Roy Mustang

SHIT GUYS HE REMEMBERED But on a more serious note, congrats Covenant!

We're similar because we opted for a classy coat of arms? That's amusing. I mean, I get that it's part of a supposed accumulation of facts, but surely you understand that's a reach. A coat of arms is entirely in-character for a corporate-themed alliance that got it's start in Europe, and continued on to move it's Headquarters to an offshore banking haven (The Bahamas were chosen entirely because Grand Cayman is too small to appear on the in-game map, but our original in-game HQ is in Switzerland). Feel free to google a few. I suggest RBS for a start While I was indeed gov in MI6 in January, it's probably worth noting that I was brought in for a very specific job (to clean up internal procedures). Once that job was complete I stepped down about as swiftly as possible. I serve solely as the alliance needs me, in (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways). Conversely, tS initial gov was chosen by one-time vote - I won because I bothered to actually organize the guides. If you can scare Cynic out of wherever crevice he hid in, he can certainly confirm as much. The idea that me becoming MI6 gov had anything to do with tS is pretty comical (in fact, I seem to recall the M's being less than thrilled with me splitting my attention). The important distinction between tS and (PW)NPO, perhaps, is that we don't recruit saying "hey come over because we're going to need more resources", we recruit saying "hey come over because (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways) is a game that is entirely past its prime and you're bored". I mean yes, the game needs to grow, but I think it's a perfectly debatable question whether or not the sort of "casual players" that (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways) NPO has enjoyed so much success with are actually beneficial to (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways) or if they would be beneficial to PW. This is a perspective you and I might actually be closer on than most suspect, it would be nice to have a conversation about it that isn't covered with OWF gunk.

No one ever said it was your fault that anti-NPO sentiment comes from any particular place, let's be honest though it's simple self-selection - players who dislike you (whether that's because of the way your members handle themselves on the forum, they way you play the game, your flag, or something OOC) aren't likely to remain in alliances that are close to you, and are more likely to join alliances that are not close to you. You are more heavily connected to the Paracovenant pole, so simple self-selection would dictate that members who dislike you would move away. It's like magnetism. Thank you, however, for answering my question, however inadvertent it may have been. We're the threat (or rather, us and our allies are), by virtue of self-selection. Good to know, I'll take that into advisement.

Genuine question, how do you figure?

Actually I just got a recruit from NationStates the other day. Nearly fell out of my chair when he told me he was from there PW NPO holds treaties with VE, UPN, Polaris, Alpha, SK, and TKR. You are correct that we share SK and TKR as mutual allies, however again, it comes back to "who else would pose an existential threat to them?" Sparta shares all three of their allies with NPO, it's certainly not them. DEIC shares their only ally with NPO, it would be suicide for them. Rose shares three allies with NPO, again unlikely. In my mind, that very quickly brings you down to Guardian (1 shared) Mensa (1 shared) BK (1 shared) BoC (1 shared) tS (2 shared) Assuming we're picking one of those 5 alliances (or some combination thereof) as PW NPO's existential threat, that means tS would be militarily involved in this upcoming conflict (whether as an initial participant or as a chain-in). Again, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for clarification when, to this point, tS gov as a whole has been content to sit back and say "meh" when asked about NPO. I apologize if I left out any smaller AAs, but I was taking too long with this post as it was (too many distractions).

Okay maybe I need to break this down to it's most basic component. PW NPO claims that there is an existential threat to its survival. Given that Orbis politics are bipolar, and PW NPO is firmly tied via several treaties to one pole, the logical conclusion is that the existential threat must be the other pole (anchored by tS and our many treaties, as you guys are so fond of mentioning). PW NPO claims that we are not the existential threat that is referenced. Therefore, tS would very much like to know who is this existential threat. Frankly I don't think it's an unreasonable thing to wonder. The fact that this alleged threat was used to recruit elsewhere isn't really important to the actual question - if this were posted on Nationstates we'd be wondering the exact same thing.

... If you don't care about the OP then I genuinely don't understand why you're bothering to reply to the topic? That's like, forum 101.

The above three people did not read the OP. Please address the actual body of the post, rather than seizing on the mere appearance of the word "Alpha" in the preambulatory context to decry us trying to link you back to (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways). For the purposes of this topic, you are irrelevant. Cheers and I look forward to the nukes if you manage to get them off! Are we really going to play the word game here? MrHat has been running around with those logs like a dog with a bone, clearly working to imply that Chimaera represents The Syndicate. If you sought to produce something that would clearly indicate a broader, less defined threat to Pacifica, there are no shortage of other things you could have used, which are more overtly aggressive and not taken out of context. Indeed, the poll with the "NPO sucks" option you reference would have been an option. Furthermore, if we think logically here, where would the referenced threat come from? Certainly not from VE, UPN, Polaris, or Alpha, who are all treatied to you. Rose? Unlikely, given how many mutual allies you have. The only alliances that pose any sort of statistical threat to Pacifica that remain after all that are either allied to The Syndicate or are The Syndicate itself. So, to recap: You claim an existential threat You present evidence of existential threat, logs of a Syndicate member A quick glance indicates that NPO is treatied to every alliance that could pose an existential threat to them save those allied to The Syndicate Ergo, your existential threat must be either The Syndicate or one of our allies (which, for us, is the same thing since we will defend them) Of course, if we're not the threat, who the hell is left?

To the best of my understanding, WANA's axe to grind with NPO stems first and foremost with the perceived slighting he's received from this present iteration of NPO regarding his previous attempt to establish NPO here. You're free to recognize his claim as valid or invalid as you wish, I personally could not care either way, but the basis of WANA's issues with PW NPO are rooted in things that have happened specifically in PW (current Pacifican leadership's unwillingness to recognize his previous attempt). Gonna let you and Thrax just bicker about the rest of this.

Carter, If you've been following closely, you'll realize that the events presently under discussion predate your stint as Vanguard gov. While we appreciate your perspective, it is not germane to the specific discussion at hand. V/r, Roy

Our apologies for taking the rationale provided in a DoW at face value. "IT'S A JOKE" is really a poor excuse, if there really was an actual rationale. Hell, making the joke isn't necessarily wrong, but the thing about DoWs is that they're not for the alliance declaring war. They already know why they're going to war. They're for everyone else, to explain why they're going to war. Saying "everyone already knows" is stupid, especially since if everyone did already know, we wouldn't be having this conversation Is it really so hard to say "We're declaring on MI6 because Chim's an ass" if you're declaring on MI6 because Chim's an ass? Shit, put it in a spoiler if you want. But it shouldn't be surprising that people took the DoW at face value, that's why they exist. EDIT: Excuse me, you say it's as a troll. Not a joke. My bad. Point still remains.

I'll help you out. Partisan is presently on a road trip (Parti, go back and enjoy your road trip! ). When we were trying to figure out how to handle the alliance's FA while he was on the road trip, we made the decision as a government to turn his FA powers over to his second-in-command, Valakias, for the duration of his road trip. That way, regardless of his internet access (or lack thereof) during his trip, there would be continuity of leadership in FA, as opposed to Partisan possibly encountering multi-day absences and being unable to respond (and, as we are a triumvirate, possibly hobbling our decision making, such as signing potential peace terms). Partisan will still be on this road trip until mid-June (June 10th? 15th? something like that, I'll double-check). Once he has officially returned, we'll make an OWF statement regarding that, as well as remove the note next to his name in all caps in our alliance description. Until then, Valakias has all the rights and authorities of the Chief Strategic Office (Head of FA) of tS. Having answered that, you still haven't responded to either Partisan or my rebuttals. Decent shot at a diversion, though. So I ask again, are we going to get a straight answer from you on either Partisan or my own detailed posts?

Assuming he hasn't put me on ignore, he should be aware, considering that I said more or less the same thing last night How many times do we have to make the same point before you respond to it, Sir Kangaroo?

So you trust us not to break a NAP and also trust us not to just ask a friend to hit you for us to get around said NAP? Because that's exactly what an untrustworthy AA (as you've implied we are) would do.

Wait are we doing that public negotiation thing now? Partisan will be so disappointed he wasn't around for it Let's be real, if we wanted to find a way around a NAP and screw with your infra rebuys, we could. Ask an ally to hit you on our behalf, hire Arrgh and Fraggle to mess up your day, etc. We really have no interest in wasting either our time nor our money in doing so. In that same vein, we have no interest in attacking you again ourselves even if there is no NAP. Really we'd just prefer to forget you exist entirely, so unless you intend to circle the wagons for some kind of revenge war, you really could just sign the white peace and we could both enjoy mutually ignoring each other.

We dropped the apology and offered straight white peace. That is budging. We walked our half way to the center, Alpha's left us hanging.

I, like Vanek, don't particularly trust Sheepy's stat tracker to provide accurate numbers - they've never seemed quite right in any instance that I've cared to look at them. That is not an unreasonable source to use for numbers though (after all, if they are indeed wrong, that's the game dev's fault, not yours ) EDIT to clarify, since I pay attention to IRC: We're not saying Alpha is lying. We're saying that Sheepy's coding can be questionable at times, something I don't think even he would contest.

I'm sorry it is clearly time for me to commit sudoku. (Seriously, not really sure why the copy/paste didn't take. Link is fixed now)

If he told you he never contacted tS, he either is lying to you, or has genuinely forgotten contacting us (in which case he might wanna get that evaluated. Seriously, that kind of memory loss is no joke). What you seem to be not understanding is that Valkyrie gov didn't contact us, and we didn't simply truce for the hell of it. But again, it really, truly, doesn't matter. We've long since established that this is a win-win, but if you want to keep insisting on this absurd argument (which, for the sake of argument, is invalid if he even so much as contacted any of the three tS nations he was at war with, since your assertion is that he hadn't contacted anyone within tS - you miiiiight just want to double back with him on that), then I'm more than happy to let you keep thinking that. It's all for the sake of PR anyway (just like 95% of the posts made by both sides in this conflict) Also, because this is bothering me: The nation in question is Third Empire of Spifea, ruled by Emperor Ifee II. There's no r in Ifee. In such a comparatively small AA, I would genuinely think you'd be familiar with all of their names, at least. You're the one running around bleating about what I am or am not claiming regarding victory. My presence in this thread is to be the levelheaded representative, not to argue about who is winning and who is losing (as a matter of course, I don't really think there's a discussion to be had about it, but you and my members clearly disagree, so have fun!) If you want to drag me into that victory/damage muck, at least have the decency to updeclare on me so I don't have to live vicariously through my lower tier EDIT: Curse you Chrome! Correct link updated

If we had an issue with it we'd be glassing their nations. We aren't, we don't, and that's really all there is to it. You can !@#$ about it all you want but it's not going to make us care

I'm intrigued how you assume that there was no communication between Ifee and tS regarding his departure from the conflict. Or maybe he told you otherwise (perhaps before he contacted us, or he didn't tell you to avoid hurting your feelings, I dunno). Or maybe you're just saying stuff because you don't want it to look like someone accepted our offer (they're hardly terms in any meaningful sense, and you know that). The more salient point, however, is that tS was indeed contacted, as the three truced wars should indicate clearly. I can assure you, we would have maintained a state of war with Ifee had he not contacted us. I really don't see why this is such a big sticking point for you, you were clearly fine with him departing Alpha, and his moving to a new alliance (which literally has an ODP with tS) satisfies our peace requirements to our satisfaction. This is evidently a win-win situation, so let's not drag it down by you insisting on spinning it into some sort of tS failure.

To be accurate, it means that he's sought to depart the conflict, and has been permitted do so per our announced policy. We wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors.

I'll nap with you for 10 years. Vigorously

To clarify, Alpha requested a 6 month NAP, something which to my knowledge is entirely without precedent in this game.

Yes of course. That also makes this a world where we haven't been outsmarted by schoolchildren. Welcome to the New World Order