I've been considering doing this for sometime. I set out hoping to conquer offtopic, but offtopic is dead, and the last vestige of bungie's soul I once thought existed is about to fade away. I love this community. Even though I've only been here about three years, it has been awesome. Your wit, cringe, and trollery has sustained me through dark times, and helped me to widdle away countless hours I might otherwise have spent productively. Yes. I am Krishnas Prophet. The Flat Earth Was A Troll. But it was also more than just a troll. At the height of my popularity (yes, cringy that I aspired to fame here, but I love this place), I realized that my troll could actually achieve some real good by getting people to question their assumptions about reality. As someone who possesses only a limited understanding of the natural sciences, I realized that the faults I saw in regular people, were also my own: few of us really knew how to say for sure that the Earth was indeed, Round. So besides having a good time and rustling some jimmies, I really wanted to expand a basic understanding of science in others and myself. If I actually made one person go and examine the claims of science outside the classroom, if I made science a little more real than just dry facts and figures, my troll was worth it. I know some of you really admired me, and appreciated my "question everything" mentality. Please dont feel like you have been duped, or that you are a joke. You, more than anyone else, possess the capacity to understand science as it is truly supposed to be understood. You might not have all the facts straight, but your frame of mind is in the right place to receive them. The fundamental issue underlying Flat Earth, Creationism, and other conceptions of reality based upon conspiracies, is the distrust of authority. Everyday, we get overloaded with overwhelming amounts of information: claims, ideas, and opinions that all say they offer a proper view of reality; and each claim to properly describe the world “as it is”. So how do we separate reality from the noise of all these competing claims? We must learn how to recognize a good authority, and how to process what it claims, never forgetting that the ultimate authority exists within our own individual minds. Learning this can be hard, but it represents the only stable way of establishing a relative certainty of Truth. Yes. I am also Homo Habilis. Many of you may have forgotten Offtopic’s favorite (and hated) manioc giving friend. He came before Krishna, and was my first gimmick. I used the persona of Habilis to question creationist claims, all the while using a cave man like third person style of writing. Many hated it, a few loved it. One of its virtues being that it dissipated much of the salt that otherwise accompanies sensitive topics about religion. Having discovered the thrill of anonymous social media through offtopic, I branched off during my Habilis days and began debating creationists offsite. As I once believed in creationism myself, I felt a strong desire to convince other true believers of the reality of evolutionary science. On the Christian Forums, I came up against a troll the likes of which I have never seen since. This user frequented the recesses of the Christian forum like cancer incarnate, and if he was not a troll, he represents one of the best arguments aliens might pose in favor of extinguishing our species. While trying to argue in favor of a rational conception of God, I asked him if God could make two contradictory concepts true. As an example, I asked if God could make a square into a circle, at the same time and in the same sense. His reply killed part of my inner being. He said: “Sure! God can do that! What happens if you take a square and spin it? It becomes a circle!” I came away from this disillusioned and bitter, painfully aware of humanity’s utter disregard of reasonable thinking. About one week later, during an 8 hour layover somewhere in North Carolina, I posted my first “Undeniable Proof The World Is Flat” thread as Krishna. I was surprised by the reception, especially the sheer amount of edge with which people reacted to the claim that science is religious. That anger, more than anything else, made me want to keep going as Krishna. As I trolled, I realized more and more that belief in science, rather than a sober understanding of science, represented a real problem not just on offtopic, but society in general. I justified my troll with the knowledge that my flat earth pseudo-science would challenge that bias. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps I was just dishonest. But I think I really did positively impact a few people, and made offtopic a little more interesting in the process. Lately, even before I heard about Bungies final purge, I’ve been thinking about dropping the troll. I’ve been questioning the justification of knowingly disseminating misinformation. All my trolls and gimmicks stem, in part, from my inability to be interesting and captivating just as I am. Both Habilis and Krishna reflect part of my personality, but only a part. This profile is my main, the one I consider “just me”. And I wanted to give “just me” a go. Perhaps some of you remember my latest “Tesla Took My Virginity” stories? I was going to make a troll out of that, but the eve of our forum’s execution is upon us, and the time for trolling has passed. Sadly, rather than this post being a moving forward post, it is a goodbye. I’m sure I’ll see you on Ardent, Sep7, or the desolation of Offtopic that will remain, but it will never be the same. Maybe the future will be better, but today is the day “the good ol’ days” end for us here at b.net. I know for many it ended a long time ago. But this is the final death. Offtopic has been catatonic for sometime, but bungie is finally pulling the plug. Caring about community and something more meaningful than just profit, is no longer something they understand. I think this problem has more to do with bungie at the corporate level. Lower level employees, and especially the ninjas, are all great people. I will miss the ninjas. Especially seraphim and durado (sp?). I’d also like to thank Foman for inspiring me to take my flat earth troll to the next level, your roast in my first Krishna post lit a fire under my ass. I thank you for that… P.S. Another reason I wanted to make this post, was to get to know some of you better with out the pretense of trollery or gimmickry. I play on xbox, my xbox ID is Peaches Pan Tao. Feel free to add me, and just send me a pm letting me know you are an offtopic homie. I’d love to chat and get to know some of you. Goodbye all. I will linger, and I will follow some of you where ever you go. I’m sure we will run into eachother now and then. But this is still goodbye. The party is over. The cops are at the door... Edit: I might still be around as Peaches if Offtopic is not a total wasteland, but I think Krishna and Habilis will be taking the ships for the undying lands...