Roy Mustang

You're a tad late with this post... we already knew.

For what it's worth this looks glorious on mobile.

As we've made clear to both Blue Moon and their protectors, we have no desire or interest in the disbandment of Blue Moon. For my part I would be quite happy if they reformed. No need for them to give up just because one dude was an asshat imo.

Funnily enough, considering the amount of money that moves through TI in taxes on the regular, this is also the biggest blown opportunity in Orbis history. I like to think you, the OG bank stealer, would recognize that

Well it's quite nice that you provided us with an alternative interpretation, but unfortunately that wasn't actually the question. We already know your interpretation, and restating it as if it's a refutation doesn't actually make it so. The meat of your own post is you basically conceding that the only way you would think we weren't trying to trying to kick your ass here because of (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways) would be for us to lose - which is odd, because let's be perfectly honest, if you really think we're salty about (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways), us losing wouldn't make us any less salty - if anything it would probably just exacerbate the situation. I'm gonna just interpret that as you not having a real answer to my question, which I didn't really think you did. Also lol at saying Sparta was part of MI6's ally set - technically true at points, but we also got dropped by Sparta as part of a pivot towards your own alliance Umbrella. If you think things were all sunshine and rainbows after that, I dunno what to tell you dude.

Not at all, but don't let that stop you from using that "solved" button

Screw it, I'll bite. We have a different membership composition (MI6 was a source of membership, but so was Sparta, IRON, and quite a few other AAs), a different leadership structure as well as leadership, a different set of allies (certainly when we started - now we have a healthy mix between PnW "originals" and (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways)-rooted alliances, because it's kind of tough these days to *not* be allied to one ), a different play style as well as theme. What else could you possibly want from us to demonstrate that we don't "just want to make sure we dominate here"? Risky attacks that could backfire politically? Done that. Large political pivots without a lot of cover? Done that. Fight in large-scale conflicts without treaty cover? Done that too. Reach out to former enemies? Done that, been rebuffed several times. This sentiment keeps persisting and clearly I have no idea how to clear it, since everything we do just leads to people (yourself included) doubling down on the meme that "tS/HegemOOny is salty about (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways) and wants to kick our ass here". So tell me. If you don't have an answer, then drop that whole line of argument because it's clearly bunk if there's literally nothing we could do in your eyes to prove that we (writ large) don't care about (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways). Individual members might care about (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways). Doesn't matter, them's the perks of being a dictatorship

You're not getting it, Roq. The term you use, "refugees", even implies that those people wanted to get the hell out of (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways) and didn't want any more to do with it. If we wanted the same stagnant boring crap as (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways), we'd have stayed in (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways). I can't necessarily speak for all of my spheremates here, but I think most of them would agree that we wanted to build something new and different and interesting here. Certainly, that was one of the largest motivating factors behind the establishment of tS. We could have been a PnW port of MI6 very easily, but consciously chose not to be. I've been over this whole (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways) situation since July, and have only bothered to post about it because you've chosen to use it as some weird sort of justification. As Manthrax said upthread, it will die if you let it.

Okay, so I want to address my posts made in that thread, because holy misguided extrapolation, Batman! Your characterization of my (extremely short) post is either intentionally misleading, or has merely grown in the telling since June, effectively. My post was as follows, on the first page of the NG declaration thread: As Partisan has already covered, at that early juncture, we had been provided with no (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways) CB (or really no CB at all, not even a "lol we want to roll MI6"). Given the reference, it wasn't unreasonable to suspect that the DoW was a result of PnW, and I posted accusing them of crossing games accordingly. It's genuinely hilarious to me that my post is now somehow supposed to be evidence that I was announcing some intention to retaliate in PnW. It was nothing more than a "welp, I guess you can't be bothered to keep your animosity separate". While CBs were later provided, and in fact listened to by both myself and Partisan, all of that doesn't help when you're referring to a spur-of-the-moment reaction post. It was somewhat intellectually dishonest to harp on it then (because we explained our posts ad nauseam back then as well), and entirely so to keep harping on it several months later when there's little disagreement that the NG DoW was intended to get pretty much exactly the reaction it got out of us. But whatever, I'm outta here again.

Y'all really need to stop waking Partisan up. Though he's technically not my problem anymore

Uhm... You do understand that your alliance drew first blood in this particular war right? This war could be about many things (oh so many things), but I don't see how we could have manipulated NPO, et al into hitting us as revenge for (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways). Even sneks have their limits.

He's not half as wrong as you seem to think, though. Per the Alliance Power Rankings, on the day that Proxy began, t$ had 53 members, and Rose had 94 members. Average scores were roughly comparable at the time, and Rose had around a 30% advantage in nation count. That seems to support his stance way more than yours. I now return you to your regularly scheduled dumpster fire.

Love you too boo Congrats to VE!

Grub could post the weather and I'd still want to strangle him. His posting style bothers me that much.

But it's not entirely our decision though, and I think that's the crux of our difference here. We can want to work with ParaCov alliances all we want, but if we can't find a partner willing to work with us, we can't work with ParaCov. It takes two parties, after all. If you want to say the opening was there more for our allies than for us, that's fine, but you can't then sit there and accuse us of being hypocritical (since tS is one of the biggest proponents of keeping the game fresh, and have put our money where our mouth is more than once). t$ is willing to shake up the game, but you don't want to play ball with us. So that makes it our fault that the game is stagnant? What?

Frankly, even if there was drama, based on your collective's sphere's tendency to rebuff nearly all of our outreach (at least, as far as tS is concerned), we'd be more likely to grit it out and fix the problems within the sphere than to go begging for a treaty or three with alliances who tend to default to "B-b-b-but tS is so EBIL!" That, more than anything, is the reason I brought up the UPN ODP offer. When stuff like that happens, it's hard to see your sphere as a viable alternative, and since few alliances are going to jump ship without *some* kind of contingency plan, it really is up to you to be able to offer one. This is basically the foundation of the amazing tS-Mensa relationship, after all. Also, @Saru: I appreciate the writeup but it's largely irrelevant to this discussion (or at least, my little branch thereof), because it's on your gov to do shit by your own book, not on us to magically know what the membership wants. Though we did try our ass off to reconcile with your membership too.

A good number of those ties are recent, however, and did not come into existence until after the ODP in question fell through. At the time, t$ was much more central to our coalition than any Paracovenant alliance was to your coalition. The "Syndisphere" moniker wasn't coined for no reason. Also UPN is a republic, not a direct democracy (even after their recent Charter change) - while the government is elected, treaties are not subject to a popular vote (someone from UPN, correct me if I'm wrong! but that was definitely my impression at the time). They (imo correctly) backed down to membership will, but it's also on them to know the mood and opinions of their membership - not on me. We took what their gov said at face value, i.e. trust, and it sorta blew up in our face. Luckily there was nothing major riding on it, but had it been something more substantial, it would have been a problem. While I will grant you that we were quicker to embrace total coalition warfare, I don't see how that's our problem to fix at all. What, do you want us to fight with one arm tied behind our backs?

We are all ayyyliens now

Can't speak to Proxy (mostly because of beer - I'll try to circle back to this post in the morning), but TEst wasn't really given a choice in Oktoberfest - TC attacked TEst, SK, and t$ simultaneously. While I suppose they could have been pigheaded and gone it alone, why not coordinate with the people who are getting attacked at the same time as you, especially when you like them.

Well sure but the flipside is that an ODP complicates our ability to defend our current allies as well. Like, there's gotta be *something* to start from, aye? Would you be arguing the same thing if Mensa or tS had been talking MDPs instead and things fell through? In the case of UPN, we had an ODP literally agreed to by the then-gov that the membership later torpedoed. Had that been an MDP that we had cut some ties to get, we would have ended up in a really shit situation (it was an ODP, so that wasn't on the table at all, but you understand my point I hope) If you want to blame our reluctance to go out on a limb on anything, blame it on situations like that.

VE is welcomed to bring their resentment to the official thread: https://politicsandwar.com/forums/index.php?/topic/16274-the-fury-of-the-gods-descends/

No words, and still a better DoW than Rose. Welcome to the fight bbys!

Our side is more than BK, but of course you knew that. Given the militarization of your side ad-hoc coalition, being within a double buy of max was actually pretty prudent. Thanks for confirming that we weren't all just paranoid as hell!

If you still miss the point then I'm feeling pretty good right now. Keep missing the point, Military Commander of the Opposition

In defense of Rose? Do... you know what defense means? That being said, enjoy the fight!