determine how factions can join EPN. There's been a few different ways in the past, yet now we've set this up as a more uniform route for factions. Anyway, the specifcs are as follows:
HOW A FACTION CAN PROVE THEIR WORTH
Each faction will be set the following 3 tasks to complete. Depending on the personal style of that faction, they can do more or less of each task, to the agreement of their EPN Liaison. However, they must have evidence that they've done each 3 tasks to some degree.
1. Attacks conducted on Enemies
There are a lot of people who do not support our cause and are more than willing to make us aware of that fact. The Cypherites have always been our main opposition, yet there's always the Machine organisation as a whole and of course the Merovingian has no love for us.
How a faction goes about this can be two fold. Firstly, this can be outright combat kills against these hostile groups. For that, your EPN Liaison Officer will require time stamped images to back your claims. However, we're also aware that not everyone likes to go beating up other operatives every minute of the day. For those who prefer a more vocal option, your EPN Liaison will accept chat recordings of conversations you've had with hostile groups, with you strongly supporting EPN views and ideals.
2. Finding potential bluepills
With the war waging in full once more, it's more important now than ever before to free those from the system who want out. You will find that there's an ever growing list of bluepills in the Matrix that we've picked up on who are ready to be awakened to what the Matrix is. What your EPN Liaison Officer will provide the faction with is basic information on the potential (name and where to find them). It will then be the factions job to get to know the bluepill, earn their trust and eventually arrange an extraction of the bluepill once they believe they're ready to be given the red pill. I want to personally make a point here that I want no hassling of the bluepill, they're not going to trust you like that. I equally want it shown that EPN do not force people into taking red pills. It's a free choice that all deserve.
Again, your EPN Liaison will require chat recordings off the faction, as well as any time stamped images to back up what they pass on about their progress with the potential.
3. Explaining what EPN means to them
This will be done on both an individual basis and also a main faction grouping. Your EPN Liaison will talk with the faction wanting to join EPN and ask them to explain to him/her what it means for them to join EPN. Naturally, we know that each operatives reasons can and probably will be different from the next, which is why when a faction joins that we want to speak to as many members of that faction as possible.
When the EPN Liaison speaks to your faction leader, they will discuss not only their personal beliefs but also where that leader wants to take their faction within our organisation.
As with the other points, chat recordings will be made by your EPN Liaison during these meetings.
How the tasks will be documented
As soon as a faction applies to become a part of our organisation, you'll notice a thread pop up on your respective instance discussion boards. For example, Sons of Liberty are going to be the first faction on Vector to try this, so their thread will be, "Proving their worth: Sons of Liberty."
Within this will be all the documentation that your EPN Liaison will obtain off that faction as they go about the tasks set to them. All the chat recordings, the images and anything else, will all be put in here for all to see. This will be so that existing factions can see the work that the faction is going through.
Anyone is free to comment within these threads, however I must warn you about any abuse some people may feel the urge to put on their because they see an image of their butt being handed to them in Mara. Seriously though, you are free to post on these if you keep it to a respectable manner.
The Formal ceremony
Now, once all these tasks have been completed to the satisfaction of your EPN Liaison, a date will be set for a formal ceremony to confirm that faction to all as now being EPN.
What will happen here is that an invite is sent out to all existing factions from your EPN Liaison, stating that they will be required to attend (in as many operatives as are available) a meeting in a weeks time from when you receive the invite.
The leader then has to swear on behalf of the faction, in front of all existing factions, that they'll do their upmost to fight for EPN and they believe in the ideals and the path that Neo had set out before us and that they will carry on his work in the Matrix.
With everyone present, the liaison can request if anyone present has any legitimate reason that the faction should now not be welcomed into EPN. If all goes to plan, there shouldn't be but if someone's been burning to say that someone in the faction who want to join has a really bad attitude, then they're free to say so in that situation.
Once all of this has gone through, your EPN Liaison will sign off on your application and pass all the documentation over to Michael to confirm you as an EPN faction. Your EPN insignia will usually come online within a week from this point.
Anyway, thank you for taking the time to read through this. If you have any questions about this, don't hesitate to contact your EPN Liaison Officer and they'll be able to go through any of the finer points.
Equally, you are free to discuss this policy change in this thread.
For Neo,
Khepril
EPN Liaison Officer - Vector instance
