btw to put the "oldest alliance" argument to rest (and i was apparently a part of the original argument):
http://atarchive.gotdns.org:8080/...ivepost.jsp?thread=158332
"fingolfin
Patron	Aug 9th, 2004 19:23
1. laf, tie in existence in april 98. i believe tie predated laf by one reset. tie came over from OOA 
2. sol, icn june 98 they spun off from ucn 
3 sept 98 nm, and omega started 
"
and apparently i remembered more back then than now.. memories faded but after reading that everything came back to me...
here's a post i made that fingolfin (and all the other fogeys confirmed), i'm 100% sure what's on that thread is accurate since it was bunch of fogeys like us recollecting and verifying facts together...
hlw
Member	Aug 10th, 2004 16:20
so sorry vilse for listing ICN as 1999, i later corrected myself as later 1998/1999 alilance, but i guess i'll fine tune it: 
list of living alliances and when they came about 
generation "0": (pre alliance server roots) 
LaF (The Dons/SHIELD) 
Ragnarok 
----------------------------------------- 
generation 1: (alliance server start) 
LaF 
Ragnarok (not sure, did they join when it started or they chose to stay in B?) 
TIE 
(major dead alliances from this era include OOA/TGA/RoCK/HAN/UCN/etc.) 
generation 3: (after alliance server start) 
SOL 
ICN 
NM 
Omega 
RAGE 
generation 4: (post first world war) 
LCN 
MD 
generation 5: (alliance tags formed) 
Elitez 
----
so can we stop changing history now makinso? you were in diapers still when we fogeys were playing this game ;) let's not get carried away into being the official game historian here