Revision as of 11:21, 21 June 2010

The Origin of the Database

On May 5th 2010, Colglough, which had newly been reclaimed following the spring picnic, received a new batch of guests. Among them, were members of an elusive group called The heathers. Following an altercation with one of the members of this group by the name of Veronica Grayson, the D.S.R&D found itself the target of a series of concerted strikes and the subject of a propaganda campaign designed to demoralize and possibly disband its members. Dr Schwan responded by posting the following notice:

"In reference to your group’s actions I leave this sole reply and reproduce what I believe the cause for the offense. I realize that you state that contacts on this page will not be acknowledged; this suits me as I know you will read it and do not wish a reply. Yesterday, when asked to a dance by a member of your group, I declined, she responded with vandalism for which I graciously did not reprise her. She repeated this vandalism whereupon I remarked “I suppose there is no rational explanation for teen angst.” And was promptly killed for it by one of what I am told are called your “manslaves”.

Now that we understand the “offence” I would offer that my actions in no way violate civility. I was within my rights to refuse. My comment, far from being an insult, is an accurate assessment of the situation. Angst, defined as an unwarranted feeling of anxiety or apprehension covers the realm of perceived slights. The actions of your group member were clearly not rational, and should you claim that they were, I would challenge the quality of your reason. As to the term teen angst, should teen be inaccurate, for that at least I do apologize though I have heard that women are often flattered by misinterpretations of their age that ere towards youth.

That said, where do we go from here? I realize that you are a greifing organization and that attacks like the one that happened today are not likely to stop. I feel though that I may need to clear up something first. My organization is devoted to studying the rot virus. By extension, many of us are not opposed to walking among the undead from time to time; it gives us a chance to appreciate the scenery and practice our Zamgrh. If you feel the need to kill me, you will always know where to find me, which brings me to my final point.

In the interest of full disclosure I will here outline how I will deal with this situation in which we now find ourselves. I here speak only for myself as my group is composed of like minded individuals who are fully free and able to speak and act for themselves should they wish to do so. Your group is no longer welcome at Colglough and I will do my part to remove you should I find you there. Beyond this, I will not hunt you nor provoke others to do so. Your actions have made your group an object of study, so I will catalogue and publish your membership for further examination whensoere I find them. In the interest of public safety, I will report any and all attacks to the proper authorities. Just as I will not pursue you, I will not hide. Should you feel the need to kill me, do so; I will use the opportunity to study what passes for mortality in Malton more fully and will publish the name of the minion who commits the act. Neither will I surrender, as you seem so fond of asking others to do, as I do not believe we are at war. You are a greifing group identical to many others in all areas but methodology and grammar, I have therefore merely accepted the actions that are sure to follow as another of the costs of doing business in Whittenside. Beyond this, I bear you no malice, wish only the best for you and your in you pursuits, and will not further contact you. Should you wish to discuss this matter or any other with me you may do so at Colglough under banner of peace."

Reflecting on this notice, Dr. Schwan came to the realization that this attack presented a larger opportunity to serve the community of Whittenside. By engaging the D.S.R&D, these people are not engaging others who would take such an assault personally and thereby experience emotional discomfort. Allowing this assault to continue is then an act of service to one’s community. Further, it provides the D.S.R&D with the opportunity to study the behavior patterns of these groups first hand providing valuable data at a minimal cost.

The organization known as The Heathers and others like it perpetuate violence and subjugation without remorse in clear defiance of standard psychological constructions like morality or guilt. Despite this, their actions are not easily classifiable as sociopathic behavior nor can they be considered a struggle for dominance, as many of them feel compelled to act as they do by outside forces. Likewise, they cannot be said to be motivated by a sense of gain: as is evident when one compares the relative difficulty of finding weapons, locating a subject, striking, and returning to a safe house to the relatively simple act of finding a syringe and standing up. Some deeper medical or psychological force has to be at work, but what? Perhaps the answer could be found out…through Science.

Thus was born this database. In its present state, this database serves two purposes:

To catalogue the irrational and the violent and monitor their behavior. Like the brainrotted zombies that we index, these individuals are often hard to pick out of a crowd. Identifying them and tagging them, gives us the ability to spot them (dead or alive) and to monitor their state of health.

To inform others about them. Again, as with the zombies, knowing which will require extra treatment allows Necrotech scientists to act more efficiently. Knowing a PKer helps law enforcement and allows others to gage the safety of a safe-house by the integrity of it’s inhabitants.

The Heathers

This group appears to be modeled off of the cult movie Heathers in which an angst ridden teen commits murders with the help of her troubled boyfriend. It is composed of Heathers, who operate as ringleaders pointing out targets, and manslaves, who actually commit the murders (Note: manslaves appear to be non genderspecific according to their group page suggesting possible sexual flexibility within the leadership)(confirmed: At least one male character designated as a core Heather detected). Because of the way this group operates, the heathers themselves are very difficult to locate or identify as they are seldom seen and do not participate directly in the act of killing. Beyond killing their targets, the Heathers disseminate propaganda throughout a suburb in the form of graffiti designed to belittle their victims. Paradoxically, some of these postings describe their victims as the perpetrators of perverse sexual acts whereas others depict them as the targets of such acts perpetrated by the Heathers themselves.

Motivation

The Heathers would seem, by historic and present account, to target group leaders so as to formulate a reason to attack an entire group. They are a griefing organization who post notices taking credit for their actions and insulting their victims. A sample of such a notice can be found at the following location (http://tinyurl.com/schwan1). Their ultimate goal would seem to be a display of force and superiority designed to humble their victims or drive them from Malton. Their connection with zombie interests is noted on the Feral Undead page and augmented by their actions. Case in point, the leader of the D.S.R&D had an altercation with a high ranking member of the Feral Undead (noted on group page). Following this, Colglough was retaken despite this members efforts causing him to make a comment of dire import and retreat indefinitely, whereas his interest in the building had been unrelenting to this point. Immediately following, the building became well staffed with survivors, of whom many have now been proven to be in the employ of the Heathers. Their actions were designed to provoke a response they would consider as a slight allowing them to open hostilities under pretense of revenge. Many of these people had been seen in Colglough before but had never acted in a hostile manner. Further evidence, the initial attack as well as subsequent have coincided with zombie action against Colglough to the extent that their movements seem designed to destabilize it. Further evidence, their modus operandi is to harrow a group until they feel requited and then offer surrender terms. Historically, the initial slight that they received from the D.S.R&D is lesser than most previous offenses, our response has been more temperate than historic responses, and to date, no surrender terms have been offered, suggesting interests beyond the surface level. Direct alliance is not here suggested as such has not been proved but surly collaboration with at least certain members and shared interest is evident. (Note: collaboration with zombies acts in general defiance of their stated goals pertaining to high fashion, suggesting that the latter may be a pretense. This assertion is further verified by the heathers’ subscription to the Honor Among Thieves Policy )

Membership

Historicly, this group seems to have been much larger in past as references to several currently inactive members exist. Below is a list of their current membership including their relative roles within the organization. This is a work in progress and will be updated as we continue to interact with this group. (Note:Some of this information is derived from the FEDCOM resources but only that which has been verified by first hand research has been included here. Those who appar on this list have been proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to belong here)

SoloDogDrool http://www.urbandead.com/profile.cgi?id=1749180 Spy (Effigy of SoloDogScout)
Xtreme Josh Clark http://www.urbandead.com/profile.cgi?id=1745921 Spy (Effigy of Josh Clark)

At this time, Malton statistics indicate that there are 15 active Heathers, Some of these we believe to be misleading tags. all of current authentic membership should be catalogued in this database

Suspected links (information in this section is speculative and will be moved once further evidence is collected)

Heather Brito,Heather Corinna,Heather Faye,Heather Fields,Heather Fitch,Heather Hunt,Heather James,Heather Lea,Heather MacClelland,Heather Owens

Meta-game info

The heathers assert that they are not by definition PKers. Characters bearing Heather designation do kill others indicating falsehood or disorganization within group. Heather in Leather appears as a PKer in the Rogue's Gallery. Additionally, manslaves are not a group in and of themselves but individuals who operate in concord with the core Heathers to achieve their ends. Many of them bear fake or irrelevant group designations. Manslaves are therefore a de-facto ancillary group within the larger organization of the Heathers. The Heathers may not be a PKing group, but they are a PKing organization.

The Heathers claim that they are Greifers for the greater good. While the Heathers have attacked groups for displaying bad manners or in retaliation for attacks against their members, they have also attacked groups for no discernable reason or as a display of dominance. Their typical modus operandi is harmful to a suburb and involves strikes timed with zombie action, that result in massive building damage, and mass defacement of buildings, with graffiti displacing group tags and barricade designations. As the majority of players in the game are survivors, and as their actions harm the playing experience for everyone within a suburb, it cannot be said under any sense that they are working towards a greater good.

Group Tags. The Heathers maintain their low profile partly through the low level and inactivity of their core members and partly through their creative use of group tags. In addition to the Effigies, the other Heather manslaves adopt erroneous or made up group tags to disguise their nature. Examples of erroneous tags can be seen in the fact that at least two manslaves (deathslap and XTREME Josh Clark) claim membership to Team Xtreme and one (gay fedcom president) claims membership with Fedcom. Both of these groups are historic enemies of the Heathers. Fake tags can be anything at all; some sound official (Miskatonic School of Medicine) and some are intentionally absurd (Donkeys and Tacos Forever). A manslave is detectible by his actions (there is no such thing as a heather bounty), the presence of Heather graffiti in their vicinity, and/or allusion to a subjugation of will to a mistress or mistresses in his character description (dress may also be an indicator as effigies tend to ere towards intentionally bad fashion sense: disco shirts, Elvis outfits, etc. ). Beyond the manslaves, the Heathers themselves have been observed to switch their group designation to avoid detection. The designation “Absolutely Fabulous” is one such heather alternate, as is “Girl Hitler”. Know a Heather by her actions, the presence of a manslave in the vicinity, and references to superior style, particularly a bow in her hair, evidenced in her character description. Most manslaves are male but not all; most Heathers are female but not all; most Heathers have heather in their names but not all. Please reference the list on this page for known membership. Interested parties may contribute additional findings to the suspected links section of this database along with relevant evidence.

Death Culting. The Heathers, as an organization, have been suspected of death culting in past but have denied it. Through carefully controlled experiments conducted by members of this organization, we have determined that manslaves engage in the following activities: the removal of barricades from occupied buildings(never the last section so as to avoid detection), the defacement of buildings to eliminate useful tags and instructions, the murder of civilians, the sharing of intelligence with certain members of the FU to obtain strike information and enemy placement, fraternization with known death cultists. Our evidence concludes that they are indeed death cultists. Curious parties may contact the D.S.R&D through their forum for further details on these experiments.

Zerging. the heathers claim not to be zergs and this may be debatably true. Their assertion that members of their victims have joined their manslave ranks would appear to be an in-game reference to their effigies who have never been anything but manslaves. They appear to have a close knit relationship and rapid contact (this had been tested with observed revives and baiting conducted by the D.S.R&D and our allies). This effect can be achieved by forum interaction, email, telephone, or messenger program. Where the line begins to blur is in their use of manslaves. Manslave/heather Alts is highly likely but as their aims are different and their locations distant, this is not necessarily strategic multi player abuse. The figureheads of the Heathers themselves taking credit for the actions is a more ethically questionable action. We have also observed similarities within the manslaves that are suspicious, but the most damning evidence has been the creation of a new manslave using a previous template that appeared within the suburb to act as a walking Heather propaganda billboard and spy. The creation of this manslave coincided with the disappearance of another suggesting a connection. The manslaves also strike form opposite sides of a suburb suggesting a multiplayer abuse work-around. Additionally, we have observed the number of designated heathers within the game statistics to fluctuate in response to carefully placed goads about their classification by our group. Certain abrupt rises in number accompanied by a fall in the group rank indicate strategic spawning of characters to thwart data collection. While technically not functioning in unison, the manslaves and Heathers appear to have common controllers and operate together to achieve a common goal. This places them in a grey area where the majority of the unethical behavior is perpetrated in meta-game. We will therefore leave final verdict to our readers.

Contact. The heathers indicate that there is no way to contact them placing a “talk to the hand” graphic on their group talk page. Through controlled experimentation and careful goading, we have concluded that this is only partly true. They can be contacted through this medium or through any other related wiki page as they are very active on the wiki. They will not respond on the wiki but they will read information posted there and may respond in game. Therefore, those wishing to have the Heathers hear them will have an easy time of it while those wishing to hear from the Heathers will not.

Change in behavior 1

It has been observed that, while the original insults are character specific, as time wears on, they become increasingly composed of trite form letters and nonsensical references to trendy retail outlets (http://i41.tinypic.com/1255120.gif0 or http://i39.tinypic.com/2ezpci8.jpg). Other late stage notices have included references to low-end retail stores used as a pejorative, mention of diminutive physical attributes, and other random accusations designed to present the slaying as justified (the victim is presented as a zombie spy, zerger, PKer, etc.) (note: curious how a group that seeks to breed fear would disguise its motives. Further investigation of this trend is needed)

Change in behavior 2

May 16th the Heathers greifing tactics took a slightly different turn. In response to a notification from Dr. Schwan that their notes were becoming increasingly formulaic, the Heathers began posting more finely crafted character assaults in place of their standard form letters (collected earlier). These posts portray Dr. Schwan as Henry Kissenger (note: it is also possible that they intend to portray Kissenger as a mascot for Schwan industries) and accuse him of pedophilia and other perversities. Though the material still demonstrates a noted lack of good taste, and the physical depiction of Dr. Schwan as Henry Kissenger is flawed, the high level of craft behind these doctored images is evident in the attention to detail. Evidence of this can be seen in Image 1 where the character in the foreground is reflected in the shop window. The reflection of Hobo-Kissenger is however flawed in that it duplicates the front view of the character in the foreground rather than the reverse. Still, despite the flaws the level of craftsmanship indicates that the Heathers are devoting time and effort to this endeavor not indicated by previous actions (note: it is also possible that they have used thes images before and are merely re-appropriating them. This possibility is derived from the arbitrary use of Kissenger, the poor quality and placement of occasion specific text within the images, the rapidity of their creation, the generically inflammatory nature of their content, and their alphanumeric titles). In response to this message, Dr. Schwan removed the manslaves from his cerebrally partitioned ignore order to collect more data only to be disappointed when the next manslave who came for him spouted more pre-constructed nonsense and left another form letter. On the wall however was what is here included as image2. A third and by far superior specimen was delivered to Sam Public. Dr. Schwan retained a copy of these images for his file.

Change in behavior 3

Slightly less than one month into their Heathering, the heathers attracted the attention of Team Xtreme who allied with the D.S.R&D. In response to this pressure on their operation the heathers resorted to an interesting tactic and the D.S.R&D was able to witness the creation of their newest manslave homunculus XTREME Josh Clark: An effigy of Team Xtreme leader Josh Clark who was designed as a walking billboard to carry heather propaganda about that group. Whether the Heathers have access to advanced cloning capabilities or are themselves afflicted with a rot virus mutation that augments breeding is unclear. Following this pressure, their comments have become increasingly erratic and harried. We suspect the breeding process produces genetic anomalies that lead to mental degeneration in manslaves. Their actions, becoming thus more distasteful, we elect to omit their communications from further study.

Study Completed

On June 4th 2010, the D.S.R&D believes that they have completed their analysis of the group The Heathers. The file on this database will remain open should new data become available and we will continue to add new member information as it is found, but we have no indication that their behavior is likely to change from this established course. We believe we have encapsulated their core membership, behavior, and methodology within this report.

	Study Subject
	This certifies that The Heathers have been the subject of a completed study conducted by by The D.S.R&D

Cobra

The D.S.R&D has not had opportunity to study this group but is aware of their existance and will post information should it become availiable.

The Philosophae Knights

The D.S.R&D considers this group a PKing organization but sees them as rationally motivated and therby beyond the scope of this database.

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Dr. schwan’s Research and Development Team/PK database: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 11:21, 21 June 2010

Contents

The Origin of the Database

The Heathers

Motivation

Membership

Suspected links (information in this section is speculative and will be moved once further evidence is collected)

Meta-game info

Change in behavior 1

Change in behavior 2

Change in behavior 3

Study Completed

Cobra

The Philosophae Knights

Other Products and Services

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