You know what, I’m just going to document the entire series of events here, because some more recent users, and even some older ones, were unaware of the events going on and always seem to ask what happened when someone brings it up.
This is The Complete History of the Bat Conflict.
First of all, there’s this, which explains the early beginnings of the trend:
Conversations went on from there, which led to me eventually giving out a breakdown of the bat girl torso build, the one part no-one seemed able to figure out. With the vital information now known, @Senit discreetly and swiftly began construction of his own bat girl.
In the meantime, I started a bat girl Q&A where people would ask the bats questions and I’d draw individual answers for each user. This generated a whole bunch of incredibly important information which would be used later on, such as the introduction of the bat triplets’ other siblings, Sherbet, Toast and Pancakes. Another early thing that would become the basis of the conflict was when people started making their own bats, who would all be canonised to the Monopolyverse, with @redstripepakari387’s Strawberry being the first.
Another early catalyst for the later conflict generated by the Q&A was this image:
WHICH WAS COMPLETELY INNOCENT BY THE WAY I KNOW HOW IT LOOKS OUT OF CONTEXT
But anyway, this rather questionable out of context nature of the picture led to it being used in this image that @Axelford made a day after:
By this time, Senit had completed his own bat girl, Caramel, which prompted me to make a drawing of her that same day. This would become a lasting trend, with me drawing a picture of a bat every time a new moc was completed.
The Q&A was shut down by mods on February 11th, only two days after it was opened. No explanation was given, so myself and a few others who were also fond of it set out to get some answers. Concurrently, I released full instructions for the bat girl frame in the Moc Tutorials topic, which started a chain of events that I never could’ve imagined. I like to think of this point right here as where things really started getting out of hand. Everything from here on out gets absolutely crazy.
But, before all that happened, we were still looking for answers to the Q&A’s closure. I sent a PM to BioKnight, the mod who closed the topic, but I received no response. Consequently, Senit theorised that only masters could post Q&As, which was why mine had been closed. For reference, I’d lost the Master badge more than two years ago by this point, but I was determined to reclaim it even if solely for the purpose of reopening the Q&A.
Over the next week, I put all my efforts into reclaiming my old title, bombarding every recent topic with hordes of ‘nice/good/excellent/impressive’, ‘very nice/good/excellent/impressive’ and ‘well done’ to get my daily post count up. I also took to reading through all the recently updated RPs. This eventually led to me getting into trouble with Eljay, leading me to hastily update most of my previous comments to say something a bit more substantial.
By February 21st, I’d finally reclaimed the Master badge. However, what had been going on in the background was extraordinary.
In those 10 days, legions of bats had been produced of all shapes and sizes by more than 13 users, absolutely flooding the boards. The number of topics doubled due to me creating artwork for each new bat released, leading to at least 40 new bat-related topics posted. While many people enjoyed them, were indifferent, or personally didn’t see the appeal, some users took their opinions to the extremes. On one side were a relentless group who seemed legitimately infatuated with the bats, commenting with screams of joy every time a new one was posted and practically worshipping them, while another group carried a relentless and proudly shown hatred for them. Surprisingly, these two groups of such radically different opinions were not the reason for the war’s beginning, no. That honour belongs to @Krelikan.
That’s not to say that what Krelikan did was inherently intending to start the war, I don’t think anyone could’ve expected that, but it was certainly a turning point. On February 15th, he posted two new mocs, Carbon and Starch. He claimed they were mites designed to combat the expanding bat population, heavily armed and armoured. He encouraged others to join in with their own mites and join the MMCC - the Mass Mite Counter Coalition.
Perhaps unexpectedly, not many users joined in with MMCC moc-making, with only a couple of users taking part, and those select few only making about one or two mocs each, compared to the unending batches some bat builders put out. The moccing side of the MMCC was, without a doubt, a failure for the most part.
Much later on, when things calmed down near the end of the war, @Ghid put out a sound theory that the reason the MMCC received hardly any moc contributions was simply because they weren’t replicable. Bat makers had all the tools they needed - with full instructions for the basic frame at their disposal and a simple, easily customisable design, bats were easy and fun to make and differentiate. The issue with the mites is that they were too differentiated - there was no basic frame or even any real design philosophy. They were complex and hard to replicate, making them not something that an average moccist could make quickly. Their naming schemes were confusing and they lacked the personality of the bats which is why so many latched onto them in the first place.
While the MMCC’s attempt at countering the bat craze had been largely unsuccessful, it did inspire all the bat enjoyers to band together in a secret PM, started by @T4k4nuv4, a very prevalent bat builder. The group called themselves the Bat Brigade, and originally consisted of myself and all the prevalent bat-aligned artists and moccists. Later, we began recruiting the bat simps for their commitment, as many of them were also willing to take part in moc-making. We soon kicked @Rhyla416 from the PM after he made several suspicious comments, and began developing a hierarchy - I was the leader, Senit was the commander in charge of all Moc-making, @GoodGuy2006 was the organiser who made sure to schedule all our events properly, T4k4nuv4 was the recruitment officer who added and removed people from the PM and everyone else contributed through various Mocs and artwork. I have no idea how organised the MMCC were in this regard, but I suspect they may have had a similar thing going on.
Speaking of the MMCC, while we had recruited all the bat simps, Krelikan recruited all the bat haters to his cause, making tensions heighten like never before. While the two groups obviously had vastly different opinions before, they never argued with each other and simply expressed their ideals. Now, however, both sides were placed directly on opposite sides of an ongoing conflict, creating perhaps unjustified rage.
This fury spread to other members of both groups, with heated discussions repeatedly breaking out. Even the most respectable members of each group were affected, saying thoughtless and anger-fuelled things that they probably never would’ve said otherwise. The objective of both factions switched from making simple rivals to making monstrous engines of war, covered in bulk and bristling with weapons, each trying to one-up the opposing side’s efforts before them.
While all this went on, one man, @Chronicler, set out to put an end to the war. But his method was not one of peace - he intended to stop the fighting by destroying both sides of the conflict. He started with mutations - drawings of ‘mutated’ bats he’d created with radiation. This all led up to him declaring an all out nuclear strike, aiming to take out everyone. He said that he’d release the radiation - unless the Bat Brigade signed a peace treaty
With no other options and threat quickly approaching, I made the decision to agree to the proposed treaty, before returning to the Bat Brigade PM explain things.
Chronicler meant well, but ultimately his treaty only made things worse, with both sides unsatisfied with the outcome. The problem was that the treaty was agreed to so quickly out of fear of Chronicler’s threats that the news came as an unexpected and unplanned for surprise. Many moccists were still working on new creations, and not just war machines - users new to the conflict wanted to make their own contributions but now couldn’t due to the treaty.
Things got heated again when @MakutaOisli posted his own bat girl, Cappuccino, a mere two days after the treaty was signed. Now, it wasn’t necessarily Oisli himself who made matters worse, it was actually me. See, I had a commitment to draw every new bat released, a commitment I was forced to adhere to when Oisli not only posted a new bat, but also specifically asked me to draw it. I never like disappointing people, so I did as I was asked and released this picture shortly after. The response was very mixed, especially from Chronicler, who was angered about the treaty being apparently broken.
T4k4nuv4 summed up the issue in a very logical way that basically explained everything wrong with the treaty:
It was a sound argument, but the remaining MMCC members became annoyed because @Eilrach, one of their most recent recruits, never got the opportunity to post his moc due to the sudden effects of the treaty. I argued that Eilrach posting his mite would restart the war, and that Oisli was an exception as he had no idea about the treaty, while Eilrach certainly did. Krelikan accepted this logic, but undoubtedly begrudgingly.
Things got worse when @Philiam-II posted another bat a day later. My argument still stood, as Philiam was not involved with the war before now, and this time I didn’t make a drawing in order to maintain peace, but Krelikan and Chronicler were clearly still not convinced.
By this time my own associates at the Bat Brigade were getting equally annoyed. It was very clear by now that the treaty was disliked by the majority of users on both sides of the conflict, as it restricted their creativity and prevented new creations from being made. As such, we organised a massive strike in the Bat Brigade PM. Our plan was to create 24 Mocs, one for each hour of the day. They’d be fairly varied - some regular bats, some anti-bug units, but most importantly of all, a new series we called Hazbats - radiation resistant mechanical bats with specialised properties for dealing with either the mites or Chronicler’s mutations.
On February 26th, Bat O’Clock began.
And it was awful.
In hindsight, restarting the war with a barrage of Mocs was probably not the best way we could’ve gone about defying the treaty. A much better solution would’ve been to actually discuss the terms of the agreement with Chronicler and Krelikan, but we hadn’t considered that at the time.
Basically everything that went wrong can be summed up in the comments of Bat’O’Clock, Hour 1: Loaf and Bread. Krelikan and I got into an extremely heated argument that I’m still not too proud of. It got really bad, as you can see, with Krelikan resorting to just insulting all the bat moccists. Even Chronicler, someone who’d been opposed to the bats since the beginning, had to step in to tell Krelikan that I was in the right, at least for the most part.
I never really understood what his argument was, but I think, once again, T4k4nuv4 responded to it most logically and most sensibly:
Looking back on it, I think he should’ve been the Bat Brigade spokesperson, not me. He had a way of forming and communicating his opinions so clearly and was certainly much more level-headed than the rest of us.
Things calmed down by the end of the day, and on February 28th, @Cordax took the initiative to propose a second treaty beneficial to all parties. A PM was created, including Chronicler, Krelikan and several representatives from both sides. This time, despite all odds, everyone got along. I think we were all embarrassed by what had gone down on the 26th, so we were all much more willing to listen to and understand each other.
The terms of the revised treaty were thoroughly discussed.
Bat Brigade members provided these ideas:
Meanwhile, Krelikan conferred with the MMCC and released the following statement:
And finally, Chronicler, the man opposed to both sides, to the war as a whole, the man who created the controversial first treaty, had this to say:
Everything was in agreement. We’d finally come to an outcome desirable to every party. Tensions loosened and the war officially ended. People could an can still post bats and bugs whenever they want, as long as they refrain from starting another war.
As for the bats themselves, my six went on a journey across England, which was documented on my Flickr page. During their holiday, Syrup found and adopted a rock which she named Harold. As of now, all six bats have returned home and are ready for whatever the future brings.