The elections in Insitor last month seemed like a good time to reach out to the Chinese-speaking community and see what they've been up to. But as I found out, they're not a monolith, especially after this election.

SNG

On February 13, SchaitrLumerz LLP | LUME named TegridyUtnapishtim | UTNA as his running mate on Avalon. Tegridy is the leader of the Shennong Group (SNG), a faction within the Chinese community that operates mostly within Insitor. SNG was started by RestOwnerRestAurantCn | RACN but he stepped back as he got busier with IRL matters. I believe the group was up to 27 people before last month's elections.

Shennong is the "Divine Farmer" in Chinese mythology. He is said to have taught the ancient Chinese agriculture and established the first marketplaces.

Tegridy describes the SNG model as a co-op rather than a permit lease. SNG sets the price of goods that members produce and handles logistics for bases that members opt-in (members can run bases on their own too). But, he says, "rather than a transient arrangement like a permit lease", SNG's relationships are long-term. SNG is not a corporation; many members of SNG are part of COSM.

The group uses QQ and Kook for chatting and WPS and Google Sheets for spreadsheets.

Liuli

EuuEndlessFrontier Capital | EUU is no longer part of COSM and has started their own corp, 琉璃主权资本(Liuli). Liuli offers loans and provides funding for ships in exchange for shipping.

Euu has ties with Moria Galactic Construction Corporation (MGCC). MGCC runs an internal market and provides financial and shipping services to new players. Euu has extended loans to members of MGCC.

QQ

Behind the Great Firewall, options are limited for chat software. In March of 2025, a user started a QQ group called PrUn中文交流群 (PrUn Chinese Community). The group has grown to over 400 users, spanning all 4 regions.

Large groups are a premium QQ feature and the user who created the group originally could only have 200 users in it. Moderators had to find inactive users to kick to make room for new players. Euu's account could own groups with up to 2000 members, so ownership was transferred to them in December of 2025.

RestOwner and Euu have publicly had disagreements in the past, but on February 13 (the same day Schaitr named Tegridy as his running mate), the powderkeg finally exploded. An argument got heated, and, according to every source we've interviewed, RestOwner, Tegridy, and most SNG members were kicked from the group by Euu.

The Red Packet

On February 13 (still the same day Schaitr named Tegridy as his running mate and SNG was purged from the QQ group), Euu pinged everyone in the QQ group. They accused their opponents of using alt accounts and asked people to ADM VH-331a and vote for Euu.

Immediately after that message is a red packet from MlionValhalla's Table | JJ for a total of 666 CNY (80 EUR, 100 USD). It comes with the message "感谢大家支持 Euu" ("thank you for supporting Euu") and is followed by "拿了就要投哦" ("you should vote if you take it"). Each member of the group can claim about 1.50¥ (0.15€, $0.18). One possible explanation for the red envelope is that it highlights it in users' chat lists as there's a different indicator for chats with unopened red envelopes.

Mlion admits they sent the red packet and that it's most likely the real money molp was referring to in dev log #518. "But I need to make it clear that a lot of information in this matter has been altered/twisted." They go on to say that red packets are "unconditional gifts" to everyone in the group "regardless of their in-game faction or political stance". While Mlion is on Euu's side, they say they've been sending red packets since before the election. molp conducted an investigation and concluded that red packets to support the game as a whole and not individual parties were fine (in dev log #519, molp starts by saying there was still a lot of support work that week).

Today

In the course of interviewing members of the Chinese-speaking community, we sifted through many accusations that we weren't able to verify. It's now a month since February 13 and it doesn't appear that the two sides have reconciled. Umbra/Gibson elections have just started up and it's contested this time...