Smith

Confirming TKR protection. Happy to see this up guys

Can you guys explain to me the current state of the Alliance Affairs subforum and why it is overrun with shitposts and OOC threads

The most important step is the next one. I hope you are fulfilled

Why is there no "it doesn't matter option"?

This is a good idea

Methinks you get a guilty pleasure in arguing with Buor about Mensa

Impressive that the conversation in here has been successfully changed to gloating. But, it's a bit funny to talk about Syndisphere gloating when some of the most egregious participants now make up the strongest of IQ's core. Now that IQ is the most powerful grouping it's strange to turn that into a reason for being upset and not wanting to make any sort of changes when many on that side have actively participated in it.

Can you explicitly say what you think this "proof" looks like?

disregard

Cool stuff, good luck guys

Yeah that's exactly my point if they cancelled one tie they would still be in IQ sphere. Signing more treaties into a sphere makes it more difficult to leave because your making those new friendships and requires cancelling on your friends if you decide you want to leave to do something different. This is important when talking about a sphere that many people now see as the dominant power. That's why I'm pointing out that the narrative that these new treaties doesn't change anything is untrue. Also, that WoT is from a complaint generator thing that Curu frequently uses, it's not meant to be taken seriously and Curu is in on the joke

I know you didn't want a wall of text but I've had enough micchan I've listened to much of @Curufinwe's voluble oratory, but I admit I'm a little confused. Sure, I'm just an average person and not some intellectual, all-knowing brainiac, but it seems to me that Curufinwe's vaporings represent the most bizarre and conspiratorial use of nepotism I've ever seen. By way of introduction, let me just say that you could put most of Curufinwe's acolytes, who are legion, into what I call the “basket of deplorables”. These are the exponents of priggism who are amateurish, chippy, pot-valiant, conniving—you name it. Curufinwe has lifted such people up and given them a voice. As a result, one could safely say that Curufinwe acts as if he were King of the World. This hauteur is astonishing, staggering, and mind-boggling. Pardon my saying so, but if it weren't for self-seeking stupes, Curufinwe would have no friends. Unfortunately, the English language contains so few words of reprobation and invective that I cannot satisfactorily describe his conscienceless projects. At least our language's lexicon is sufficiently voluminous for me to explain that I plan to do something good for others. Are you with me—or against me? Whatever you decide, it is a sad state of affairs when pharisaism-prone traitors like Curufinwe acquire public acceptance of his insecure analects. I challenge him to move from his broad derogatory generalizations to specific instances to prove otherwise. If a cogent, logical argument entered Curufinwe's brain, no doubt a concussion would result. Curufinwe has had some success in insulting the intelligence, interests, and life plans of whole groups of people. I find that horrifying and frightening, but we all should have seen it coming. We all knew that if Curufinwe's thinking were cerebral rather than glandular, he wouldn't consider it such a good idea to vilify our history, character, values, and traditions. Many people lie. Curufinwe, however, lies with such ease it's troubling. Please forgive my directness, but he has been going around claiming that criminals are merely social rebels. When challenged about the veracity of that message, Curufinwe attributed its contradictions of the truth to “poetic license”. That means “lying”. To reiterate the main message of this letter, Curufinwe's brain must work very different from mine.

I never said it made it harder to sign with non IQ members though (though you could look at the case of lordran who cancelled Rose because they felt that lines should be more clearly drawn). I said it made it harder to break away i.e. cancelling treaties. The point of me mentioning SK is that even for an alliance on the very edge of IQ sphere like SK (they had two and cancelled 1) they had difficulty breaking away due to their ties. And this is not to fault SK at all, it's just the reality of having such a consolidated core. And then there are alliances who are much more bought in and would have an even more difficult time.

That's why I said they were far from being one of the more extreme examples, they're just the only one to try and break away. And I actually used the phrase IQ sphere multiple times (though I'm pretty sure most people by now use IQ as shorthand for the sphere, not sure why you felt the need to point this out). And yes I know you can trade treaties Curu, I am saying it becomes increasingly difficult with each new treaty you sign into IQ. Again I am not saying you are cancelling or retaliating against people trying to leave. I am not sure why you keep projecting that argument. I am saying that with each new treaty it becomes increasingly difficult to break away due to external and internal factors such as selling to membership. And yes of course people can choose their own FA paths. But that doesn't have anything to do with what I am saying. My point is that there is a reoccurring narrative that signing these new treaties doesn't change anything and that is wrong.

Yup I understand that, I wasn't saying that anyone is being held hostage. I am saying that with each new tie it becomes increasingly difficult to break away from IQ sphere. This is true for internal things like selling the idea to your membership ("hey we're going to reevaluate our treaty with this one alliance" vs "hey we're going to cancel 4 of our treaties") and others factors. This is especially true if one of those is a bloc where you would be essentially be cancelling 5 other AAs at once (assuming you didn't have even more separate treaties to them which is often the case in IQ sphere). That is why the idea that these additional treaties don't change anything is ridiculous.

This constantly repeated idea that new treaties don't matter because an alliance was already within IQ sphere is ridiculous. IQ would not be signing these treaties if it did not do anything. With each new treaty an alliance further becomes "bought in" to the sphere and makes it increasingly difficult for them to ever break away from the IQ sphere. This is because now they would have to sever ties with essentially all of their allies if they one day decided they no longer wanted to be part of IQ sphere. And with every new treaty within IQ sphere (especially the bloc itself) that becomes increasingly difficult for an alliance to do. Edit: For an example of this look at Seven Kingdoms. They just recently cancelled Zodiac in an attempt to create a new thing and break away from IQ but are still tied to Polaris because they don't want to cancel on more of their friends despite Polaris being as loyal to NPO/IQ as it gets. I don't fault them for this really it's just a result of the rampant consolidation going on in IQ sphere and SK was never even close to being one of the more extreme examples of this.

Not that it matters much in the context of these awards but I wanted to clarify that TKR actually didn't tell people to vote for Cenna. I'm pretty sure IC at the time actually said he was voting for someone else. Cenna campaigned on his own and was individually PMing people in discord.

It's difficult to see this but I want to say thank you guys for being with us for so long

I screenshotted it on October 10th

I'm not going to get involved in these back and forth arguments because nobody is going to back down but here's a screenshot of a guy from SIR when he spammed the TKR channel (I dunno if this will get me modded but yeah)

You will never make Kastor as hard as he makes himself

Well a good way to do it would be by not doing what your sphere did and drafting up target sheets amongst yourselves. We didn't do that so if you hadn't either it would have been at least fairer.

Is there any chance after IQ alliances win literally every category including "most powerful" they will stop constantly trying to spin themselves as being weaker than EMC with inactive nation's who can't be mobilized to do anything

So question, is that Bastion guy part of SIR?

"Polaris and Avalanche go way back" They are 17 days old I am genuinely confused. Are they a C N alliance?