The Legend of pat

Games like this were the heart and soul of pat's existance. pat and Smashing Pumpkins had a long history already before this game. I had found a way to get under SP's skin and pat irritated the heck out of him every time we met. I had originally intended to continue the trend here, but the prospect of adding W.A.R (who by that time was already considered one of the ancients) to pat's list of victims was too much to resist.

So pat began tormenting W.A.R. from the opening hellos. The first broadcast was "Hi Hao, Hi Hao, it's after W.A.R. I go." This quickly drew his attention, but he didn't take me seriously at first because of pat's record. SP wasn't feeling all that happy about running into me either, suspecting that pat would continue his pattern of harassment — and putting up with pat while facing W.A.R. was something that SP didn't want to even try. He send quite a stern lecture on "behaving myself" once we met, and I don't think he quite believed me when I agreed.

Hao had entered this game with his protege, Shade, so it was no surprise that they met and quickly allied. While I'm sure he had a special nuking in mind to shut pat's big mouth, he recognized SP as the major threat and focused both his and Shade's attacks there. SP was sweating it out, not quite believing that pat would (or could) help him, but I moved in just in time to save SP from their combined fleet in his Home World, and then moved up and nuked Shade.

This had Hao quite shocked, but he didn't let it phase him long. He quickly dug in on the defensive and closed off all his gates to make our inevitable victory at least take longer. He realized that pat wasn't the no-account rookie his record indicated, so did ask who I really was. I didn't tell him everything, but did give at least enough so that he knew he hadn't been beaten by an amatuer. In true Hao style, the next day he sent an email (see below) to the SC Talk mailing list lamenting the loss and (as usual for Hao <grin>) reminding us of his prowess.

This game converted SP from hating pat to absolutely adoring him, especially after pat allowed him the honor of nuking W.A.R. pat's identity was still a secret, so I didn't tell SP who I was, but this game was the catalyst that finally convinced me to bring pat out into the light of day.

I just got nuked sigh... Smashing Pumpkins and pat, some low profile veteran from the lenox days nuked me...sigh...

It was close, Smashing was in between me and Shade, eventually we ovebuilt to attack smashing, but as I suspected pat overbuild a fleet and saved Smashing's life...

then they nuked shade, and I could only hold them off so long even with my usual prolonging defense...