26. Phobia
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One night on the KC Star Farm the animals grew restless and tired of the rigid posting rules and frequent bannings, so they got together to find a new place to graze and waste entire hours of the work day. First to the meeting were the two cart-horses, frazod and tommykat, who came in together, walking very slowly and setting down their vast hairy hoofs with great care lest there should be some small animal concealed in the straw. Tommykat was a stout motherly mare approaching old age, who had never quite got her figure back after her fourth foal, or her incident with the washing machine. Frazod was an enormous beast, nearly eighteen hands high, and as fat as any two ordinary horses put together. A white stripe down his nose gave him a somewhat stupid appearance, and in fact he was not of first-rate intelligence, but he was universally respected for his steadiness of character and tremendous drunken temper. After the horses came JOhn, the white goat, and Milkman, the donkey. Milkman was the oldest animal on the farm, and the worst tempered. He seldom talked, and when he did, it was usually to make some cynical remark — for instance, when most people were encouraged by the Vermeil hire, he'd preach Carl Peterson platitudes about defense and experienced clutch QBs. Alone among the animals on the farm he never laughed. If asked why, he would say that he saw nothing to laugh at.
The new farm was to be called Chiefs Planet, and it was decided the job of moderating and organizing the others fell naturally upon the pigs, who were generally recognised as being the cleverest of the animals. Pre-eminent among the pigs was a young boar named Phobia, who was a large, rather fierce-looking Berkshire boar, not much of a talker, but with a reputation for getting his own way. All the other male pigs on the farm were porkers. The best known among them was a small fat pig named KCJohnny, with very round cheeks, twinkling eyes, nimble movements, and a shrill voice. He was a brilliant talker, and when he was arguing some difficult point he had a way of skipping from side to side and whisking his tail. The others said of KCJohnny that he could turn black into white.
The pigs got together and drew up a set of five commandments that would govern the basis for being an animal of Chiefs Planet Farm. They were:
1. Whoever is from the KC Star Farm and other Chiefs farms is an enemy
2. Whatever is fat, bald and/or has a goatee is a friend
3. All threads belong in one giant farm
4. No animal shall post racist shit
5. All animals are equal
The farm soon prospered and attracted other animals. Each animal posted and entertained as it could to its own ability. Political conversations were had, and because the pigs were Chiefs Planet animals, nobody was banned for that reason. It seemed to be the perfect solution for all animals.
As prosperity grew, some old friends from KC Star Farm would occasionally show up, and according to the commandments, they were treated with hostility. Denise the rat, attracted to the droppings of some of the larger animals, decided to make a home in a corner of the barn. She was soon joined by Tom Cash, the reeruned turkey. As the dogs and cats grew irate with Denise, she took refuge in the straw of the pigs, believing that they would protect her. Htismaqe and KCWolfman always ceased the attacks, refusing to remove her from the farm, which would violate the commandments and the very reason for Chiefs Planet Farm's existence.
However, one day the animals woke up to find that Phobia, the leader of the pigs and protector of the animals, had changed something:
All threads belong in one giant farm, except for political topics.
The explanation was that it was in the interest of all parties to separate topics that people didn't want to see and as a result, the posters that people didn't want to engage. By doing this, Phobia was PRESERVING Chiefs Planet, not ruining it. The animals stopped giving a shit and then went on with their business.
Some animals grew wary of Phobia and the pigs. They knew that bannings sometimes had to happen as protection against spammers and cockroaches like Go Chiefs, but nevertheless shuddered to think about the ban being used on one of them.
Phobia's obsession with popularity and power influenced the animals of Chiefs Planet. A boar with a boring life who builds decks for a living couldn't be that cool, but then they saw his post count and self-deprecating sense of humor and changed their minds. Many animals had met Phobia’s sow, and thought it was cool that they could make jokes about having sex with her to feel better about themselves. They came to see Phobia as the most powerful of the pigs, which was blown off by others like Luzap and Bob Dole, but the sexual tension was clearly present in the daily pig meetings at the mud pile.
Several years later, another farm was developed not far from Chiefs Planet. Farmer Nick was in charge of those animals, mostly sheep, and it proved to turn a very nice profit. Every month Farmer Nick would collect $89 worth of wool from the sheep and in return upgraded their food to a fancier brand called “Premium Content.” In truth, Premium Content was nothing more than garbage and leftover scraps, but the wool payment some how made it taste better. The animals at Chiefs Planet knew the truth about Farmer Nick and his Premium Content, so of course they viewed themselves as superior to his Warpaint Farm. The pigs joined in on the berating of Warpaint Farm, for they really did see it along with the other animals as nothing more than a lie.
One day Phobia announced that he had reached an agreement with Farmer Nick to moderate the daily activity at Warpaint Farm, since they had no pigs and no means of creating interest and activity in the farm apart from the original sheep that lived there. People questioned his decision, but he reminded them of the very first commandment. He showed it to them, which appeared to have been altered to:
Whoever is from the KC Star Farm and other Chiefs farms is an enemy, except for pigs.
The days without Phobia resulted in a loss of burst at Chiefs Planet Farm. More animals kept joining, but the older animals who were a part of the original revolution were content to keep to themselves and stay out of the activity. New pigs were born and trained for protecting Chiefs Planet.
It wasn’t until Phobia returned years later, claiming to be more enlightened than ever before and having the animals believe that Chiefs Planet is the greatest farm of them all. The animals all thought to themselves, “Yeah, no ****ing shit you moron,” but nevertheless accepted him back anyway as one of their own. Since Phobia’s departure, he looked at the commandments and saw that the pigs in charge had added 73 new ones, which included ridiculous things like, “Animals can swear, but only if they spell the word correctly.”
Phobia aggressively took control. The young boars like Mr. Flopnuts and Bearcat became his new henchmen, and the old crew of porkers like htismaqe and KCWolfman were gone. Frazod had worked for YEARS on Chiefs Planet farm, happily allowing his prejudice towards Mexicans to shine through in his daily musings, when the pigs couldn't decide how to interpret the fourth commandment. Citing a range of issues with the farm’s collective personality, Phobia immediately set to work banning loyal animals like frazod and anybody who saw what a tyrant he had become. Their arguments against Phobia were met with silence from the other pigs when they saw that all of the commandments had been removed and replaced with just one:
All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others
