Final Report

Hello everyone, and welcome to the not-so-weekly (anymore) Gerbil Report. I'm your host, Gerbil, and this week the report will be a bit different. There will be no updates of the town, no updates of buildings,

or walls, or even people. Except one - myself. This will be, if all goes as I am planning right now, the final Gerbil Report written. To be sure, there will be more rants, more discussions, and maybe even more books written by myself.

The Gerbil Report, however, has now passed its time, and it's time that we all recognized this. Now my work is done, the Hexagon has outgrown even the grandest of hopes I had for it, and this Gerbil is becoming tired.

I feel like I can proudly say that I have done my duty to Fellowship. I've overextended on authority more than my fair share of times, and I've had my own problems, but I always tried to do what I thought would benefit Fellowship long-term.

I do that again today, with my retirement from all positions of authority in and around the Hexagon. I will be handing off all group access that I have to others who need it, all spreadsheets to those who want them, and any advice to those who ask for it.

I will give everyone time, and make sure to give it only to those who I feel can handle the responsibility that comes with these. I first joined Fellowship a few months into the current world's iteration, which I call "Bob".

The town quickly died, and I left with it. I rejoined a few months later and I dug. I dug for hours, days, and weeks on end. I created a small house for myself.

So when we terraformed a whole new planet of "earth", some were rich and good with the new technologies, some were not so much. Power Players, them was formed Alliances, and fought to bring everyone under their control, or robbery;

a few idiots tried to fight globalization, among them myself. Out here in the remote Plus-Minus, people struggled to get by with the most basic technologies; a pick would bring you work, a sword help you keep it.

A Gerbil's goal was simple: find some friends, build a city, keep digging. I'm Gerbil_9, sage of the Hexagon. I got some good friends: Planners, builders, diggers, shopkeepers, fighters.

We even picked up a preacher, and a bona-fide werewolf hunter. There's a writer, too. Rescued his Hexagon from its own demise. He keeps a low profile. You got a job? We can do it, don't much care what it is. That's what livin' out here does to you.

I look out for me and mine, and they do too. This city came together with the promise of work, which in many ways gets harder every day. Come a day there won't be room for men like us to slip about. This city goes south?

There will not be another like it. So here's us, on the raggedy edge and you know what keeps us going? Love.

You can know all the math in the universe but take a city that you don't love? She'll shake you off just as sure as a turn in the worlds. Love keeps her runnin' when she oughtta be abandoned... Tell her she's hurtin' 'fore she goes... Makes her your home.

I learned something from ya'll. Not just from what happens, but from you. The friends you made, the strength of your love for each other. That's what keeps us together. When you live with that kind of strength, you get tied to it. You can't break away.

And you never want to.

I can never leave this city, probably never will. I am, however, no longer right for runnin' her right. I'll run her into the ground alone.

This is the Final Gerbil Report. Gerbil Signing Out.