PURE BLIND - Over half of Imperial Republic of the North's [IRON] membership has abandoned the alliance over the past week. Additionally, [IRON] sovereignty in Pure Blind continues to fall leaving large numbers of lucrative moons open for the taking as a power vacuum develops in the region.

While rumors have swirled for the past week on capsuleer discussion boards, [IRON] and fellow NC members continued to state that the leadership was simply trimming the fat. It was not until early this morning that new facts began to emerge indicating [IRON] was in the midst of an internal crisis.

The problems arose several weeks ago after alliance leaders FotoFlame and PMX decided to take a break from the demanding business of alliance leadership and appointed Tyrol, Riley Kendrik, and NathanMoore as the new executive team.

Initially all was well according to PMX, but as time progressed the new team attempted to make several major changes "unpopular with the old iron pilots," according to Aoi Hane, CEO of former [IRON] corp Arkons of Myth [RCON].

These changes included the addition of a NBSI policy in low-sec - a course reversal that challenged [IRON]'s historical NRDS low-sec policy that PMX believes was at the "core of our identity and our believes."

Despite apparent requests by PMX to reconsider, the new executives forged ahead "after which discussion broke loose to a point where multiple corps wanted to leave," PMX stated.

FotoFlame then posted a letter "urging the new team to reconsider and revert their decision," noted PMX. "However he never set an ultimatum and would have never done so."

MeltD0wn [MELT.] CEO Larania Hypax described the letter as "a open phrased 'serious suggestion' to stop what they were doing and that Foto would sit back while they led IRON to destruction." Hypax also stated that Tyrol lost access to his directorship abilities and his corp's forum at this time.

A second issue concerning inactive founding corps also presented a problem according to both parties. "The new leadership wanted to remove certain founding corps due to poor participation and due to lack of numbers," explained industrial team member and former high command pilot Mirauder. "PMX and Foto asked for the decision to be delayed 24 hours to allow it to be discussed in more depth."

At this point, in an alleged attempt to gain leverage over FotoFlame and PMX, the new executive team took large amounts of liquid ISK, starbase components, and dreadnoughts according to a statement released by [MELT.] - a corp that joined [IRON] in January of this year. The [MELT.]statement and PMX confirm that he nor FotoFlame took any action to escalate the situation at this point.

Despite extensive inquiries to departing CEO's and members, none indicated or were able to produce evidence that PMX or Fotoflame delivered threats or ultimatums - something that several pilots claimed was the basis for the "safeguarding" of alliance assets by the new leadership.

Justifying their next action by indicating that the corps choosing to stay in [IRON] "showed a statistically significant overlap with the corporations that were asked to leave or merge just two weeks prior because of their bad defense fleet participation", the [MELT.] statement claimed the "safeguarded" assets would be distributed to the exiting corps (eight have left since May 31st) and that [IRON] would be left with a "a very very solid base for restructuring [the full list is available for viewing in the 'sources' section.]"

In the end, Tyrol and Riley Kendrik returned the ISK and starbase components to [IRON] however [MELT.] has chosen to retain the 35 dreadnoughts according to their statement. According to PMX, all exiting corps have so far refused to accept any of these ships from [MELT.].

Other corps have ended their term with [IRON] on more amicable terms. Aoi Hane (whose corp is now courting ATLAS Alliance) believes, "None of the corps that left wished any harm to [IRON], nor did they plan to leave together or go to the same alliances afterwards."

PMX had this to say in regards to the last week:

"What breaks my heart is the fact that they simply gave up... I know in my time as executor I have made similar decisions that earned me more than enough flames by the members and corps, but these are decisions a leader grows with. We all make mistakes but it is crucial we learn from them and do not repeat the same mistakes."

He noted he will be returning to his post as executor to ensure [IRON] does not "lose its path."

Sources

[MELT.] Statement

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