How long will this war go on for?

[Ayayay]

6 minutes ago, Prefonteen said:

You lost the war. Your opinion is invalid.

Are you trying to frame me, friend?

I wasn't a participant in GW5, therefore I didn't lose and thus my opinion is valid

 

And ya, I wanna get some fancy stained oak (none of that cheap wallmart shit) and hang you on the wall above the mantelpiece. 

Edited August 4, 2019 by Malal

[Buorhann]

1 hour ago, Shadowthrone said:

NPO's switch from Guardian/GoB was in a large part due to the threat we faced from Chaos/TKR. The tS/HS/NPO hit on Guardian/GoB was to damage them given how they were continuously above the fray. The specific NPO expansion is because we believed in the threat Chaos/TKR was to the NPO. 

I'm looking forward to that log dump if you'd please. If I'm here to solely protect BK, it'd have been a much easier war declaration. Given different circumstances, I could see us watching BK burn and doing nothing, but given the lack of faith/trust we have in Adrienne/TKR's word at this point, that option was in and off itself weak at best, and when we received what information we did, we acted.  I mean I've repeated that a few posts here in this thread. At the end of the day as Roq pointed it out, you don't like our reason for entering and therefore refuse to believe it. Fine with us, but doesn't change our reason for entering nonetheless. 

I mean, we expanded the war to TKR solely. If we're getting really technical here, KT/TGH hit us from that expansion. I'm not complaining about it, but to claim we specifically hit KT/TGH/Empyrea would not be entirely true either.

It is rather amusing that you're pointing out that you only declared on TKR and we expanded it.  How stupid do you think I am?  You hit Guardian, Grumpy, then you hit TKR.  You expanded that war first, and mind you - none of them attacked NPO first.  Let alone the only justification you've given is "We spoke to people in DMs" and showing screenshots from @Dio Brando's questioning that fricking date back to January of this year (Which, by the way, those screenshots only refer to IQ...  and if IQ is disbanded then...).

All of your actions have shown that you're contradicting yourself while trying to paint this picture that you're justified into doing these actions.  You and Roq are fricking hypocrites about this.

Of course we don't like your reason for entering this war.  It's absolute bullshit.

Nothing you've said has countered your very own actions.

>we don't have secret treaties
>we didn't expand the war
>TKR plotted against us

These three talking points are easily trashed.  Our war was strictly on BK/TCW and their goons due to the public leak that started this conflict.  You initiated the hit on multiple parties of our side.

2 hours ago, Edward I said:

How TGH wants to govern itself is its business, but don't expect us to take your word or your tone over those of Buorhann and Sketchy when they clearly outrank you. Unless they change their tune or you're empowered at their expense, we're going to keep listening to them when they claim that everything we say in public is a lie and the correct course of action is to salt the earth.

That's funny, considering you have had folks not use this stance when talking to Hodor in the past.

[Guest Curufinwe]

1 hour ago, Mikey said:

Frankly we will just have to agree to disagree about whether you are doing as well as you claim. But I find it highly ironic that many of same people who now suggest white peacing a defensive war is unacceptable, pointedly refused anything other than white peace when they more decisively lost their own aggressive war.

Don't worry though, whatever happens we won't be begging for a participation trophy

I assume you're referring to Tiers, which as I recall you were on our side for, meaning that it's more accurate for you to say 'we' rather than 'they.'  SK representatives were also present in the peace server, so you no doubt remember that while our opening position was white peace, EMC insisted on an admission of defeat in large part because they saw it as an aggressive war on our part, so there's actually an interesting parallel that you're (I suspect unintentionally) drawing here.  

That being said, we could probably see about getting you a participation trophy if you like - no begging required  

Edited August 4, 2019 by Curufinwe

[Buorhann]

3 hours ago, Edward I said:

that Buorhann and Sketchy have, together, been toxic, hostile, and deliberately obtuse about the way minispheres can reasonably be expected to function.

What kind of spin are you attempting here?  I'd like to see some citations on this claim.

[Roquentin]

20 minutes ago, Buorhann said:

It is rather amusing that you're pointing out that you only declared on TKR and we expanded it.  How stupid do you think I am?  You hit Guardian, Grumpy, then you hit TKR.  You expanded that war first, and mind you - none of them attacked NPO first.  Let alone the only justification you've given is "We spoke to people in DMs" and showing screenshots from @Dio Brando's questioning that fricking date back to January of this year (Which, by the way, those screenshots only refer to IQ...  and if IQ is disbanded then...).

All of your actions have shown that you're contradicting yourself while trying to paint this picture that you're justified into doing these actions.  You and Roq are fricking hypocrites about this.

Of course we don't like your reason for entering this war.  It's absolute bullshit.

Nothing you've said has countered your very own actions.

>we don't have secret treaties
>we didn't expand the war
>TKR plotted against us

These three talking points are easily trashed.  Our war was strictly on BK/TCW and their goons due to the public leak that started this conflict.  You initiated the hit on multiple parties of our side.

That's funny, considering you have had folks not use this stance when talking to Hodor in the past.

It wasn't the point for NPO to hit Guardian and Grumpy. We're not exactly their size. There were some spots that needed coverage and there were bored people. It was mainly meant to be a tS thing and then people would counter if needed,  which is why it got kind of messy when the affiliates issue came up.

They're not trashed. Adrienne has outright more or less said someone is lying and it's either her or the two people. One of them had way more detail than the other but they both came away with the same impression.  So there are about four possibilities: I made it up and am lying, I hallucinated it(rorschach blotch),  or either Adrienne or her interlocutors lied. The wiggle room I had allowed in saying that maybe Adrienne simply said things out of anger was rejected way back, so we're down to those four.

I don't know actually know how much influence Hodor has in TGH. He's been more diplomatic while still having maintained your war goals and position but any formalized discussions would require gigantic reversals in stance by you and Sketchy. It would look really weird.

But basically either way, we're going around in the same loop.

You feel strongly and I feel strongly there isn't a middle ground. It's the same thing with the reporting thing. You feel x and I don't agree and there isn't a way to meet in the middle, so I'm going to stand my ground. There's nothing else I can do that is sensible from my position and that's the unfortunate thing. I don't really particularly enjoy hardballing on issues and prefer for both sides in a discussion to feel they're walking away with something beneficial, but the nature of the conflict and the rhetoric surrounding has forced more rigid stances.

Edited August 4, 2019 by Roquentin

[Adrienne]

1 hour ago, Shadowthrone said:

given the lack of faith/trust we have in Adrienne/TKR's word at this point

You never had to rely solely on my word for this decision but, unless I'm missing something major here, I don't think I've ever given you a good reason not to trust my word. Feel free to hit me up in DMs if I am missing something and you want to discuss it. Ignoring everything I've claimed after the fact though and just focusing on what was said before you expanded things, there was an entire coalition full of people that saw me push for the opposite of what you're claiming, me directly telling your allies we weren't expanding the war because we believed you to be a separate war/entity from BK and that we had no intention of working with KETOGG post war, and a record of me stating the former publicly, all of which was fantastic PR ammunition if we'd gone against it. We had no interest in expanding the war to you and we had no reason to hit you in revenge for your isolated opportunistic hit on Guardian/Grumpy. Given that you're talking about "impressions" and "tone" and have said you don't have logs, it seems pretty obvious to the rest of us just how far you're stretching to make this CB. Saying I supposedly deleted something in a DM with one of your allies that directly implicates us, seems incredibly suspect, especially combined with the tones and impressions arguments. It's also interesting to see you publicly state that we were a threat but you supposedly now have no concern about TGH and KT doing what you claimed we were planning when it's their ally you hit and after stating just yesterday how poorly you're taking Sketchy's angry shittalking and Scarf's frustration at feeling like the game was over after you hit. All throughout this war, even after your hit on Guardian/Grumpy, we've been pushing against expanding it and focusing instead on our war with BK and the people who posed an immediate threat to us, which we didn't believe you did. Clearly we were wrong to believe that given your actions.

[Pasky Darkfire]

[Adrienne]

2 minutes ago, Roquentin said:

It wasn't the point for NPO to hit Guardian and Grumpy. We're not exactly their size. There were some spots hat needed coverage and there were bored people. It was mainly meant to be a tS thing and then people would counter if needed,  which is why it got kind of messy when the affiliates issue came up.

They're not trashed. Adrienne has outright more or less said someone is lying and it's either her or the two people. One of them had way more detail than the other but they both came away with the same impression.  So there are about four possibilities: I made it up and am lying, I hallucinated it(rorschach blotch),  or either Adrienne or her interlocutors lied. The wiggle room I had allowed in saying that maybe Adrienne simply said things out of anger was rejected way back, so we're down to those four.

I don't know actually know how much influence Hodor has in TGH. He's been more diplomatic while still having maintained your war goals and posiition but any formalized discussions would require gigantic reversals in stance by you and Sketchy. It would look really weird.

But basically either way, we're going around in the same loop.

You feel strongly and I feel strongly there isn't middle ground. It's the same thing with the reporting thing. You feel x and I don't agree and there isn't a way to meet in the middle, so I'm going to stand my ground. There's nothing else I can do that is sensible from my position and that's the unfortunate thing. I don't really particularly enjoy hardballing on issues and prefer for both sides in a discussion to feel they're walking away with something beneficial, but the nature of the conflict and the rhetoric surrounding has forced more rigid stances.

Same as above for you, Roq. I definitely do believe someone is lying/spinning things beyond recognition here and I know it's not me. If you want to discuss this more in depth with me, the same offer exists.

[Khai Jäger]

7 hours ago, Hodor said:

No. Your reading comprehension is lacking. I literally said " I am open to any and all talks without precondition" I'm not sure what is more clear than that? I'm not really sure what the word decisively is supposed to mean in this post...

Oh, so I have reading comprehension issues now. ? You just asked this... 

20 hours ago, Hodor said:

As high gov, this is as good as stating permawar. This is one piece of why peace talks have not and will not happen in the foreseeable future. The other piece is this war is not yet decided. There has still not been any sort of description from the other side as to what their definition of victory is. We've submitted our narrative and it's relatively digestible. I am eagerly awaiting your metrics for how we are losing the war and will lose decisively. I think I've made it clear to at least one member of your coalition's high gov that I am for white peace, because the best we believe you can hope for is a draw, and a draw in 3 months.

Not sure why that formatted like that ^
--------------------------------------------

"I am eagerly awaiting your metrics for how we are losing the war and will lose decisively." I respond with how we've decisively pinned 96% of your coalition and are dragging down your whales one by one everyday, then you say I have comprehension issues. No need to attack people personally if you don't have a narrative to push for a simple white peace. 

As I said before, nothing is hindering you or your coalition from coming forth to commence talks officially. 

 

[Edward I]

15 minutes ago, Buorhann said:

That's funny, considering you have had folks not use this stance when talking to Hodor in the past.

If you trace the conversation back to the original comment about antagonism, it was Keshav telling Hodor that the antagonism began long before this thread was even started and that it is pervasive throughout the alliances in Coalition A. I chose to focus on TGH since there's only so far Hodor can fairly be associated with prewar actions of his coalition-mates.

I didn't imply that Hodor was lying or insincere, but rather that his attempts at amiable, good faith discussion means little in the face of the stance taken by his own alliance for months.

8 minutes ago, Buorhann said:

What kind of spin are you attempting here?  I'd like to see some citations on this claim.

Calling Roq and Keshav lying hypocrites for the umpteenth time in the post I quoted above covers hostility pretty well. Sketchy's stance that anyone who remains tied to NPO or BK needs to be perma-warred is both hostile and toxic. The months-long act of ODP police you and others put on after IQ split up was deliberate obtuseness over minispheres, and the double standard applied repeatedly before, during and after Surf's Up regarding cooperation or ODPs constituting secret ties is both obtuse and hostile.

[Mikey]

1 hour ago, Curufinwe said:

I assume you're referring to Tiers, which as I recall you were on our side for, meaning that it's more accurate for you to say 'we' rather than 'they.'  SK representatives were also present in the peace server, so you no doubt remember that while our opening position was white peace, EMC insisted on an admission of defeat in large part because they saw it as an aggressive war on our part, so there's actually an interesting parallel that you're (I suspect unintentionally) drawing here.  

That being said, we could probably see about getting you a participation trophy if you like - no begging required  

 There is indeed a paralel in the other direction,  where the side that felt it was winning wanted to hold out for a surrender. T'would suggest that wanting it isn't enough to get it. I don't think many on our side think you can't try for a surrender, we just don't think the war situation warrants it. I can say personally, if I felt we had decisively lost, I would be willing to surrender. Rightly or wrongly, that is not how we see things. 

In any case, I found it funny that people now suggesting white peace is innapropriate for aggressors had themselves demanded that for their own aggression. You can tack on the other way as well, though I think less strongly. History repeats itself I guess.

[Sketchy]

4 hours ago, Edward I said:

Sketchy's stance that anyone who remains tied to NPO or BK needs to be perma-warred is both hostile and toxic.

Your attempts to build a hegemony are toxic and hostile.

 

[The Mad Titan]

41 minutes ago, Sketchy said:

Your attempts to build a hegemony are toxic and hostile.

 

@Hodor sorry, he outranks you and your reasonable dialogue. 

[Buorhann]

5 hours ago, Edward I said:

Calling Roq and Keshav lying hypocrites for the umpteenth time in the post I quoted above covers hostility pretty well.

None of what you said contributes to the mini-sphere argument you put on me, but I do admire the stretch on the last few statements you have.  They are either liars or hypocrites, or both.  Their (Well, NPO's) actions contradict everything they've stated, and they haven't shown anything of real substance to back up their "innocent" claims.

We have attempted multiple times to give NPO the benefit of the doubt.  @Hodor and @Keegoz have both reached out to your leaders multiple times in the past.

Even with this war, we decided to give you the benefit of the doubt based on those leaks from TCW.

Each and every action you've taken recently have pretty much spit all of our efforts towards your alliance back in our face.

EDIT:

Just keep in mind, for whatever spin of a minisphere toxicity whatever argument you were trying to pin me on - we literally left Syndicate/HS/NPO out of this mess.  And we made it very clear that we would.  We kept our word.

You folks brought yourselves into it.

EDIT #2 (Since I read some further replies):

It's odd that "expanding the war" has become a point now.  There's only one side that has expanded the war, and it wasn't us.

Citadel activated on us.  (Which is understandable)

N$O hit multiple parties of us.

You guys dragged in disbanded remnants of FR, as well as AD.

You guys dragged in TFP.

 

Just wanted to make that clear.  The actions certainly speak louder than the words that some of you are spewing out there.

Edited August 5, 2019 by Buorhann

[Guest Curufinwe]

6 hours ago, Mikey said:

 There is indeed a paralel in the other direction,  where the side that felt it was winning wanted to hold out for a surrender. T'would suggest that wanting it isn't enough to get it. I don't think many on our side think you can't try for a surrender, we just don't think the war situation warrants it. I can say personally, if I felt we had decisively lost, I would be willing to surrender. Rightly or wrongly, that is not how we see things. 

In any case, I found it funny that people now suggesting white peace is innapropriate for aggressors had themselves demanded that for their own aggression. You can tack on the other way as well, though I think less strongly. History repeats itself I guess.

Well given the military situation, I admire your optimism if nothing else.  Although your example doesn't really hold up, since EMC did end up getting what it wanted in the end in Tiers.  We'll have to see if the side that feels it's winning manages to do the same this time too.  

[Charles Bolivar]

I wonder if this topic will still be going in three months time?

[Sketchy]

5 hours ago, Aragorn, son of Arathorn said:

@Hodor sorry, he outranks you and your reasonable dialogue. 

How dare you assume our hierarchical structure you evil bigot.

I will have you know, Hodor outranks me in many things.

I shall promptly compile a list and submit it to your superior @Roquentin for closer inspection.

[Shadowthrone]

4 hours ago, Sketchy said:

Your attempts to build a hegemony are toxic and hostile.

 

 

Your arguments for disbanding alliances are toxic and hostile. 

3 hours ago, Buorhann said:

None of what you said contributes to the mini-sphere argument you put on me, but I do admire the stretch on the last few statements you have.  They are either liars or hypocrites, or both.  Their (Well, NPO's) actions contradict everything they've stated, and they haven't shown anything of real substance to back up their "innocent" claims.

Like I pointed out earlier, we haven't lied. We based our actions on the facts that have been laid out before us. You can choose to ignore the facts, or choose not to believe the reasons we expanded the war to TKR. As I pointed out earlier, before our expansion was solely TKR since that is where our CB lay. You're free to counter for you coalition mate and I'm not dissing you for it. But making it clear, we expanded in our official DoW to TKR. I don't remember including KT/TGH in it, but you decided to focus on us. That is a technicality rather than a specific grouse/issue. 

3 hours ago, Buorhann said:

We have attempted multiple times to give NPO the benefit of the doubt.  @Hodor and @Keegoz have both reached out to your leaders multiple times in the past.

Even with this war, we decided to give you the benefit of the doubt based on those leaks from TCW.

Each and every action you've taken recently have pretty much spit all of our efforts towards your alliance back in our face.

I mean there hasn't been any serious reaching out in the last few months, and neither have we reached out. I just don't see where we had mutual interests at the given time. But that doesn't mean we're antagonistic towards you either. We've not really done anything to spit on your face. We're in this war because TKR was hoping to use the predicament to roll us. 

 

3 hours ago, Buorhann said:

Just keep in mind, for whatever spin of a minisphere toxicity whatever argument you were trying to pin me on - we literally left Syndicate/HS/NPO out of this mess.  And we made it very clear that we would.  We kept our word.

You folks brought yourselves into it.

The point regarding minispheres is far more nuanced than what you're attempting to point here. When I was part of signing up for it, the idea that was agreed principally that the consolidation of two or more spheres is a threat to the idea itself. If the counter point is BKsphere/blob was too large and needed such numbers, I posit multiple reasons for that:

1) The actions of Chaos specifically Soup hitting Fark at the start of minispheres ensures that folks who remain outside or are too small by themselves, will be hit. There are alliances who do not wish to be pinatas for the fun of KETOGG or Chaos. 

2) The idea of minispheres requires balance. As long as individuals are allowed to hit whomever might be too small to defend themselves but have a right to exist, they will seek protection from any and all larger alliances willing to offer that protection. In this case it was BK. The security umbrella they built through Citadel and tying up with tC simply existed because those alliances aren't interested in being your weekly statpads to pat yourselves on the back for being great military fighters. 

3) If the threat of war, or security through a larger party was the option, a rational actor would choose the latter. 

If minispheres are to exist, it requires maturity in the nature of war and not weekly/monthly beatdowns to make someone feel happy that they've done a war. 

At the end of the day, the failure of minispheres as an idea is due to a comprehensive failure of every sphere to push the idea forward while ignoring how rational actors would function to protect their communities. Far too often folks have pushed that idea as a cudgel to weaken their opponents while maintaining unofficial ties in the case of Rose always rolling with KT/TGH 99% of the time Abbas is alive and kicking in the game, and a seeming affinity for folks to keep these going. If one side is constantly doing it, I'd posit it's only natural others may think of competing in the said grand politics to ensure their security is protected. 

At the end of the day, minispheres can exist so long as people aren't rolled for existing. Until that maturity exists, minispheres fail due to folks forgetting the security paradox leaders have to constantly face in protecting their communities from constant warring and seemingly persecution, like in the case of Sketchy calling for the disbandment of communities or perma war because he's salty one morning. Until folks start acting differently, one cannot expect the others act differently. But I mean this parallels real world theories regarding IR, since unilateral changes in action may backfire tremendously. So at this moment we're in a loop of security vs security on different sides of the game, with 0 trust/faith in between and I'm fine with that. But to argue that KETOGG/Chaos haven't added to the toxic failure of this idea, is your shirking your responsibility for the meta of the game you seem to keep proclaiming to defend. 

 

[Sketchy]

29 minutes ago, Shadowthrone said:

Your arguments for disbanding alliances are toxic and hostile. 

Sketchy calling for the disbandment of communities or perma war because he's salty one morning.

I have made no mention of "disbanding communities".

New bullshit every week with you lot. Anything to justify your failed hegemony.

[Shadowthrone]

7 minutes ago, Sketchy said:

I have made no mention of "disbanding communities".

New bullshit every week with you lot. Anything to justify your failed hegemony.

Yes Sketchy sinking ships and burning everyone involved with us, isn't a threat to our existence whatsoever. Good attempt at trying to deflect though.

We never have had hegemonic ambitions and none of our actions has ever led to that. That being said, it's chill that you're not walking back your words. @Hodor here mate, tell me why again we have to somehow give you the benefit of the doubt when your leader has no interest to deny he's not out to disband/scorch the earth with regards to the NPO? 

 

 

[Zei-Sakura Alsainn]

That's a blatant lie. That the expansion was only on TKR. It's very well, by admission from your own high government, that the plan was, as Inst put it, for "NPO to die for BK's sins." and in doing so focus their blows on TKR and KT while attracting the attention of the entire enemy coalition to them. 

This is even reflected in the DoW posted by Roquentin. "Suicide is painless", it wasn't just an expansion to TKR and you full well knew that, you walked into it knowing that and never having the intention of just that. Hell, it's well known for DoW's with smoking gun CB's to plaster those all over their announcement so nobody even begins to question it.

But... that didn't happen either. Sure, TKR and some plot was mentioned, but nothing was shown to prove it, to people who had seen TKR argue for exactly the opposite, ultimately in agreement with the rest of their coalition. Then the logs provided were months old, made obsolete because, unbelievably, plans to roll a sphere that stopped existing are pretty useless after that date.

Now, since it seems we're to believe you made this decision purely of logic and paranoid nuttery, and then consider the actual goals of what NPO did, it's very obvious that the TKR line was a load of shit. It was supposed to be, afterall. That you feared expansion is not entirely unreasonable even though the coalition agreed not to. The coalition said no, but KETOGG would have said "Oh my yes", at one date or another, during or after the war. No, you didn't fear TKR, not at all. Infact i honestly doubt you feared KETOGG much until you saw T$ pitiful blitz. Which is why NPO came up with a rather clever plan to expand the war. 

NPO by this time already had peoples angers rising, and it takes no rocket scientist to figure out what happens if you attack someone other than GG, especially if you use completely obsolete plans that implicate one of the alliances you're now fighting alongside. Again, i think it's obvious you picked TKR and those logs on purpose. It was all part of the plan. If you came out with logs of very recent origin stating explicitly TKR intended to attack N$O, they might just have let you do it. Maybe, they did on GG afterall, much to your dislike. 

On the other hand, @Shadowthrone, coming out with the bullshit you did, would 1000% guarantee the opposite. Tensions were already high, people were already angry, and when your plan is to distract the enemy you might as well bait them into a frothing berserk rage that puts their tunnel vision on you, right? Which is exactly what you did, and is exactly what happened. So focused on ripping you limb from limb an alliance averaging 20 cities that had 250k planes was down to almost nothing in 36 hours. Coalition B, especially BK hadn't fully recovered at all by then, but that didn't really matter. You made sure to slam KT and TKR as hard as you could going down and severely damaged both, limiting the offensive capabilities of people who now realized just how many offensive slots they'd used, and that they couldnt be free for another 3 1/2 days, and that they couldn't possible cover everyone recovering without overextension.

 

So yes, your CB is bullshit and full of blatant lies. If it wasn't, it wouldn't have worked nearly as well. If you're not baboons driven by paranoia, as you say you aren't, then there is absolutely no way i can reason it out with what i know, that you had not figured out everything in that textwall above and did it on purpose. It worked near flawlessly, so to that, well played. With NPO's vast experience and talent pool the lesson here is to always keep your calm and focus when playing a grand master at chess. 

Anyway, enough of my textwalling, i'm off to do dishes. Once again, very well played with that. Like a damned fiddle. 

[Shadowthrone]

19 minutes ago, Akuryo said:

That's a blatant lie. That the expansion was only on TKR. It's very well, by admission from your own high government, that the plan was, as Inst put it, for "NPO to die for BK's sins." and in doing so focus their blows on TKR and KT while attracting the attention of the entire enemy coalition to them. 

Inst isn't high government of the NPO. I'm curious to see who this high government member you're quoting, since that'd be news to me. We fully expected to be countered by KT/TGH and the coalition as a whole, but I mean being prepared for it, does not mean we expanded to hit TGH/KT first. Our DoW mentions TKR, our entrance was on TKR, we fully expected counters and when they came, dealt with it at a case by case basis. 

21 minutes ago, Akuryo said:

This is even reflected in the DoW posted by Roquentin. "Suicide is painless", it wasn't just an expansion to TKR and you full well knew that, you walked into it knowing that and never having the intention of just that. Hell, it's well known for DoW's with smoking gun CB's to plaster those all over their announcement so nobody even begins to question it.

We were prepared to be countered. We knew what we were walking into. The coalition had what lesser planes than Coalition A, and we knew fully well that this would be painful for a while. My specific point though is, KT/TGH don't have treaty ties with TKR, if they were expanding because we expanded from GG, it's their right, but thats the decision they made, and it wasn't us hitting them. That's a specific technicality I'm pointing out that folks seem to gloss over. 

 

26 minutes ago, Akuryo said:

Now, since it seems we're to believe you made this decision purely of logic and paranoid nuttery, and then consider the actual goals of what NPO did, it's very obvious that the TKR line was a load of shit. It was supposed to be, afterall. That you feared expansion is not entirely unreasonable even though the coalition agreed not to. The coalition said no, but KETOGG would have said "Oh my yes", at one date or another, during or after the war. No, you didn't fear TKR, not at all. Infact i honestly doubt you feared KETOGG much until you saw T$ pitiful blitz. Which is why NPO came up with a rather clever plan to expand the war. 

I mean its not paranoid nuttery. But looking at the rest of the post, the tS/HS plan we pointed out was problematic in and off itself and Roq has argued why so. We received information that TKR wished to hold BK down and then swing around to hitting us. This could mean two things: 1) they expand the present war, which would give them a first strike advantage, moreover, with the rest of Coalition B, defeated or within the grind, we'd be on our own or 2) the coalition would continue post war, and hit N$O, and given that under your own admission, the only peace terms for Coalition B would be punitive reps and revenge for KF, we'd have no one to lean on for support to deal with the numbers potentially arrayed against the N$O. 

So that was an important discussion we had. If its case 1, all we had was the promise of Thrax I think to Sisyphus at the time, that there would be no further expansion. In case 2, it was the "word" of the coalition to break up post war. Now in case 1, we can give some credence to the word given it'd be a massive overextension if they break that agreement. Case 2, was something that was problematic for us by a mile. Firstly, I don't trust Chaos/KETOGG enough to take your word for no paperless/automatic withdrawal of the coalition post war. Moreover, you needn't really need paperless, if you had Rose, who seems to roll whenever KETOGG does, and whenever Abbas is active, seems to be someone that pulls in old crew EMC more often than not. That was a circumstance not under our control. Moreover, given that any bulwark to maintain that balance, was damaged and either facing punitive terms/reps and unable to fight/defend anyone else, it'd mean we're by ourselves dealing with two spheres + Rose. Thats a scenario we weren't particularly interested in facing. So case 2, was based of a lot of "trust" and "faith" in your words, none of which was deserved and none of which would be given. 

So yes, we did indeed fear TKR and Chaos. The discussions on TKR's intentions to me by folks made it clear, it's a problem and that problem affected the security and the existence of the NPO. The latter may seem paranoid nuttery, but given Sketchy's posts here, I guess you can see why that fear exists. Given following case 1, could lead to disastrous consequences for us, it made logical sense to hit TKR when the opportunity arose. If TKR had made it clear from the get-go that their beef was BK and Adrienne wasn't busy talking to people about NPO's hand in it, and how she hopes tS will keep us out long enough to roll us later on, gave us sufficient reason and a credible threat to expand our hit on TKR. You can call this clever, I call this a logical analysing of the situation and threat perceptions with the information we had. We're not particularly interested to be beholden to promises/words from people who have no need to back them up, given they aren't allied to us. Rolling the minisphere in pieces was a net lose-lose situation and hence we decided to roll the dice, knowing fully well the consequences of our actions. But our safety/security required that and we did it. 

55 minutes ago, Akuryo said:

NPO by this time already had peoples angers rising, and it takes no rocket scientist to figure out what happens if you attack someone other than GG, especially if you use completely obsolete plans that implicate one of the alliances you're now fighting alongside. Again, i think it's obvious you picked TKR and those logs on purpose. It was all part of the plan. If you came out with logs of very recent origin stating explicitly TKR intended to attack N$O, they might just have let you do it. Maybe, they did on GG afterall, much to your dislike. 

The logs released by Dio were given to us after the fact we entered the war actually. They were shared to showcase how Adrienne was lying to a lot of folks with her intentions and outright lied to Dio. I mean she has no interests to be truthful with plotting to roll IQ, but the logs themselves are not why we hit. The specific IQ-plotting logs of Adrienne, proved to us the narratives regarding TKR and their leaders and only cemented the distrust, but was never our motivation for war. Our motivations stemmed from looking at the cases and the information we were given regarding Adrienne specifically discussing how NPO's somehow connected to a BK plot on TKR. 

 

57 minutes ago, Akuryo said:

On the other hand, @Shadowthrone, coming out with the bullshit you did, would 1000% guarantee the opposite. Tensions were already high, people were already angry, and when your plan is to distract the enemy you might as well bait them into a frothing berserk rage that puts their tunnel vision on you, right? Which is exactly what you did, and is exactly what happened. So focused on ripping you limb from limb an alliance averaging 20 cities that had 250k planes was down to almost nothing in 36 hours. Coalition B, especially BK hadn't fully recovered at all by then, but that didn't really matter. You made sure to slam KT and TKR as hard as you could going down and severely damaged both, limiting the offensive capabilities of people who now realized just how many offensive slots they'd used, and that they couldnt be free for another 3 1/2 days, and that they couldn't possible cover everyone recovering without overextension.

I mean we're more or less back to 220k planes~ Our strategy was to hit TKR and deal with whatever happens next. If your coalition decided to blow their load focusing on us, and reducing us to what 70/80k planes and allowed the rest of Coalition B to rebuild, that is incidental but I mean yeah. We knew what we could do, we did it, and here we are. If you're attributing your own views to what happened, fair enough. But I have no real comments regarding this. 

 

1 hour ago, Akuryo said:

So yes, your CB is bullshit and full of blatant lies. If it wasn't, it wouldn't have worked nearly as well. If you're not baboons driven by paranoia, as you say you aren't, then there is absolutely no way i can reason it out with what i know, that you had not figured out everything in that textwall above and did it on purpose. It worked near flawlessly, so to that, well played. With NPO's vast experience and talent pool the lesson here is to always keep your calm and focus when playing a grand master at chess. 

The CB isn't a lie. We have the information, we vetted it, we went with it. Your refusal to believe it, does not make it any less true. I mean paranoia is an interesting term to ascribe to individuals who have little information but makes decision regarding a community of 100+ members and their security in this world. We may never have perfect information, and this information asymmetry is something that must always be counted when making a monumental decision, such as going to war in this specific conflict. What we can do, is delve into the options before us, based on the information we have and pick actions that could best protect our community. So does that make us paranoid? I don't know. But I sure as hell waste enough time attempting to predict the course of actions taken by most major alliances in this game, and after a few years at it, especially with similar players in leadership positions, makes it very easy to do so. 

There are only so many actions/wars/battles/games that can be played when we have similar set of leaders/actors for years. This is not a criticism of tenured leaderships, but more a statement of fact. So sometimes imperfect information can be solved through predictions, based off past patterns of behaviour and work out well for those who attempt to do that. 

[Mikey]

7 hours ago, Curufinwe said:

Well given the military situation, I admire your optimism if nothing else.  Although your example doesn't really hold up, since EMC did end up getting what it wanted in the end in Tiers.  We'll have to see if the side that feels it's winning manages to do the same this time too.  

You're right I was misremembering it as a white peace.

[Hodor]

7 hours ago, Shadowthrone said:

I mean there hasn't been any serious reaching out in the last few months, and neither have we reached out. I just don't see where we had mutual interests at the given time. But that doesn't mean we're antagonistic towards you either. We've not really done anything to spit on your face. We're in this war because TKR was hoping to use the predicament to roll us. 

This isn't strictly true. I think serious efforts have been made, but have not trickled down. Things like this take enormous political will and time. We didn't have either of those (on either side).

6 hours ago, Shadowthrone said:

We never have had hegemonic ambitions and none of our actions has ever led to that. That being said, it's chill that you're not walking back your words. @Hodor here mate, tell me why again we have to somehow give you the benefit of the doubt when your leader has no interest to deny he's not out to disband/scorch the earth with regards to the NPO? 

I am not trying to be a dick when I say I think you're doing the same thing I was doing. I was taking Leo and Sphinx's words, as high government members, as the position of the coalition. You corrected me and I accepted your correction, so let's not jump right back into the same old song and dance.

Edited August 5, 2019 by Hodor
I was a bit of a dick

[Adrienne]

5 hours ago, Shadowthrone said:

The logs released by Dio were given to us after the fact we entered the war actually. They were shared to showcase how Adrienne was lying to a lot of folks with her intentions and outright lied to Dio. I mean she has no interests to be truthful with plotting to roll IQ, but the logs themselves are not why we hit.

I did not lie. When talking to Dio, I didn't even remember those conversations with Sphinx, which goes to show my focus was never NPO specifically but IQ as a whole. I owned up to that when it was discussed here, so I'm not sure where you think I wasn't truthful about wanting to hit IQ. As I stated then though, the idea of hitting IQ died when you split because I wanted to see what you guys did. Your whole CB is predicated on your belief I thought you weren't separate from BK, which I publicly and privately stated otherwise before you ever hit.

5 hours ago, Shadowthrone said:

the only peace terms for Coalition B would be punitive reps and revenge for KF, we'd have no one to lean on for support to deal with the numbers potentially arrayed against the N$O. 

Reps were never going to be a term for Coalition B and I don't know what you mean by "revenge for KF".

Edited August 5, 2019 by Nizam Adrienne