Okay. Good feedback.
Good. So give me one example of this:
"some relatively clear, high level starting point originated by Axanar, isolate the unexplained balance, and treat incoming information as a list of explanations of that balance."
And the example of how you would address it.
The outline I offered provides a high level starting point, and isolates an unexplained balance.
If they said X, I would take it as Y:
X: "The investment group payment for the studio was 250k and it went to Axanar."
Y: "Ok, 150k of the million is a misstatement of the amount they were going to give. Was the 250k an addition of dollar value to the Axanar balance, or is it some other sort of equity/value transfer being summarized as "250k$"? Was it spent or is it still around? If its around where is it? Was it used on the studio rent, infrastructure, or personnel working on Industry Studios business development (including contractors) or was it held back for Axanar production costs? This leaves 600k to account for."
X: "There was 200k of additional work done on the studio in 2016 to make it ready for renting out."
Y: "Ok, this reduces the million by 200k, and its 200k of donor money spent on an asset that others own. Did those owners reimburse the additional investment, or is there a legal agreement for them to put this money back into Axanar production funds, or did the donors just make a 200k$ gift to Industry Studios?"
X: "Alec's donation to Axanar is over $100k in 2016"
Y: "Ok, this is 50k less than was represented. How was this money put into Axanar (rent payments, paying expenses, cash put into the Axanar bank account, etc.)? Was any of it derived from (directly transferred between accounts, passed out to a private bank account and back in, etc.) money raised by Axanar from donations or sales outside the crowdsourced amounts? Was any of this donation used to keep the commercial company viable (paying its rent, building out its physical plant, retaining staff who will work principally for the commercial firm (Industry Studios), etc)?" [note, most of these questions have been raised in a scattered way on facebook and here]
Off the top of my head these are a few examples.
A recurring theme is how much of the 2016 money is being spent "on Axanar" by "keeping the studio open and making it rentable 'for Axanar'", when the final reality is an investment principally in the commercial operation, with "which will also make an Axanar of some form" used as justification for paying for the commercial operation development costs (including renting the space until paid customers come).
I think Alec has played donors on a key point, even exploiting the lawsuit.
Making Axanar in some form does not require maintaining a high rent studio and making a infrastructure investment.
It requires putting the money aside to build temporary sets and other production expenses, and renting this or some other space for a short period when the film is ready to shoot.
It was, and remains a false assertion to say Industry Studios has to be built, and now kept alive out of Axanar funds to make some Axanar (or now, some substitute) possible. This has always been a false linkage, used to divert donor money into privately owned assets.
As money is accounted for (income/expenditures), one would see how much was actually invested in the business rather than held to make an Axanar film. Keeping the business Industry Studios alive and making Axanar are not the same thing.
If the money is spent, one might in the end find that most of the unaccounted money was spent to keep Industry Studios alive and meet its requirements to begin operating and staffing.
TLDR:
If its found at the top level that the expenditures this year, and indeed most all the unaccounted million all are brazen investments in making Industry Studios survive and be viable (since those on the inside surely knew the consequences for the lawsuit of their emails and financials being reviewed by the studios), then donors may see laid bare the false linkage between Axanar the movie and the movie studio, and see clearly where they money went.
If on the other hand the money has gone into cash accounts somewhere and miraculously appears, great for Axanar supporters. They may get their This is Not Axanar movie made.
(tho it may need to be an 8mm home film after CBS is done with that money)
Seeing the discussion reach a meaningful TLDR consensus on it all is IMO more important at this point than tracing down every way Alec spent money on personal expenses.
Alec's financial review board will try to frame it as "all responsibly spent on Axanar" -- with the unstated assertion that building and maintaining Industry Studios out of donor money is an intrinsic part of "making Axanar", and "no donor money" went to Industry Studios (except all the rent, all the salaries where people worked on it, all the third party consulting services and bringing it up to code in the guise of Axanar construction expenses and ??).
The counterpoint to this has to be (if it proves true) "they are two separate things, especially now that it has come out how you had to know you would lose the case due to egregious behavior that would derail other legal arguments, but you kept spending donor money for Axanar the film on building out/keeping Industry Studios/rent-free Propworx open all year long in 2016".
(And yes, salary and expenses put back in so that 'no net donor money was given to Alec', and then spent on rent, is donor money spent on rent, NOT Alec money spent on rent).
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