Welcome to the first report of my second tenure as Master At Arms. While looking over all the documents from my previous tenure, I realized that probably somewhere close to 90% of what I was doing never made it into any reports and simply constituted periodic news posts that I posted to the main site. Time to correct that. All major policy changes and announcements will be made in my reports from here on out except for extremely important life-changing ones (like a new rank or something) that will go up in news posts. So read my reports.

Introduction

As I promised in my news post, I will make a lengthier (though still abbreviated) introduction here so those of you who do not know me that well can get a better understanding of who I am and where I come from. I joined the Brotherhood about 9 and a half years ago and was originally a member of Clan Aquillas (which does not exist anymore). I moved around as a regular member and battle team leader until I joined Independent House Ektrosis shortly before it became Clan Taldryan. I served as Dinaari’s second Aedile before I shifted focus towards other Emperor’s Hammer duties. I served in the TIE Corps and the Intelligence Division. In the Intelligence Division, I rose to the rank of Vice Admiral and served as Executive Director while in the TIE Corps, I finished at the rank of Colonel. I moved around various Clans and Houses in the Brotherhood while I focused on these activities though I did rise in rank to Obelisk Battlemaster and served as ProConsul for Aquillas before it was dissolved. Eventually, I was sent to the High Court of Inquisitors on charges of mutiny against then Grand Master Zoraan. I was convicted and expelled from the Emperor’s Hammer and the Brotherhood. Ironically, a month or so later, Zoraan himself rebelled against the Hammer’s leaders and was expelled. I was out of the Brotherhood for at least a year until returning a few months after the split. I have served in both Arcona and Taldryan since returning. I have served as everything from battle team leader up to ProConsul. I was appointed Master At Arms for the first time following Khan’s retirement and served in that position for just under a year. I retired due to some opportunities that opened up for me in real life but remained somewhat active in Taldryan in the interim. Sarin was kind enough to appoint me to Master At Arms again now that I have time once again. So yeah – here I am.

Considering I wrote most of the MAA policies currently in effect, you should refer to them for how to go about your daily MAA-related business. If you cannot find an answer, you should either contact me or my Praetor (Sklib) or use common sense. If you make a mistake with something, I’m not going to kill you (though I cannot speak for Sklib). I’m not here to make your life a living hell; I’m here to help you. So take advantage of it!

Staff

Sklib is going to stay as Praetor. My condolences to him. Also, Tarax was my Magistrate but I temporarily fired him just because I wanted to be mean to him. I’ll probably rehire him in a few days. See now why you never want to work for me?

Policy Updates

The first thing that you all need to be aware of, as I mentioned in my earlier news post, is that I am encouraging all leaders across the board to be somewhat more liberal with lower level merit medals (Dark Crosses, Anteian Crosses, maybe even a Steel Cross from time to time). This does not mean throw them out like candy; but you can give Dark Crosses for a few weeks worth of moderate to high activity. The recommendations still need to be high quality: but please – award people these medals!

That brings me to another significant policy change. Receiving merit medals will not significantly delay the time it takes to get promoted anymore. This means that you can give some a medal and promote them shortly thereafter (but please do not give someone a medal and ask to promote them on the same day – again, use common sense). Medals, in fact, are going to be used to help gauge when someone is actually ready for a promotion! This might not hold entirely true for very high medals (like the sacramental awards) but for the bulk of the medals a Brotherhood member receives (Grand Cross and below), this will be 100% true. Please: no more ‘saving up’ of activities/competitions/etc. to get a promotion. I don’t want to see any more DJKs with no merit medals. I will start denying these promotions in the very near future. Reward your people with medals when they deserve it – and again, use common sense. I am not going to let you give someone a DC every 2 weeks and then promote them – but giving them a DC after a few weeks of great work followed by an AC after a few more weeks or a month is ok. And then a few more weeks after that AC, you could conceivably promote them to JH or DJK. It is not an exact science (yet) but you get the general idea. And if not, email me and we will discuss it. I am shooting from the hip on this right now until Sarin, Muz, Raken and I can come up with a specific plan on how we want to make the medal/promotion systems complementary, not inhibitory.

As you can imagine, these changes necessitate other changes in policy. When we get to these, I will let you know.

Projects

Super AWOL Check: Following the completion of the IGs, Jac and I will be running a Super AWOL Check. Basically, during a Super AWOL Check, we deactivated everyone’s dossiers (the entire DJB) and you are required to log back in to reactivate it. All members at or above a certain rank (DJK I believe it is) who don’t reactivate will have their dossiers deactivated but will be able to login again at a later time. Those below DJK who do not reactivate will have their dossiers deleted. Do not hold me to those rank levels; I have to ask the Jac to be sure.

Updated Family Census: Just as I did when I became MAA the first time, we are going to be conducting a routine update of the Family Census documents. I will make an official news announcement when we carry this out but if you are in a family, be sure to have all your family documentation ready so it can be included in the family information files. There are also a lot of you out there who share a last name with one other member – this technically does not constitute a family but I am considering having you all register with me as well just so I know who you are and so I do not give you crap later if I make a mistake and think you are trying to make a family. Details will be forthcoming.

Das Uber Policy Revisions: After looking over most of the MAA related documents on the DB site, I am planning on conducting a massive revision project. This will include writing a new MAA Handbook for the Leadership Manuals (Alacrity of the Commander for those of you who like Pyralis’ completely unnecessary and superfluous use of the thesaurus), revising portions of the Codex that refer to medals and possibly even amending the Dark Covenant a bit. I will also be working on modifying a lot of Krav’s work on Equite promotions.

Competitions

For those of you who submitted to Krav’s last competition, Sklib and I will score them as soon as Sklib sends the submissions over to me. I will give out awards for them as soon as this is done.

I plan on running a competition or two once every two weeks which should be short and fun for those of you who want to participate. I am not going to start running one this week however because I want to finish up with Krav’s last competition first.

Other Stuff?

Obviously, there will eventually be more stuff going on in my office than the above projects: I do not want to bite off more than I can chew in my first report. If I need help staffing, I will make an announcement. On a side note, we hit dossier #10,000 the other day! Woohoo! But consider: that does not mean we have had 10,000 members…it just means that we have 10,000 people who have tried to be members. So keep working to retain membership and get people locked in to what the Brotherhood is all about: whoring yourself to get a complete medal set and DJM…..err wait…I mean….fun :P

Closing Remarks

In closing, you may have noticed that I suggested using common sense frequently throughout my report. As many people will tell you, common sense is not common. But I highly recommend you at least try to step your game up and think carefully before you act. Allow me to forewarn everyone: I am a very nice person and I am very tolerant. I am extremely forgiving and am almost always willing to make reasonable accommodations for people. However, I do not respond very well to demands, complaints, ad hominem attacks and people trying to go over my head to Sarin. Do not try to play political games with me: I have been doing this for almost 10 years and I will easily beat you if you try. That said, however, if you treat me with respect, I will treat you with respect and we will get along perfectly even if we disagree. If I deny or remand something you have submitted, do not take it personally: just correct what I have asked you to correct or come speak to me if you think I have made a mistake. Good things happen when you are nice to me even if you disagree with me. Thanks! Also, Chaos fails.

Dark Side Adept Syn Kaek

Master At Arms

DA Syn Kaek (Sith)/MAA/Dark Council [ACC: JUD]

AK / GC-PoTP / SC-SoH / AC-ToSC / DC-SiP / SN-BL / Cr-8A-2S-3E-4T-3Q / CF-SF / DSS-BL / SI-AuL / SoL-TC / LS-BL / S:-9M-3R-1C-2D-3Do-4Dk-14P

{SA: MVN}