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Sonic CulT

From Sonic Retro

PACHUKA and saxman

Info here is wrong. At least three separate events were combined into one story. Furthermore, why is this even here? How does a political squabble relate to the history of SC?

  • Early 2000 - DNS traffic for various sites managed by ZTNET were redirected to point to a page with an obscene image. This redirection was done by Jeremy Chadwick, who used to work for ZTNet. PACHUKA was never implicated. Read more about it here: http://www.emulationzone.org/aboutus/holywar/hw4.htm
  • Summer 2000 - SFGHQ, Fan Made Games and other sites were deleted by a rogue staffer. By comparing IP addresses of those who logged into the FTP server to delete the files to those that had credentials to access the server, the culprit was uncovered and determined to be "Ultra the Vamp" or "Ultra the Vampire". (Who later claimed it was done by "Bob Smiley".) TSSZ covered this event on their site. PACHUKA was never implicated.
  • Summer 2002 ? - PACHUKA gained access to the news scripts on Emulation Zone and (I believe) SSRG, and posted some obscene messages. Either the night before or a few nights before, PACHUKA messaged Andy via AIM that he will more of less "be sorry". Shortly after the obscene messages were posted via the news scripts, Andy received two messages via AIM from two separate and unknown AIM accounts stating concern about the obscene messages. The timing and volume of said messages are suspect and likely pre-planned as other events did not trigger such a rapid and unison response from anonymous folks. The styling and content of the obscene messages, along with the ominous message received prior, all made PACHUKA a suspect. But how did he gain access?

Sometime after the incident, SSRG staff member Ultima admitted to Andy that he had given PACHUKA the credentials to access the new scripts. Ultima's access to SSRG / Emulation Zone were revoked as a result. Ultima later apologized to Andy for his actions, stating he did not know why he provided that information. (Victim of sly social engineering?)

SIDE NOTE: at the time of the event, PACHUKA did not access to the new scripts. He was given access at some point, but his access was revoked for bad behavior before this event occurred.

I know this article was written by past Sonic Cult members years ago with a favorable bias towards PACKUKA, but the twisting of facts discredits this entire section and causes it to be labeled as fake. Also, I noticed said authors have a history of going to great lengths to claim how certain people PACHUKA harassed or tormented later became "friends". While I am certain that is true in certain situation, I also know that some folks agreed to be "friends" either to shut him up, to avoid being his next target, or because they were genuinely afraid of him and for their safety if they didn't accept his terms. And given what was known at the time and especially later on regarding PACHUKA's behavior inside and outside the Sonic community, their fear was rational.

--NO CARRIER - 10/04/2023


"As Sonic CulT began to grow, in 2000, Andy Wolan of the Sonic Stuff Research Group attempted to join the two together."

A "partnership", or "merger" of SSRG and Sonic Cult was NEVER discussed. His site was small and had no unique content.

However, Andy did agree to give PACHUKA a second chance in the Sonic community. (2000? 2001? 2002? My guess is 2002 because everything went south after the spring semester.) Andy gave PACHUKA a chance to show he can be trusted by granting him access to the news scripts to post relevant news, and made him a board moderator to help moderate the boards. (Or he was unbanned and made board mod.) Andy also tried to grant him an EmulationZone email account, but ZTNET would not have any of that due to PACHUKA's behavior at other emulation sites. (Behavior Andy was not aware of until years later.) Granting PACHUKA such level of access was met with rejection by some on the Emulation Zone and SSRG staff, as many voiced their concern to Andy. But Andy stood by this matter for a few reasons:

  • PACHUKA had great enthusiasm, which if directed properly could benefit the community
  • PACHUKA had a knack in talking with people, meaning he might be able to get SEGA dev in his area to cough-up info about the Sonic games
  • It was the Christian thing to do

Andy knew it was a gamble, but felt is was worth taking. So much so that he put his reputation on the line. In addition, it was also understood that PACHUKA would run his own site independently of SSRG, and the drama on Sonic Cult would stay on that site and not spill over to SSRG, and vis versa.

At first, this plan seemed to be going well. But after a month or two, it began to deteriorate after PACHUKA began testing the boundaries of his privilege's on the forum. For example, he would replace his avatars with obscene imagery involving other forum members, post phallic symbols, or post insulting messages about others on the forum. Andy asked PACHUKA to knock it off, which he would do temporarily, but PACHUKA would continue after backing off for a while. He even went as far as to argue that the phallic images were "rocket ships" and that "you are the one with a dirty mind". His behavior even scared away people who wanted to join the site.

The final straw came when PACHUKA was trying to encourage someone on the forum to commit suicide. Andy asked the board moderators to immediately kick PACHUKA off the forums. (Access to the news scripts were also revoked.) While the board moderators initially complied, sadly, his access was later reinstated by another board admin whom PACHUKA was chummy with. Andy then had to argue with the board mod about his actions to reinstate PACHUKA, and as you can imagine PACHUKA playing this drama to his advantage.

And yes, there is more but that was the key event.

So to everyone wanted to know why Andy developed a distrust of PACHUKA, it's because he put his reputation on the line to give PACHUKA a second chance only to watch it backfire horrendously. --NO CARRIER - 10/04/2023

Sonic CulT and SSRG

Comments:

  • "Since saxman and PACHUKA had recently made up" When? The situation discussed under "PACHUKA and saxman" in the original article, as described, never happened.
  • The whole situation started originally over an argument between Stealth and Saxman. (Over what, I am not sure.) Andy tried to step in and deescalate it, but unfortunately it instead escalated to an argument between Saxman and Andy. That lead to Saxman's account being suspended (NOT deleted) until the matter could be resolved. But before that resolution could be discussion, PACHUKA inserted himself into the argument. Given PACHUKA's behavior towards others in the community, it is clear he did not want to see the matter resolved, but rather wanted to see it escalate as a divided SSRG would only benefit him and not the parties involved. He did so by making details of the internal dispute public and even shared chat logs that were supposed to remain private. PACHUKA's actions only made the matter worse, resulting in a rift to form between SSRG and Saxman.
  • Ultima was removed from SSRG for providing PACHUKA the log in credentials to the news scripts, as mentioned above, leading to an obscene messages being posted by PACHUKA. I lost trust in him because of that and he said he understood, apologizing some time later.
  • Regarding GerbilSoft, in hindsight his site fell victim to PACHUKA causing a rift between SSRG and Saxman.
  • "saxman never got his site back from Andy" The data? False. Domain name? Somewhat true, as it was registered by ZTNET but its registration had expired when the events occurred.

--NO CARRIER - 10/04/2023


The Fall of SSRG

Some missing details:

  • Chaos was selected by Andy after a 2-4 months long search for a new head.
  • Andy had a "claw-back" provision to retake control if new head did not run site properly. View old SSRG website backups via WayBack Machine to read the text if you don't believe me. Some folks like to pretend this provision never existed because it fits their narrative.
  • "Chaos got along with PACHUKA better than Andy had, and the two managed to form a 'peace treaty'."

Article fails to state that Chaos later said that the 'peace treaty' was a mistake as PACHUKA would not honor it long term once the situation benefited PACHUKA. (IE - he realized the deal was flawed as PACHUKA could not be trusted.) He also apologize to Andy for accepting the "peace treaty" on two separate occasions.

  • Andy had given PACHUKA a chance to redeem himself in 2001 or 2002, and it backfired on Andy horrendously. He had every right not to trust this deal. And given what was later learned about PACHUKA behavior inside and outside the Sonic community, how can you honestly trust what PACHUKA says?

--NO CARRIER - 10/04/2023


Rise to Power

"When SSRG closed down, Sonic CulT had already become the largest Sonic research site in the community."

His site was one of the largest, if not the largest after SSRG shutdown. (Jan 2003.) However, this entire WIKI article fails to state how PACHUKA's site grew using information stolen data from other Sonic secrets sites. When questioned, he said something along the lines of, "it's on the internet, so I can do what I want." It's still called theft. His site grew in popularity off the backs off people whom were never credited, and when those sites balked at it, he or his members harassed them.

It is worth noting that this claim to being the largest Sonic Research site would be challenged as early as 2004 by other new sites. Based on the issues his site experienced in 2004, you could argue the site was quickly dethroned of that title.

--NO CARRIER - 10/04/2023

Mass editing and commenting

Andy, please in future either just replace the section or put up the edited text in here for discussion. Comments on the actual article such as "(replace above with this)" or "(this section isn't needed)" aren't appropriate for the articles themselves. Keep it to the talk pages, ta. --Cinossu 16:27, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Remove "DUSTHILL IS FAKE"

I vote to delete this "DUSTHILL IS FAKE" paragraph. It adds nothing. --NO CARRIER

A decade later, I still stand by this statement. Put this under the "PACHUKA" user page of Sonic Retro instead. --NO CARRIER - 10/04/2023

Hmmm

So other than the fact that this page is horribly out of date, should Current Status in the infobox be changed to something like "unattended" or "no longer maintained" rather than "online"? It seems like that would make more sense. --PicklePower 05:13, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Original Comment

Holy shit this page needs to be expanded.

Is this comment old? The page seems quite extensive now--maybe we should remove the "cleanup" tag? --Tweaker 17:36, 28 December 2007 (CST)

Oh, it still needs a lot of cleanup. I'm doing my best, but I'll need Saz's help because I wasn't around to see most of this shit happening. --Aurochs (Talk | Block)
I strongly suggest rewriting this WIKI so it focuses on the actual accomplishment of Sonic Cult, not the problems it caused or political squabbles it created. But it that is all it accomplished, then this page can be reduced heavily --NO CARRIER - 10/04/2023


final comment

To everyone that encouraged the sharing of "shit posts" about Andy and Saxman in this article in the name of exposing "the truth", why is everyone so scared to mention the elephant in the room, and that being why PACHUKA went to jail on two occasions? Why are folks suppressing that information?

--NO CARRIER - 10/04/2023