Dear RUR shareholders and members of the public,
Recently one of RUR Clan shareholders has expressed his dismay that an RUR employee was involved in an attack on one of his Clan's notum towers. I respect this investor's feelings on the matter and fully understand his desire to sever all links with RUR at this stage. I do however, for future reference, wish to clarify RUR policy on these matters.
RUR, as a company, is not involved at any level in the Omni-Clan war effort. We are a civilian, publicly listed company. We manufacture consumer goods (robots mostly) and take on ad-hoc engineering projects. Like Miir and Bronto Burgers, we do business with all factions and our shareholders include Omni, Clan and Neutral investors. We do not manufacture weapons, even despite one particular person's relentless requests for a range of small, black, killer leetbots (you know who you are!). We have never operated a notum mine, nor ever will.
That said what must be understood is that each and every RUR employee is an individual, with his or her own private life, personal beliefs and outside-work interests. What an employee does out of office hours is his own affair. It is not RUR's place to question, judge or seek to influence what an individual employee chooses to do in their spare time. We are not an organised religion, we are not the army. We do not tell our people what to think, we require them to take no oaths. A fair days work for a fair day's pay is all we ask of our work force.
If we were to dictate how an employee should behave in his or her private life based on our shareholders' sensibilities, where should we then draw the line? Should we dismiss a worker because they support the wrong zigball team? Watch Leet pron? Listen to the Duran Duran albums? I don't think so, and for as long as I am director of RUR, we will continue to treat our employees private lives as just that: private.
All of which leads me neatly to my second point. RUR is owned by you, the shareholders. If you don't agree with our policies, you have the power to change things. All you need to do is get 51% of shareholders to back you and you can call for a motion of no-confidence. That would force me and my current board of directors to resign and a new director to be appointed.
So if you feel things need to change, buy more RUR shares, speak with the other RUR shareholders and get organised. It is all in your hands.
Dabblez.
Rubi-Ka Universal Robots
/ooc
If I may, I'd like to add a little ooc note here. There was indeed a NW incident which resulted in someone selling his RUR shares. I am perfectly okay with that, it's exactly how it should be. Anything that makes a player think about their RUR shares and act upon it is a positive. The whole purpose of having RUR shares out there is as an excuse for roleplayers to interact in character, even when it does mean the shareholders are unhappy with us.
There is however one thing that does worry me, though I suspect I might get in a whole lot of trouble by mentioning it. As I was editing the list of RUR shareholders, I was reminded of just how the number of Clan-players who own RUR shares has kept dropping with each year. This in itself would not be a big deal if it did not fit a more general trend.
Going back two years and more, I clearly recall RUR having some very strong ties with Clan roleplaying organisations. We worked with Unity of the Rose on storyline about developing a more "green" type of notum mine and with First Light on story about anti-robot terrorists attacking the Tir School of Engineering. Even in our various 'open to the public' style events, like the Science Symposium, there was a healthy amount of Clan participation.
Things have clearly changed. Where once there was a community, now it feels are if we've drifted apart. These days I cannot imagine three prominent Clan leaders like Lyricia, Cogs and Szentasha turning up to an RUR event as they did to the robo-dude ranch event, simply because it was advertised on The Buzz, without needing a special invite. If it wasn't for Channel42 I probably would not even know any Clan roleplayers at all any more.
So I am kind of wondering, where did it all go wrong? Is it something RUR's has done that has alienated Clan roleplayers ( a couple of our storylines had political overtones, but that seemed the only way to elicit some Clan reaction)? Is there a more wide-spread issue with the Clan roleplaying scene having turned more introspective ( maybe its just me, but there seemed to be curious little Clan presence at the various events during the whole Newland mayoral elections, for instance)?
Has the CoT given Clan players such a strong focus that they don't need the rest community anymore except in a clear cut adversarial role? Or have the changes in the story with the rise of Silverstone and the Sentinels simply chased off the moderate Clan roleplayers leaving only the hard-liners behind?
Maybe this is more of a topic of the Greeen Coat meetings, but as it follows from the in-character bit above, and I was just wondering if anyone else has noticed this trend or if I am just imagining things.
Originally Posted by Sary
