Universe A

Universe A is a flag on the Cerulean Ocean, founded on the July 19, 2012 by Culliford, Fonshizzle, and Zarchi.

The creation
Upon the creation of Universe A the monarch position was appointed to Fonshizzle, with Culliford and Zarchi using their alts Downpour and Notzarchi as royals. The three were ambitious and had the mindset of blockading, and nothing was going to get in their way.

Getting started
Universe A blockaded and successfully won on the same month the flag was created. Upon this first step in the flag's growth, they decided it was time to strike at a larger target. Discussions later led them to double drop on both and  on August 25, 2012. Much like there blockade at Orca they won and it has let them open new doors to an active blockading force on the Cerulean Ocean. Shortly after the double blockade both Zarchi and Voidrix left Dies Irae and created new crews, Empty Planet and Unquenchable Fury, and established themselves within the crew, with Voidrix taking another royal spot.

With no lust to continue to hold Orca Island, the flag wanted to develop a way of giving away the island in an event. Ultimatly this was eventually achieved with the Touch My Junk event that occurred October 6, 2012. In which Locu won flying the flag of Booching Blaggards. Similarly to Orca Island, Universe A had no more intentions to hold Olive Island any further. The island was awarded to Scuppersteak of the flag Kittens in the event The Olive 77 on Saturday, December 8, 2012.

The Tyranny quadra-drop
On Sunday, October 21st, 2012 the flag Tyranny did a four island drop on, , and. Upon seeing these likely four flag sits, Universe A took it into its hands to stop this happening and dropped on both Namath and Cranberry Island. With this Namath was successfully taken in a 3-0 sweep. However cranberry had added contention in the form of Undertow and Tzz of the flag fallen (neither dropped chests). The blockade finished with a 2:1:2 round distribution between Tyranny, Universe A and fallen resulting in a successful defense for the island holders Trans-Atlantic Empire. Subsequently the two other islands were defended successfully with both being ended early by an OM, leaving the principle of stopping flag sits achieved.

Spring struggles
On November 15, 2012, the flag, A Plus Pirates announced they would be scuttling away Spring Island to the brigand king, Vargas the Mad, of The Enlightened the following day. What they didn't know was that Universe A had been planning to drop on Spring for a month, and had gathered up the commodities, ships, and people, all to be ready for that weekend. When they saw the announcement, Zarchi got in contact with A Plus Pirates. After some discussion, APP, refused to cancel the scuttle and fight the blockade against UA, so UA waited a week until they were able to drop on the BK. On November 24, 2012, They dropped, and defeated The Enlightened in 1 round, then flag sat Round 2 & 3.

Cerulean versus Meridian
In conjunction with their ally Faded Legend, both Universe A and Faded Legend did a combined triple drop on In Love and War's, , and on Saturday, February 23, 2013. All three islands were successfully attacked under sinking conditions. However, only Terra was contested by the defenders and only for a single round. Thus, leaving Universe A with another island gain, in the form of Kirin Island. The defending flag, was well-known for spending the majority of their time on Meridian Ocean, and a lot of people were unhappy with them holding some of the main islands on the Cobalt side of Cerulean.

Papaya packs a punch
With the recent gain of for the flag Riding High off Elements of Fear earlier in the month. Universe A took it into their hands to drop on Papaya two weeks later on Saturday, March 9, 2013 in hopes of getting a contested blockade out of Riding High. The island was successfully attacked in three contested rounds in a non sinking environment. However, round three became sinking after Elements of Fear dropped in round two, to make it sinking for round 3, as they were at war with Riding High. Elements of Fear never entered the board.

The following week Riding High re-dropped on Papaya in an attempt to reclaim the island from Universe A. However, after three rounds of a sinking blockade, Universe A proved dominant and the flag continued to hold Papaya Island.

Tyranny strikes again
On Sunday, May 12, 2013 the flag Tyranny dropped on Kirin Island. The blockade was fought across five sinking contested rounds with the eventual successful defense by Universe A. Both round one and two were won by Tyranny, due to out-jobbing and ocean-side boards. In the third round, Tyranny continued to lead in points, with a gap of over 100 for most of the round. However, when Tyranny sank a war brig and junk on the same turn, the admiral, Zarchi, made a situational, risky call, of bringing in a undermanned war frigate during the round, to contest the main cluster and hopefully triumph Tyranny's two brigs. As the war frigate began to contest the main cluster, Universe A started to close the gap. The war frigate was ordered not to sink more than one war brig at a time, to ensure that Tyranny would not counter with a war frigate of their own. In the last turn, Universe A passed Tyranny and claimed two point victory after trailing in points the entire round. The fourth and fifth round saw some more war frigate play by the defenders (fielded in round five by Tyranny) securing the rounds and the island.

Madam Yu-Jian marks Kirin
On Saturday June 8th, the brigand king, Madam Yu-Jian dropped on Kirin Island, after hitting two weeks before, due to a flotilla that spawned off of Corona. The blockade was alongside two other blockades at both Nu, and Orca Island. However the flags at those blockades let Universe A job to around 50 people before posting their offers, so that the BK could still be beaten. The BK was an 8-strength, which was the highest in Cerulean history, as of June 8th. The BK was completely sunk at the beginning of Round 3, as the BK refused to spawn any boats in the last 20 minutes of Round 2, making a third round defense required for the first fifteen minutes.

Terra's tax troubles
On Sunday June 30, 2013, the flag Universe A dropped on Terra Island with the proposal to lower taxes to 0% from the current 100% that the defending flag Fallen had set in place. After the forum intent to drop on Terra, Fallen announced they would not be defending Terra Island so the flag Tyranny dropped on Terra Island at 8:00am PT, after previously announced that Universe A would be dropping at 12:00pm PT on the same day. Universe A shifted their plans and showed up at 8:00am to contend against the other attacking flag Tyranny.

Before the beginning of round 1, there was a pay war between the two flags, which went up to 3.5k/seg, (the highest pay in Cerulean history at the time.) After Universe A stopped raising pay, Tyranny continued to raise it to 4k/seg, then 6k/seg. Five minutes before the round began, Tyranny dropped their pay to 3.5k/seg to match Universe A, as an attempt to grab jobbers with the higher wages being flashed in front of their faces.

After the first two rounds, Universe A was up 2-0, and Tyranny decided to pull another trick. Right before round 3 began, Tyranny lowered their pay to 1k/seg, then the round started, so Universe A was unable to match, making pay, 3.5k/seg to 1k/seg. It was clear at this point Tyranny had accepted defeat, but wanted to try to sabotage future plans for Universe A. Tyranny continued to bring boats into the board, and the third round was won by Universe A by over 200 points.

During this blockade Tyranny also dropped on Cranberry and Garden Cradle, they lost at Garden Cradle due to the fact they had to keep all of their jobbers at Terra. They did win Cranberry which was uncontested. This left the principal of their triple blockade as a mere success.

Double trouble: Park/Terra
On Saturday, July 20th, 2013, Universe A blockaded Park Island, which at the time, was being held by What The Falchion. Ten minutes after the drop of the Park blockade, Undertow dropped on Terra Island, putting Universe A both in the attacking, and defending positions.

In the first round at Park, the jobbing was even, and UA was short on people, as they had to send a junk to Terra to contest against Undertow, which gave the defenders a small advantage boat-wise. However, WTF was unwilling to let their boats sink, and because of this, they took a bunch of boats off points to go and get fresh ships, so they didn't sink, which gave UA a huge lead, and eventually the round.

The second round saw some war frigate play, and one of the worst boards (points-wise) in Cerulean history, with every point but 1 being ocean-side, a huge advantage for UA, but WTF did not even attempt to cover points, making it a an easy round for UA as well.

Round 3, WTF gathered all their jobbers onto a war frigate of 60 people. Universe A covered points until there was about 20 minutes left, then took them all off the board and brought a grand frigate with 60 people in to play with the war frigate. Unfortunately the WTF war frigate ran off the board when chased, and the GF sat on points until the end of the blockade.

All the while at Terra, Universe A successfully defended with a junk and sloop against Undertow's war brig and 2 sloops.

Terra's collapse
On August 31st, 2013, Universe A was hit at Terra by Panic at 12:00pm PST. The blockade was the worst performance in UA history due to a number of people failing to show up to the blockade. On the day of the blockade, UA was supposed to have six navvers, and a jobbing contact, that were all highly trained, and had done their respective jobs many times before. However, on the day of the actual blockade, three of the navvers, and no JC showed. One of the three navvers had to take over the role of jobbing contact, leaving two of the regular team ready to defend Terra. UA rummaged up a few navvers they had not navved with, or had never navved before, but even then, the numbers were limited to a team of four, and a jobbing contact.

Regardless, the defense still took place, and UA started with a decent group to contest against Panic's attacking effort. Round 1 was in UA's hands the entire round, until on the farthest ocean side cluster, where the battle was being won by UA, their navver disconnected, and was sunk in 3 turns of constant shot (8x per turn.) This brought the score within 20 points for the rest of the round, and even then UA should have won the round easily, but due to miscommunication, and failure to listen to the admiral, boats were not covering the correct clusters, and the round was lost by 15 points.

Round 2, was a heavy ocean side board, giving an immediate advantage to the attackers, however UA had a jobber advantage of 10-20 bodies. This round also should have been won, but due to such a short nav staff, UA had to keep upgrading into larger boats, forcing a frig to be used, when it was not in a good position. With only two experienced navvers, and two who had never blockade navved before, Zarchi decided at the end of Round 2 that there was no point in continuing, and UA pulled out of the blockade. Failure to follow through, and failure to co-ordinate due to the new navvers, and Panic's impressive nav team, ultimately killed UA's chances of defending Terra another day.

Corona Reef and the end of the Maniacal Menagerie alliance
As summer closed, and Maniacal Menagerie was nowhere to be seen for months, they were dropped on by Panic, on all of their islands except. When royals in the flag logged on they were contacted by Universe A, in the attempt to help with a defense, their appeals to help were ignored, and so Universe A, and some active members of MM decided to drop on Corona Reef, and take it under the care of a more active flag. With three uncontested rounds, Universe A was the new owner of Corona Reef, and all of their other islands were flagsat and taken by Panic. The long standing alliance between Maniacal Menagerie and Universe A had been terminated, UA tried to contact MM to re-ally, or help in taking back their islands, but these appeals were too ignored.

Gretchen Goldfang chooses Corona
A few weeks after the taking of Corona Reef from MM, a flotilla one league off of Corona dropped. This flotilla, was Gretchen Goldfang's of the flag Jinx. The blockade was overjobbed by a flag sitting blockade, which would not let go of jobbers, and because of this during round 1, UA was only able to bring in a war frigate, and a war brig, about twenty minutes into the round. The three strength BK brought in four frigates, a xebec, and a war brig for the first round, which proved challenging for one frig and brig.

As the second round began, UA fielded three fully manned boats, a war frigate, war brig, and a junk, and they set to finish off the BK. After about twenty five minutes of fighting, the BK had been defeated and UA had successfully defended Corona Reef.

Rebounding against Panic
After a miserable loss at Terra a few months ago, Universe A was once again attacked by Panic, this time at Spring Island. However, this time UA was ready for action. As the drop was announced, UA rallied for support, and made sure to have a full team of navigators as to give Panic a proper defense. As the blockade began UA had a jobber advantage of around five. However the difference came down to great navigating, which UA provided during round 1.

As round 2 dawned, UA had a jobber lead of around twenty, and their extra boat on top of talented navigating lead to an easy victory of this round. Round 3 however, UA allowed Panic to catch up in jobbing my not matching pay, and the UA nav team had it's worst round of the blockade. After sinking more times in this round than all the others combined, UA found themselves at a loss for round 3, while Panic happily forced a round 4.

After the hour long break, UA found themselves with another jobbing advantage, despite not matching Panic's pay in an attempt to make it more even, and the round was easily won by Universe A, securing the blockade with a final score of 3-1. As the blockade came to a close, Universe A and its team knew it made up for their mistakes at Terra.

Madam Yu Jian marks Kirin, again!
On Saturday April 5, 1014, the brigand king, Madam Yu-Jian dropped on Kirin Island for the second time, and once again Universe A was there and ready to defend. After two rounds of pummeling, UA had nearly completely killed off the seven strength attacker. Halfway into round 3, the BK was completely defeated and Kirin was successfully defended in three rounds.

Public statement
We're the ones who knock.

Extended public statement
Recruiting crews and pirates, apply with any royal today!

Thanks for jobbing with us at the Kirin Island blockade! We look forward to seeing you all and others on the blockade board soon!

Events:

 * Touch My Junk - Orca Island giveaway
 * The Olive 77 - Olive Island giveaway
 * Touch My Junk 2 - Papaya Island giveaway
 * Hauling 101 - Park Island giveaway

Island transfers:

 * Intent to transfer Beta Island to Falling Stars
 * Intent to transfer Namath Island to Nova Scorpius

Flag forums

 * Universe A forums