tl;dr Montolio is a manbaby: The Story

This is an extraordinarily awkward update to write, because I'm about to burn a bridge. Actually, let's be realistic - this bridge set itself on fire many months ago, and it's only now that I've given up trying to pretend that we have any kind of relationship with Montolio other than his seething, passive-aggressive hostility towards GSF and the CFC. As you know, things have been batshit with TEST the past few days, ever since they openly announced a desire to kill off our neighbor in Fade, Fatal Ascension, while under the protection of positive standings.


The literal sum of the drama is this: Bring Stabity, TEST's diplo to the CFC, announces that Montolio plans to try to instigate FA into attacking TEST so that TEST can kill off FA while still blue to the CFC. This is problematic. However, we have tried to err on the side of gentleness when it comes to Montolio's antics, and so we just removed the HBC from GFAllies, our shared jabber channel for allied leadership. As responses to "we are planning on killing your neighbor and ally who you share a border with" go, this seems pretty tame. Given that Montolio's spat with FA had already queered the dynamic of the channel to where our allies didn't feel comfortable talking in there, this was probably going to be necessary even if the "We're trying to kill FA under your nose, lololol" stuff from Monty hadn't come out so directly.


Does this seem like a petty drama to you? It does to me, as well. And yet we are on the verge of a massive all-nullsec bloc war because of this: the passive-aggressive behavior of one alliance leader, culminating in an explosion of triviality.


After being removed from the GFAllies channel due to his threats against FA, Montolio lost his shit. Where we made no public announcement of these changes, Montolio posted a sticky thread on the TEST forums and broadcast to his entire alliance about what had transpired; he also removed every CFC jabber account from TEST's servers. Since this took place, Monty has issued an increasingly erratic series of jabber broadcasts, mostly relating to a bunch of people eager to kill us joining forces with him:






(We note that Solar and N3 are at war with one another in Cache, and these all-broadcasts on TEST jabber from Montolio are clearly intended to spook or intimidate the CFC, or boost Monty's confidence, or something.)


Tonight we've seen a bunch of Kugu posting by Montolio, and instead of it being about FA, he has apparently decided to vent his spleen about how awful Goonswarm was for daring to help out in Delve during the SoCo campaign:






There are more similar posts; these came after a missive yesterday called "FA Shot First" written by Montolio, blaming FA for starting all of this - some kind of spat with BDEAL, an alliance you have all no doubt forgotten, over a year ago, a controversy that no one has talked about at all until Montolio needed to find an excuse for his extreme behavior. His motive is transparent; in response to being separated from GFAllies for announcing an intention to kill FA, Montolio kneejerked and kicked the CFC off his jabber, wrote a screed about how it was all FA's fault anyway due to forgotten year+ old drama, and is now tag-teaming on Kugu with his trusty second-in-command Rob3r about how this is somehow all back to GSF being awful. We've had to deal with years of this kind of passive-aggressive crap from Monty, and things have seemingly reached a point of no return.


What In The Everliving Fuck Is Going On?


Montolio could be an evil space mastermind and this is all part of his grand plan to bring about our downfall. More likely, he could be erratic by nature and spoiled by TEST's position in nullsec politics, leading to behavior like a tantrum-prone child. Here are some possibilities:


He could be malicious: attempting to kill one of our strongest allies under our noses, while surrounding himself with allies which are vehemently hostile towards GSF, such as Raiden (who he gave space to in Querious) and 'N3', the new home of Nulli Secunda and Northern Coalitiondot, both of whom starred in recent Eve Online dramas the denouement of which involved ignominious retreat for the anti-CFC forces, setting up a classic divide, surround and conquer strategy re: us. However, this requires a fair degree of long-range planning on Monty's part, and I think this theory is probably just me being exceptionally paranoid. Let us be charitable, for a moment.


He could be bonkers: his reactions to events have been completely outsized, overreactions and escalations on a grand scale. His behavior has been unpredictable and erratic, and in fact he is well known for this. While "dude is fucking nuts, who knows" is kind of a cop-out as explanations go, it's a pretty solid contender, considering how often his goals and narratives (FA shot first! No wait, Goonswarm is at fault! etc) shift.


He could be spoiled: We helped Montolio take Fountain, and with PL helped take Delve, Querious and Period Basis; when we went home after one of his tantrums, PL helped prosecute the war against the SoCo to its final conclusion. When Montolio wanted tech moons, we gave him our own. When Montolio began his protracted slapfight with Fatal Ascension, we did little more than say 'play nice now' and turned a blind eye. When Montolio accused us of trying to use our jump bridge systems in Fountain of being ~secret staging areas to destroy TEST~ (PNQY, J5A) we gave them to him; when he decided that he didn't want us to help defend Delve from the W-4 constellation, we handed over every system in the region to him and shrugged it off.


In almost every situation I can think of, the strategy of 'escalate and throw a tantrum' has worked for Montolio when he gets into a conflict; he does not appear to know how to deescalate a situation or calm down, and as long as PL or the CFC was there to back him up, this kind of strategy worked a charm against a number of enemies - until he tried the same on a CFC member.


To my knowledge, "No, you can't hang out in GFAllies while plotting to kill off FA, sorry" is the first time we have said "no" to Montolio, and he has completely flipped shit about it - like a spoiled six year old child punching and kicking because he couldn't get a fourth lollipop today. Perhaps this is a monster of our own creation, by being so accommodating over the years; regardless, it is clear that reason, negotiation, and reconciliation are not options, as everything so far has only accelerated his penchant for psychodrama and petty lashing-out.


What about TEST?


We like TEST. We helped bring them safely into a nullsec that tried to kill us, in the same place; while Reddit and SA might have their spats, as line members go we are fairly similar when compared with the rest of Eve who have no 'mother forum' to call home. We have no quarrel with the line members of TEST. We get along peachy with folks like Durrhurrdurr and Walter Stine, and my best friend in Madison is the CEO of a corp in TEST. Half of my silly website is staffed by loyal TEST members. That makes this situation tremendously awkward: our problems with TEST pretty much just come down to "Montolio is a passive aggressive child", and the guy seems intent on driving us all into some kind of foreverwar with Every Alliance We Beat The Shit Out Of In The Last Four Years as his darling ~friends and allies~.


Right now Montolio seems to think - or is claiming to anyone who will listen - that GSF is getting ready to invade TEST. We are not, and that would be retarded for a whole host of reasons - not only do we not need the space, it's a coinflip if we could even win, and most importantly we like TEST's membership. In reaction to this nonexistent invasion, Montolio seems to be running around Eve rallying forces against us while we are still nominally allies - all for our terrible sin of quietly separating him from FA, who he plotted to destroy, in a jabber channel. It is difficult to get past how laughably petty the instigating event of all of this drama is.


TEST is a member of OTEC, so even if Montolio drinks more Kool-aid and resets us we will not be attacking his tech moons (the techs which we gifted to TEST) unless he launches an actual attack on us.


It's clear that we basically cannot deal with Montolio on any level, and will conduct all our TEST diplomacy (what little left there is to do) via junior diplos, and leave him to his hobbies of concocting obscure resentments, being bitter as hell about GSF, and plotting our doom. TEST has not been removed from our jabber or our forums, and we will keep them blue and hope that this fit of madness passes, and/or someone will give the screaming child a lollipop already before our eardrums rupture.




I Am Offended About TEST/FA/Delve Sov/BDEAL


You're going to see an awful lot of posting and sperging and narratives thrown around in the next few days as Montolio talks himself into resetting us and going to war for kicking him out of a jabber channel after he was caught plotting to kill off our neighbors. BDEAL drama from a year ago. Goonswarm said this/that about Sov this one time in Fountain or Delve and was an evil parent. FA/Zagdul did this or that and is a jerk/not a jerk. For example, Delve was Goonswarm putting its foot on Montolio's neck, rather than responding to a direct request for aid.


What actually happened in Delve? I'll post some logs here, because this seems to be the centerpiece of the upcoming 'evil goons' narrative Monty is pushing on Kugu. On June 24th, Monty asks us in no uncertain terms for help - not to mention adding that everything is perfectly cool with FA (remember 'FA Shot First'?)


First, Montolio comes to Courthouse on June 24th, asking for aid.





I'm in Alaska at the time; the next day I pop on for some serious business planning in an allied jabber, and everything is smiles with Monty:







By mid-July we're in conspiracy land; after winning, Montolio complains about us not grinding Period Basis, which had no resistance, like we did Delve and Querious. There's a bunch of stuff here about how we're horrible people because Monty doesn't want to handle an undefended station shot op, or something. I really don't get it, but boy howdy is he mad.


7/16/12



Four days later we've had enough conspiracy stuff, and Vile Rat tells Monty that not only can he have W-4, 49-, NOL, he can have everything that GSF initially asked for because we were out. Enjoy your new three regions, peace - we can't handle the drama or the double-dealing. Meanwhile, Monty says he might step down and flirts with nailing himself on a cross. VR lays out some hard truths, that sadly don't seem to have gotten through many months later.


7/17/12:





:commissar:




These 'issues' are basically red herrings designed to distract from the truth of what has transpired: Monty wanted to whack one of our allies, got caught, was quietly removed from a Jabber channel, and has completely lost his shit and readied for total war over this grave offense. And we can't really figure out why.


I know that we nerds love arguing over the internet, and this drama is an opportunity for an airing of obscure, stupid grievances. Let's not lose sight of what has actually transpired here, and why so abruptly we are nearly at war with TEST: Montolio.