Notorious Fandango

Notorious Fandango was a flag on the Midnight Ocean. Holding one of the most complex and varied histories since the opening of Midnight, Notorious Fandango opened up a whole new realm of game play for its members focused on fun, friends, and doing it their way.

History
The flag of Notorious Fandango officially came into being on January 12, 2005. However, the ideas that its members founded the organization on were nothing new to the Puzzle Pirates community. A very small basis for their flag name, their public statement, and eventually their fundamental flag ideals was derived from a forum thread located in Parley and posted on September 12, 2003 by a pirate going by the name of "Fandango" and titled Reveloution (sic). Little is known about this character and whether he continued playing as himself or was an alt of another prominent community member afraid to voice these sentiments.

The discussion continued in early January of 2005 when Shanoyu posted his now famous forum instruction manual, How to run a revolution. This grandiose plan to upend the ocean called for a ragtag group of pirates, a fearless leader, apostles, a creed, lots of guns, cash, and hands to do the work. With those words in stone, an ocean full of stagnation and so called "island sitting" flags, and a large amount of risk on the parts of the founding members, Notorious Fandango would be born just 7 days later.

Notorious Fandango espoused a new philosophy: the game is there to be played. Your friends should be able to stay your friends, even if you aren't always on the same side. Ownership of permanent elements (like islands and shoppes) leads to feelings of entitlement over opportunity, and duty over the fun one is paying for.

Because the flag challenged the established powers on the (then) only server in the game, early opposition to the Fandango project was strong. Many members lost hearties simply for joining the project, and the complaints and forum outrage reached a peak some say has never been seen since, spilling all the way into internet interviews with Cleaver himself. The first and most cohesive anti-Fandango force in game was dubbed The Gladiators, an alt war crew composed of most of the most powerful players in the ocean and containing a massive war fleet, whose stated goal was to join any flag attacked by Fandango and ensure Fandango lost every blockade they attempted.

The Fandango Approach
One of the most unique and sometimes publicly irritating aspects of the flag Notorious Fandango was its collective basis of thought on common game mechanics and "the way things are". The flag was conceived on the notions of fun and active game play in a role playing stance while exercising the full limits of game mechanics and preconceived assumptions on proper behavior and conduct. The Fandango Approach to Puzzle Pirates can be roughly defined in the following sections.

Leadership
The Fandango Approach to leadership generally encompassed multiple views enacted by a single person. The monarch was chosen, usually by the older and established members of the flag and former monarchs, and was left to run things basically unchallenged with commentary and advice from the aforementioned members. Fandango's belief was that in order to run a proper revolution, the leader must inspire people to want to follow them more than their current leaders. While the monarch was often able to fulfill this requirement, another solution was put into place to ensure an omnipresent, enigmatic, and almost insane leadership figure for the flag. (See the section below on The Mad Professor.)

War
The war mechanic was exercised often by Notorious Fandango and sometimes for somewhat scrupulous reasons. Aside from the Black Sheep Brigade, Notorious Fandango may have cumulatively issued more war declarations than any other flag in Midnight's history and for a variety of reasons. The Fandango approach to war was that it didn't have to be either good or bad, but was seen in the context of the situation. War was issued as punishment to small flags for random crew invites, to other equitably sized flags just for fun, or to any other number of flags for any other number of reasons. War happened as long as it lined up with Fandango's plan, and Fandango's plan was to have fun, so war was used in numerous situations to accomplish that.

Blockades
Like war, the Fandango approach used blockades to accomplish its numerous goals without focusing on any aspect of them being "bad" or "evil". Notorious Fandango did not blockade islands because they wanted to take and hold them for months on end, which was quite a different view than most flags had at the time; rather, they wanted to enjoy the thrill of the blockade win or lose and move on from the results with an open mind. Quite a few of the large island holding flags like Avalon, Silver Dawn,, Crimson Tide, Looterati, Carpe Noctem, and Trans-Atlantic Empire saw this as a threat to their island ownerships and actively condemned Notorious Fandango's methods and members.

Babylon

 * For more information, see the main article on Babylon.

Babylon was a term used by Notorious Fandango to identify "The Downpressas", or essentially, every flag and group that promoted the non-puzzling stagnancy of the ocean. First quoted by Looseweed in his first post on "polytricks", this term was often applied to the above named flags as they represented the anti-Fandango method. To Notorious Fandango, island sitting was a wasted enterprise that only drained flags of resources used to constantly defend the island, and fun that could be spent elsewhere. This also led to the so called "mega alliances" like RAWR eliminating possible blockade targets for small flags if they weren't part of the alliance network. Babylon would come to be a term applied in numerous situations and not always in the correct context, but at its root has been a battle cry against the stagnation and faltering of the ocean community.

The Mad Professor
Following Shanoyu's How to run a revolution manual, the first step is the fearless leader. A sane individual with massive ocean activity and the ability to attract like-minded individuals. Notorious Fandango found this leader in the guise of The Mad Professor. He has never been seen by any pirate outside of the upper ranks of Notorious Fandango and has only ever conveyed his messages to the ocean via his disciples. No one knows much about him except that he was the brain, heart, and center of all of Notorious Fandango's efforts during their active formation and led the revolution until the day the flag disbanded. His current whereabouts are unknown. During his time as head of Notorious Fandango, he spoke to the ocean seven times, each time announcing what Notorious Fandango would do next to stir up the ocean or what their next event would be.

Possibly one of his most impacting messages was the Fandango Convention, a set of rules regarding conduct between flags during war and blockades. It was not the first set of rules to be adopted on the Midnight Ocean but it was a major factor in how Notorious Fandango conducted themselves during war time and in engagements with their enemies.

Messages of the Mad Professor
- The Fandango Convention (rules of war) - June 30, 2005 - Posted by Looseweed

- The State of the Fandango Address: Summer 05 - July 20, 2005 - Posted by Annesatsu

- Fandango's Intent For the Big Shebang - September 20, 2005 - Posted by Llama

- Found on the Desk of the Mad Professor - October 12, 2005 - Posted by Quiglin

- Blockade Practice Island! (BPI) - January 10, 2006 - Posted by Looseweed

- A New Year, A New Extortion - January 12, 2006 - Posted by Whitefire

- The Fandango Fame Factory, or A Tale of The Mad Professor - April 4, 2006 - Posted by Sailmaker

Ocean Impact
In the two years that Notorious Fandango operated, they participated in 35 blockades as direct contestants, many other blockades just to stir up trouble, and uncountable wars, forum discussions, and conflicts. Notorious Fandango was the first flag since the start of the Midnight Ocean to truly adopt a policy and ideal structure that was not following the standard conformities of the ocean to date. They changed how the ocean perceived the "bad guys" and gave back life to the casual blockade. During its peak, Notorious Fandango was able to unseat some of the long time island sitting flags and move on swiftly to their next plan of action without losing a step. For the first time in a long time, the ocean had something big happening on it; that something big was Notorious Fandango and their new perceptions of how the game can be played.

Dissolution
Notorious Fandango disbanded on November 16, 2006. The final post was made by Leif, then king of Notorious Fandango, and brought to a close two years of one of the most unique and ingenious flags the ocean has ever seen. Leif stated at that time that Notorious Fandango's final gifts to the ocean were the hundreds of capable and eager pirates ready to start anew. This gift however came with a warning that should the ocean grow stale again, these individuals would find their own excitement.

Blockade History
Lifetime Blockade Record - 36 blockades - 8 wins:14 losses:4 events

A number of the blockades listed were actually event blockades, not intended for an island transfer. Among them are Ketchy Cubby events, a Sink-a-Thon and a Battle of the Sexes blockade.