I dont know everything, but from what I can tell, here's how it went.
Started a liiiittle bit after you and Jeebus were gone, I think. Activity was slow and not many things were going on. Hik and L-Rage had a meeting in the chat(I will point out that, as according to Swift at least, Hik and L-Rage did try to get a hold of me. For whatever reason, however, I didn't get the memo. My point being that I dont think this was particularly supposed to be a private plan of theirs but instead a Staff Meeting with the available Staff) to determine a course of action to bring activity back, and they eventually settled on Genesis as a Event. Genesis backfired and the majority of the members who found out opposed it vehemently for various reasons(myself included, at the beginning), usually pointing out that the Event severely locks their already-strained ability to do anything with their characters(because of the Eclipse, this meant that everyone's characters, Empires, pretty much whatever they had were essentially stuck on whatever planet they were currently on and had no means to do very much of anything, or at least anything the player wanted to do with them). L-Rage and Hikaru refused to end the Event(however they were willing to make at least some compromises concerning it, such as Life Support systems being left online(which was my biggest issue, considering I had all of the Elementals on board a fleet at the time), and I believe other compromises may have been possible if either party had sought them), and as it dragged on the arguments appeared to grow more hostile and volatile. A few members, either not wanting to deal with the Event itself or, as in Thunderscreamer's case, not agreeing with its explanation on a fundamental level(such as that his Empire's technology literally could not have been influenced from a outside source due to circumstances arising from its backstory), decided to jump ship until the Event was resolved and they would be capable of ignoring it at their own whim. Then things appeared to remain a stalemate, with little IC activity if at all until this, hopefully successful, resolution.
In short, Genesis DID succeed in drawing attention to the forum, however the attention drawn was primarily negative, and a combination many members refusing to accept the Event and the Staff as a whole refusing to null it resulted in a schism that threatened to result in a large part of the memberbase leaving the forum on a possibly permanent basis.
If you'd like me to elaborate on anythin' more than that, just ask and I'll try to provide more details if I have 'em.
