aquascissors
Aquascissors (banned) was a citizen of Montrose (originally) and later, HUM, who was essentially only interested in building massive, egregious, floating cobblestone roads connecting all parts of the map together - with or without the consent of the countries that owned the places in question. He is one of the only people banned for lack of understanding, rather than a moral failing. He is the namesake for the Aquascissors Memorial Governance Building, commonly called the "HUM Skyscraper".
"Rest easy aqua... on the big eyesore-bridge in the sky." - GoatWhisperer after banning aquascissors
Career
The Roads
On December 12th, Aquascissors joined the server from an urban planning Facebook group which FlyingGMM was a part of. Aqua was mainly only interested in building roads, and initially joined Montrose on December 16th. It was thought that, due to Montrose's own passion for infrastructure, he would be a great boon to their cause. However, almost immediately after joining Montrose, he independently began to make roads throughout Montrose described by FlyingGMM as "unnecessary, poorly-designed, and completely unpermitted."
Having drawn condemnation from FlyingGMM for his troubles, aquascissors defected to HUM that same day. HUM's Chairman, GoatWhisperer, welcomed Aquascissors - he was not only unaware of Aquascissors' independent drive, but also of the shoddy nature of his infrastructure projects - and hoped aquascissors would be a great help in developing the harsh mountainous terrain of HUM. To Aquascissors' credit, some of the roads he laid continue to be used by HUM Proper to this day, but these are far outnumbered by the number of projects which were described by the Chairman as "disgusting... downright atrocious." Floating roads of planks were constructed from the top of aquascissors' house to a decorative firework orb which was deliberately placed in such a way as to make it inaccessible. Canals with no gates were dug, through mountains, under HUM's walls, allowing any invaders to easily sail directly into the heartland. Worse, yet, a tunnel went under the wall and emerged on an unclaimed island, which began the base of operations for Aquascissors' international ambitions.
Aquascissors’ roads, though beginning in HUM, began to stretch south to the unclaimed Heaven Island and then-Icedale-owned Dwarf Island, as well as a planned route to the fiercely isolationist state of Rhett...with the active nonconsent of the parties involved. The international community (HUM included) condemned these roads (which were simply 2-block-wide cobblestone paths suspended above the ocean), and tried to make Aquascissors stop, mainly due to the fact that he was making egregious violations of sovereignty in doing so.
Ban
Aquascissors refused to back down or even show that he understood the concept of sovereignty (in an OOC sense), and was banned on December 22nd. Although controversial to begin with, as no one had been banned before for simply not understanding the point of the server, the ban was justified with a few schools of thought:
- Anyone who joins the server should at least understand the political roleplay and the concepts at work to some degree, else they can't really participate in RP and would thus treat the server as any other server (as Aquascissors was doing).
- Aquascissors' lack of any in-game justification or attempt at RP for his actions, which was again due to his not understanding the point of the server, leads his widespread nonconsensual building to essentially fall under the cornerstone "no indiscriminate griefing" rule.
Legacy
Many of aquascissors' construction projects remain in the world to this day. Some roads in HUM Proper are the very ones laid down by the ill-fated infrastructuralist, and his landscaping initiatives in the state set the template for future endeavors by the Hummites to tame their wild land.
While the most egregious of his infrastructure projects were removed, some waystations remain littered about the area between HUM Proper and Fianna. His underground tunnel in Lower HUM has also remained open.
In an OOC sense, aquascissors is responsible for several changes to server management. His actions brought to the forefront the issue of unrealistic structures and led to the addition of Rule #8 (no unrealistic/floating structures) to address future issues, setting the stage for future events such as Dronesicles. He also led to an important clarification question to the effect of "are you familiar with the political nature of this server?" being included in the vetting process to ensure players understood the purpose of the server as a political RP platform before allowing them to join.