Prefonteen

Vanguard had no direct ties to Rose at the time. Mensa raided Vanguard. Vanguard recognized hostilities a week (or so?) later and launched a counterblitz. A week or two later and after a few other incidents which showed a degree of chaos in Syndicate/sphere's ranks, Rose began pushing the Vanguard issue to war and ultimately declared war. I'll repeat: Rose was not formally allied to Vanguard and as such, tS' treaty was directy triggered. I will not delve further into Rose's reason for attacking as it is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. They had their reasons. That did not however nullify our obligations to Mena as an ally.

Roq. My problem with you lies not in your move: You're right. You have every right to go aggressive on us if you believe us to be a threat. Whether we actually are or not is irrelevant- if you perceive us as such, then I can understand where you are coming from. It's the astounding hypocricy in your (and others on your side) rhetoric that burns away any credibility you have in our eyes. The entirety of Paracov/ALNPO has spent the gross of the past 2 years rationaizing their own political opportunism as being morally superior to moves of the same nature conducted by their opposition: You continue to ostracize us for acts and decisions that you and your allies are guilty of yourself. Worse yet, you structurally demonize The Syndicate in particular for acts it has never committed, attributing to us aggression which never existed. This is the fifth war we have fought against different lineups of paracov/NPO alliances. Out of these 5 wars, we were struck pre-emptively on 3 seperate occasions, and in all 3 of these case, no Syndicate offensive was planned anywhere in the near future. When you pre-emptively bliz an alliance, you effectively take away your opponent's opportunity/ability to decide on his course of actions: You force him to become part of the fray on terms set by you. It provides a distinct miliary advantage, often at the cost of political capital. When you pre-empt an alliance however without having any tangible proof/knowledge of a planned attack against you, you can not later claim that that alliance was inherently aggressive in its conduct. The fourth occasion consitutes a Syndicate treaty being triggered directly by an attack on an ally. As no treaties were in play on the other side, no non-chaining clauses applied. Again, you can not attack an alliance's ally and then accuse said alliance of being inherently aggressve when it comes to its allies defense. If you want to paint us as aggressive, stick with recent history. Because anything and everything before Alpha/NPO will only serve to make you look like shit.

Let's start off by making a distinction between our grander sphere and just tS, since tS' members and government can only speak for tS' actions and motivations. Moreover, Our sphere is *not* a conglomrate which moves as a single unit: The different entties making it up all have their own motivations and agendas at times, and have to some degree been pressed together by circumstance in their early days. Now second, wars peraining tS: Syndicate-FSA: FSA raids tS, escalates by going full scale after reps are demanded. Hostilities recognized. ----> 100% Defensive Guardian-VE: Guardiansphere pre-empts Viridian Entente after a leak detailing a planned assault on VE. Syndicate MDP triggered ----> 100% Defensive Proxy: Mensa wants to go after Rose. UPN and tS both promise to protect Mensa from counters but neither wants to support a direct assault for reasons of their own. Vanguard hits Mensa. Rose pre-empts tS and leaves UPN be ---> tS? Definitely 100% defensive. Oktoberfest: Covenant all out assault on tS (you can argue that 'it was going to happen' but that's a fallacy. tS was not in a position to do jackshit against covenant by virtue of mutual ties with BK and Mensa (both of whom wanted to prevent escalation. Without them, tS was harmless.) ------> 100% defensive 168: Rose hits Mensa citing a supposed paperless tie on a weeks old war. Given that no treaty was held between Rose and Vanguard, tS' treaty is triggered ----> 100% Defensive. Alpha: leaving our motivations (pre-emptive strike) behind, this was syndicate initiated and therefore technically aggressive. NPO's first time: Aggressive. That's it. Now, see the pattern: We have for the gross of our history related to our current opposition been on the defensive end. We traded defense for offense in one sequence of wars (Alpha and NPO's first time can arguably be considered 2 wars under the same umbrella). The key here: Perhaps there is reason why we went aggressive for once. *shrug* but keep trying to spin lads. That one's directed not just at Steve. (Hi Roq)

So... we emulate it because.... we defend ourselves from you attacking us this war?

Steve is going full eumir ðŸ˜

BRB, deleting word wall response I had prematurely prepared

Lolwhat

It's not about getting upset. It's about correcting a factual inaccuracy. No more, no less.

You are free to comment. You are not entitled to a reply.

This...has occurred in every single war i've had to lead. Not being privy to backroom deals does not mean they do not occur.

I don't feel like replying to you on this matter is valuable to me, tS or SK whatsoever. You are a third-party observer without inside knowledge attempting to interject yourself in the discussion for god knows why.

The leaked logs featured Carmen and Brooklyn. Not me. If you're going to interject), at least know what you're talking about.

Hmmm yeah I remember that! You were on the other side. Guardian-Mensa-SK struck. I think you were pissed off with being left in the dark or something? You probably know that better than I do. I do recall when you came to us to negotiate peace. We negotiated that you'd hit SK (who you didn't like or something along those lines) and we'd let you off the hook. We didn't have syndisphere at the time and it was more of a peace term than i was an entirely voluntary entry. But I guess we'll count it? 3/1/2/2

Hey, if it's worth anything to you: I feel like we're actually making progress. Sometimes you got to fling some shit at one another before you can move on . Anyways. I do agree that it's entirely possible that it has not been intentional on your part. In practice, it may still have ended up !@#$ us in a way, but naivity does not equate to duplicity and that would be a redeeming factor. If anything, i'm glad you are at leas acknowledging our grievance and trying to establish the dialogue. Part of the frustration is that it's hard to get a read on where naivity ends and intention starts, if that makes sense. I certainly agree on all 3 points, and I also agree that it doesn't make much sense if you explain it that way. Should definitely note that people do not always act rationally. We've seen this in this game over an over . If we deduct that way: - Maybe you thought that with SK moving, you could tip the scales and as such the move seemed beneficial enough (given the reward of being heralded as a savior of sorts within paracov, and the foundation for a or even the lead role in a now winning sphere) - I can reasonably assume that you (read: SK as a whoe) approached others within our sphere to join you in moving away from tS as well (correct me if i'm wrong?). Maybe this is a worst case scenario. - Maybe you started out wanting a third sphere, realized it wasn't viable and then decided you had no option but to come at us. - Maybe you somehow felt slighted over something (anything) that occurred between tS-SK and that we are unaware of, and maybe that has driven you to move. - Or maybe it was indeed all a plot. Point being... there can be many rational, semi-rational and irrational motivations that influenced your decisions. There is a case to be made for every scenario, and every scenario can be refuted in a different way as well. Your line of reasoning does make sense on its own. There have been conflicting messages going out from SK though. A point of contention I want to bring up is that I recall a prominent SK figure stating that in order for your plans to succeed, tS had to be defeated, or something along those lines. If you wish I can dig for the quote. It's on the OWF here somewhere. That quote on its own would invalidate the entire proposition brought forth in this particular discussion. Could you elaborate on how we need to interpret that? EDIT: got it! (It was Mikey) If your third sphere's viability is considered mutually exclusive with peaceful relations with tS, I can understand that... but that kind of invalidates any claims of your involvement in this war being no more than the direct result of Rose aggression.

Nah. TEst has never been in "Syndisphere". Our goals have however aligned on a few occasions. Our military interactions with TEst: - TEst joined us in proxy war by hitting VE - TEst got lumped in and hit alongside tS-SK by UPN-DEIC-BoC during oktoberfest - TEst sat out 168 - TEst coordinated with tS in striking Alpha. They did have their own motivations for this (ask prefontaine). - TEst did not involve itself in the following global war (NPO's first time). They did offer themselves to whomever was willing to pay 1 billion. No one took the offer. - TEst hit Pantheon, a tS ally in this war. All in all, this means that TEst: - Opted to fight for us as 'allies' in 2 out of 6 situations. One of which was a simple manner of 'mutual objective but different motivations'. - Got attacked and thus forced to coordinate with us in 1 out of 6 situations. Not their choice. - Sat out in 2 out of 6 situations - Fought tS' extended sphere in situation. That's 2/1/2/2. Haaaardly part of a sphere.

Actually: From UPN's charter- As I understand, the treaty had passed the senate and was therefore ready to be ratified. It got torpedoed when Hansarius leaked it to the members in a riling post which depicted tS as "UPN's gravest enemies". Bits and pieces of informtion can be powerful in the right context. Members got riled up and a cluster!@#$ occurred. This forced UPN government back to the table. That is why ultimately the ODP got dropped. @UPN and/or ex-UPN: Correct me if i'm wrong

tS cancelled Alpha because Alpha broke our trust. C'moooooon

Nah. Mensa would have drifted to Covenant at the time.

I'm perfectly fine with reading subtext when it actually makes sense. Perhaps you can show me how I should interpret the whole 'disown' line? How was it intended? On accusing you of lieing: In hindsight, it definitely looks that way. That's the problem. I realize that there may be a grey middle ground but shit. Your word definitely did not hold up- be it deliberate or not. With that established: If I look back at the chain of events I noted, it looks like complete and total garbage and arguably a ploy to simple stab us. Now I am told to believe your word that it isn't. Can you see how that might be troublesome for me? 1. I'm well aware that SK is not uniform in its thoughts. Not a single alliance is. That is exactly why I base my interpretation of your intentions on your actions, rather than your words. 2. No, I am not angry. However, you have to agree with me that these recent events (See: coalition war and your intended DoW on us) paint that particular chain of events in a rather damning light. That's not anger, it's deduction. Where the truth lies? I don't know. The problem is that literally every word that has ever come out of Gandalf's mouth has literally pointed towards this exact chain of events occurring. That is subsequently also why we 'anticipated this'. The leak was the first domino in that regard, and when it occurred you did not stamp it out. You (re)installed him into FA and seemingly gave him carte blanche to A) run his mouth, execute the plan to move away from us and C) eventually adopt what to us looks like a hostile stance 5. So you are saying that you signed Rose, and within 3 weeks, they approached you with a fully planned war plan against the ally you dropped 3 weeks ago. You then agreed to pre-empting your former ally while your allies pre-empted your other former allies. Are you aware that you had the option to tell them to sod off if you did not like the idea of hitting us? More importantly though, are you saying that no discussions whatsoever took place to form the coalition and warplan? Rose just randomly had everything ready and came to you? That's without even touching on the fact that both Gandalf and Keegoz telegraphed this: Keegoz has been openly hostile for some time now, and it was quite easy to see that he would probably strike if given the opportunity. I'm having a hard time following how you can have been oblivious right up until the war was there. 9. I'm pretty sure you'll find a distinct difference in how Manthrax in his capacity of head of FA approaches his interactions with you and how I in my capacity of retired snek do. I'm simply giving it to you bluntly. You've engaged in a dick move and i'm making sure you know that. It's not much different from when we talked earlier. 10. Sure, it's a different position. That's not at all the point I made in my follow-up post though: My point is that it's idiotic to scope in on *that* as the reason for any negative sentiments towards you, rather than you literally looking to engage in a war against us. I already touched on this earlier in my message: I believed you personally when we spoke. Since then, events have unfolded that make me feel like the benefit of doubt given to you was misplaced. That is why I touched on those various incidents. In each particular one, we gave you the benefit of the doubt and continued working with you. Now we are at war. Can you really fault me for thinking that perhaps there was something to it? Is it an accusation? Yes. Can I 100% prove it? No. Can you 100% disprove it? No. Does the accusation have a reasonable foundation? Yes.

What orders did you specifically get from Jessica? We did have her send orders re: actual coalition)-approved targeting. NAC was never discussed for SK as our strategy revolved around dodging all UPN chains (meaning: ve and NAC)

Uh no? I'd told TKP to coordinate with Guardian and Mensa on the VE front when VE hit TKP. TKP messaged SK govt with NAC targets. SK went in om NAC without checking with us (or any other coalition partner, really). That brought UPN in. Question: who told you this 'jess ordered it' bogus?

Hahahahaha HI STEVE

1. The position of power was not unprecedented. Clear positions of dominance have been established in the past, and will be established in the future. More importantly, they have always fallen in the end, be it by slow crumbling or large mishaps. 2. I agree about the wear and tear. But the thing is: These alliances willingly put themselves in that position over and over again. Madness is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different esults. 3. "im canceling my treaties to avoid getting rolled" only to then suicide into your previous opposition is counterproductive to the goal of removing the target from your back." 4. Treaties have been avoided and broken over and over for years now. On both sides. This has nothing to do with any 'endgame' or with us winning. It has everything to do with (sometimes hidden) agendas and the circumstances of any specific situation. About an endgame stage... This is not the war to end all wars. PnW has quite a few left. But two sides continuing to drive the exact same strategies against the exact same people without considering reconciliation is most certainly going to lead to an endgame stage.

I'd say you were most certainly up there around the guardian-VE war. Your military execution in oktoberfest was decent too- especially as a mass alliance. That war was lost due to other factors. I feel like the assessment of Mensa --> TEst --> tS is probably accurate. In terms of fighting ability per head I would coin The Coalition and Guardian as well. Especially TC has shown up in every war and punched above its weight.

That's right. I can keep going all day. I ain't restrained by the chains of goodwill. Come at me.