Oh, hello... didn't really pay much attention to this thread until my name appeared in the title.
Well, thank you for this unanticipated honor. I'd like to thank the Academy--
Oh, wait, wrong speech. *rifles through notes* inauguration... speech to the UN upon world domination... speech to the UN shortly before doomsday machine set off... blank paper... shopping list... another blank paper... Ah, here we go!
In the Year of Our Lord 1987, in the State of Kentucky in the United States of America, a child was born. No, there wasn't a star, or wise men. Heck, I didn't get gold, frankincense, or myrrh. I got gruel, Frankenstein, and a guy named Murray. Manger? No, hospital bed. Doesn't make for a good story, does it?
Well, I started growing up. Along the way, I (likely through the influence of my father and older brothers) began showing a marked interest in history. At a surprisingly young age I was able to rattle off a chronological list of all the monarchs of England since 1016 (I've expanded to Scotland and Russia by now). I knew the names of historical places and names most people don't ever learn. Did anybody care? Well, not really.
So, I went on my merry way. Then, my oldest brother (who is literally old enough to be my father) discovered an interesting, obscure, Swedish-made game by the name of Europa Universalis (you
may have heard of it
). Through my knowledge of the Latin title (did I mention I taught myself a bunch of Latin?), I knew this would have something to do with European history. And boy, was I right! I rapidly became a Europaholic (ooh, just coined a term) and went on to purchase EU2, HoI, Vicky, and CK (I'd get HoI2, but I'm not very interested in WWII).
In 2002, I read an interesting AAR called "World Conquest for Dummies", by the infamous Peter Ebbesen (I hope I spelt that name right...). Along with an earlier AAR I had caught a snippet of (by some guy named Uriel or something like that... it was England, if that helps anyone), this immediately sparked my interest in the AAR.
My first foray was a short piece called "A New History of the French Revolution" that found its way onto a wargame website I don't quite remember. This was soon followed by my first true AAR, "The Catholic King". This recieved quite a good following (even including some material provided by the great and mighty MrT), but was unfortunately cut short.
This would, even more unfortunately, turn out to be a habit.
As I littered the forums with innumerable failed AARs, I wrote such cut-short tales as "The Syrian Crusade" and "The LeathAAR-Stocking Tales". Of course, I actually finished some--note "Novgorod the Great" (and its sequel "God Save the CzAAR") as an example.
To make a long story short ("TOO LATE!"), I was one of those who followed CK from its promising beginnings, through the long dark night, to its final release. As soon as it came out I ordered it from Paradox and decided that I would do an England AAR. I then settled on a person: Roger de Montgomery, Count of Shrewsbury (and Arundel, which means Sussex in CK terms... Paradox needs to get their facts straight! Heck, they took away
all his lands (which is in itself realistic, at least) in later patches!)
...Oh, sorry, back to the story.
I was, at that time, following two quite wonderful AARs: Dance of the Shadows, and our previous week's winner's Blood-Red Hand. Both of these were story based, but my other attempts at story AARs (Catholic King, Syrian Crusade, etc.) tended to end early. (For the record, so did both of the ones I was following. But at least they had a good excuse. I'm just to quick to jump to other ideas I have.)
I decided to make it a story. A long one. The game was, to say the least, quite violent (assassanations galore! And those @#$% Welsh...), and would make quite a good story. I was thumbing through the Douay-Rheims version of the Bible when I came to Jude:
"Woe unto those who have gone in the way of Cain... they are trees of autumn, fruitless, twice dead, plucked up by the roots."
Thus my title: "The Trees of Autumn". Because there was plenty of family killing all through the game (and I would have gotten to that...). Bonus points for having been written by someone named Judas.
Unfortunately, "Trees of Autumn" has done the exact same thing my last 500 story AARs have done... stopped before I could get to the good part. I really need to learn to finish what I've started... *crosses fingers for The Eternal City*
Well, if you managed to wade through all that, allow me to tell you the story of my forum name. First: Find a Bible (Catholic or Orthodox versions work best, though Protestant versions might have it in the Apocrypha. [Apocryphal? Hmph, bloody heretics...) Turn to 1 Maccabees. Start reading until you reach the end of 2 Maccabees. That's the story of the real Judas Maccabeus.
(Be glad you got the short version of
that... my last try ended up going into linguistics and everything...)
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Good God, that's longer than most of my AARs!