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Truth has been stated in this article, I fully agree.

I am very glad you did not go down on that sinking ship.

good post BobbyJ. I hate that you lost your home.

It's tough when you have to recognize that something you helped build is falling apart, but that is, in this case at least, likely how things will continue to go until nothing is left.

A sad ending for what was once a proud and honorable alliance, envied for their values and nation building (I still also remember the times where Grämlins were the best tech sellers out there when few recognized the value of it).

Admittedly, I wished my ally and my alliance weren't part of the death struggle of your former alliance, but considering their current state, it seems we will be there until the very end.

Nice rewrite of history Bob, however you cannot escape your share of the blame for the collapse of Citadel,

It was after all during your stint at the top of Gre that contact, yet alone relations with TOP were allowed to become non existent, to the point where at the end of November when it became blindingly obvious that TOP/IRON were gunning for MK and looking for any excuse for war there was nothing that could be done to either rescue the relationship or turn TOP around

Had the relationship been maintained through last summer and autumn perhaps the last war could have been avoided alas we will never know

However I do agree that Gre is now dead, what remains is a shallow husk

Having watched a former alliance of mine disintegrate not long after my departure, I know exactly how you feel, Bob.

Not that it will make you feel any better, but I lost whatever respect I had for Gramlins the day the Continuum was formed. Jumping into a bloc led by an alliance filled with people who hate you? I just never got that at all, and I was in an alliance tied to tC at the time.

But I have good news!

I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico!

EDIT(accidently posted early): Seriously, though, it is rather embarrassing how far, and how fast, they fell.

Boo hoo. I actually find your incessant babyish crying through rose-tinted glasses to be more annoying than anything Gre has done over the past month. We get it, you are upset and you would like for us to be too. Can you please shut up about it now?

Bob I don't know you that well and take it from someone whose loathed quite enough as it is; you seem to always take yourself away from anything bad and take no responsibility for it. Always saying you had nothing to do with it or you tried to prevent it, all we see is a guy who's running around whining over misfortunes and angry because he lost something. Always assessing everything yet feeling so powerless and helpless all the same. It gets tiresome after awhile.

o/ Bob

o/ Ninjas

o/ VE

Boo hoo. I actually find your incessant babyish crying through rose-tinted glasses to be more annoying than anything Gre has done over the past month. We get it, you are upset and you would like for us to be too. Can you please shut up about it now?

Let's keep in mind that even though this is a blog, flaming/baiting is still against the rules.

Hi Bob,

That we disagree does not imply that I am insane except in some specious self-serving way to paint your position as the only "sane" option.

Synth: I talked with people from TOP throughout the summer and autumn, though obviously I didn't do enough. During my time as Praetor though that was largely because certain people (I'm sure you can guess who) were actively working against me and damaging that relationship and Harmlins. Citadel – and that largely meant TOP since we were not having any problems with Umbrella, Argent or FCC – was my top priority.

I disagree with you that at the end of November TOP were obviously trying to get at MK ... in fact if you remember in December, it was the other way around – C&G and SF started a war that had that effect (whether that was the intention or not).

Aimee/AUT: if you don't want to read my posts, don't. It's pretty obvious from the title what this is going to be about . It may seem that I 'ran away' but in reality I stayed on for a long time trying to keep it from going off the rails and finally realised I was losing the argument.

Edit: Matthew, I don't consider you personally insane, but as a corporate body, Grämlins is committing suicide over nothing, and that is nuts.

Edit 2: failed to finish a sentence

to the point where at the end of November when it became blindingly obvious that TOP/IRON were gunning for MK and looking for any excuse for war there was nothing that could be done to either rescue the relationship or turn TOP around

Those are some wild assumptions, I cannot speak for TOP, I cannot recall us gunning for MK. I can tell you a fact tho, around that ~time, Gre was trying to get IRON to backstab TOP while being allied to them and in same bloc, painting irrationality of almost similar scale that they're doing right now. I dunno what Gre was trying to achieve with that move other than create an irreparable divide within Citadel, tho I can only assume as I am not aware of the inside workings of Cit.

Not that it will make you feel any better, but I lost whatever respect I had for Gramlins the day the Continuum was formed. Jumping into a bloc led by an alliance filled with people who hate you? I just never got that at all, and I was in an alliance tied to tC at the time.

While I'm not going to disagree that joining the Continuum didn't look so great for Grämlins, to say that the Continuum was filled with people who hated them isn't true at all.

The Order of the Paradox - Citadel ally and close ally of Grämlins

Mostly Harmless Alliance - Obviously very close with the Grämlins.

Sparta - I don't remember any hatred from Sparta towards anybody really.

Multicolored Cross-X Alliance - Sam and the german leadership of Grämlins got along pretty well from what I remember(especially after they split from Polar).

FOK - Close ally

Old Guard - In Citadel and had a long relationship with Grämlins.

That leaves NPO, IRON, NATO, Valhalla and TPF as possible "people who hate you". I find it unlikely that NATO(an ally of MHA back then I think? Trident bloc member as well?) would have hated MHA's good friend. If we do count all those alliances as haters of Grämlins, including NATO, than they would still be outnumbered in Q by 7 to 5(including Grämlins themselves).

Bob you are worse than Haflinger.

I didn't say tC was filled with people who hated the Gramlins. I said it was a bloc led by an alliance filled with people who hated them.

Subtle difference.

I thought I was being clear. Apparently not.

Bob you are worse than Haflinger.

No, not even close.

Those are some wild assumptions, I cannot speak for TOP, I cannot recall us gunning for MK. I can tell you a fact tho, around that ~time, Gre was trying to get IRON to backstab TOP while being allied to them and in same bloc, painting irrationality of almost similar scale that they're doing right now. I dunno what Gre was trying to achieve with that move other than create an irreparable divide within Citadel, tho I can only assume as I am not aware of the inside workings of Cit.

Don't know where you got that from bud

Gre was so wrapped in its internals that between perhaps June and November of Last year we had no alliance wide foreign policy directive at all,

Any time Gre appeared to achieve ant kind of internal stability another key member would leave and the whole mess would start again

I jumped into office as Executor (MoD) the day before the Athens-Pirates thing kicked off and before I even had time to settle in had members of TOP gov expecting our support in rolling MK, I witnessed those same members loling it up with gov of alliances I actively dislike and who Gre had considered to be on the other side, at the prospect of breaking CnG and realigning the game.

Fortunately before I had a chance to decide what the hell I thought we should do, cooler heads prevailed and the crisis passed

Then we come to Christmas and the Athens-TPF thing, again something far away on the treaty web, but again those same TOP gov salivating at the mouth and demanding that GRE come along in their mission to bash CnG, playing the united Cit card, whilst ignoring the fact that it would mean us going against all of our OTP's. Alliances that at this point in time we had much better relations with than those with TOP.

Well we said no, we wouldn't go to war over the defence of TPF and quite frankly felt of the crisis a plague on both there houses.

we could understand why TOP and Argent wanted to get involved, at the same time we had Umbrella gov telling us that they too felt this was not a cit issue, right until a few hours after we announced our intentions when umb suddenly caved to pressure to support you

After that crisis passed we recognised the split at the heart of Cit, that whilst you were tied to IRON and through them ex hedge, we were tied to SF/CnG

Due to this Cit would always split in any future conflict and so we made you several offers,

1) Strengthening the no attacking OTP clauses of Cit, you could not attack MK, we could not attack IRON

2) Making Cit purely an overriding MDP block, all were free to do what they want elsewhere Cit only activates defensively but would act politically to get each other light terms

3) you cut ties with IRON, we cut all our externals bar the uncuttable MHA and the others do the same, with Cit then becoming an independent block,

All were rejected outright

It then became obvious that Cit was permanently broken, the only offers coming from your side were that TOP/IRON do what they like and we agree not to intervene, with Argent supporting you, Umb running in circles and with us unable to trust anything from their gov, FCC pulling for a united cit but not caring on the overall direction we took stock and bowed out in the hope that Cit would then come together

We then took the opportunity to try something new with the paperless thing, we told you as we told our other friends that we would come to the defence of any of you if they were on what we considered to be the defensive side of a war but again you didn't listen

And Bob you were Praetor (MoFA) for the time when Gre Top relations disappeared, you may have been talking to TOP but Gre was not, and bar some random outbursts on the Cit boards, TOP wasn't talking to Gre, the prime example for this is that the TOP embassy on the GRE boards was dead until just after the TPF crisis when both alliances made one last effort and realised how far apart we had become

Bob you are worse than Haflinger.

BobJanova: Worse Than Haflinger

Just kidding, you know I 's me some Janova, even though we disagree on things.

the prime example for this is that the TOP embassy on the GRE boards was dead until just after the TPF crisis

The embassies of all the Citadel alliances on our home boards were always dead because we did the interaction in Citadel IRC and forums. However, this:

you may have been talking to TOP but Gre was not

... has some element of truth to it (as I said in my last reply, some people were actively working against Citadel at that time). I was certainly trying my best though. Unfortunately people on both sides of the fence (in Grä/Umbrella and TOP/Argent) were tired of talking to each other and my efforts were not enough to keep things together.

I'm not really sure what Shah's talking about either. After Grämlins left Continuum IRON turned pretty cold to us and I'm not aware of any sort of talks like what he describes, though the timing could be after I left.

The embassies of all the Citadel alliances on our home boards were always dead because we did the interaction in Citadel IRC and forums. However, this:

... has some element of truth to it (as I said in my last reply, some people were actively working against Citadel at that time). I was certainly trying my best though. Unfortunately people on both sides of the fence (in Grä/Umbrella and TOP/Argent) were tired of talking to each other and my efforts were not enough to keep things together.

I'm not really sure what Shah's talking about either. After Grämlins left Continuum IRON turned pretty cold to us and I'm not aware of any sort of talks like what he describes, though the timing could be after I left.

Can't recall talking to IRON after you left either

TBH IRON were not on the Radar until it became apparent that TOP and they were spoiling for a fight against CnG and even then all of our talks were with TOP

But still my point is that during the months when you were responsible for FA the relationship with all of the Cit alliances was allowed to die,

there was no drive to get the members interacting, there was no push to get people onto the cit boards,

that was your responsibility and you cannot absolve yourself of your share of the blame as to what followed by pointing at Ram and saying some were working against cit

The thing is Bob I find it hard to swallow when long standing members of gramlins pontificate at length about the fall of the alliance. Of course you are to blame, you and the rest of them were in a position to correct the downward trend before it got out of hand. There was a discussion about removing Ramirus from the gramlins a long time ago, it would be nice if one of you had the stones to buck up and say "yeah we knew we had a cancer, we were just to lazy to remove it"

I was there for about 5 months, I knew in the first 2 weeks what the problem was. Here we are years later after what is perhaps one of the greatest falls from grace the cyberverse has seen and people still wont accept thier portion of the blame. Not just you bob, you were one of the reasons I came to Gramlins you are an excellent player and I have a lot of respect for you. I also understand why you left when you did and why you did, I left too and tried to get out before the conflict with Iron but stayed to fight for the alliance that provided me shelter.

That makes us both rats fleeing a sinking ship Bob, and that goes for a lot of other ex gramlins out there to.

Recently you have shown everyone that no, you really are that nuts

I am too starting to find all this continuous talking about The Grämlins a bit annoying, Bob, but I acknowledge your right to insist on it, especially considering how important they were for you.

However, I am surprised that you're still giving credit to the "insanity theory" about Grä/Ram. ITT that you, more than most of the other spectators, already came out (more than once?) with "it's that stupid that I can't believe so many intelligent people are/were doing it" statements.

Now, that's probably true: it is that stupid that they can't really be doing it (in the way and for the reasons they at first seemed to be doing it).

I don't know what they're about - maybe we'll never know - but I highly doubt that it's just "insanity": obviously there's some plan going on.

I always said FA wasn't my strongest suit, so yeah, some of it is probably my fault, though I was only Praetor for about 1 month and I made it pretty clear on Grämlin and Citadel boards that Citadel was my priority (unfortunately I don't have access to those to prove it ). Like I said, I failed to get the rest of the alliance engaged with Citadel and you saw the results of that after I left.

It takes a bit of an agenda to put much of that at my door though – all I'm guilty of is not being good enough at stopping the rot. And the subsequent actions of the alliance were certainly 'a major factor' (what the OP says).

Edit: missed two replies because I was log-trawling (I was pretty active in Citadel IRC during that month).

Regarding kicking Ram: there was no legal avenue to do so (he didn't break the charter) and I (and others) didn't think it right to kick him just because we didn't like his style. I stand by that decision, even if our confidence that the membership wouldn't support him if he tried something was misplaced.

Jerdge: There is clearly some rationale behind the alliance's actions, it's not just unhinged lunacy, but it still qualifies as institutionally insane in my book to commit suicide for no good purpose.