First off: If you don't even know what it is, be sure to read up on Mother 3. If you're too lazy to read, then here's the idea: Mother is the name of a series of RPGs. Mother 1 came out only in Japan for the NES in 1989. Mother 2 came out in 1994 in Japan and was released outside of Japan as EarthBound in 1995. Mother 3 was in production for roughly 5 or 6 years before it was suddenly and abruptly cancelled a few years ago. For more news concerning the recent announcements of a sequel, check out our News Page.
Now that we're done with formalities, I can tell you about the petition. The Mother 3 Petition was started in March of 2002. The goal, unlike our EB64 Petition and Mother on Gameboy Color petitions, was ambiguous: we just wanted to explain to Nintendo that there are a lot of Mother fans who love the game still kicking. And screaming.
Now, online petitions are a sort of touchy subject. By 'touchy', I mean 'unmentionably craptastic'. This can be mostly attributed to petitiononline, the bane of common sense. Actually, its not their fault, its just the fact that they made petitions easy to create/access for the stupider people on the internet. Anyone who has been in any kind of gaming scene for any amount of time knows that anyone can start a petition in a matter of seconds. And, oh, how this privilege is abused. A quick search will provide you with such gems as the 'We Don't Like Zelda's Graphics Petition'.
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Please allow that to sink in. I'll even repeat it for you: the 'We Don't Like Zelda's Graphics Petition'.
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Now imagine a bunch of 12 year olds emailing their petitions to you each day, hoping desperately to get mentioned somewhere. Hopefully this gives you a good idea of the kind of predisposition that most respectable gaming sites have to petitions, especially online petitions. We had a very difficult time getting people to stop and look at the Mother 3 Petition to realize how different it was. Perhaps 'different' is an understatement, as the M3 Petition involved more work, time, and money than most people would put into a relationship. Now thats saying something.
The Petition Program
This little gem, written by Xodnizel, was a custom script written to accept online signatures and allow staff members to either accept or reject each individual signature.
Handwritten Signatures
The plan to accept handwritten signatures required a .pdf file for people to print out, which you can see on the old petition page. Handwritten signatures were sent in to reidman, who made copies of each sheet for inclusion into the final petition.
Translations
The flyer/signature form was translated into Spanish by FunkyNess, and the English petition page was translated into Japanese by Makkun for the handful of Japanese visitors that run through here.
Shortly before the petition was sent, Makkun also came through in the eleventh hour to provide us with a translation of the introduction letters that were bound with each copy of the petition. Makkun took his time to do this during the Jyuken Sensou (Exam War), a time during which Japanese students become robots. Robots designed to destroy each other. With their minds. According to Tomato, what most non-Japanese people consider 'difficult' in this context is laughable compared to the Jyuken Sensou; the workload is enormous, to say the least. Now add to this the fact that formal Japanese letters are notorious for being extremely difficult to write, and you will realize that Makkun is the greatest person ever. Thank you Makkun!
Banners/Graphics
A handful of cool banners were made with help from Plo (staffer), Jeb2 (zealfiles), and Mikey V. (Tendobox). The banners mostly popped up on other EarthBound sites, but the effort swiftly paid off in spades when 8-Bit Theater posted one, almost out of nowhere.
Meeellla drew an incredible set of figures for the petition cover. A quick look at Ness will reveal (at least, to any Gamecube owners) that she based her drawings on the art from the recent Legend of Zelda game. A hint? Who knows ;)
The Art Album
Jonk, the resident Fan Art staffer at Starmen.Net, brilliantly decided that, yeah, 400 pages of petition is cool, but...lacking in artistic value. So he decided to do something about it. The product of his months of hard work -- the Art Album. Notice that its capitalized. Thats for a reason. This thing was incredible, and a very fitting tribute to the devotion of the EarthBound fans. Check out the Art Album page for more info on this spectacular piece.
Printing/Binding
The petition, all 400+ pages of it, were printed and professionally bound, bearing the cover, letters, handwritten signatures, and (obviously) the electronic signatures - 3 columns per page, size 6 font, single-spaced, double-sided. About 410 sheets of paper. Dang.
Shipping
The final step in the long process came, at long last, over a year after the effort officially began. The Mother 3 Petition was packaged and shipped the same day that Mother 1+2 and Mother 3 commercials began airing in Japan. Irony meter: 99%
A copy was shipped to each of the following:
- Nintendo of Japan
- Nintendo of America
- Electronic Gaming Monthly
- Shigesato Itoi
Obviously, a copy needed to be sent to both Nintendo of America and Japan, and Shigesato Itoi, being the man entirely responsible for this incredible series of games, deserves to see the devotion that his creation has inspired. The one most people ask questions about is EGM - what convinced us to send a copy to them?
For those that hang around the site regularly, it is common knowledge that we love EGM here. EGM has mentioned Starmen.Net, in one form or another, three times in their magazine. Add to this that EGM's "Quartermann" bravely predicted the coming of Mother 1+2 AND Mother 3 a very, very long time before it happened, and the fact that EGM is just a fun magazine which is still interesting, relevant, and unbiased, unlike so many other gaming mags. This should make our choice to include EGM clear. Regardless of whether they say much, or anything, about the petition, we're more than happy to send them a copy as a sort of 'thank you' for their support and the good work they do.
