Phoenyx

You may not, but some people definitely did. Tyrion definitely seemed to. Partisan did as well, though perhaps to a lesser extent- we never had long conversations on the minutae of the war as I did with Tyrion. However, one thing may be true, and that is that it may well be that no one cares quite as much as I did and do as to what really happened. I think it bears mentioning as to -why- though, and that's because I -liked- a fair amount of people on both sides of the conflict. So I wanted to get to the bottom of it all. And I do believe that the theories I came up with are fairly plausible. They may have mistakes in them, but that's due to lack of data, data which the powers that be -could- furnish, if they really cared about finding out the truth instead of sniping at each other. One thing I will say, some never bothered to snipe. Tyrion said his piece and then left it at that. He's one of the few that I wish would have reached out more, if only to his own side- something like, hey Ronny, mind telling me who that HM leader was? But he decided it wasn't worth the potential negative repercussions. C'est la vie.

Not quite. However, I will acknowledge that by and large, my threads have followed certain themes. At first, I came here to try to understand what caused this global war that I suddenly found myself thrust in. As time passed, I began to establish what I felt was the truth on this. I created various threads that I felt presented certain key arguments that bolstered my theory. Now, this doesn't mean that I believe I have all the answers. There are still various things that I'm not sure about. What I frequently find frustrating is that the Quack and non Quack sides seem to be so adamant about their theories- I mean, they can't both be right. For me, the solution to that is simple- look for evidence. It's what I did early on and I came up with 2 key players- Boyce and Ronny's HM leader source. To this day, I'm still not sure why so few people seem interested in exploring these avenues of information. But in the meantime, I figured I might as well point out what seem to be clear flaws in reasoning, especially if I'm getting attacked just for doing so.

If I were truly a pixel hugger, I would have stopped talking long ago. There's a price for speaking truth to power and I'm clearly willing to pay it.

Well, if that's the way you want to see it. I spoke to you at length about it in Discord. You say you don't actually read my posts for the most part, so I can see how from a distance all you'd get is that there's a lot of commotion about something that doesn't seem to be important :-p. You're on the right track there. Now perhaps you might want to ask yourself why that is... That's right. That too :-p.

15 downvotes to this thread suggests that people still care, in the sense that many don't want to hear what I'm trying to convey.

That made me laugh :-). However, I think in the end it's just one more example of the difference between Quack and the forces that went against Quack in GW16. Scarf attacked me simply because of things that I've said. All I did was counter his attacks.

Other than the first 2 wars I got into on behalf of my first Alliance as part of the Global War, I've never actually attacked first. Aggressive spy ops do count as a first strike even if they are not an official declaration of war. Lol :-p. A good catch, but it's only due to my lack of forethought in what I said. He had actually attacked me first with aggressive spy ops. The only thing I did is made the war between us official.

Sorry Ronny :-p. I've edited my OP now. A shame. If you actually read my posts, you might learn something. Especially considering you claim to want to fight for justice...

I admit that's a bit funny :-p. However, you're not the only one in the audience. Some may just be starting out and only have a vague idea as to why this global war started, or the significance of the opposing narratives on its origin.

Sigh, please keep up. First, Scarf left his Syndicate Alliance precisely so he could attack me. Second, he attacked me first with spy ops... ** 12/18 07:47 pm Sir Scarfalot of Empyrea has executed an espionage operation to sabotage tanks in your country. They were not successful. 12/18 07:47 pm Sir Scarfalot of Empyrea has executed an espionage operation to sabotage tanks in your country. They were not successful. 12/17 07:23 pm Sir Scarfalot of Empyrea has executed an espionage operation to sabotage tanks in your country. They were not successful. 12/17 07:23 pm An unknown nation has executed an espionage operation against your country. They were not successful. 12/17 06:37 pm Sir Scarfalot of Empyrea has executed an espionage operation to gather intelligence about your country. They were successful in gathering intelligence about your nation. 12/17 06:37 pm An unknown nation has executed an espionage operation against your country. They successfully detonated an explosive in a factory in your nation. 125 of your tanks were destroyed. 12/16 11:05 am Sir Scarfalot of Empyrea has executed an espionage operation to assassinate spies in your country. They successfully assassinated spies in your nation. 1 of your spies were killed. ** Oh no, some really do care. Enough to ghost to attack me.

Not lying. Scarfalot, who everyone knows is Syndicate, made his own 1 man Alliance, apparently just to attack me. He conducted a bunch of spy operations, looks like was getting ready to attack, so I decided to just attack him first. Now Isjaki's countered, so yeah, I think it'll be over pretty soon.

So, Global War 16 is over, but the reasons that brought it about are far from settled. Quack continues to insist that they were going to be attacked and most of the rest of the game insists that no, that wasn't going to happen, there were plans to counter Quack should they attack another sphere, but that was all. This is a theme that was brought up to some extent in the Benfro's peace treaty thread: The thread has since died down, but I think it's worth bringing that one point up. Time and again, many on the non Quack side have said that there was no plan to attack Quack first. I have said look, you want to settle what really happened, go to the information sources- Boyce, who made the prediction that tCW, HM and Swamp would attack Quack in December or January and Ronny's HM leader making his ambiguous statement about Swamp wanting to "counter Quack's growth", which led to Ronny interpreting it to mean that Swamp wanted to hit Quack first. Instead, as I think often happens when someone tells 1 or more people a truth that they really don't want to hear, they've attacked me in the forums and also in game (to this day- a peace treaty can't really hold back people who -really- want to attack, they'll just leave their Alliances temporarily). This is certainly something they can do. However, this way of dealing with things is kind of like an ostrich with its head in the sand. Just because Quack refuses to acknowledge the problems in its theories doesn't mean those problems will go away.

He just talked about this in the server, his words were taken out of context, also I suspect english isn't his first language. He's just saying that multis aren't allowed in our Alliance.

Sure, if by verifiable intel you mean that Boyce was saying that TCW/HM/Swamp was going to attack you in December/January, and Ronnie mentioning his belief that Swamp had been reaching out to hit you guys, full stop. Don't look behind the curtain though, because if you do, well, you may find that it in the case of Boyce, it was most likely all hypothesized in his mind based on some ambiguous statements from Sphinx, with Sphinx later saying he had no intent of attacking Quack anytime soon. In the case of Ronnie, pretty much the same, he is part of a conversation with an anonymous HM leader who tells him some ambiguous information regarding Swamp's plans, with Ronnie himself saying that he heard nothing more about this alleged attack plan.

Your condescending input lacking any experience behind it, is received and appropriately disregarded, thank you. As for the rest of your post, I have no interest arguing with a wall, I've said my piece. And you say -I'm- condescending -.-?

For anyone in the audience who's not aware, Boyce is one of the leaders of TEst. And yes, he was a former ally of tCW, but that's where our agreement ends. I hope I am not the only one who has noticed that Boyce has never come on the forums to defend his intel. I actually went out of my way to try to get him to respond, by asking someone fairly close to him to link to the thread I made on his role in this war. His only response that I could see was to downvote the thread. I hope that everyone here is aware that Sphinx has now denied having any plans to attack Quack first, in this thread page. Quoting from what he said to me: So where did Boyce get his notion that TCW/HM were going to attack Quack in December/January? My guess is he came up with it on his own, based on a flawed understanding of Sphinx' intentions, as well as a flawed understanding of HM and Swamp's intentions. By all means, point me to these logs that you believe imply that HM was on board to attack you guys. As to Ronnie's own statements, I acknowledge that he did indeed mention the bit about being on board to attack you, but that "if" is important. From what I can see, Rose never agreed to attack Quack first. What Rose -did- agree to do, and only in the last few hours before the attack according to Ronnie, was to -counter- attack Quack should HM be attacked. It was, and they did. Ronnie brought all of this up back at the beginning of November. Your side took the first 2 sentences in a paragraph, but ignored the last sentence and the paragraph that followed. Here is the passage I'm referring to: Yes, much of the rest of the game was united against you before you struck, but it is crucial to point out that they were united only if you guys struck -first-. In the case of Rose, Ronny points out in the quote above that their treaty with HM happened mere hours before you guys struck and may well have happened because they were concerned that -they- might have been your target instead of HM. Any port in a storm. I think all this focus on sphere size is the wrong way to look at it. The better way, which I believe Charles and others have been trying to point out, is that most of the rest of the game saw you guys as a threat that no single sphere could take on alone. So they agreed to band together in the event that any of their spheres were attacked by you guys. Had you guys tried to confirm if TCW/HM/Swamp were going to attack you first as you guys had feared, all of this might have been avoided. I understand your concerns that doing so might have triggered them attacking you first, but now that the war is over and pretty much is saying that no, they weren't going to do that, I really wish you guys would at least -consider- the notion that all these spheres are being honest with you. Here's a suggestion once this NAP is over- consider a little more work in the FA department. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

I'd argue that you guys really aren't aware of why you lost at all. In my view, you lost for the simple reason that you didn't try to defuse the situation that had built up. The situation: 1- You heard some rumours that certain spheres were going to attack you. 2- Instead of trying to confirm with credible authorities, plan to attack some of the spheres who you had heard were going to attack you first. 3- Attack some of the spheres, uniting most of the game not in your sphere against you. 4- Protest the fact that most of the rest of the game united against you and how they did so (treaties that hadn't been revealed publicly), also refuse to believe that the rumours you heard were exaggerations or outright false, also refuse to do a more thorough investigation as to the credibility of the rumours that you based your initial attack on. To be fair, our side could have done a more thorough investigation as well, at least when it came to the rumours of Swamp wanting to attack Quack. Ofcourse, it's not too late for both sides to do more of an investigation on that. What is found out might help both sides in avoiding this type of 'war via rumour' again.

That post is just gold in my view.

Don't see why it'd be suicidal, but I definitely don't think it's necessary. Like you said, I think Orbis will auto correct in its own way if there's too much of a power imbalance anyway.

I think a lot of what you said here is the type of thing I've been trying to say, though I think you've worded it better. You've certainly been around longer, so would make sense. Here I think you're on shakier ground- Partisan and SRD, at least, are heads of their Alliances. As to the others you mention, they may not be Alliance heads, but they're in gov and seem to honestly care about what they're talking about. One thing is backchannel diplomacy, but on a forum, I think it stands to reason that Alliance heads would be talking as well as those who are genuinely interested in the subjects and can live with any backlash they get from posting here. If people don't want to talk to -them-, they don't have to. Which brings us to your last point... If you don't think I'm worth serious replies to, that's your call to make. But clearly others have and, I suspect, will continue to. I think my major drawback is that I'm fairly new. This means I don't know a lot of the political nuances. But I'm certainly learning them.

I think it's things like this where the discussion gets derailed. It's so easy to call someone we disagree with a liar. What's much harder is to try to find evidence to back up our positions. I've already pointed out many times how it can be done. Boyce can be questioned more as to what got him to believe that TCW/HM/Swamp was going to attack in December/January, Ronnie could reveal his HM leader source in regards to Swamp and I imagine there are other things that could be done to help illuminate the truth as well.

I never said I was a "massive investigator". I've done my best to try to figure out the truth behind the causes of this war, for my own personal reasons. Essentially, I got into this war by default, my original Alliance being on one of the sides, and I have a strong code of ethics which necessitates me investigating whether I'm fighting on the right side of a given conflict.