Icewolf's musing on the cyberworld

Excellent post. Reminds me of the waiting game between LSF and NoR to see who would post a DoW first (before NoR finally posted a "recognition of hostilities)... though that had to do with trying to activate LSF's MD treaties, as opposed to simply being seen as legitimate. Even after LSF admitted it was the aggressor (more or less), it still held that the war was legitimate.

Contrary to what seems like popular belief, you can't activate someone else's treaty.

Parties will always want to paint themselves as aggrieved. It doesn't usually mean that much.

What is a defensive action and what is an aggressive action is really very very simple. The alliance who sends troops (or any other sort of military) first is being aggressive. The alliance that is attacked by the military of the first is defending.

Hypothetical example 1:

Alliance A uses their military (OOC: the declare war buttons) and attacks The Javahouse League.

a) The Javahouse League are fighting in defense.

b) Alliance A is the aggressor

Hypothetical example 2:

Alliance A attacks our ODP The Sandwich Confederation and since we have an ODP we decide to "defend" The Sandwich Confederation.

a) The Javahouse League is taking an aggressive action (OOC: using our declare war buttons) against alliance A.

b) Alliance A is defending against us and at the same time acting aggressively against our allies.

Our reason for declaring war is to defend treaty allies who are directly being attacked, a reason almost everyone agrees is "legitimate." It's still an aggressive act however.

In this case, since New Sith Order used their military first. They are the aggressors.

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In terms of the confusion - historically alliances asked for harsher peace terms, usually including high "reparations" for ending the war if the war could be defined as "aggressive." Thus all the spinning to make an otherwise clearly aggressive act (declaring war for any reason) seem like "defense" was historically to avoid harsh peace terms. Then the system of "defense" and "aggression" treaties gets developed and e-lawyers have fun ever since.

Since reparations are going out of favor by many members of the community, maybe it shouldn't be such a big deal anymore.

Not sure if I entirely agree with your assertion.

The way I see it is that we base legitimacy upon nothing more formal than victory and current power. NPO was able to have legitimacy despite their "crimes" while they were the major power on bob. Now we have a more varied split and as such popular causes become legitimate. The most popular cause is a winning war. Because it provides entertainment, while also increasing the reputation and relative power of the victors.

Defensive wars that are losing propositions rarely occur now (better to let one alliance get rolled than actually defend them if you might lose). So these are not considered legitimate.

Also aggression can take many forms, spying, outright attacks etc.

The key to whether something is considered defensive or not is whether an alliance that responds to some action (such as spying) is legitimized in their action by the rest of the community. Weak CBs are considered aggressive, strong CBs are considered defensive. But then again, this is based on the opinion of related parties, thus both sides can (usually) have their cake and eat it too.

I disagree with WC's post (respectfully, as always!). I've always felt that a "casus belli" and the war to which it belongs is largely a subjective matter, that can (and should) be spun to one's advantage.

We do ourselves a huge disservice by linking the roleplaying aspects of the game to the mechanics of gameplay.

Aggression is always going to be a gray area, and that's a good thing. Objectivity is boring.

-Craig