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The real (current) Terminus Est.


Prefontaine

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With Caecus writing several entries about TEst a couple weeks ago, I figured I'd create my own little blog to write about the real TEst. First things first, the TEst I lead is different than the real TEst. Jodo and ElPinchazo (and probably Phiney) can only be the leaders of the real TEst as they've lead the alliance during the longest periods of time. The real TEst is slightly less concerned about the world around them and more willing to throw caution to the wind and march to their own beat. The TEst I lead is similar to that but I'm a bit more pragmatic and keep more channels of communication to other alliances. Neither is superior to the other, I simply took what I could from TEst and and added it to what I see as my strengths as a leader. Combine my strengths with TEst's play style as best as you can and you have the current Terminus Est.

 

My goal for this alliance is simple, give the members what they want. TEst has been involved with 4 (5 if you count Arrgh) wars since I took over, Alpha, GPA, Pantheon, and TFP. All four of those alliances were targeted for a combination of reasons. First, one thing all four have in common is being atop our "who do we want to fight", poll. It's funny when you look at those threads because it's less about wanting to fight someone because you dislike them, and vastly more about who would be a good fight. At the time of each, really, all of those alliances had the one of the most impressive top tiers at the time. When we decided on Alpha, about a month later we felt reason was given enough through that whole debacle with Sparta and the fake logs drill which resulted in a plan to roll TEst by several alliances, which resulted in those Rose forum leaks about them getting the impression they wanted to roll TEst regardless. That combined with being atop of our bingo list, we attacked. We teamed up with Syndicate who also had their own reason for attacking which kept them engaged much longer than us, as TEst often leaves shortly after the conventional warfare wraps up.
GPA and TFP we hit because they had big neutrals, and TFP was right after Pantheon so it made it easier to just do it then since everyone was still itching for more fighting. Pantheon was hit for two reasons, like Alpha they were atop out bingo list (the list gets re-voted after every war with the previously rolled alliances excluded) and second we were paid. I'm not going to say who paid but someone took us up on this thread.

 

It's really an interesting thing, how we operate. We don't fight for political reasons, except to maybe make some new friends through bloodshed. We really don't take things too seriously and are an alliance that keeps their word. We willing to work with most anyone if they've something worth fighting for, money in some cases and shared interests in others. We're just here to have fun, so feel free to stop by and shoot the shit with us. https://discord.gg/z2BWuzV

 

"Prefontaine and his band of merry idiots" - Hereno

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Wasn't the whole "Sparta drill" debacle something you created? It's quite convenient that Seabass never told anyone about the drill (not allies, not even his own leadership group in Sparta), convenient that he had a relationship with you before the drill happened, and more convenient that he's in your alliance right now. 

 

For an alliance that is a "band of merry idiots," you have either gotten this far from careful, serious planning or luck so dumb that nails look smart. 

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Wasn't the whole "Sparta drill" debacle something you created? It's quite convenient that Seabass never told anyone about the drill (not allies, not even his own leadership group in Sparta), convenient that he had a relationship with you before the drill happened, and more convenient that he's in your alliance right now. 

 

For an alliance that is a "band of merry idiots," you have either gotten this far from careful, serious planning or luck so dumb that nails look smart.

 

I assume you've been rolled by TEst at some point :D

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Wasn't the whole "Sparta drill" debacle something you created? It's quite convenient that Seabass never told anyone about the drill (not allies, not even his own leadership group in Sparta), convenient that he had a relationship with you before the drill happened, and more convenient that he's in your alliance right now. 

 

For an alliance that is a "band of merry idiots," you have either gotten this far from careful, serious planning or luck so dumb that nails look smart. 

Again, you're still misattributing things to seabass. He WAS leadership in Sparta at that time. the only other two people that could be considered leadership was Vos (Who was away at that time,) or Jim. Seabass himself created the drill to test war readiness of Sparta. Convenient? I've had a relationship with pre since beta, and most of us are in the same boat. Hell, Half of the current guardian have relationships to pre, and pretty much every single member of TEst has some sort of tie to guardian.

 

But i don't see you blaming guardian. It seems like there's a salt overload in your salivation plant. TEst left a bad taste in your mouth, so now you're "exposing" them for the world to see. 

 

Except "exposing" is misrepresenting what is actually there to fit a narrative hideo kojima himself may think contrived, but i digress. 

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Again, you're still misattributing things to seabass. He WAS leadership in Sparta at that time. the only other two people that could be considered leadership was Vos (Who was away at that time,) or Jim. Seabass himself created the drill to test war readiness of Sparta. Convenient? I've had a relationship with pre since beta, and most of us are in the same boat. Hell, Half of the current guardian have relationships to pre, and pretty much every single member of TEst has some sort of tie to guardian.

 

But i don't see you blaming guardian. It seems like there's a salt overload in your salivation plant. TEst left a bad taste in your mouth, so now you're "exposing" them for the world to see. 

 

Except "exposing" is misrepresenting what is actually there to fit a narrative hideo kojima himself may think contrived, but i digress. 

 

Oh? Did you run a fake drill in Guardian too? The difference between Guardian and Sparta was that Seabass had a conflict of interest within the leadership that, regardless of whether or not it was intentional, gave TEst a CB (that Pre has mentioned "TEst membership" wanted for a while) to roll one of Sparta's allies, and could be argued that the event set the stage for to the downfall of the Rose bloc. 

 

Come back and lecture me on not blaming Guardian when you pull off something like that. 

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This is much better than that other spammy stuff written last week and I have always respected TEst as one of Orbis' best groups of warriors. I think if they put their minds to it, they would make some pretty lit pirates.

 

Keep it down to this one article and we'll all be happy :)

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the TEst I lead is different than the real TEst. Jodo and ElPinchazo (and probably Phiney) can only be the leaders of the real TEst as they've lead the alliance during the longest periods of time.

 

  • Thanks for the nod
  • While different, this version of TEst is just as "real" as any.
  • Phiney is definitely just as crucial to "Real" TEst as I was. Likely more so, as he doesn't let an ego influence his decisions like I did.
  • Bring back Pinchy. I miss him. 
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To clarify Caecus's question. Seabass approached me about wanting some fake intel about plotting against Sparta. He apparently tried running a military drill without a threat which produced lack luster results, he asked me to help give a bump in the ass with some fake logs. I came up with the alliance announcement, screenshotted it and gave it to him.

 

Here's a snipit or two from our conversation shortly after everything was made public by Seabass, because it looked like he was going to !@#$ me.

 

 


[19:30] <seabasstion> aww i hope you dont take this mad. pulling the plug or not. i wasn't giving you lip service when i said i regard you as the best player
[19:31] <Prefontaine> I'm not mad.
[19:31] <seabasstion> would you hold that against us?
[19:31] <Prefontaine> I said it was well executed.
[19:31] <Prefontaine> And said Kudos.
[19:32] <Prefontaine> In terms of in game FA, I won't trust you as much anymore.
[19:32] <seabasstion> that is understandable
[19:32] <Prefontaine> Out of game, I appreciate the move.
[19:32] <seabasstion> that is why i targeted test. of all alliances i thought you would appreciate it
[19:32] <Prefontaine> I was being honest when I said I still considered you allies.
[19:33] <seabasstion> so the merge...out of the question? i mean nothing really changed i just took it to the 11th hour
[19:33] <seabasstion> although maybe some of our guys will be mad at me. lol
[19:33] <Prefontaine> Well, depends on the answer to my question.
[19:34] <Prefontaine> Who came up with the plan, you or collab with Alpha?
[19:35] <seabasstion> 100% me. nobody knew
[19:35] <seabasstion> not even jim
[19:35] <seabasstion> im getting yelled at lol
[19:35] <Prefontaine> Then yeah, we'd be open to merging still.
[19:36] <Prefontaine> Why'd you want to actually attack us though?
[19:37] <Prefontaine> I mean it's a move that really damages your credibility to be trusted, just to hit us. When you didn't really need it in the first place, you could have just hit us if you really wanted to.
[19:40] <Prefontaine> So, you guys going to be attacking us or not?
[19:40] <seabasstion> no i am cancelling it
[19:40] <seabasstion> for a minute i thought about rope a doping you x2
 

 

The whole thing was Seabass. I was just trying to help him out. If he did use it to !@#$ me over, like I said in the logs I appreciate the move from a players perspective. I was going to have to destroy him down the road for it of course. But he came clean at the last moment affirmed what I had been telling people. 
 
Also:
 
[20:05] <Prefontaine> So.
[20:05] <Prefontaine> How pissed off is Steve?
 
You think it's a plan started by me. I thought Alpha might've had a hand in it way back when. It was just Seabass. 
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To clarify Caecus's question. Seabass approached me about wanting some fake intel about plotting against Sparta. He apparently tried running a military drill without a threat which produced lack luster results, he asked me to help give a bump in the ass with some fake logs. I came up with the alliance announcement, screenshotted it and gave it to him.

 

Here's a snipit or two from our conversation shortly after everything was made public by Seabass, because it looked like he was going to !@#$ me.

 

 

 

The whole thing was Seabass. I was just trying to help him out. If he did use it to !@#$ me over, like I said in the logs I appreciate the move from a players perspective. I was going to have to destroy him down the road for it of course. But he came clean at the last moment affirmed what I had been telling people. 
 
Also:
 
[20:05] <Prefontaine> So.
[20:05] <Prefontaine> How pissed off is Steve?
 
You think it's a plan started by me. I thought Alpha might've had a hand in it way back when. It was just Seabass. 

 

 

It's logical for you to think Alpha had a hand in it. The second Seabass approached you for it, my reaction would have been to call BS. The fact that someone asked you to fake logs that give a valid CB to half of the web on your alliance and told you to keep it between the two of you was probably the indication you might have been screwed. I'm genuinely surprised you even agreed to helping Seabass with a "drill," even more so considering your FA record before and after the incident. Hell, I'm so surprised, I don't think I believe it.

 

You're telling me that Seabass, all on his own, decided to mobilize a multi-alliance coalition (and not informing anyone except you), psych that coalition out, place said coalition in a weaker economic and military readiness and conveniently give TEst the CB to roll Alpha? That it's a coincidence your alliance has for a while wanted a fight with Alpha? That it's even a greater coincidence he's currently in your alliance? 

 

Seabass is either so incompetent that he accidentally screwed his own allies over or such a genius Trojan horse that I feel morally compelled to applaud. That makes you, Perfontaine, either so gullible that a "Nigerian prince" has already emptied out your banking account, or a master lever-pulling snake that puts Partisan to shame. 

 

Only one narrative fits with your FA record. I can't say that I have been keeping such a close eye on Seabass for any period of time, but it also doesn't make sense that he ended up in Spartan leadership if he was that stupid. 

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It's logical for you to think Alpha had a hand in it. The second Seabass approached you for it, my reaction would have been to call BS. The fact that someone asked you to fake logs that give a valid CB to half of the web on your alliance and told you to keep it between the two of you was probably the indication you might have been screwed. I'm genuinely surprised you even agreed to helping Seabass with a "drill," even more so considering your FA record before and after the incident. Hell, I'm so surprised, I don't think I believe it.

 

You're telling me that Seabass, all on his own, decided to mobilize a multi-alliance coalition (and not informing anyone except you), psych that coalition out, place said coalition in a weaker economic and military readiness and conveniently give TEst the CB to roll Alpha? That it's a coincidence your alliance has for a while wanted a fight with Alpha? That it's even a greater coincidence he's currently in your alliance? 

 

Seabass is either so incompetent that he accidentally screwed his own allies over or such a genius Trojan horse that I feel morally compelled to applaud. That makes you, Perfontaine, either so gullible that a "Nigerian prince" has already emptied out your banking account, or a master lever-pulling snake that puts Partisan to shame. 

 

Only one narrative fits with your FA record. I can't say that I have been keeping such a close eye on Seabass for any period of time, but it also doesn't make sense that he ended up in Spartan leadership if he was that stupid. 

 

I think, due too the diffrences in you'rs and Prefs personalities that you're missing the 3rd option.

He just dint care that much, Seab is an old mate of his, he asked for something Pref provided. 

Seab is a reaving lunatic whome i love with all my hearth and just wanted to have some fun, and i suspect he wished to impress Pref with his aptitude for scheming too.

 

Thats just my impression from beeing in the TEst leadership at the time of the incident. Im sure Pref will set it right as soon as he comes along ;)

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You're telling me that Seabass, all on his own, decided to mobilize a multi-alliance coalition (and not informing anyone except you), psych that coalition out, place said coalition in a weaker economic and military readiness and conveniently give TEst the CB to roll Alpha? That it's a coincidence your alliance has for a while wanted a fight with Alpha? That it's even a greater coincidence he's currently in your alliance? 

 

 

 

to shed new light on this issue - everything pre said is correct.

 

i originally wanted to keep 'the drill' in house only but it spread to allies (alpha) via SRD and jaguar pretty much in an instant. I didn't want to cancel the drill immediately after it started as it wouldnt provide any good data while my credibility would have largely been lost nonetheless.

 

so i decided to pivot the situation and let it take it's natural chaos (with some carefully controlled nudges of my own) until the very end. i was confident i could hit the emergency brake in time so i let some spartans step up and take a big role in the war that wasn't going to happen. there were quite a few surprises by our guys.

 

the only ulterior motive i had, which may be a surprise to some, was to disrupt the trust spartan members had in its leaders and to be more open towards a merger idea. there were 4 leaders, vosunda, jim, myself, and jaguar. to try and get jim on board i wanted him to feel isolated in a way. make him fully shoulder the burden of running an alliance; a feeling which i was hoping would pave the way towards us merging (since i had no desire to lead anymore at this point and i knew he did not want to solo it either)

 

first and foremost though i needed jim to be on board with a merger as well since i'm pretty much his butt buddy at this point (he has a password protected folder of my pics on his blackberry). there was a large amount of near schizophrenic behavior he had to tolerate from me several months before this. the groundwork was well laid out that i was 'off my rocker' at this point.

 

this 'drill' served as a catalyst for jaguar leaving. i suggested a small drill (not nearly of this magnitude) several weeks before and he was vehemently against it. i suspected he was starting to wander his eyes other places and thought this would be the nudge he needed to leave the alliance. it was after a bit and we were down to 3

 

vosunda was a slightly different story. i knew he wanted to 'do something' in the game so i decided to give him a massive case of blue balls during this. after about 24 hours i told him that this was actually a drill. womp womp womp what a bummer. however, after more talking i was able to steer the conversation along the lines to 'how funny would it be if we just attacked test anyway'. so there was a plan within a plan where we were going to actually attack test. just him and i knew (ok - so i guess 2 people knew...but he also thought we were going to war so in effect - it wasnt a drill for him either)

 

i never had intentions to do actually war test, but in his eyes it was a foregone conclusion because a random number generator told me to (that is another fun story during this as part of my madness) he loved the idea of pulling this big game move. so when it was quickly taken away it was another big bummer man. conversations with him after that were basically along the lines 'i dont think we will ever go to war, im going to be leaving the alliance soon blah blah blah'. he left quickly after that

 

then it was just jim beam and me. i had already stepped down from the drill so it was just beam. hoffa (another guy that loves silicone in his rear end) was one of the ones that stepped up during this drill and took a gov role. this served as enough to keep sparta together until we got crushed by bk leaving us all wet and ready for teh blood god's thorny donger.

 

was this manipulative? extremely - but it was completely of my own doing. it wasn't designed to hurt sparta's allies. it was designed to destroy sparta itself.

 

 

i had 2 goals.

1) i wanted to merge/join test. sparta was a failing attempt to emulate them. largely because of issues surrounding my 2nd goal (mostly of my doing)

2) we were infested with people looking to just whale it up and reap the benefits of our econ program without ever wanting to actually test their might. i didn't know how extensive this infestation was, but i knew it was there. i didn't want to bring shit members over to test so this is what i came up with. i got blinded by nation score and compromised on too many attributes i realized were paramount to a good alliance

 

theres probably better ways to accomplish what i was seeking to do, but it was fun to do. i think i gave something like 300m+ in repayment when it was all said and done (a time when that was still a sizeable amount). if anyone asked for refunds i gave it out of my own pocket. a large volume of this went to alpha i believe, but im not sure what they did with it. this is where the details start to evade me.

 

it didn't accomplish everything i wanted with the drill itself but it went a long way towards achieving what was ultimately a mission accomplished. quite a few 'spartans' fled to pantheon and gpa. the nations that were pretty more or less inactive when we needed them were farmed and not brought along.

 

in the aftermath of the BK war debacle i could tell jim was ready to let go of this spartan dream so i pushed my alien green merger &#33;@#&#036; stomach deep into him and finally got it done, and took a small vacation to go whaling

 

sparta, as a whole, was a disaster. we were weak, unorganized, and had poor leadership. not because of competency , rather time constraints. so i cut the fat and introduced enough chaos into the alliance that anyone left standing should be a good fit for the alliance we were hoping to be all along (test). the only thing we were good at was friendship with each other. that has largely persisted this entire time

 

 

to reaffirm - yes - nobody knew i was doing this. SRD directly left because of this. i believe jaguar did as well a few days later and morcant bulk went to alpha. there may have been another couple notable people that left but hey - thats the cost of doing business i guess. i was sad to see them leave as the personal relationships was the only thing i really wanted to preserve from sparta.

 

the only thing i would change is i would have saved up a larger volume of my poop before mailing it to jim's house. after i saw a 3 liter bottle of faygo at the dollar store an overwhelming sense of regret flooded my heart

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It's logical for you to think Alpha had a hand in it. The second Seabass approached you for it, my reaction would have been to call BS. The fact that someone asked you to fake logs that give a valid CB to half of the web on your alliance and told you to keep it between the two of you was probably the indication you might have been screwed. I'm genuinely surprised you even agreed to helping Seabass with a "drill," even more so considering your FA record before and after the incident. Hell, I'm so surprised, I don't think I believe it.

 

You're telling me that Seabass, all on his own, decided to mobilize a multi-alliance coalition (and not informing anyone except you), psych that coalition out, place said coalition in a weaker economic and military readiness and conveniently give TEst the CB to roll Alpha? That it's a coincidence your alliance has for a while wanted a fight with Alpha? That it's even a greater coincidence he's currently in your alliance? 

 

Seabass is either so incompetent that he accidentally screwed his own allies over or such a genius Trojan horse that I feel morally compelled to applaud. That makes you, Perfontaine, either so gullible that a "Nigerian prince" has already emptied out your banking account, or a master lever-pulling snake that puts Partisan to shame. 

 

Only one narrative fits with your FA record. I can't say that I have been keeping such a close eye on Seabass for any period of time, but it also doesn't make sense that he ended up in Spartan leadership if he was that stupid.

 

Just a reminder, kids, this is what you get when you let your thesis lead your research and not your research lead your thesis. Caecus wants so badly to find out that all this was part of a plan because things worked out the way they did. It's hard to see it as disparate events when your head is full of conspiracy. Seabass was at the end of his rope. Sparta had both inactives as well as people that outright refused to militarize. He went through two drills in a month with less than a quarter of us militarized. He thought we needed to be ready as Sparta was in the process of pushing away from the syndasphere. The test provocation pushed us to militarize, and the logs leaked, due in part there wasn't any officers in the alliance, rather two kings. When he released the threat he pushed it out to thirty people, most of who left after the fact, and some who leaked it to both sides of the spectrum. Not everything is a conspiracy, and this was a misstep from an otherwise innately great leader, and under pressure from trying to protect his people, made a mistake. To put this in perspective, seabass immediately stepped down after the fiasco. Why would he do that? For a cover story? To push away suspicions? That's too easy a jump to border on conspiracy.

 

Again, seabass was a competent leader who I knew personally at the time. He was under immense pressure to get us prepared. This is the guy who literally built all of us Manhattan projects over the course of 2 months. The guys a wizard of economics. He also built a military tracker, an economic trend calculation, as well other things that let Sparta stay as powerful as they had. At the same time, at the pinnacle, pre asked us to merge with TEst. Sea went all In trying to get us to join. He did that because he felt like he owed us something as a result of his actions.

 

The language caecus uses, "narrative" "fits" Is evident of someone trying to build a story to fit their ideas about a subject. As an advanced degree candidate in history and with a minor in classics and linguistics, that much has to be true, but I don't understand his motive for dragging pre or seabass through the dirt other than motivation for personal revenge.

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" "

 

Well, let's go through what Seabass said. Seabass essentially said that Sparta, in his opinion, was weak and dead, and the drill was designed to decapitate Spartan leadership for the overall goal of merging with TEst. I may be extrapolating at this point, but I think his reasoning for not telling allies that the drill was faked was because other members of the Spartan leadership told everyone else about the "drill," and he was afraid that Spartan allies would try to confirm with other Spartan leadership that the "drill" was faked, thus ruining his plan for purging the leadership. 

 

So, he wanted Sparta to fail and merge with TEst, and the drill was part of an overall plan for that to eventually happen. Regardless of his reasons why (which he makes out to be for the greater good of the rest of Sparta who are not pixelhuggers), it still doesn't change the fact that he betrayed Sparta. In light of his obvious motives and predispositions to TEst, is it such a leap in logic that another reason why he didn't bother to tell allies was because it could give TEst the CB against Alpha?

 

As a history degree candidate, you should know that historians debate narratives ad nausem. It's the difference between determinists and fatalists, to put it broadly. My narrative has been that TEst's rise has been a very carefully calculated response to events and the shifting treaty web. That TEst isn't a "merry band of idiots," but an upper tier alliance that is heavily involved both on the OWF and behind the scenes to manipulate the world stage. The "drill," I would argue, is a very critical event in that narrative. TEst gets new blood and a CB to roll Alpha from this event, and arguably caused the downfall of the Rose bloc. 

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Well if you really want to give little ol me credit for masterminding the demise of nearly half the game well shucks I guess I'll take it

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The merge was a mutual agreement, not some manipulated plot to undermine Spartan leadership into joining which is the way you are creating your own spin. You say you are a history major, yet you are creating your own false narrative on that particular topic of events. The only deception on Terminus Est's part was not announcing t the public that both Sparta and TEst were discussing a merger for a couple months before we actually did.

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First time we talked about merging was probably about 6 months prior to the merge. 

 

The reason we went to war with Alpha was Rose's forum leak showing their allies felt Alpha was wanting to fight TEst without a CB. Which is something Seabass or myself had no ability to control. 

 

If anything Seabass had a grand scheme to merge Sparta into TEst. Alpha used a biproduct of that plan to express interest in rolling TEst in some form that gave Rose leadership the impression you'd roll us even if the "leak" was just due to a training drill I was helping Sparta with. The reason we attacked Alpha, was because of that. Give us a reason and be an alliance we want to fight, and we will fight you. 

 

Alpha's downfall was Alpha's own doing. Not some grand scheme. It was your failure, not our success. Alpha tried to straddle both sides of the web by signing both Rose and Syndicate. Alpha made an enemy of TEst. Neither of those moves worked out. I'm sorry that you can't believe that your leadership made bad moves and need to cover that up with the idea that I and others had some nefarious plot. 

 

Again. It's your failure, not my success. I'm a guy that likes to brag about his success too. 

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The merge was a mutual agreement, not some manipulated plot to undermine Spartan leadership into joining which is the way you are creating your own spin. You say you are a history major, yet you are creating your own false narrative on that particular topic of events. The only deception on Terminus Est's part was not announcing t the public that both Sparta and TEst were discussing a merger for a couple months before we actually did.

 

Obviously you didn't bother to read Seabass's wall of text, so I'll let you do that real quick before you say something stupid again. Or mine, since I never explicitly said that I was a history major (I was responding to big boss)

 

 

First time we talked about merging was probably about 6 months prior to the merge. 

 

The reason we went to war with Alpha was Rose's forum leak showing their allies felt Alpha was wanting to fight TEst without a CB. Which is something Seabass or myself had no ability to control. 

 

If anything Seabass had a grand scheme to merge Sparta into TEst. Alpha used a biproduct of that plan to express interest in rolling TEst in some form that gave Rose leadership the impression you'd roll us even if the "leak" was just due to a training drill I was helping Sparta with. The reason we attacked Alpha, was because of that. Give us a reason and be an alliance we want to fight, and we will fight you. 

Alpha's downfall was Alpha's own doing. Not some grand scheme. It was your failure, not our success. Alpha tried to straddle both sides of the web by signing both Rose and Syndicate. Alpha made an enemy of TEst. Neither of those moves worked out. I'm sorry that you can't believe that your leadership made bad moves and need to cover that up with the idea that I and others had some nefarious plot. 

 

Again. It's your failure, not my success. I'm a guy that likes to brag about his success too. 

 

There was a lot of confusion for Alpha initially. As you can imagine, when someone plots that kind of drill and then does a 180 so fast it breaks your neck, there was a lot of us who were thinking that Seabass's account was hacked. Everything about the drill was wrong. Why would anyone deliberately put their alliance through something so self-destructive? Anyone in a leadership position with the interest of the alliance and their allies would not have done something so politically suicidal. We now know it was on purpose. The natural reaction of Alpha was that Seabass had been hacked, and that TEst was just trying to save its skin from a major information leak. 

 

Let's not play games here, TEst had already started planning rolling Alpha well before any Rose leak, you yourself expressed the desire of your membership to do so. The Rose leak was irrelevant, you could have dug up logs that said some lowly Alpha member talking crap and used it as a CB. TEst just had to wait for the right moment when the entire sphere was in chaos (again, conveniently from the "drill") before being able to jump in. You keep blaming Alpha for being a political failure, but would Alpha have really taken such a dive if Seabass's "drill" didn't happen? Would you have been able to find another scenario where TEst and tS were in a 2 on 1 against Alpha? Writing off Alpha's failure purely because of politics is missing a key event that shaped the outcomes that led to today. 

 

Well if you really want to give little ol me credit for masterminding the demise of nearly half the game well shucks I guess I'll take it

 

Whoa, let's not jump to conclusions there. According to your side of the story, you accidentally masterminded the demise of nearly half the game, no conscious genius on your part.  

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There was a lot of confusion for Alpha initially. As you can imagine, when someone plots that kind of drill and then does a 180 so fast it breaks your neck, there was a lot of us who were thinking that Seabass's account was hacked. Everything about the drill was wrong. Why would anyone deliberately put their alliance through something so self-destructive? Anyone in a leadership position with the interest of the alliance and their allies would not have done something so politically suicidal. We now know it was on purpose. The natural reaction of Alpha was that Seabass had been hacked, and that TEst was just trying to save its skin from a major information leak. 

 

That's fair I'm sure that whole thing did throw Sparta's allies for a loop. In my defense though I did try to clear the air with a public post explaining things the day before but apparently no one believed me, which I'd understand. I'd challenge anyone to find a scenario where I've lied to people in such a fashion though.

 

 

Let's not play games here, TEst had already started planning rolling Alpha well before any Rose leak, you yourself expressed the desire of your membership to do so. The Rose leak was irrelevant, you could have dug up logs that said some lowly Alpha member talking crap and used it as a CB. TEst just had to wait for the right moment when the entire sphere was in chaos (again, conveniently from the "drill") before being able to jump in. You keep blaming Alpha for being a political failure, but would Alpha have really taken such a dive if Seabass's "drill" didn't happen? Would you have been able to find another scenario where TEst and tS were in a 2 on 1 against Alpha? Writing off Alpha's failure purely because of politics is missing a key event that shaped the outcomes that led to today.

 

You were at the top of our Bingo list, yeah. We wanted to fight you, but mostly because we thought it would be fun. We also thought fighting Sparta would be fun in that poll. We didn't have a motivation to go through with attacking you until those leaks. You can't tell me the reason for why I did what I did, you don't know what I was thinking. There was a catalyst for us attacking you, it was those forum leaks from Rose. Have a threat of my alliance being attacked without a real cause? You bet I'm going to act. Mind you I thought we were going to get rolled hard by your allies countering us. Sure we'd win in the long haul but I figured Syndicate and TEst were gonna take a sever beating. I did try to dissuade Sparta from getting involved. I knew who was lined up to counter them if they attacked us.

 

Honestly here's how that whole war would've likely played out had those logs not leaked. Syndicate declares on Alpha. Alpha's allies declare on Syndicate, counters counters etc.. TEst would have likely fought Sparta when/if they entered the war. But I've been trying to focus on TEst's involvement in this blog. 

 

To reiterate, the Rose leak was very influential on us. I don't know what you would have done had the seabass thing not happened, because I didn't expect the seabass thing to go beyond a military drill. I still blame Alpha's fall squarely on Alpha making bad choices, starting with trying to straddle the spheres. I !@#$ed a ton about that when I was a member of Alpha. 

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Honestly here's how that whole war would've likely played out had those logs not leaked. Syndicate declares on Alpha. Alpha's allies declare on Syndicate, counters counters etc.. TEst would have likely fought Sparta when/if they entered the war. But I've been trying to focus on TEst's involvement in this blog. 

 

Well, I would argue that there wouldn't have been a war in the first place without the drill. Sure, one would have eventually come along, but not at that time and not in that fashion. 

 

Mind you I thought we were going to get rolled hard by your allies countering us. Sure we'd win in the long haul but I figured Syndicate and TEst were gonna take a sever beating. I did try to dissuade Sparta from getting involved. 

 

I find this statement hard to believe. You are more than politically shrewd enough to know that, with the militarization of the Syndisphere behind you (not to mention their response time), a counter from our side that had just recently demilitarized after the announcement from the drill was not prepared in any fashion to effectively counter fully militarized upper tier nations, much less deal with the rest of the Syndisphere. 

 

To reiterate, the Rose leak was very influential on us. I don't know what you would have done had the seabass thing not happened, because I didn't expect the seabass thing to go beyond a military drill. 

 

I'm sure the Rose leak was influential. It indicated that Rose might not step in to defend Alpha and that it was in a state of exhaustion and unpreparedness from the drill and the last war. I think you made a political calculation (that was correct) that Rose and the rest of the sphere were in a worse off position than the rest of the Syndisphere and that Rose would back down. 

 

Seabass's drill had scrambled the entire bloc to mobilize, and immediately following the announcement that it was faked, have that entire bloc waste resources and time and demobilized. In contrast, the Syndisphere starts mobilizing the next day. If Seabass's drill hadn't happened, those days and resources would have leveled out the playing field between the two blocs so that a conflict between the two wouldn't have been such a forgone conclusion. Again, I hate to sound like a broken record, but I think Seabass's drill played a huge part, intentional or otherwise, in the events that played out and without Seabass, the Rose bloc may still exist today. 

 

 

I still blame Alpha's fall squarely on Alpha making bad choices, starting with trying to straddle the spheres. I !@#$ed a ton about that when I was a member of Alpha. 

 

Isn't "straddling the spheres" what  TEst's current political discourse? TEst has entered on both sides of the last couple of wars, and I assume maintains a closed-door relationship with both the former Rose bloc and tS. The difference between TEst and Alpha is that Alpha decided to put things on paper, so it offended tS when Alpha countered on the side of Rose. I think that you also have a more connected relationship with both sides, to the point where TEst was comfortable in negotiating their entrance against Pantheon and for tS to divert resources to fight elsewhere instead of upholding their treaty obligations. If you had to blame Alpha's leadership for anything, I would argue that Steve should have had a better relationship with Partisan when entering in the 168 Day war. Though, in my previous arguments, I would say that is a unique trait of TEst's political savvy, and not an indication of failed leadership by the rest of the world's standards.

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Well, let's go through what Seabass said. Seabass essentially said that Sparta, in his opinion, was weak and dead, and the drill was designed to decapitate Spartan leadership for the overall goal of merging with TEst. I may be extrapolating at this point, but I think his reasoning for not telling allies that the drill was faked was because other members of the Spartan leadership told everyone else about the "drill," and he was afraid that Spartan allies would try to confirm with other Spartan leadership that the "drill" was faked, thus ruining his plan for purging the leadership. 

 

So, he wanted Sparta to fail and merge with TEst, and the drill was part of an overall plan for that to eventually happen. Regardless of his reasons why (which he makes out to be for the greater good of the rest of Sparta who are not pixelhuggers), it still doesn't change the fact that he betrayed Sparta. In light of his obvious motives and predispositions to TEst, is it such a leap in logic that another reason why he didn't bother to tell allies was because it could give TEst the CB against Alpha?

 

As a history degree candidate, you should know that historians debate narratives ad nausem. It's the difference between determinists and fatalists, to put it broadly. My narrative has been that TEst's rise has been a very carefully calculated response to events and the shifting treaty web. That TEst isn't a "merry band of idiots," but an upper tier alliance that is heavily involved both on the OWF and behind the scenes to manipulate the world stage. The "drill," I would argue, is a very critical event in that narrative. TEst gets new blood and a CB to roll Alpha from this event, and arguably caused the downfall of the Rose bloc. 

 

I do not believe that that CB would have been in any way beneficial to Pre/TEst in the political environment at the time. Specifically because he could not have done anything with it without prematurely smothering his own ambition in its crib unless The Syndicate+sphere were to act. 

 

There was too much risk of failure. The plan would also strain TEst-ParaCov/Alpha relations (if it was as you intended). Given that TEst victory would be dependent on tS cooperation/initiative, TEst in its relatively isolated position at the time could not afford to risk being targeted without immediate, tangible benefit.

 

There's also the following hole in your assertion:

- You assert that Pre's rise was a calculated move to the top.

- Shredding PR to place your numerically small, upper tier-centric alliance in the vanguard of what might be the catalyst to a global war is a surefire way to incur proportionally higher losses than the rest of your own coalition.

- Provided that this was all part of that plan to rise to he top, Pre would have known that following the final defeat of paracov, he as a third party would be more likely to find himself at odds with us (naturally speaking).

- With that in mind, it would be a sign of incompetence for pre to deliberately place himself in harms way to roll Alpha, weakening his own position moving forward, when he might as well sit around and hope for us to shred one another in time (which had a decent chance of happening, given relations between us).

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Isn't "straddling the spheres" what  TEst's current political discourse? TEst has entered on both sides of the last couple of wars, and I assume maintains a closed-door relationship with both the former Rose bloc and tS. The difference between TEst and Alpha is that Alpha decided to put things on paper, so it offended tS when Alpha countered on the side of Rose. I think that you also have a more connected relationship with both sides, to the point where TEst was comfortable in negotiating their entrance against Pantheon and for tS to divert resources to fight elsewhere instead of upholding their treaty obligations. If you had to blame Alpha's leadership for anything, I would argue that Steve should have had a better relationship with Partisan when entering in the 168 Day war. Though, in my previous arguments, I would say that is a unique trait of TEst's political savvy, and not an indication of failed leadership by the rest of the world's standards.

 

 

 

Actually, the relationship beween myself and Steve wasn't bad at all prior to 168. It is the conduct within that (war) period which aggravated relations and ultimately led to our bad break. I'd rather not get into much detail this time since I don't feel like another WoT-battle. :P

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I do not believe that that CB would have been in any way beneficial to Pre/TEst in the political environment at the time. Specifically because he could not have done anything with it without prematurely smothering his own ambition in its crib unless The Syndicate+sphere were to act. 

 

There was too much risk of failure. The plan would also strain TEst-ParaCov/Alpha relations (if it was as you intended). Given that TEst victory would be dependent on tS cooperation/initiative, TEst in its relatively isolated position at the time could not afford to risk being targeted without immediate, tangible benefit.

 

I believe I have already addressed most of what you said, either through posts here or my own blog. There is a lot that I have said, so I don't blame you for not having gone through it all (though it is a bit ironic that I'm the one with the walls of texts). 

 

At this point, I no longer believe that Seabass had deliberately used the drill to benefit TEst in the way it did. I believe my quote was "there was no conscious genius on [seabass's] part" that the events played out the way it did. What is obvious is that the drill did lead to a weakened state of economic and military readiness (of which, nobody here has yet to argue against) which TEst and the Syndisphere subsequently exploited to their advantage. 

 

 

There's also the following hole in your assertion:

- You assert that Pre's rise was a calculated move to the top.

- Shredding PR to place your numerically small, upper tier-centric alliance in the vanguard of what might be the catalyst to a global war is a surefire way to incur proportionally higher losses than the rest of your own coalition.

- Provided that this was all part of that plan to rise to he top, Pre would have known that following the final defeat of paracov, he as a third party would be more likely to find himself at odds with us (naturally speaking).

- With that in mind, it would be a sign of incompetence for pre to deliberately place himself in harms way to roll Alpha, weakening his own position moving forward, when he might as well sit around and hope for us to shred one another in time (which had a decent chance of happening, given relations between us).

 

- And I still do.

- Again, the outcome of the drill and the Rose leaks gave TEst enough information to make a calculated decision that a war with Alpha (and tS in the tow) would stay just that; and it would be a quick and easy victory. 

- I likewise addressed this issue in a previous blog post about TEst's strengths and weaknesses, this being one of TEst's weaknesses, and it is solved by one of its strengths. 

- But the events didn't play out that way. Again, through carefully calculated FA and basic arithmetic, TEst has risen to the top. You are entirely excluding the factor that TEst probably has a direct line to your bathroom (and enough top officials on both sides to be in between the two spheres at all times) and is savvy enough to use those connections to achieve its goals. 

 

Actually, the relationship beween myself and Steve wasn't bad at all prior to 168. It is the conduct within that (war) period which aggravated relations and ultimately led to our bad break. I'd rather not get into much detail this time since I don't feel like another WoT-battle.  :P

 

I wasn't saying they were bad. I was saying they could have been good enough for Alpha to tell tS that Alpha intended to come into the war on the side of Rose and for you guys to not leak the information or freak out. Perhaps the phone in the bathroom deal that TEst has with you. 

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