People wanted me to write a thread.

[His Holy Decagon]

17 hours ago, Callisto said:

If you were truly forced into this whole situation of hitting Rose, that implies to me that you didn't want to do it. If you *really* didn't want to do it, then why didn't you just leak the logs to Rose, hit BW with Rose, leak the logs as CB, and explain your actions to everyone.

The fact that you went through with the plan of hitting Rose implies to me that you were always interested in hitting Rose, whether it was "forced" upon you or not.

If you truly did not appreciate the actions of BW, then why didn't you choose to punish them?

Being forced doesn’t mean it had to be something quite literal. Being forced could be something such as backing out of an agreed plan, hours before, putting pressure on us, for instance.

I don’t think we denied ever wanting to fight Rose, nor did we ever ask for help doing it. “Expanding”, doesn’t read the same as “Help us do the thing we’re planning on doing anyway”.

MysOasis formed, we had plans with BW, and hours before the blitz, someone got cold feet, “forcing” us in a truly typical manner. Who gets cold feet 2-3 hours before a blitz when they agreed to go in with another bloc, and is only okay with it upon the confirmation that Clock will take care of Rose for them? Yeah, it ain’t Clock.

[Callisto]

2 hours ago, His Holy Decagon said:

Being forced doesn’t mean it had to be something quite literal. Being forced could be something such as backing out of an agreed plan, hours before, putting pressure on us, for instance.

I don’t think we denied ever wanting to fight Rose, nor did we ever ask for help doing it. “Expanding”, doesn’t read the same as “Help us do the thing we’re planning on doing anyway”.

MysOasis formed, we had plans with BW, and hours before the blitz, someone got cold feet, “forcing” us in a truly typical manner. Who gets cold feet 2-3 hours before a blitz when they agreed to go in with another bloc, and is only okay with it upon the confirmation that Clock will take care of Rose for them? Yeah, it ain’t Clock.

Decagon, if you and Clock didn't agree with what The Syndicate and BW "did to you" at the time, then why didn't you do something about it? If you felt that you were truly "forced" into this, and you felt as though Syndicate had betrayed you, or some other bullshit, why didn't you punish them. 

Apart from that, as you've just admitted, this was something you wanted to do anyway, and based on the logs WANA has provided, as well as Keegoz's tone in the original logs he provided, where he put up literally no resistance, I don't really see how they forced you onto this. Circling back to those original logs, Keegoz claims that WANA officially made the hit on Rose part of the deal, but WANA, in Keegoz's own logs, quite literally says "If/When Clock hits Rose". That doesn't sound like a precondition to me, if anything, that sounds like, in Syndicate's eyes, you could have either chosen to hit Rose, or not to hit Rose, and Syndicate would have helped with the MysInc/Oasis war either way.

The fact that you did absolutely nothing about this at the time, in my eyes, is a tacit implication that through this entire conversation with WANA, Keegoz got what he ultimately wanted, and didn't feel forced at all. The fact that you are only bringing up all this stuff now I think is really telling

[His Holy Decagon]

11 minutes ago, Callisto said:

Decagon, if you and Clock didn't agree with what The Syndicate and BW "did to you" at the time, then why didn't you do something about it? If you felt that you were truly "forced" into this, and you felt as though Syndicate had betrayed you, or some other bullshit, why didn't you punish them. 

Apart from that, as you've just admitted, this was something you wanted to do anyway, and based on the logs WANA has provided, as well as Keegoz's tone in the original logs he provided, where he put up literally no resistance, I don't really see how they forced you onto this. Circling back to those original logs, Keegoz claims that WANA officially made the hit on Rose part of the deal, but WANA, in Keegoz's own logs, quite literally says "If/When Clock hits Rose". That doesn't sound like a precondition to me, if anything, that sounds like, in Syndicate's eyes, you could have either chosen to hit Rose, or not to hit Rose, and Syndicate would have helped with the MysInc/Oasis war either way.

The fact that you did absolutely nothing about this at the time, in my eyes, is a tacit implication that through this entire conversation with WANA, Keegoz got what he ultimately wanted, and didn't feel forced at all. The fact that you are only bringing up all this stuff now I think is really telling

Again, I’ve said it a few times, others have said it as well; there’s no one in Clock that “feels betrayed”, and I’m not sure why literally just discussing events, somehow is interpreted as anything other than a discussion.

Not sure if we’re going to pretend that WANA was somehow mislead by Keegoz, but “if/when”, when there’s another log saying something like “we have to be able to have plausible deniability” sure don’t sound like some self unawareness. But hey, I guess this is literally what “plausible deniability” would look like, right?

We didn’t do anything… because… there was a deal that was brokered? Why is it hard for people to recognize we aren’t complaining lol. You can force someone through many ways besides being direct.

BW getting cold feet, hours before our agreed upon blitz, leaving Clock basically high and dry to deal with MysOasis, and apparently leaking the agreed hit that Clock would make on Rose, which in hindsight meant we’d potentially get blitzed doesn’t sound like some type of forcing to you? Mate, come on. There’s a point where you have to admit that BW’s FA style is always centered around word play and being shady. Being an ally to them now, doesn’t mean you have to pretend the past doesn’t exist.

Edited May 28, 2022 by His Holy Decagon

[Avakael]

9 hours ago, Sphinx said:

t$ gov has no grip on reality, you could tell them the sky is blue and if they don't like the source it came from they'd disagree with you

I'm forced to agree with this. After leaving t$, I didn't really interact with them much, but I wound up being present in their CoTL discord embassy for the start of the global war known as "Duck Hunt". I disagreed with their perceptions about why the war started, and their reaction was to immediately ban me from the embassy. It feels pretty shitty to know that I'm basically dead to them despite having been part of the community since 2014 era MI6, but it's mostly different people now, and I've accepted it.

[Shiho Nishizumi]

13 minutes ago, Avakael said:

I'm forced to agree with this. After leaving t$, I didn't really interact with them much, but I wound up being present in their CoTL discord embassy for the start of the global war known as "Duck Hunt". I disagreed with their perceptions about why the war started, and their reaction was to immediately ban me from the embassy. It feels pretty shitty to know that I'm basically dead to them despite having been part of the community since 2014 era MI6, but it's mostly different people now, and I've accepted it.

You aren't banned from the diplo server though.

[Zei-Sakura Alsainn]

6 hours ago, Thalmor said:

Clock likes to fight. Let's say, for example, they hit HM or Johnsons in 5 months. What stops Celestial and Hollywood from doing this again?

I'm happy to see the hypothetical wars you chose are at least ones Clock would actually take.

 

They like fighting as long as it's an easy kill.

 

And that's why I liked this thread, because after you all spent the announcement one masturbating about how cool, dynamic and risk-taking you are, you came here to explain that actually the "big-norm breaking risk we knew would have extenuating consequences wasn't actually ours because big evil Syndi man practically forced us at gunpoint!!!!"

I mean it's ok I didn't take your nonsense seriously to begin with, it's just funnier seeing the mask fall.

 

"Ohhhh but even with HoF we don't think we coulda wonnnn no chance" I mean even despite tiering data not agreeing with that...

Aren't y'all the supposed risk-taking innovators? Grow a fricking pair and make a chance. My preferred strategy for Duck Hunt involved mass media disinformation so that a demilled Quack got slapped by a milled HM alone that used it's tiering advantage and military in conjunction with tiers being pretty much hard-locked to still be able to win a 1:3 aggressive blitz, and hold them down. 

But see, that never saw the light of day because Lefty told me no one would even consider such a thing. Too dangerous. Even though the math actually reflected it was very possible, it was also very difficult and very dangerous, and you people only have the stomach to take fake risks where you know you're gonna win or where you're gonna suck yourself off about how cool you are for mass-raiding rose and getting slaughtered pointlessly or whatever. The idea any of you are "risk-takers" is laughable to me, but then I go risking permaban to fight the hegemons while you cry on forums and smack around people who had no chance to please yourself.

 

Look, just, next time you're gonna reap the extenuating consequences I got told would make considering most of my ideas too dangerous, maybe at least have the decency to actually be half as cool and dangerous as one of the more mild ones? At least id feel like you were trying. This weird virtue signaling is getting old, and it's telling that the most interesting thing to happen in 2 years isn't one of your stupid "lul totally dynamic fun wars" but is an announcement by two spheres saying they're not fighting. 

All those threads about wars being boring and meaningless have been totally vindicated because the last time there was nearly 20 pages of discussion on anything was pre NPOLT days.

Edited May 28, 2022 by Zei-Sakura Alsainn

[Shiho Nishizumi]

4 hours ago, His Holy Decagon said:

Still, no one has given me a logical response to how bringing in more high infra targets, deters low infra nations from chaining. The plausible net damage in that situation, IMO, seems to almost entice pirates, raiders, and chaining.

Because usually only one party in that entanglement has lean infra. The others' isn't pristine, but it's also not just 800-1000 across the board either.

This is specifically true for a war like yours where BR is hopelessly outmatched at the upper/top tier. This isn't just due to conventional war but also the poll of people that could reasonably be there expected to be able to turret those peeps.

[Avakael]

9 minutes ago, Shiho Nishizumi said:

You aren't banned from the diplo server though.

I wasn't banned from the server- I was banned from the CoTL embassy. I was in that embassy at the request of the CoTL government. I left the server after I was removed from the embassy. There was no further point in me being in the server if I was no longer going to be granted any form of diplomatic credentials.

[Vemek]

3 minutes ago, Avakael said:

I wasn't banned from the server- I was banned from the CoTL embassy. I was in that embassy at the request of the CoTL government. I left the server after I was removed from the embassy. There was no further point in me being in the server if I was no longer going to be granted any form of diplomatic credentials.

The person that removed you isn't in tS and hasn't been for a long while. I don't think you should be pinning this on us two years later 

[Shiho Nishizumi]

27 minutes ago, Avakael said:

I wasn't banned from the server- I was banned from the CoTL embassy. I was in that embassy at the request of the CoTL government. I left the server after I was removed from the embassy. There was no further point in me being in the server if I was no longer going to be granted any form of diplomatic credentials.

Theo revoked said creds due to you not being gov (if memory serves, you were IA gov in CotL for a good while). That also happened after a couple of days of chatter rather than immediately.

You can most certainly disagree with the decision, but to me your claim seems odd since you weren't really combative either, and way more bellicose peeps were allowed to stay.

[Agent W]

In case it is entirely clear at this point, let me spell some things out here for the broader community.

During the lead up to the MO war, myself and Ataxia engaged in talks to de-escalate that conflict. This led to us getting cold feet approaching the blitz. In the Blackwater leadership server, BW leadership was debating the merits of going through with the hit. I relayed these concerns to Keegoz, and started a dialogue with him about it. Ultimately, I decided to offer Keegoz a deal that I thought would limit the negative externalities of such a hit. I asked Keegoz for a mutual guarantee not to aid HW in a hit against the other, and for plausible deniability if Clock did choose to hit Rose.

At the time, and both my government, allies, and former allies can confirm this, Rose was not my concern, as I viewed them as a friendly entity. It was in this view that I wanted to ensure that the Rose-tS relationship wouldn't be trashed if Clock decided to hit them. I didn't want Rose to be hit, but I believed that Clock would hit them regardless of our involvement, and was correct in my assumption. Hell, as I mentioned before, I felt so icky about the whole thing that I even decided to tell Rose prior to the hit.

During the time of the MO war, my biggest fear is that we would get hit by Hollywood. I understood that Hollywood was upset from Brawlywood, and wanted to try and avoid a repeat war. This is borne out by actions and words at the time, and I think Hollywood knew this at the time. Ultimately the MO war was unsuccessful at buying us cover from HW, which I think is fair to critique me for.

Since I took over as FA Executive, I have had a strong working relationship with Rose, which ultimately allowed for the creation of Celestial. What motivation would I have had for trashing a relationship I had worked so hard to cultivate. Ask yourself, based on my relationship to Rose, why would I throw it away for Clock's benefit? It doesn't make logical sense.

As for the current uproar over the HW-Celestial agreement, you can think of it as risk management and nothing more. HW and Celestial are strange bedfellows, with enough hurt feelings between the two to require years worth of therapy. The fact that this agreement could even get passed should tell you how seriously we viewed the threat of Clock deciding to chain.

Ultimately, the ball is in Clock's court at the moment. The power to send this agreement to the shredder is in their hands. I do not desire war nor enmity towards Clock or its member alliances. You guys know where to find me if/when you guys want to engage in good faith dialogue.

[Vein]

6 minutes ago, Agent W said:

As for the current uproar over the HW-Celestial agreement, you can think of it as risk management and nothing more. HW and Celestial are strange bedfellows, with enough hurt feelings between the two to require years worth of therapy. The fact that this agreement could even get passed should tell you how seriously we viewed the threat of Clock deciding to chain.

 

If you were that paranoid and scared of a chain from Clock, why not just stay milled up? Look at the tiering above ^ you instead decided to form a MDP treaty with the only other biggest and strongest sphere in the game? What kind of joke are you playing? is this how you want to move the games direction to from now on? this is rather disappointing.

Remember though guys, clock is the bad guy here. T$ are the victims.

[Agent W]

20 minutes ago, Vein said:

If you were that paranoid and scared of a chain from Clock, why not just stay milled up? Look at the tiering above ^ you instead decided to form a MDP treaty with the only other biggest and strongest sphere in the game? What kind of joke are you playing? is this how you want to move the games direction to from now on? this is rather disappointing.

Remember though guys, clock is the bad guy here. T$ are the victims.

We didn't stay mil'd up because it benefits us more to be able to reap the economic benefits of being demil'd. Given the past actions of Clock chaining, we decided to enter into this agreement to manage the risks of Clock trying to chain.

This is an insurance policy. Insurance protects you from risk. The vast majority of adults willingly pay for insurance even if they never have to make a claim.

I have not said we're the victims. Nor do I think Clock is the "bad" guy. I do not see the world in such a black and white manner. I know that Clock is unhappy with this move. Your unhappiness with this move is valid, even if you are distorting my character.

[Buorhann]

2 hours ago, Vein said:

If you were that paranoid and scared of a chain from Clock, why not just stay milled up? Look at the tiering above ^ you instead decided to form a MDP treaty with the only other biggest and strongest sphere in the game? What kind of joke are you playing? is this how you want to move the games direction to from now on? this is rather disappointing.

Remember though guys, clock is the bad guy here. T$ are the victims.

That’s the point.  Neither Bloc wanted to stay mil’d up.  There were no plans to take aggression.

Both Celest and HW were mil’d up, allegedly, due to paranoia and concern from either Clock chaining or the other respective Bloc making an opportunistic move.

HW and Celest came to an agreement that addresses everything they were concerned about.

And after reading the logs dropped here and being caught up to date on events, I’d say it’s a fair agreement.  Not what I would’ve done, but being pragmatic to those currently leading - I think it was a good secured deal.

[Charles Bolivar]

10 hours ago, Avakael said:

I'm forced to agree with this. After leaving t$, I didn't really interact with them much, but I wound up being present in their CoTL discord embassy for the start of the global war known as "Duck Hunt". I disagreed with their perceptions about why the war started, and their reaction was to immediately ban me from the embassy. It feels pretty shitty to know that I'm basically dead to them despite having been part of the community since 2014 era MI6, but it's mostly different people now, and I've accepted it.

Why does this sound so familiar? 😂

Edited May 29, 2022 by Charles Bolivar

[Bollocks]

15 hours ago, Buorhann said:

That’s the point.  Neither Bloc wanted to stay mil’d up.  There were no plans to take aggression.

Both Celest and HW were mil’d up, allegedly, due to paranoia and concern from either Clock chaining or the other respective Bloc making an opportunistic move.

HW and Celest came to an agreement that addresses everything they were concerned about.

And after reading the logs dropped here and being caught up to date on events, I’d say it’s a fair agreement.  Not what I would’ve done, but being pragmatic to those currently leading - I think it was a good secured deal.

This.

It was a practical decision , and I would’ve done the same. Even though I do fondly remember the EMC days, the repeated bipolar wars ultimately didn’t help the game’s meta

Similar to a game of Diplomacy where you start with 7 almost but not quite equal parties; reset after a win- I would like to see the top alliances pursue a similar balance of powers approach to the game’s political meta.

A game of diplomacy, after all, is not fun 1v1

 

 

 

[Avatar Patrick]

On 5/28/2022 at 10:24 AM, Zei-Sakura Alsainn said:

I'm happy to see the hypothetical wars you chose are at least ones Clock would actually take.

 

They like fighting as long as it's an easy kill.

 

And that's why I liked this thread, because after you all spent the announcement one masturbating about how cool, dynamic and risk-taking you are, you came here to explain that actually the "big-norm breaking risk we knew would have extenuating consequences wasn't actually ours because big evil Syndi man practically forced us at gunpoint!!!!"

I mean it's ok I didn't take your nonsense seriously to begin with, it's just funnier seeing the mask fall.

 

"Ohhhh but even with HoF we don't think we coulda wonnnn no chance" I mean even despite tiering data not agreeing with that...

Aren't y'all the supposed risk-taking innovators? Grow a fricking pair and make a chance. My preferred strategy for Duck Hunt involved mass media disinformation so that a demilled Quack got slapped by a milled HM alone that used it's tiering advantage and military in conjunction with tiers being pretty much hard-locked to still be able to win a 1:3 aggressive blitz, and hold them down. 

But see, that never saw the light of day because Lefty told me no one would even consider such a thing. Too dangerous. Even though the math actually reflected it was very possible, it was also very difficult and very dangerous, and you people only have the stomach to take fake risks where you know you're gonna win or where you're gonna suck yourself off about how cool you are for mass-raiding rose and getting slaughtered pointlessly or whatever. The idea any of you are "risk-takers" is laughable to me, but then I go risking permaban to fight the hegemons while you cry on forums and smack around people who had no chance to please yourself.

 

Look, just, next time you're gonna reap the extenuating consequences I got told would make considering most of my ideas too dangerous, maybe at least have the decency to actually be half as cool and dangerous as one of the more mild ones? At least id feel like you were trying. This weird virtue signaling is getting old, and it's telling that the most interesting thing to happen in 2 years isn't one of your stupid "lul totally dynamic fun wars" but is an announcement by two spheres saying they're not fighting. 

All those threads about wars being boring and meaningless have been totally vindicated because the last time there was nearly 20 pages of discussion on anything was pre NPOLT days.

Hey Sakura remember that time your alliance deliberately threw a global war? Brilliant strategy