Addressing A Good Problem To Have (YES We Are X-Fac!)

Addressing A Good Problem To Have (YES We Are X-Fac!)

Hello everyone! Today it was brought to light that our Project Isthmus effort would benefit from some further clarification.  Quite simply - I awoke to several people either asking "Is PI X-fac?", or if they already knew - telling me "hey, people do not understand y'all are X-fac." At first glance this caught me off guard... You see, I've of course watched 100% of all of our communication. (Okay, to be honest I need to catch up a little in the PI Street Team HO, there is A LOT of conversation going on there!) As such, I vividly recall talking about "Is PI X-fac?" in the Operation Essex Hangout, seeing the topic discussed in earlier posts, mentioning it on Behind The Scanner , etc.. 

But then it occurred to me, a lot of time (measured in internet years) has passed since then!  When we made our first update to the "About this community" section here, we described the fictional story being told by award winning author Jennifer Brozek . At that time, we had discussions with many interested parties... Well, fast-forward to today, and due to the tremendous success of our mission contest with November Lima , Linda B , and Ethan Lepouttre - we've been exposed to a lot of new agents!  It simply did not occur to us until today that many of those new agents had not ferreted out every possible nook and cranny looking for nuanced explanations. 

Of course we were embarrassed at the oversight. It was a text book example of the phrase "a good problem to have."  But, you know - that phrase does concede "problem" - so we've spent the morning taking a variety of steps to correct the issue.  We hope you will be pleased.

First & foremost - let us tell you, that Jennifer has essentially already written the fictional story we are telling.  We will of course be responding to, and incorporating future Ingress elements that are unknown to us... but if you look closely, or especially if you are already familiar with her work - you will see we are our own story, and in no way competing with the main Ingress story line.

So, what changes did we make today? Several:
*First, we have updated the Project Isthmus persona avatar to be the traditional X-fac icon.  (We are working on a PI logo that will replace that icon in the future, but another little "leak of info" for you - that logo will also bear both blue and green.)  
*Second, we have created new categories in this G+ community, "Story" and "G+".  We will use these categories to both help define the context for the viewer, as well as make it easier to view your specific areas of interest.  
*Third, we have updated our "About this community" to now ~also~ include a better explanation of the multiple facets of this effort.
*Fourth, we have worked with Niantic to secure TWO "first place winners" positions for today, and tomorrows Obsidian Artifacts / NL missions - one first place winner from EACH faction.  
*Finally, I have updated even my own personal avatar to have a splash of blue on it, as I know I have (so far) made the majority of the posts. I wanted to say a few words on this last one... Will it remain this way forever? Maybe so, maybe not.  Does it mean I give my Enlightened team anything less than 100%? Certainly not!  If you ask my teammates AND/OR opponents (especially my local teammates or opponents who know me best), you will know that I am sincere in both my dedication and effort to my team AND my efforts to be a good cross-faction ambassador.  

Sincerely,
Matt (& the rest of the PI Founders)

Andrew Krug