A sad truth about the Swampy Rose Hedge...

[Prefonteen]

As I noted before. Enough admissions and contradictions are at this point document to fully vindicate quack and justify quacks pre-emptive strike. Your "investigation" structurally glosses over various contradictions, both by swamp internally and between swamp and its coalition partners, and in the same breath takes the statements of swamp leaders at face value *over* the statements of quack, swamp and HM leaders (as with the "approach" matter).

Your respect for tyrion and your affinity for swamp are absolutely your good right. But when you consistently  allow that bias to influence the conclusions and deductions in your "research", it stops being a research and starts looking like a shill. That is the point where we stopped engaging it.

You're free to keep asking. Boyce will speak if he feels like speaking. Our justification, given the admissions we have seen, does not hinge  solelyon his availability. It is but a component.

I'll also note that neither ronnys comment nor your posting has had, or will ever have an impact on the length of this war. The war will end in due time.

[Prefonteen]

9 hours ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

Y'know, one thing I've found is that when you're expected to bite your tongue... something is very wrong. Possibly with your understanding of the situation, but more than likely there's something wrong with the reasoning of the ones telling you to stay silent.

Either way, further silence wins nothing.

If you have a problem with your leaders... then at least, at least talk it out with them in private. If at the end of that you still don't like it, consider letting them know that you're planning on quitting at some point in the future, after your debts and obligations are settled.

If they threaten you at that point... then frick right off, because NOBODY, in ANY sphere, including if not especially my own, should have the right to threaten their members into submission. That right there is the reddest of flags in my experience, and there's nothing at all that can justify that sort of behavior imo.

 

9 hours ago, Avatar Patrick said:

Oh no I didn't mean it like that. I haven't explicitly been told to shut up. It's more of a self censorship kind of thing because I realize a lot of my opinions aren't very popular with certain people and that could hurt my alliance which isn't what i want. So I decided to cut back on the posting and the "one day circumstances may be different" part could happen in a variety of different ways like sphere change or change in sphere narrative.

This is an interesting discussion. I'll note that t$ is rather free when it comes to letting members post their opinions. The main ask by our "elites"  as you call them, is to not go OOC, and to not be an pure idiot. It usually takes a special kind of stupid before we go as far as gagging someone. Usually if a member is ill informed, it means his government either misinformed him, or did not take the time to inform him at all. What you do once that information gap is rectified is what seperates idiocy from normalcy imo.

I can't really speak for other spheres or alliances. All I can say is, educate your members, and be prepared to answer your backroom movements in public, both here and to your members. I know I spend a good amount of time every war (and every now and then in between wars) updating members on our FA policy and why x y or z is happening. Sometimes they disagree with me. Sometimes they don't. In both cases, I am held accountable, and I do not doubt that if I frick up in a duplicitous way internally, the member base will be livid.

[HeroofTime55]

3 hours ago, Hodor said:

STOP SILENCING HIM WITH VALID COUNTERPOINTS!

"general silence", indeed 28 pages of nothing but SILENCE

 

The current discussion is about how your side has become silent, after getting trounced in threads such as that.  Yes, in the beginning, your side was more willing to engage.  But now, your side bemoans how they have to hide from the forums because "t$/TKR cOnTroL tHe nArRaTiVe."  Which is just a funny way of admitting that we're correct and you don't have a leg to stand on.  The only thing left is Phoenyx disingenuously repeating firmly debunked hypotheses.

[Phoenyx]

48 minutes ago, Prefonteen said:

As I noted before. Enough admissions and contradictions are at this point document to fully vindicate quack and justify quacks pre-emptive strike. Your "investigation" structurally glosses over various contradictions, both by swamp internally and between swamp and its coalition partners, and in the same breath takes the statements of swamp leaders at face value *over* the statements of quack, swamp and HM leaders (as with the "approach" matter).

Your respect for tyrion and your affinity for swamp are absolutely your good right. But when you consistently  allow that bias to influence the conclusions and deductions in your "research", it stops being a research and starts looking like a shill. That is the point where we stopped engaging it.

You're free to keep asking. Boyce will speak if he feels like speaking. Our justification, given the admissions we have seen, does not hinge  solelyon his availability. It is but a component.

I'll also note that neither ronnys comment nor your posting has had, or will ever have an impact on the length of this war. The war will end in due time.

 

I'm curious to know where you think the internal swamp contradictions are. My guess is that you are taking things that Ronnie's HM Leader has said (which I and Tyrion both believe are highly ambiguous) as well as things that Boyce and Sphinx have said and labelling those the internal swamp contradictions. The thing is, none of those people are in Swamp and what they have said is generally fairly ambiguous as to what is meant, with Boyce's contention that HM/TCW/Swamp was going to attack in early December being the sole statement that I found to be quite clear- however, since Boyce was so removed from Swamp and had good reasons to dislike them as they had insisted on separating Sphinx' TCW from his Test Alliance, I can easily see how he might have read way more into what Sphinx and perhaps 1 or more others may have told him then was actually there.

 

Anyway, I certainly agree that Boyce will speak if he feels like speaking. My question to you is, why do you think he hasn't seemed to have said anything here during this whole war? Is he usually so quiet? What if he got things wrong? You say that his admissions aren't the sole justification for this war and you're certainly right on that count, there are also Ronnie's words which you guys even put into an ad, but even there, we may have the famous chicken and egg conundrum and clearly, your CB came before Ronnie's statement. Might your statement have influenced Ronnie to see things a certain way? Even there, right after his famous statement,  he says that this alleged plan to attack Quack seemed to have died after a week, well before the actual war started.

 

As to your belief that I am biased towards Tyrion and Kaz, I can understand why you might come to that conclusion- I started with Kaz' TFP and am currently in an Immortals protectorate. However, I would argue that I have been pretty unflinching in examining all the possibilities and the more I look into it, the less sense it makes to me that they would be lying. And pretty much everyone I have spoken to agrees that if Tyrion and Kaz weren't in the know about a plan to attack Quack, the plan would have been nothing more than a few whispered words- something that someone not in Swamp like Boyce or even Sphinx might take to mean big things but within it would be nothing but a bit of idle chatter. 

 

Finally, I agree that the war will end when it needs to end. However, I believe that the more people really stop to think about the questions as to its origins and put some effort into finding some decent answers, the more likely that it will end sooner rather than later. 

[WarriorSoul]

27 minutes ago, Phoenyx said:

wall of text

You have devoted countless walls of text to create a story which requires assumption upon assumption to check out. The simplest answer will usually suffice. What is the simple answer here? Three of the four spheres in the game secretly agreed to what amounts to M-level treaties, forming a de facto coalition before the outbreak of war. In the history of this game, and others like it, coalitions don't form as a precaution. You build a coalition because you plan to do something with it. What is the only thing you can do with a coalition that comprises three of the four spheres in the game? Roll the outlier sphere.

But by all means, keep up with this mental gymnastics routine. That post count isn't going to up itself.

[Prefonteen]

1 hour ago, Phoenyx said:

 

I'm curious to know where you think the internal swamp contradictions are. My guess is that you are taking things that Ronnie's HM Leader has said (which I and Tyrion both believe are highly ambiguous) as well as things that Boyce and Sphinx have said and labelling those the internal swamp contradictions. The thing is, none of those people are in Swamp and what they have said is generally fairly ambiguous as to what is meant, with Boyce's contention that HM/TCW/Swamp was going to attack in early December being the sole statement that I found to be quite clear- however, since Boyce was so removed from Swamp and had good reasons to dislike them as they had insisted on separating Sphinx' TCW from his Test Alliance, I can easily see how he might have read way more into what Sphinx and perhaps 1 or more others may have told him then was actually there.

The notion that swamp's intentions were "defensive only" is something you've labeled as verified fact with the sole underlying evidence being the word -at face value- of people who you "believe to be x y z" based on a few interactions and 2 months of play, who also stand to gain from lying in public. You too easily discard and question *actual* evidence in the form of logs based on your personal interpretation of what may or may not be the sources motivations.

That's roughly where your arguments strand.

As for swamps contradictions, I point you at stuff sprayed across the forums and discord, which got snowed under by your avelanche of "research" posts. I don't plan to repeat myself ad infinitum. 

 

Quote

Anyway, I certainly agree that Boyce will speak if he feels like speaking. My question to you is, why do you think he hasn't seemed to have said anything here during this whole war? Is he usually so quiet? What if he got things wrong? You say that his admissions aren't the sole justification for this war and you're certainly right on that count, there are also Ronnie's words which you guys even put into an ad, but even there, we may have the famous chicken and egg conundrum and clearly, your CB came before Ronnie's statement. Might your statement have influenced Ronnie to see things a certain way? Even there, right after his famous statement,  he says that this alleged plan to attack Quack seemed to have died after a week, well before the actual war started.

 

Yeah no. Ronny's recollection is of events far preceeding our actions. His confirmation that approach was made, along with the existence of a network of defensive treaties and/or lines of communication geared toward "curbing/countering quacks growth" and the sphinx logs + boyce verification is *plenty* to vindicate us. Particularly when presented with an opposing narrative boiling down to "uR tOo BiG".

 

Quote

 

As to your belief that I am biased towards Tyrion and Kaz, I can understand why you might come to that conclusion- I started with Kaz' TFP and am currently in an Immortals protectorate. However, I would argue that I have been pretty unflinching in examining all the possibilities and the more I look into it, the less sense it makes to me that they would be lying. And pretty much everyone I have spoken to agrees that if Tyrion and Kaz weren't in the know about a plan to attack Quack, the plan would have been nothing more than a few whispered words- something that someone not in Swamp like Boyce or even Sphinx might take to mean big things but within it would be nothing but a bit of idle chatter. 

See above 2 snippets. 

Adding on to that: My belief that you are biased is not based on the alliance(s) you reside in. Its based on your conduct. As noted earlier, you take every word of theirs at face value. Even when one is caught lying (as occurred earlier when claims were made that we were 2000 nations strong), you backpedal and try to justify for them with non-arguments;

"It was a mistake"
"No he meant xyz"

"Maybe he was joking!".

It's further supplemented by snippets like this:

(



(Re this one: You write an opinionated thread and then present it as evidence).











Infatuated.


 

Quote

Finally, I agree that the war will end when it needs to end. However, I believe that the more people really stop to think about the questions as to its origins and put some effort into finding some decent answers, the more likely that it will end sooner rather than later. 

no. 

 

Edited November 23, 2020 by Prefonteen

[TRM]

2 hours ago, Prefonteen said:

This is an interesting discussion. I'll note that t$ is rather free when it comes to letting members post their opinions.

For sure. @Eumirbago hasn't started self censoring at all after the war started. 

[Prefonteen]

3 minutes ago, Orcinus Orca said:

For sure. @Eumirbago hasn't started self censoring at all after the war started. 

@Eumirbagois encouraged to speak his mind. He's a special flower.

[Phoenyx]

1 hour ago, Prefonteen said:

The notion that swamp's intentions were "defensive only" is something you've labeled as verified fact with the sole underlying evidence being the word -at face value- of people who you "believe to be x y z" based on a few interactions and 2 months of play, who also stand to gain from lying in public. You too easily discard and question *actual* evidence in the form of logs based on your personal interpretation of what may or may not be the sources motivations.

That's roughly where your arguments strand.

As for swamps contradictions, I point you at stuff sprayed across the forums and discord, which got snowed under by your avelanche of "research" posts. I don't plan to repeat myself ad infinitum. 

 

I haven't actually said that it's verified fact that Swamp's intentions were defensive only. However, I've certainly said that I find it extremely unlikely that Tyrion and Kaz are lying when they said that they had never even heard of a plan to engage in an offensive war with Quack. I've also pointed out that while I may not have had too many conversations with Tyrion and Kaz, I have certainly seen them post a fair amount, in Kaz case, because I was in his Alliance for 2 months and in Tyrion's, right here in this forum. All of their posts strongly suggest that these are not people who have planned to attack Quack first. Kaz even went so far as to explain why he would have opposed such a plan in great detail, as you have seen.

 

Anyway, pointing me towards "stuff prayed across the forums" is not really pointing me anywhere. By contrast, I have dedicated entire threads to the words of Boyce/Sphinx and Ronnie's HM leader.

[TRM]

2 minutes ago, Prefonteen said:

@Eumirbagois encouraged to speak his mind. He's a special flower.

Is there some reason his posts went from obvious Cam/Aku/whoever else insults to literally "blah blah blah @(multiple people)"?

[Phoenyx]

1 hour ago, Prefonteen said:

Ronny's recollection is of events far preceeding our actions. His confirmation that approach was made, along with the existence of a network of defensive treaties and/or lines of communication geared toward "curbing/countering quacks growth" and the sphinx logs + boyce verification is *plenty* to vindicate us. Particularly when presented with an opposing narrative boiling down to "uR tOo BiG".

 

What I am getting at is that I am wondering if your CB might have influenced his recollections. Memories are malleable. No one is denying that a network of defensive treaties and/or lines of communication were put into place before the war, but that's a far cry from saying that those treaties were in any way first strike in nature. It's been argued that they could be turned into that later and on -that- point, I will certainly concede that possibility, but the point was that from everything I have read, there had been no plans to do something of that nature before the war.

 

As to the "ur too Big" narrative, I think it's much more of a "ur too threatening" narrative. By essentially engaging in a surprise attack of HM/TCM, you fed right into that narrative. 

Edited November 23, 2020 by Phoenyx

[SleepingNinja]

5 minutes ago, Phoenyx said:

Anyway, pointing me towards "stuff prayed across the forums" is not really pointing me anywhere. By contrast, I have dedicated entire threads to the words of Boyce/Sphinx and Ronnie's HM leader.

Perhaps it would be easier to find if you didn't bury it under your topics and meaningless posturing?🤔

[TRM]

2 minutes ago, Phoenyx said:

More random naiveté...

You are like a kitten trying to catch the laser point. Laser is bouncing all over the room, and you are just jumping around, trying to catch it. It's cute and funny, yes, but that's all it is. 

Just settle down, relax, read more, and talk less. Making memes and jabs is fine on the OWF, but if you continue to try and make points on subjects you are ill-informed on, you'll only make yourself out to look like a fool. 

[Phoenyx]

1 hour ago, Prefonteen said:

My belief that you are biased is not based on the alliance(s) you reside in. Its based on your conduct. As noted earlier, you take every word of theirs at face value. Even when one is caught lying (as occurred earlier when claims were made that we were 2000 nations strong), you backpedal and try to justify for them with non-arguments;

 

To be honest, I'm thinking that Kaz may have actually have said that whole 2000 nations bit as a bit of sarcasm. I've gone through my logs with him and I never saw him say either 1000 or 2000 nations. 

[Phoenyx]

1 hour ago, Prefonteen said:

Adding on to that: My belief that you are biased is not based on the alliance(s) you reside in. Its based on your conduct. As noted earlier, you take every word of theirs at face value....

It's further supplemented by snippets like this:

(



(Re this one: You write an opinionated thread and then present it as evidence).











Infatuated.

 

I can't deny that I admire Tyrion's poise and restraint. Sometimes, however, I think he can be -too- restrained and that's where I step in to say things that I think need to be said. I know that he is not always pleased with this. Like TFP, he's made it clear that he doesn't currently think I would be a good fit for his Alliance, for the same reasons that TFP didn't consider me a good fit for theirs. I hope he doesn't mind me taking a screenshot of his reasoning, as I really think it was quite good and it explains a lot concerning why they do this. You yourself have chastised his second in command when he spoke a certain way. Here is what he said:

 

As a matter of fact, he hasn't said anything to me since I told him about this thread around 19 hours ago. He may just be busy, but then again, it may be precisely because I posted this thread.

 

Edited November 23, 2020 by Phoenyx

[Prefonteen]

18 minutes ago, Orcinus Orca said:

Is there some reason his posts went from obvious Cam/Aku/whoever else insults to literally "blah blah blah @(multiple people)"?

Yes. It's called character growth.

[Phoenyx]

12 minutes ago, PhantomThiefB said:

Perhaps it would be easier to find if you didn't bury it under your topics and meaningless posturing?🤔

It should be up to the party who believes a standpoint to point to the evidence. Saying that the other side should have to look for it strongly suggests that the side in question isn't all that interested in the evidence to begin with. 

13 minutes ago, Orcinus Orca said:

You are like a kitten trying to catch the laser point. Laser is bouncing all over the room, and you are just jumping around, trying to catch it. It's cute and funny, yes, but that's all it is. 

Just settle down, relax, read more, and talk less. Making memes and jabs is fine on the OWF, but if you continue to try and make points on subjects you are ill-informed on, you'll only make yourself out to look like a fool. 

 

I don't actually make the memes, a friend does that, with some suggestions on my part. My forte is in analysis of the given evidence and in summarizing it in text form. 

[TRM]

3 minutes ago, Phoenyx said:

I don't actually make the memes, a friend does that, with some suggestions on my part. My forte is in analysis of the given evidence and in summarizing it in text form. 

Therein lies the problem. You jump at every little thing you see, instead of standing back, reading more, and learning the situation instead. 

[Prefonteen]

2 minutes ago, Phoenyx said:

It should be up to the party who believes a standpoint to point to the evidence. Saying that the other side should have to look for it strongly suggests that the side in question isn't all that interested in the evidence to begin with. 

 

I don't actually make the memes, a friend does that, with some suggestions on my part. My forte is in analysis of the given evidence and in summarizing it in text form. 

mfw "forte in analysis".

 

Anyway. You structurally ignored evidence in lieu of your own baseless assumptions. And now, i'm not going to link you every single time, given the amount of times you require corrections on things that were already explained to you. Given your irrelevance to the subject matter, that'd be an incredibly low-return investment of time.

[Phoenyx]

5 minutes ago, Orcinus Orca said:

Therein lies the problem. You jump at every little thing you see, instead of standing back, reading more, and learning the situation instead. 

I don't agree with that at all. I think I've done a great deal more analysis on the origins of this war then anyone else posting. 

4 minutes ago, Prefonteen said:

mfw "forte in analysis".

 

Anyway. You structurally ignored evidence in lieu of your own baseless assumptions. And now, i'm not going to link you every single time, given the amount of times you require corrections on things that were already explained to you. Given your irrelevance to the subject matter, that'd be an incredibly low-return investment of time.

 

What evidence did I structurally ignore? I suppose you could say that you've told me before and aren't doing it again. We may have to disagree on that point.

[HeroofTime55]

3 minutes ago, Phoenyx said:

To be honest

I no longer believe that honesty is one of your objectives here.

You have previously explained that you are someone who believes in peace, who wants peace, and you have repeatedly sought, in a feeble and ineffectual way, to encourage the peace process along.  That is all fine and well, nothing wrong with wanting peace!  A political perspective such as that is more than welcome in this world.  Yet, you find yourself in a coalition which has plotted this conflict, to overwhelm and destroy Quack, who have done nothing wrong.  I now judge you as a person who, too cowardly to leave the winning team for the sake of your professed convictions, has instead elected to put on this circus in an attempt to justify, to yourself, the underlying events of this war, and to construct a new reality that you are comfortable believing, in an effort to convince yourself that you are not the baddie.

[WarriorSoul]

2 minutes ago, Phoenyx said:

I don't agree with that at all. I think I've done a great deal more analysis on the origins of this war then anyone else posting. 

Your analysis literally boils down to "Quack declared war on reasonable suspicion of a coalition building against them. Despite a mountain of evidence, circumstantial and otherwise, coming to light before and after their DoW, I am instead choosing to take the verbal denials from Swamp at face value".

You must be able to see why people aren't taking you seriously?

[Phoenyx]

1 minute ago, HeroofTime55 said:

I no longer believe that honesty is one of your objectives here.

You have previously explained that you are someone who believes in peace, who wants peace, and you have repeatedly sought, in a feeble and ineffectual way, to encourage the peace process along.  That is all fine and well, nothing wrong with wanting peace!  A political perspective such as that is more than welcome in this world.  Yet, you find yourself in a coalition which has plotted this conflict, to overwhelm and destroy Quack, who have done nothing wrong.  I now judge you as a person who, too cowardly to leave the winning team for the sake of your professed convictions, has instead elected to put on this circus in an attempt to justify, to yourself, the underlying events of this war, and to construct a new reality that you are comfortable believing, in an effort to convince yourself that you are not the baddie.

 

I could argue that it is you who have done these things, but neither of us would be making any headway. The devil is in the details. Boyce's words, this HM leader's words. There is where the truth lies.

1 minute ago, WarriorSoul said:

Your analysis literally boils down to "Quack declared war on reasonable suspicion of a coalition building against them. Despite a mountain of evidence, circumstantial and otherwise, coming to light before and after their DoW, I am instead choosing to take the verbal denials from Swamp at face value".

You must be able to see why people aren't taking you seriously?

 

No, that would be -your- analysis. Me, I see Boyce making a statement that HM/TCW/Swamp was going to attack by early December and some ambiguous statements from Sphinx and Ronnie's HM leader. Based on that evidence, plus the evidence of the behaviour and words of some Swamp leaders I know, I have determined that it is extremely unlikely that Swamp wanted to attack first. That being said, I am not averse to gathering more evidence and I did my best to do so, mainly by trying to get more information from both Boyce and Ronnie's HM leader. So far, no luck on either count, but i'm not the only one who can push on these fronts. 

[HeroofTime55]

1 minute ago, Phoenyx said:

 

I could argue that it is you who have done these things, but neither of us would be making any headway. The devil is in the details. Boyce's words, this HM leader's words. There is where the truth lies.

You couldn't argue that, as I do not believe in permanent peace.  Our coalition went out of our way to NOT form a hegemony, for the sake of keeping an interesting, multi-polar world which might produce interesting conflicts.  We have, clearly, made a grand error in our calculus, as everyone else in the game had no problem whatsoever joining forces to crush us.

[Prefonteen]

1 minute ago, HeroofTime55 said:

You couldn't argue that, as I do not believe in permanent peace.  Our coalition went out of our way to NOT form a hegemony, for the sake of keeping an interesting, multi-polar world which might produce interesting conflicts.  We have, clearly, made a grand error in our calculus, as everyone else in the game had no problem whatsoever joining forces to crush us.

Yes but quack man bad.