How did you do it without nodes?
It created a fork most likely as at first the daemon didn't connect, I alt-tabbed to IRC and then there was like 300 MH/s going on.
I know this is a week old now, but your nodes are the reason you are forking coins. You need to check, and double check your connectivity before putting your stratum up. There is a reason why pools don't launch 1 minute after source is released. There is a proper procedure to make sure everything is ready and perfect. It's not just a matter of compiling and launching stratum.
If you have 0 nodes, you will end up on your own fork. If you have 4 nodes and 30% of the hash, you will end up on your own fork. You need to properly understand and recognize this before hosting any new coins otherwise you risk forking more coins in the future as well.
The reason dedicated never launched the first time last week is because we noticed 0 nodes. You must have skipped that check.
It's not a race to see who can get up first.. at least I've never played it like that. It is more important to make sure everything is perfect before allowing miners to mine.