Jump to content
  • entries
    17
  • comments
    245
  • views
    20,595

From: Some info on Dulra


jerdge

637 views

Disclaimer: I am a known government GPA Cabinet member and a former GPA President, thus you can probably assume that my word carries a bit of weight when it comes to the Agency. I am anyway handling this affair from a player's POV rather than from an IC angle, and I can't currently really talk on behalf of the GPA, anyway, thus this isn't an "official" stance. Specifically, none of this blog entry has been arranged in the GPA.

(This disclaimer isn't really one of those "I don't want any responsibility" ones. It's just me explaining where I am coming from with this entry.)

Source: Some info on Dulra

Enough with the off topic. I'll later make a comprehensive blog entry.

My and Roq's exchange started with his reference of some NAMBLA incident, which would have involved Rayvon and in which the GPA would have been reliant on VE's "muscle" to solve some situation with UINE (and Lennox). The GPA wouldn't have done anything and would have avoided any "hardline" stance. Relevant posts will follow in the first two comments (too many quote tags don't fit in one entry).


I'll start from the end, by addressing that last question from Roq:

So Jerdge, ultimately, if a major alliance let someone like Lennox in and didn't force them to pay reps, what would GPA do?

I can't answer for the GPA, but I can tell you that it would certainly depend on the situation. This is IMO is valid for any and every alliance which found themselves in a similar scenario.

It is a known fact that the GPA has for long been little involved with the rest of CN, but consistently friendly with anyone she had some contact with; the Agency also has no mutual military treaties. All of this means that the GPA has little interest and no attitude for offensive campaigns, and also that she should never expect to be able to win alliance-wide wars.

When openly provoked others may go for a military solution because it's their interest to do so, because they don't know how else to deal with the situation or just because they think it's the best way to make their point. The GPA would probably go through the diplomatic route, which would involve a lot of talks.

I don't believe that there are many scenarios in which war is really necessary to explain to people that harbouring rogues isn't a good idea, thus I can finally answer to Roq that I don't think that the GPA would find it impossible to solve any other situation like the one he mentioned. According to my experience, people are reasonable and professional in handling such cases without any sort of unneeded confrontation.

If the GPA really found herself being openly and intentionally provoked by another major alliance, through a rogue or in some other way, the issue would probably be bigger than just the excuse used to try trigger something.

The matter is too vast to be addressed with a general solution, anyway: all I can say is that ad hoc solutions would have to be found for each case.


Back to the discussion on Lennox's story, I'll try to avoid writing a long and nitpicking reply, but I'll just resume the main historical events. They're boring, but they show why I was irritated by Roq's recollection and interpretation of them, thus I consider it necessary to recall them to close that part of our debate.

  • On 26.07.10 Lennox, a NSO member, spied away a GPA nuke.
    When contacted, the NSO government immediately denied having given any authorization. The GPA asked for a modest reparation (the nuke cost), which came out to be conflicting with NSO's policies about reparations. A negotiation then began over what measure had to be taken to correct the wrong, eventually ending with the NSO declaring that they wouldn't have protected nor helped Lennox if the GPA had attacked him. After a few days of wait, the GPA eventually decided to not attack him.
    I was Assistant MoFA at the time and I had access to the documentation (but I had been on vacancy).
  • On 13.10.10 Lennox, another 2 NSO members and a Gondor nation attacked GPA nations, citing "NAMBLA" in their war reasons. Lennox tried to extort 2 tech levels in exchange for immediate peace (lol).
    The NSO booted Lennox and Gondor booted their member. The other two NSO members (one of which was Rayvon, pretty much unknown to me at the time) had just been cheated by Lennox; they peaced out and the GPA reached an agreement with the NSO about reasonable reparations (which shipment was never actually requested, and which I explicitly waived a couple of months later). Government members of a few alliances contacted the GPA offering support (you'd be surprised to know what alliances contacted us, but I won't make their names here). From the limited mention of them on our forums, VE was also aware of the situation, but I have no evidence of them offering support at that point.
    Lennox and the former Gondor member moved to the NAMBLA AA and continued to fight. After three days from the intial attack Lennox started asking for peace, at the same time moving to the Crimson Fists AA, at the time a newly created UINE Protectorate. Lennox should have been CF's government, but that was stalled while we were looking for a solution in terms of appropriate reparations. I think that Exodus was too involved at some point, but don't quote me on that. AFAIK Lennox joined Polaris only after having concluded a peace deal with the GPA (600 tech as reparations). The former Gondor member also peaced out with an agreement to pay 400 tech; this second peace was brokered by Polaris, which the other former rogue joined too.
    At the time I was still AMoFA.
  • On 07.12.10 Lennox again went rogue against the GPA, again under the NAMBLA AA. That time he tried to extort 200 tech. We got some shots at him while he was on his way out of CN.
    At that time I was the GPA MoFA.

Bottom line, while several parties offered support in case things became big, the GPA continued to pursue the rogues and to civilly talk with every alliance involved. Whatever support anyone might have promised, the Agency didn't use it to strongarm anyone into doing anything.

It was a novelty for me to know that VE approached UINE explaining that they they would have responded in force in case they military protected the rogues against us, and I only now learn who was the non-GPA witness at the conclusion of our negotiations with Lennox. I don't anyway think that any of that should change much of my vision of how we conduct ourselves when we have some foreign issue to solve; especially as VE's declarations of unilateral protection weren't much a new thing at the time either, but there's no mention of them in any of the hundreds of posts and query lines I can dig on our forums over the whole Lennox "saga".

I anyway apologize to Roq for having implied that he didn't know what he was talking of. I still believe that his interpretation of how the GPA operates, with or without external support, is wrong, but I acknowledge that the pieces of news he was building his interpretation over were basically correct. I was wrong on that, and I shouldn't have talked down to him.

I guess this is a lesson for poor old me to not trust my recollection of details... <_<

12 Comments


Recommended Comments

QUOTES PART 1

Plenty of people want to roll you.

Now you will surely think that I am shocked at this revelation.

The issue is, you continue to insist it's not viable. Take the NAMBLA case for example that was a little fun Rayvon and someone else had. You were entirely reliant on VE's muscle because you weren't going to do anything to UINE about it and avoided any hardline stances. So if they had just told you to sod off, it'd have been VE being the reason any action would be possible.

I surely didn't say that anything is not viable.

The only NAMBLA I remember was Lennox's one, Rayvon had nothing to do with it, I have no idea if VE ever knew or cared about it, I don't know what UINE has to do with it all.

Basically, I have no idea of what you're talking of, and I suspect you don't either.

I guess your lack of seniority is showing itself. I don't have the logs on me at the moment.

They were both somewhat involved. VE knew and cared about it and was in communication with GPA the entire time.

Lennox went under UINE's protection with Crimson Fists and initially didn't want to pay reps.

Were you GPA gov in late 2010? If so, how did you not know VE was involved? He paid reps because it was a condition for him being in Polar when he ended up going there.

I have been GPA government all the time, and I can guarantee to you that I very well know what I am talking of. Rayvon was not involved as far as we knew and know, and I very much doubt that you can prove otherwise - but you're welcome to.

Lennox tried to run here and there and everybody was treating him like a ghost. He eventually paid substantial reps, he later decided it was a good idea to rogue us again and he was then sentenced to ZI (even our patience ends), which IIRC he didn't serve because he deleted (which I was sad for). He then came back again, doing stuff that made him a lil bit more famous.

I was MoFA and I was knee-deep in all the negotiations. VE was not contacted or involved, although I can't exclude off the top of my head that they asked what was happening and that we told them - we tend to treat anyone with courtesy (unless they're aggressive with us), as anyone we have contact with can confirm.

Lennox joined Polaris and he agreed to pay reparations - Polaris decided to condition his membership to that, without us even needing to ask. Just like every other alliance I have experience of (NSO, GOONS, MK off the top of my head), Polaris handles their rogue incidents with professionalism and composure.

As Lennox had previously abused his NSO membership to convince a few more NSO members to attack us, the NSO also agreed to pay us reparations to get those members of theirs back, without further trouble on our part; IIRC it was me and RV which settled that down. I later decided to waive said NSO reparations, which were modest and not worth our and NSO's time.

Just after having paid the reparations, Lennox attacked us again, he was insta-booted from Polaris and his nation was then reduced to rubble. Our objective was to ZI and bill-lock his nation (three chances with us were enough), but he just deleted, (to my knowledge) coming back with that VE-Lennox-Dajobo-Polaris spying incident.

At that point I issued an internal policy, about us not bothering about him anymore, as his deletion was equivalent to ZI and bill-lock. I called that "his fourth chance" with us. :)

I doubt you can find anyone in CN which was or is more up to date than me on the whole GPA-Lennox relationship, save maybe Lennox himself (which AFAIK is not in CN anymore).

Link to comment

QUOTES PART 2

It's off-topic so I won't discuss it in depth. It was a situation in 2010 where people tried to extort low amounts of tech from GPA nations to show they wouldn't do anything about it. They did attack the people doing it because they weren't in an alliance, but if they had joined an alliance, nothing would have happened and the only reason Lennox paid reps was because Polar made him as a condition for joining.

Considering that you evidently know nothing about those events, as evidenced by this last post and by all your previous ones on the subject, you can't certainly discuss it in depth.

I honestly don't know why I am replying to you at all, anyway... I guess I'll soon stop to bother. :huh:

My source was Impero, who was engaging with GPA people during the thing. That's when he revealed VE had a unilateral defense pact over GPA. You said you didn't know about it, so I don't know why you're talking down to me.
I was MoFA and I was knee-deep in all the negotiations. VE was not contacted or involved

Just as a point of clarification, we were involved to an extent. However, in your defense, within the room that was set up for the matter I believe our involvement was kept just between your president, vice president (could have been MoD), and us. I don't 100% recall the details and don't feel like looking it up, but I believe what we did was limited to making it clear that we would respond in force if UINE (might have been someone else, I forget) attacked you guys for hitting the rouges if they failed to pay reps.

It should be noted that GPA did not seek us out, we sought them and the party on the opposite side of the aisle out, and our reason was purely to protect our interests in trades when they were faced with an imminent and unwarranted attack. I don't see it as a blight to them whatsoever, since it was something we would have done whether they liked it or not as I wasn't about to see half our trades put in jeopardy for a couple of laughs.

Edit: I think you may be thinking of a different incident or something. Found our log post on it, Loriean was MoFA and we also sat in on the final negotiations to 'witness' Lennox's ultimate agreement (600 tech) so he didn't try to pull some garbage afterward.

Link to comment

Cool. I didn't mean to be mean-spirited inherently. I often come across the wrong way. Just sometimes I don't go out of my way phrase things in a civil fashion.

Link to comment

Oh, and it's not new, jerdge, but it's a little-known fact and isn't really taken into account a lot of the time. Things said on these forums are frequently ignored and a lot of people only remember what they want to.

Link to comment
You never responded to my criticism. I feel slighted.

I read and appreciate it.

Let's say that it wouldn't be the most intelligent thing of me to get into that discussion as well.

Link to comment
Guest
Add a comment...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...