[ArL]

Argon: "Sometimes I just don't think that I'm a good leader. I mean, to be a good leader you have to give orders and be all commandery, you know?"
Xenon: "Ah, but you're not the kind of leader that gives orders, you're the kind of leader who leads by example."
Argon: "Hmm... Wait, you mean all this time you guys have been following my example? Good lord, we're doomed..."

Argon Labs is a gaming clan based in Phoenix, Arizona. Our members are located throughout the country, however. Originally we started as a ChaosUT2 clan, but have now expanded into other games. Membership is by invitation only.

HISTORY:

How did Argon Labs begin?, you may ask.

It all started many years ago. For many years I have been playing FPS games under the name of Argon. I took this name because it seemed to fit my personality; I tend to be a fairly calm and stable person, even dull (according to some people), and I like being this way, so I resist change. Well, one day I found myself working on the ChaosUT2 mod project as the main voice actor (specifically, I was the "voice of the proxy"). As my work on Chaos continued, I eventually moved up to doing maps, sound effects, and at some point was even contributing game design ideas, most specifically, weapons. My first weapon was the CPP, which I figured would be a huge success. To finalize my idea for it, I created a short story background for it to be included in the mod. The story was set in the Chaos universe, and had the Chaos corporation contract an outside corporation to design a new weapon for their tournaments. The weapon was the CPP, and the corporation was the Argon Labs Corporation (as the creator of the weapon, I wanted the in-game creator to share my handle, but it was also slightly based on Argonne National Lab, which for some reason I always remember from the old 1986 game Delta Man). Anyway "Argon Labs" seemed to be a fitting name. Although the CPP was ultimately not the success I hoped it would be, it wasn't a complete failure either. I went on to contribute to the design of other Chaos weapons but my biggest contributions to the weapons of Chaos were in the area of visual effects. I carried the Argon Labs story onward, and had them researching and developing the weapons fuels and ammunitions for the various weapons I helped to create. Eventually, Argon Labs had become a part of the Chaos backstory.

Some time later, I was talking with my friend Ben (Radon Whitestar) and somehow the subject of clans came up. We, and all our friends, were currently clanless so it seemed to be a good idea to form our own clan, and so we did. But we needed a name. As we were all avid Chaos fans, we decided our clan should be connected to Chaos in some way. I proposed Argon Labs Corporation, since that was something within the Chaos universe that I owned and we could point to various weapons in the game and say that we're the best with those because we created them. However, in reality, it turned out that we'd just curse ourselves for "not knowing better" when we got fragged by those weapons. Although at first, the rest of the members didn't contribute to Chaos development, later on I got some of my better ideas from them and I was able to get some parts of those ideas implemented in the mod. Therefore, in this way, Argon Labs became a real organization, and made actual contributions to a virtual world that was constantly growing and improving upon itself.

Today, Argon Labs stands ready to assist the Chaos team in the development of the next generation of Chaos mod for Unreal Tournament 3. In the meantime, the clan has moved on from UT2004 and is now active in Rune, City of Villains, Counterstrike: Source, and Team Fortress 2. That said, we still play UT2004 and ChaosUT2 at most of our lan parties, just because it is such an easy game to set up and run on a lan.