Piano Tuners Hacking Scandal
The Piano Tuners Hacking Scandal is a scandal that took place during the Toroidal/Season 16 postseason. The 
Ft. Worth Piano Tuners
were accused of procuring backdoored random number generators to Golly's E Division (with the help of shell companies set up by 
Delaware Corporate Shells
) to affect the outcome of the Toroidal/Season 15 championship (which the Tuners had won). E Division secretly patched the random number generators shortly before the Toroidal/Season 16 championship, allowing a fair fight and enabling the 
Sacramento Boot Lickers
to get a revenge reversal and win the championship.
Background
While the Toroidal/Season 16 postseason was still ongoing, the Piano Tuners became embroiled in a hacking scandal when leaked documents showed that the Ft. Worth Piano Tuners had formed a secret partnership with the Delaware Corporate Shells
with the purpose of creating shell companies to sell backdoored random number generators to Golly's E Division. The E Division, in charge of all aspects of engineering, is the division responsible for all Golly simulations.
Effect of Hacking
Direct Impacts of Hacking
The backdoored random number generators had been put into place at the beginning of Toroidal/Season 15 and had enabled the Piano Tuners to manipulate the outcome of the Toroidal/Season 15 season and postseason, completely in secret.
The Tuners declared Toroidal/Season 15 a wild success and intended to replicate their success again in Toroidal/Season 16, and successfully manipulated the outcome of the regular season as well as part of the postseason.
However, the documents were leaked prior to the Toroidal Cup Series, allowing E Division to patch the random number generators so that the Toroidal Cup Series would not be impacted.
Side Effects of Hacking
Over the course of Toroidal/Season 16 many commentators and fans noted a disturbing change in the personality of the normally obnoxiously cheerful and obsequious Boot Lickers. As Season 16 progressed, the Boot Lickers became nasty toward other teams, uncharacteristically crushing their opponents in blowouts, starting fights on the field, and showing a stunning improvement in their trash talk game. While some commentators speculated that the Boot Lickers had worked trash talk exercises into their offseason training routine, the Boot Lickers roundly denied their training routine had anything to do with it, threatening to flip tables if anyone said otherwise.
Events of Hacking Scandal
Revelation of Hacking Scandal
The news of the hacking scandal broke amidst the Toroidal/Season 16 postseason. The Boot Lickers, still in contention for the Torodial Cup championship, and still under the spell of a personality change, realized that they had lost the Toroidal/Season 15 Toroidal Cup series to a pack of cheaters, and set out on a bloody path for revenge against the Piano Tuners.
RNGs Patched
Unbeknownst to the Piano Tuners (who were unable to consistently win matches without cheating), the Commissioner's Office had ordered E Division to deploy patched random number generators in time for the Toroidal Cup Series. The random number generators had been found in a dusty warehouse, required extensive cleaning and repair, and made a tremendous racket, but they would allow E Division to simulate matches without relying on the Piano Tuners' backdoored random number generators.
Taste of Texas Rematch and Evisceration
Season 16 was a rematch of the Taste of Texas Series, with the Tuners managing to cheat their way to the championship series, and the Boot Lickers reaching the championship game by crushing their opponents with a singular focus.
The Ft. Worth Piano Tuners
were eviscerated by the eventual champions, the Sacramento Boot Lickers
. Following the series, the Tuners spent several weeks in the hospital recovering. The Boot Lickers, whose personality had returned back to normal after the backdoored random number generators were replaced with new ones, were the only team to send them a get well card.
Outcome of Hacking Scandal
The hacking scandal was the biggest scandal in Golly since the Season 3 Fixing Scandal in Season 3 of the Hellmouth Cup. It had several important consequences for Golly:
- Led to establishment of a research program in E Division to investigate using entropy crystals to channel randomness from the entropy vortex located in the Hellmouth
- Led to formation of S Division (to handle security) and A Division (to handle audits) before the start of Toroidal/Season 17; in the seasons following the hacking scandal, S Division quickly grew to become a powerful, mysterious force in the Golly bureaucracy, permanently changing the organization.
- Planted the seed of the Cancel Texas Memo; four seasons after the hacking scandal took place, in Toroidal/Season 20, the Cancel Texas Memo would be released, announcing the cancellation of Texas in Golly, the incineration of the Baltimore Texas, and the ultimate humiliation of the Ft. Worth Piano Tuners, moving them to Baltimore and rebranding them as the Baltimore Piano Tuners.
- Began a rivalry between the
Sacramento Boot Lickers
and the eventual 
Baltimore Piano Tuners
, dubbed "The Match Made in Hell"
