Diogenes

Cool. Congratulations guys.

caustic and ncc are cool, this is cool

If our aim was ever to eternally ZI Valhalla members, we had numerous opportunities to do so. Say what you will about us being arrogant, manipulative, and propagating lengthy, costly wars, but there are no alliances we've wanted to see destroyed "forever." With regards to the actual subject at hand, it's sad to see things come to this, as it's invariably going to take its toll on the activity levels of both AI and Valhalla, which is detrimental not just to them, but to every occupant of this realm. Nevertheless, I wish Valhalla good luck moving on from here.

the citizens of cool place considered joining in on the discussion of what the landscape of the next war will look like and who will be left in a better position with the conclusion of this conflict before realizing that such a discussion is dumb as heck OOC: seriously get off these boards and go play bioshock infinite

I'm glad to see this done and over with. To the alliances that were at war with my own, good fight.

Why do you so adamantly defend Israel's criminal occupation of Palestine?

I'm interested in being respected, just not by you. Out of a desire to not derail this discussion any further, I'll clarify my implication as being that VE has avoided making huge sacrifices in the last two wars by making smaller ones, and leave it at that.

A shining example of what you're supposed to do in bizarro world, maybe. I'm privy to information that I could use to categorically disprove every statement you've just made, but I'll refrain from airing dirty laundry in public. As for your respect, keep it. We're not interested.

On another note, it's hilarious to see alliances like Sparta, who possess a total of one active member, leaping into this thread to dump criticism on GATO for a short spell of inactivity.

He's right, for what it's worth. You can attempt to play off your "strategy" as honorable all you'd like, but in truth, there are only two scenarios in which VE's wartime behavior makes sense. In the first scenario, your alliance was unaware that this was intended to be a war of attrition, and decided against using peace mode out of ignorance. In the second, your alliance was attempting to duck out of the war at the earliest available opportunity, and taking a ton of damage by virtue of not using peace mode provided a convenient excuse to do so, as it did when you so valiantly rose to the defense of GOD for two weeks. Your strategy was neither brave nor honorable -- it was stupid, and intentionally so.

You're smiling through rows of broken teeth.

It's funny that the only ones being hubristic in this discussion are CoJ members. Don't conflate your sense of pride with our own; we are well aware that this apology is not a "game-changer." It is, however, honest. Regardless of how unfeeling and unprincipled you'd like to paint us as being, we are reasonable people, and are more than willing to own up to our mistakes. Nevertheless, we are much more receptive to doing so when treated like actual human-beings, and when issues are at least mentioned to us prior to being hurled before the public eye.

Oh, he certainly had his fingers in the pie, and I don't doubt that he fully intended to address our handling of the situation. His wall of text is a clear indication of this. However, nowhere in that wall of text did he mention -- or even acknowledge -- that we apologized and admitted wrongdoing for the sanctioning of HoT, or that we instituted counter-sanctions against GOD. His reply was instead focused almost entirely on us officially declaring war on the Cult of Justitia, despite us technically doing so (at least according to your coalition's policy of "an attack on one is an attack on all") whenever we declared war on Equilibrium alliances. It's also worth noting that his "reply" could easily have functioned as an announcement in and of itself -- which I suspect was a contingency in the event that we didn't make any sort of public announcement. I maintain that Schatt did not anticipate this particular response, in short. His aim was not to garner an apology for HoT, but to smear us, and he unequivocally failed at that.

I'm glad to note that your inflated sense of self is at least partially missing from this contribution to the discussion. If indeed you were aiming to give us a "wake-up call," this was a very poor way to do it, and if certain voices within MK had been heeded, it could immediately have resulted in a full-fledged sanction war. Indeed, I think that you earnestly were hoping for us to initiate a full-fledged sanction war without any kind of public address, allowing you to swoop in heroically and belittle us. Although I have nothing concrete to support it, I think this announcement was something you hadn't fully prepared for, and that at present you are running about trying to save face. On a somewhat related note, Penlugue "Bob" Solaris and the Dark Templar are members of your coalition.

Sarcasm and inaccuracies aside, I suppose you could say that your accidental sanctioning resulted in us being "bit in the ass," but if nothing else, this announcement should serve as a reminder that we can -- and if pressed, we will -- bite back. In any case, this changes nothing regarding your situation: the sanction against you was misplaced, and we would readily have admitted as much at any point. If you had made any attempt to contact us in private before throwing a tantrum in public, perhaps you would have discovered this sooner.

Being, as I am, one such leader, I can attest that while we broadly do not care about HoT being troubled by this experience, we do recognize that he was unjustly sanctioned, and apologize for this. There is a distinction to be made between caring about someone being hurt and caring about the way in which they were hurt, with this apology being made because of the latter distinction, not the former. The government of the Mushroom Kingdom does not support the use of sanctions as a weapon in wartime, regardless of who they are being used against. We do not like HoT, but we do not support him being sanctioned merely for participating in the ongoing global war. As far as a sanction war goes, it would be damaging for both sides involved. Perhaps more damaging, with membership numbers considered, to our side than yours, but damaging to both sides nonetheless. It is something that neither side should want, and it is something that the Mushroom Kingdom, at least, is trying to avoid. We, again, will not resist a sanction war if it is brought to our doorstep, but it is not our aim to provoke one.

The principle being, as has been mentioned countless times, that neither you nor anyone else should be sanctioned purely for fighting in a war. As far as spin goes, I have done nothing but reiterate the same information -- factual information, derived of firsthand knowledge -- since I first entered the discussion. I have made no effort to portray this announcement as anything more, or less, than how it was intended and presented. I'm sorry that this has caused your smear-campaign to fall flat on its face.

Again, we don't care if you accept our apology, and we don't care that you are critical of us. We apologized to you not because you suffered, but as a matter of principle -- you should not have been sanctioned. Whether you want to accept it or not, this is the apology you get.

Being one of the architects of this announcement, I can tell you forthright that putting our feet "to the fire" had the potential to yield a number of outcomes much less mild than this one -- outcomes that would have been wholly detrimental to every party involved in these events. HoT, or even Schattenmann, coming to us in private, as opposed to airing dirty laundry in public, would have been a much more rational and much less risky approach, and the end results would have been much more pleasant. On an official level, we opted to take this avenue because it was the right one to take: regardless of what anyone in my alliance thinks of HoT, myself included, he did not deserve to be sanctioned for participating in the overarching global war. We chose to apologize to him of our own accord -- and I can say this because I was the one to originally propose doing so. Certainly, the Mushroom Kingdom harbors members that do not support apologizing to HoT, as well as members that are upset we responded to sanctions against us with anything short of a full-fledged sanction war. So be it. This is our official response, and ultimately that's what's important.

If we hadn't posted an apology, you -- but mostly Schattenmann, I think -- would have criticized us for not posting an apology. In any event, it doesn't particularly matter if you forgive us, and to be honest, we don't at all care. We admitted wrongdoing, we always would have if asked, and that is the crux of the matter.

Whatever helps you sleep at night, although I doubt any amount of rest will restore your sanity.

What? We have no desire to pursue further sanctions against Equilibrium members or alliances, and the Mushroom Kingdom has never endorsed the use of sanctions as weapons. This should be readily apparent, given that it's more or less why this announcement was crafted. As for "running to your coalition," we simply clarified the sanctioning situation as being limited to the MK-GOD conflict, and made apparent that sanctions placed against GOD would not reflect MK policy towards the rest of Equilibrium. We did not ask what you wanted, in short, but sought to ascertain that any actions we decided to undertake would not be misunderstood or misinterpreted.

"Our mettle" -- as if you are anything other than a convenient mouthpiece for the bulk of your coalition to use as it pleases. Pray-tell why did "getting your way" involve having GOD nations sanctioned, making a public debacle out of a relatively insignificant sanction that itself was the result of some minor communication issues, and us making an apology that we would willingly have handed out if asked? I don't doubt that you expected this situation to emerge as some sort of PR disaster on our end of things -- the writing is visibly on the wall there, and your hand has been very apparent in the unfolding of these events -- but you've failed rather decisively in that regard. Our alliance, or at least our coalition, is at war with everyone criticizing us for this announcement: at best, you've convinced no one to dislike us that wasn't predisposed to do so. You were of the mind that you'd won this war, when in fact you've done nothing of the sort, and sought the chance to piss on an alliance you despise while you perceived them as vulnerable. We diffused your explosive before it could detonate, however, and although I cannot entirely fault you for it, you are currently stumbling over yourself to salvage what you can of this failed attempt to damage us. If this truly is what you wanted, you're even more delusional than I at first thought. We weren't made to do anything, you pompous demagogue. It appears that you've finally been enveloped completely by your delusions of grandeur.

We do not believe HoT to be a rogue: we believed, at one point in the past, but no longer, that he was one. I do not genuinely believe you ever thought lebubu and negev (WhatOnceWas) to be rogues, or were naive enough to think we would consider them as such. Again, when we sanctioned HoT, it was unmistakably and irrefutably wrong, but it was an accident -- the sanctioning of our members by GOD was intentional, and the idea to do so was conceived entirely out of spite.

The government of the Mushroom Kingdom does not, and never has, officially endorsed sanctions as a tool of war. Our sanctioning of HoT was a mistake -- one which has since been rectified. The Mushroom Kingdom was not motivated to sanction HoT because of the war. We sanctioned HoT because we were told that he was a rogue and believed him to be one. The difference between our sanction and the sanctions placed against us, as your message sent to various team senators highlights, is that our sanction was an honest mistake, whereas the ones you sponsored and GOD instituted were retaliatory and malicious -- a response, at their core, to our accidental sanctioning of HoT.