Alright, my friends, thanks for the feedback! Here's chapter three.
Unknown User, Pokey, J, RAFRukh, Squall, and Aquilai feature and speak in this chapter. Special thanks goes to them, because I don't think I asked permission from all of them
Please, remember, I am not planning a real revolution. Any or all ideas expressed in this story are not, in any way, expressed by myself in real life. I argue against revolting against RAF, because the mods deserve more respect than that. They have done a better job than any of us, and I appreciate their hard work and understanding. Remember that this is fiction.
“He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.” -Niccolo Machiavelli.
Meeting of the Rebels (3) It is on record that TobiasMasonPark has always been a shy and timid young man. He was never an outspoken man; speaking only if the situation called for it. His opinions were hardly ever expressed, as he feared that doing so would spark an argument with whomever he was speaking. Truly, it was only after joining Richards Animorph’s Forum that the future Emperor Goose I learned to speak his mind without fear of offending the person he was speaking to, or looking like a fool. Indeed, RAF was his outlet.
“James McKinnon…He was an odd sort of kid,” claimed one Jonathan Dash, fellow classmate of TobiasMasonPark. “Nice enough but quiet. I don’t think we spoke much the entire time I knew him—which was back in ninth grade, when we sat next to each other in homeroom. If you asked anyone today, they probably wouldn’t know who you meant when you asked them who James McKinnon was. Teachers…maybe. But he wasn’t very social…” This begs the question of why a boy--reputed to be timid and shy-- would want to lead a revolution against the people (the moderators of RAF) that had shown him such kindness, and who treated him as a friend? And how could someone who hadn’t said more than a sentence per day throughout four years of High School manage to lead one of the most frightening, if not least noted, of all revolutions to date? Surely, this is a question that provides few, if any, answers. For this strange behaviour is a drastic change in character for the Goose.
However, the boy who would eventually lead the rebels in the RAF Revolution was not totally unrecognizable when he called for the first meeting of revolutionaries at the meeting hall at the Lodge Resort in Niagara Falls.
“I sat way in the back,” says a revolutionary named Caleb. “I could hardly hear what the kid was saying…He had a mic, too! Most of the time, he had his buddies speak for him, just to save face. But it was sloppy. The meeting was poorly planned, and you could tell that he didn’t think anyone aside from his friends would show up.” It has been reported that plenty of RAFians showed up at the meeting hall that day. One future rebel claimed that the entire hall was filled with revolutionaries; others are less passionate in their claims and state that “a reasonable number of people showed up.” But the precise estimate of rebels that attended the first revolutionary meeting in RAF History is irrelevant. What’s really noteworthy is how nervous TobiasMasonPark had been when he stepped up to the podium that morning.
The following is an excerpt taken from the war journal of TobiasMasonPark; a personal recount of the first meeting of revolutionaries:
The first of the revolutionaries arrived sometime after noon, today on the 1st of August, 2011. I had put off planning a meeting to discuss my plans for a RAF Revolution for far too long. It was time to take action. It was time to gather my fellow RAFians and begin to plot our takeover of Richards Animorph’s Forum. It was not going to be easy, that was clear. But I knew that I would have my faithful generals to back me up through and through. Of all the RAFians on the forums, these three alone were the ones I could trust. After Tony, Pokey and J arrived at the Lodge Resort we made our way over to the meeting hall. For the next hour we waited, and watched as the first of our revolutionaries began to arrive and take their seats in the spacious meeting hall. By the end of that hour I found myself growing increasingly nervous. I hadn’t expected nearly this many people to show up! I mean, there weren’t nearly as many participants to crowd the entire hall, but enough showed up so that most of the seats were full. I guess Tony and the others could tell I was nervous. They assured me that I would do great, and that the rebels would follow me with blind faith. By 2:00 pm, it was time for me to take my place at the podium. I got to my feet and strode over to the medium-sized wood box place at center stage. I looked up to see hundreds upon hundreds of strange faces—a mixture of males and females, men and women, children and adolescent…all and all, people I had never seen or spoken to prior to the meeting—staring up at me with intent. They watched me and waited for me to begin what they believed to be a thrilling speech. Oh, what a fool I had been! What kind of moron was I? What sort of revolutionary leader, supposedly bent on conquest, forgets to write a speech to rally his troops? What sort of fool would blindly follow such a person, so unprepared? Me…I was that fool. I was dumb enough to have people I never met fly over to Canada, pay for their own rooms at an expensive resort, and not even write a speech to assure them that I knew what I was talking about… So, I did was all the other revolutionary leaders never did at any of their historical rallies…I stared back at my followers. Normally, a historian wouldn’t take note of the meeting that took place that day…But, should a historian choose to write a biography about the RAF Wars, then they should note how much I was sweating up at that podium…The headlights blaring down on me, cooking me like some sort of food…The not-so-eager faces of my fellow RAFians looking up at me, making me too nervous to think of a good simile to explain how I was feeling right at that moment…It was so quiet, right at that moment, that I could hear someone coughing all the way at the back of the hall… Unknown RAFian: Hurry up and say something!
I laughed nervously into the microphone… “Ha…Um…”
I managed. “Right…Let’s begin.”
I took a deep breath…
And then another…
And then another…
Soon enough, I had successfully perfected my impression of someone having an asthma attack. Another Unknown RAFian: “You don’t even have a speech, do you?”
Third Unknown RAFian: “You made me come all the way here from Iowa, make me pay for my own room, and don’t have anything else to say but ‘um…yea…um?’ What kind of leader are you, anyway?”
This last voice was much closer to the stage—a masculine voice seated somewhere in the first couple of rows. But all the light was focused on the stage—focused on me! It was too dark to see anyone further than the first row. The mystery of this man’s identity made me feel more nervous, if anything. I was thinking that I should just shut up and have Tony or Pokey or J tell them all to go home. But Tony had something else in mind. “Hey, dipwad,”
Unknown User said, shoving me to the side and grabbing hold of the microphone. “You don’t see us flying down to Iowa and tell you how to comb your hair, do we? So why don’t you just quit complaining and respect the guy trying to speak?”
The RAFian who spoke earlier shouted back: “I would if he’d just think of something to say.”
“Then why don’t you come up here and try,”
Unknown User offered. “No, seriously. Walk up onto the stage and try and come up with your own speech. You do that, and we’ll follow you, instead of Goose.”
Tony waited for the unknown RAFian to step up. He didn’t. Tony then took me aside and whispered, “Come on, Loosey, Goosey, you can do this.”
I shook my head at him. “No, Tony, I can’t. I suck at talking to people.”
“Just…I don’t know. Why don’t you try imagining them in their underwear?”
“I’d really rather not.”
I said. “Why don’t we call it a night…Have these people come back tomorrow?”
I could tell, just from the look Tony gave me, that that idea wasn’t going to fly. “Is that what Napoleon would do?”
I forced a laugh, “He might have. Who really knows how those things really went down.”
And Tony did something I didn’t expect him to do…Even from Tony. He slapped me across the side of the head. “Listen, Goose, wise up. This is your show.”
He snapped. “This was your idea. You want to overthrow Richard and the mods, not any of these people. You wanted a revolution, Goosey. Now you have the chance to win these people over.”
Tony paused, and then said: “You aren’t your past, Goose. Nobody is. So forget about the crap that went down in High School. That stuff’s done with. Time to move forward. Time to be a man.”
I sighed. Tony wouldn’t have said any of that stuff if he really didn’t mean it. I looked back at J and Pokey, sitting right behind me. Then I turned to the crowd in front of us. It was time to be a man. I walked up to the podium, gently pushing my second-in-command aside.
I
grabbed the microphone. “You, kid from Iowa, what’s your name?”
I demanded. “You can call me Squall!”
He shouted back. “What can you tell me about War, Squall?”
For a moment, he said nothing. After half a minute, he said: “What do you want to know?”
“I want you to tell me why you’re here, Squall.”
I replied. “You say you came here to listen to some speech. Fine. You’ll get a speech. But I want to know why you are here today.”
Squall hesitated before speaking. “I think I came here to listen to you talk about a revolution. Isn’t that why we all came?”
There was a healthy murmur that came from the crowd. This seemed to give Squall some confidence. “I’m not the speaker here, buddy. I’m just one of one hundred people who came to Niagara Falls to listen to you talk about a revolution. That’s all you wrote in your little email.”
Some people in the crowd laughed. Others started clapping. I found myself wondering what all this meant to Squall. “Control the crowd, Goose.”
Tony whispered to me. “Don’t take insolence.”
I took another breath. “Do you consider yourself to be intelligent, Squall?”
He laughed. “Sure I do.”
I grinned. “Really? How many smart people fly over to Niagara Falls to listen to someone they met on some website ramble on about a revolution?”
“Are you calling me stupid?”
He shouted at me. “Yes.”
I replied. “I am. Because you come here, naïve and eager, to listen to me talk about war, because you want war. You want to be a soldier. You want to kill. You’re entering this war for all the wrong reasons. You could be following a madman, but it wouldn’t matter to you, just as long as you get to shoot a gun. Do you know what happens to gun-happy zealots who join the war?”
I made a slicing motion with my index finger, moving it along my neck. “Stupid soldiers die in war. They’re the first ones to get cut down when they leave the front lines, because they’re too eager to kill.”
“So what are you fighting for, then?”
someone shouted from further back in the crowd. “Who am I speaking to?” I barked back.
“They call me Aquilai on the forums.”
The young man shouted back. “I’ve banned you plenty of times in the ‘banning game’ thread.”
“Right.”
I said. “What do I fight for? Same as anyone. I want power.”
Another doubtful murmur from the crowd. “I fight because I love RAF.”
I clarified. “I fight because RAF is home to me. RAF has treated me right. I fight because there are problems with RAF. RAF is not perfect. Just like our parents aren’t perfect. Just like how our employers and co-workers aren’t perfect. Our teachers; our politicians; our lawyers…Good people, this is true. But flawed. We cannot have perfection with the moderators in charge. We cannot make RAF the…”
I struggled for a word. Tony whispered to me, “Utopia, Goose. The word you’re looking for is Utopia.”
I nodded slightly. “Utopia. We cannot make RAF the Utopia it was destined to be with the mods in charge. As good a job as they have done in the past, as friendly and intelligent as the mods may be, RAF suffers. It suffers because it is run by man. Not men…But man. Man—both male and female—is flawed, emotional, and bases their decisions on what they are currently feeling. They have biases and opinions that differ from everyone else’s. Once again, we are fooled into thinking we have a democracy. But really we have our own Council of Thirteen.”
And that’s when the crowd surprised me with murmurs of agreement. I could see a couple of people in the first row nodding in agreement. “How often have you posted something on the forums only to have a moderator tell you that it was in the wrong place, or inappropriate, or repetitive? How many of our fellows have been banned, never to be seen again, because they happened to piss off one of the mods? We do not have a democracy. You people do not have a voice. I am here to fight for RAF. I fight for you, Squall; and for you, Aquilai; and for all of the lurkers, trolls, banned ones and newcomers to the website. I fight so you may have a voice.”
“So who will be in charge?”
a loud, female voice shouted. “In charge?”
I repeated. “RAF will be in charge. There will be no notion of a moderator. Instead, we’ll have our best men working on a system to run the website. All the technical stuff—locking and deleting threads—will be run by computers. We will obliterate the notion of ranks amongst fellow RAFians. All will be equal. All will be the same!”
“You want us to be freaking communists!”
Someone shouted. “That’s what you want!”
“I want what you want, brother RAFian.”
I retorted. “Respect. Democracy. Fairness.”
“No. You want power!”
Another voice in the shadows. “Of course.”
I said. “It is my flaw as man. I am flawed by my desire for power. This is what I wish to fix: the idea of rank and power on RAF—a website that is supposed to promote equality, acceptance and understanding.”
“The moderators are doing a good job!”
someone cried out. “Down with the mods!”
another rebel shouted. “He’s a freaking communist!”
“Shut up and go back to America!”
“Acceptance! Equality! Understanding!”
“Viva La Revolution!”
“You’re out of control! He’s out of control!”
“He’s mad! Someone call the cops!”
“Acceptance! Equality! Understanding!”
“Down with mods! Down with mods!”
“You people are f**ked!”
The back doors swung open. I could see people dressed in dark colours exit into the brightly lit hallways of the Lodge Resort. There were only a few of them; five or six, no more. When the doors finally closed the meeting hall was filled with the cries and cheers of eager revolutionaries. “People of RAF, I have envisioned a new, new RAF.”
I shouted into the mic. “You have listened to my speech. I do not lust for war. I do not want the mods to be harmed. No. I do not wish for any RAFians to be harmed. We shall act in the most humane ways during this revolution. Do not let the mods’ people disillusion you from the cause—“
My voice was drowned out by the crowd’s declaration of down with mods! “We are not asking for a war. That is clear.”
I roared. “They do not understand. We are simply giving a voice to those without a voice. We are not trying to force our opinions onto those whose opinions differ from our own. Do not forget that the Rafians are our friends—our brothers and sisters! Even the mods—“
“DOWN WITH MODS!”
they chanted. “—Good people…But the reign of the moderators must end—“
“DOWN WITH MODS!”
They cried, pumping their fists into the air. “You are ready. You have all made that clear. The revolution will come soon. I leave you all to enjoy your stay here. Rest tonight. For tomorrow, we begin plotting our glorious revolution. Thank you.”
I turned away from the podium, all the while listening to a mixture of ”Down with Mods!"
and “Acceptance, Equality, and Understanding!” blaring from the crowd. Looking back now, it’s hard to believe that any of those words had been my own. 
