The Growing Issue of Revisionist History

In recent times, I have noticed a big issue surrounding the military community. Namely, the majority of new or relatively new members are unaware of history or this community. While this is a problem on its own, it has led to the rise of another issue: people willingly or mistakenly modifying history.

A recent example is Auel's timeline of military history. While the events on the timeline are, for the most part, correct, their place in the timeline are not. For example, Imperia lasted from 2011 to 2014 on his timeline, while it only lasted from the summer of 2011 to the beginning of the school year in 2012. However, Auel did not do this on purpose. He probably does not remember the timeline of events very well, thus leading to a compressed version of the timeline. Since he did not do this on purpose, it is not as vicious as someone who does it for their own gain.

There are, in fact, people who would lie and deceive new players to make themselves seem like badasses. You want an example? Joe Kyro, the current leader of Kyronia. During his time in the Republic, he decided to make a library within his guild house that recounts his """story""" within the military community, and he would invite people to see his library as often as possible. In this library, there are stories about how Kyro took down over 60 guilds all by himself (which is just a ripoff from Time's notebook of far fetched stories), about how Kyro led the first Imperia for four months in 2011 (the longest Imperia was the second Imperia, which lasted about 3 months), and how Kyro joined the State in 2011 (the State was created at the end of 2012). There are other tales about how he was wanted and loved by everyone when he came back in 2013. Obviously, to anyone who is aware of history and has been part of this community for a long time, this looks and sounds like complete crap. I was easily capable of cracking Kyro's arguments in about 3 seconds, and I have no doubt anyone with half a brain would be able to do the same. However, the problem remains that Kyro is free to do this kind of bullshit history review, a la Stalin, because nobody aware of history is there to call him out on his bullshit. Not only that, when you DO call him out in public, either he'll "accidentally" kick you out of his guild house, or he'll say he is drunk and ignore you. If Kyro was not enough, it seems as though there is a growing number of individuals that do this, to make themselves out to be a legend or something.

Before I continue, I will address the "why" of this. Why did I make an article about this? After all, it IS just a video game, why do I care? Well, it is rather simple: I have spent a lot of time on this game. By combining all my play times from all versions of Graal, I have a total of about 4000 hours, which is something like 167 days. That is well over a third of a year spent on this game, enjoying it, talking with friends, fighting wars and most of all, building my legacy. So, when people like Kyro decide that instead of working towards making a name for themselves, they'll just lie about it, it pisses me off. With about 5 minutes and a minimum of authority, Kyro is capable of overwriting thousands of hours spent on this game by people like me. And it is not just me, he is overwriting Auel's history, Kentiman's history, Zearos's history, Zaer's history, Ryzallion's history, Harau's history... There are too many names to name JUST with Kyro's revisionist version of Imperia. Simply because he is unable of making a name for himself like we have all done through great effort and time, he decides to lie and deceive young members of the community. It's an issue of morality. Dismissing people's legacy for your own gain is just dirty and honestly plain sad.

Now, after having explained the "why" of all this, there is another major issue, which are the consequences of this stupid modification of history. Obviously, Kyro is not the only one who does this. Time and a few other pseudo-terrorists like to do this. The first consequence is that history becomes either confused or untrustworthy. As people are told different versions, they do not know exactly which facts are truth and which are lies, which leads to mixed versions of facts. As these versions are debunked, people quickly become untrustworthy of actual achievements. In fact, I would not be surprised if people started doubting even true stories of old, like the Communist Rebellion, the First War of Paranoia and other historical events. The second consequence is that this practice may become a standard of all new upcoming leaders. If this trend continues, I would not be surprised if people started claiming they are the original Auel, or that they were some kind of shadow leader back in the State. Leaders need the trust and admiration of their soldiers, and if lying to people becomes the norm, the community could quickly become non-functional or begin only trusting old leaders, which are sooner or later going to retire. The final consequence of this revisionist issue is that it will inevitably lead to conflicts if the trend grows. If two people claim having been the leader of x guild at the same time, or having taken down the same guild, the two leaders will obviously need to prove which one is the best. While war can be good, it is important to remember that it needs to be regulated and not just devolve in sword spam, or else they are bad for all parties involved. These conflicts of pride would involve the leaders deeply, but not necessarily the soldiers, leading to the premature dissolution of guilds.

As a final statement, I hope everyone will stop modifying history willingly, and that those that are not sure of when events happen will consult older members. This community's history cannot be buried beneath lies. I hope everyone who reads this will tell others to read it as well. If the message starts spreading, this issue may become relevant within less than a month. However, should it keep growing, the consequences I have highlighted will make themselves known, and God knows this community does not need more issues. If you have done revisionist history, I recommend that you take it down and publicly apologize for it. You really do not need to modify history to make yourself into a badass in this community. If you so much as care about this community, people will start acknowledging you as a leader and your legacy will be born. If you do feel the need to do this, then maybe you just are not cut out to be part of the community.