The Revolution

The Revolution
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Leaders	Noricle Rick Hamm
Founders	Noricle Rick Hamm
Founded	~January 2005
Status	Closed (22 March 2005)
Members	N/A
Focuses	PvP Multi
Ideologies	ARPK
Colours	Blue
Heraldry	unknown
Motto	unknown

The Revolution (TR) was the second exodus of the Wilderness Guardians, formed by Noricle and Rick Hamm in 2005. A short rivalry occured between TR and WG, but was ended with TR's abrupt closure in March of the same year.

Formation

In early 2005, His Lordship made a topic on the Rune Village fansite titled America: Bully of the World. The topic was harshly critical of the USA - in particular, its political and moral values and attitudes. Given that WG was comprised largely of American members, an internal dispute arose and members began to leave the clan. In an attempt to rectify the situation, His Lordship temporarily stepped down from leadership, appointing Myst01 as the new leader. This only served to worsen the issue, and members continued to leave - in a 2014 account of WG's early history, His Lordship cites that around 100 members left over the course of a single weekend. Two ex-WG, Noricle and Rick Hamm formed TR - the second ARPK exodus of WG (after The Synergy the previous year). The exact date of formation is unknown, but Noricle identified himself to WG as a co-leader of TR as early as 20 January 2005. Within two weeks, TR had taken over 40 members from WG, and within one month TR had clearly surpassed WG in strength.

Rivalry

From the beginning there was considerable animosity between WG and TR given the nature of TR's formation. Rick Hamm is believed to have suggested the idea of a P2P war with WG, but the suggestion was declined by His Lordship, reasoning that WG was still a primarily F2P clan. The earliest surviving record of the hostilities began on 8 February, when Rick Hamm - who had prevously been ranked as a "Clan Rep" - had his WG forums account removed by His Lordship. This apparently following a post made by Rick Hamm on The Sabres' forums and a discussion between the two leaders which involved spies and the passing of sensitive information. This resulted in a heated debate on the WG forums which remained unresolved.

On 11 March, two TR members (Madman2322 and Scotty22) were attacked by WG members at the Lava Maze, while the pair were taking part in the Treasure Trails minigame (following clue scrolls) within the Wilderness. This was a clear violation of WG's ARPK policy, which prohibited clan members engaging in combat with non-PKers. Neither TR member was killed, as His Lordship instructed WG to cease attacking. However, TR believed that WG had chosen to violate the ARPK policy solely because they identified Madman2322 and Scotty22 as TR members. A topic was made on the TR forums the following day, in which Rick Hamm expressed significant anger and his intentions of a vendetta against WG with the endgame of closing the clan.

On 15 March, Rick Hamm reconsidered his position and announced a status of indifference towards WG, believing that the hostilities were detrimental to TR by bringing down morale and causing members to question the clan's motives. The following day, TR Council member BluJeanGrlNC made an offer of peace to WG and requested that flaming and disrespectful posts on the forums be removed. The message was seemingly well-received by WG, and it seemed as if hostilities were coming to an end.

Closure

On 22 March 2005 and with very little warning, TR suddenly closed. According to reports on the same topic as the peace offer, accounts of all the TR members were being hacked, and Rick Hamm made the swift decision to close the clan in order to protect the security of TR members. As a result, many of the former WG who had joined TR returned to the original clan - including Rick Hamm - and WG experienced a surge in members and morale after several considerably unpleasant months.

Trivia

A second clan with the name "The Revolution" was formed later in 2005, as an exodus of the clan Pack of Pride. This TR lasted until around August 2007 and was considerably more successful. An exodus formed around or after its closure, Sunflower Mafia was mistakenly labelled as a second-generation relative of WG by Aidan Ryuko in 2008, who likely did not realise that two separate clans with the same name were formed in 2005. The mistake was not realised until June 2020 by Vio. Neither the second TR or SM have any relation to WG.