Cortath

[quote name='Jens of the desert' timestamp='1289006565' post='2503357'] I believe, unless this banner belongs to multiple Francos, that the apostrophe is in the wrong place But yeah, really don't understand the reasoning behind this purchase (you must have too much money). [/quote] It depends on how you view the punctuation. The name is "Francos Spain." Some grammatical manuals would say that the possessive would be Francos's while other says Francos' It really all depends on what style manual you're adhering to.

[quote name='Trikoupis' timestamp='1288561234' post='2498293'] People tend to get inspiration from other realms, realms of fantasy, like Earth or Middle Earth, yet full of meaning . [/quote] Those people are silly people.

Did anyone catch where he was supposed to kiss the "Emperor's ankle strap"? I have an ankle strap? Why do I have one? Am I under house arrest? If I am Hitler, can't I get someone to take off my ankle strap? What is it connected to? Is it connected to ... fascism? I want to get to the bottom of this ankle strap thing.

[quote name='Trikoupis' timestamp='1288434228' post='2497099'] Well, Franco was a fascist, so.... For many, it is. It is the same as saying that something is irrational. [/quote] Who is this "Franco" you speak of? I know of no such person within our world. Francoism refers to "Francos Spain," not this "Franco."

*chuckles* [center][img]http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll236/The_Pale_Horse/npoimperial2.png[/img] [b][size=5][color="#FF0000"]Appointment of iamthey to the Position of Imperial Officer for Foreign Affairs[/color][/size][/b][/center] I do hereby appoint iamthey to the position of Imperial Officer for Foreign Affairs. Having joined the Diplomatic Corps and swiftly proven his merit, iamthey has excelled in the complex analysis of our modern world. I expect that his wisdom and counsel, added to that of Imperial Officer VektorZero, will serve Pacifica well in reforming the Diplomatic Corps of the New Pacific Order, pushing us ever further into the future we create. Hail Imperial Officer iamthey! Hail the Body Republic! [i]Emperor Blackbird New Pacific Order Comrade Chuckles[/i]

[quote name='supercoolyellow' timestamp='1286884455' post='2482265'] Shouldn't it be... "*chuckles* Looks can be deceiving" ? [/quote] Sure, if I chuckled before I said, "Looks can be deceiving." Rather, I said "Looks can be deceiving," with a very straight face, and then I chuckled. Heartily.

[quote name='Pingu' timestamp='1286855661' post='2482066'] You seem like a very nice man. [/quote] Looks can be deceiving. *chuckles*

[quote name='Pingu' timestamp='1286840830' post='2481888'] *'reins' - equestrian metaphor for control; not 'reigns' as in periods of rule, since only the Emperor or other monarch can reign. Congratulations and best of luck to the new IO. [/quote] I am but man.

*chuckles* [center][img]http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll236/The_Pale_Horse/npoimperial2.png[/img] [b][size=5][color="#FF0000"]Appointment of Gandroff to the Position of Imperial Officer for Military Affairs[/color][/size][/b][/center] I do hereby appoint Gandroff to the position of Imperial Officer for Military Affairs. Having served in high positions in nearly all areas over which Military Affairs oversees, Gandroff is uniquely qualified to share the reins with Imperial Officer JesseEnd in leading Pacifica's grand armies into a new era of strength and conquest. I look forward to hearing his wise counsel and his unique perspective from his long history in the Order. Hail Imperial Officer Gandroff! Hail the Body Republic!

[quote name='Kalasin' timestamp='1286490616' post='2478216'] For an alliance of NPO's size, you're in a terrible position politically, actually. The number of people who dislike and distrust you is immense. [/quote] Ruling the world was easy. I much prefer a challenge.

[quote name='Mr Damsky' timestamp='1285991057' post='2471889'] If you fail to ignore the plethora of warnings and fail to seek protection then I can feel no sympathy for you. Oh and explain to me how the mercy board prevents a nation from receiving peace. [/quote] Explain to me my original post first. If you read it, you'd note I don't make the claim that the mercy board "prevents" a nation from receiving peace.

Solutions to this problem, Mr. Damsky, requires an actionable, practical plan of attack. Obviously, every single alliance in the world tries to recruit among the unaligned. Many join alliances. Many others do not. Of those who do not, some number of them give every appearance of having a political sophistication and activity. That is, they are not what I would call "inactive." The question is: how are such nations protected? It's a pretty piss poor answer just to suggest doing the same thing alliances have been doing for years, but I don't suspect, as I gather from your other responses, that you're here to engage in substantive discussion, but rather to take pot shots at Red Dawn. So, carry on.

Yes, I do. Your "solution" is as unnuanced as your analysis of the problem.

[quote name='Mr Damsky' timestamp='1285986952' post='2471815'] Actually the solution is simple [s]kill the batman[/s] join an alliance. [/quote] That's the same tired old answer that's been bandied about for years. And moreover, a pretty stupid one, since again, you fail to read the arguments or the posts, when we're discussing microalliances and nations who have joined alliances, just not ones with hundreds of nations inextricably ensconced in the treaty web. I'll give you another try, but at some point, I have to give up and pick on people my own size, who are willing to actually engage in substantive discussion on the issue.

[quote name='Mr Damsky' timestamp='1285986361' post='2471807']Emphasis mine. So what? Your policy used to work. Back in the days when you had the ability (and no doubt the will) to keep alliances at war/under terms for a year. Nowadays you're not nearly that powerful (thank god) and can't do anything when your doctrine is ignored (except some mean posting from CoJ!). P.S: I love how Cortath has no idea at all how the mercy board works. And I'm ignorant Also I'll pass on the tea. [/quote] *chuckles heartily* Your response neglects the entire crux of the argument: you don't think it's a bad thing that it's much, much harder for a politically active nation to resist a raid? And that's really a pity. I prefer earl grey double bergamot, though I also like lapsang souchong.

[quote name='Xiphosis' timestamp='1285981576' post='2471732'] Except he's literally talking out of his ass in those logs. And my contact with RoK is kept to Delegates; so he's not a 'former friend.' Former lower gov of an ally that I never met and who is displaying a ridiculous level of uninformedness. [/quote] He's [i]literally[/i] talking out of his ass?

Far and away, it's due to the incredibly bad economic system. The economic system doesn't scale at all. this means that the largest nations get so big simply by living for a really long time. There's no skill involved, only perseverance. This has profound military effects: alliances are loathe to go to war where the damage incurred in a brief time takes years to rebuild. Thus, wars, when they come are much much larger and involve huge reparations, because that's the only way to keep an alliance down. Three years ago, an alliance could be utterly crushed and be rebuilt within a month because even the victors' nations were not much larger. There's no way to rebuild a large nation other than to hunker down for a year or two and not get crushed. Again, three years ago, the aid system was such that nations could be rebuilt to be equal to their victor-peers within a couple aid cycles.

[quote name='Mr Damsky' timestamp='1285943072' post='2471049'] I'm not the one making idiotic false claims. [/quote] You don't like tea?

[quote name='Mr Damsky' timestamp='1285942163' post='2471035'] And when people came being raided by GOONS/MK/PC/<insert raiding alliance here> you did nothing. Your policy is a joke. [/quote] Your attempts to goad the Red Dawn treaty organization into a large scale alliance to alliance war are as feeble and half-hearted as are your contributions to this substantive discussion. Would you like to take tea?

The major problem, as alluded to by others in this thread, with the analysis here is that it does not properly recognize a spectrum of activity and interest in CyberNations. As someone said above, you conflate "tech raiding" with "might makes right." There is a pool of unaligned nations. Let's call them "the pool." Now the pool has nations who are utterly inactive and nations who are extremely strong and politically sophisticated. There is a spectrum between these two extremes with the overwhelming majority of unliagned nations falling somewhere in the middle. Let me elaborate on that with some specific examples. For many years, the New Pacific Order, and now the entire Red Dawn treaty organization have extended unilateral protection of unaligneds from tech raiding [i]to those who want it.[/i]. This is where your analysis fails, by conflating those who want it with those who do not want it. Let me explain. Red Dawn has sent out messages to every single red nation who is unaligned informing them that of our protection of them from tech raiding. They receive a multiplicity of messages and any player with a modicum of political sophistication would understand our concise and simple messages. Now, a great many nations on Red and every other sphere are raided. Only a portion of those nations eventually come to the authorities in Red Dawn and ask for us to intercede on their behalf. Many simply do nothing and are raided. While I deplore raiding in general, I recognize the spectrum of political sophistication and activity among the unaligneds. For GOONS or any alliance or nation(s) to raid a target who does not attempt to fight back to resolve their situation [i]when there is a means to do so and they are aware of it[/i], is more morally acceptable than to raid someone [i]who has no recourse to stop the raid.[/i] This policy recognizes differences: some people are worth expending blood and treasure to save for the game, while others are not. One should not try to save every raided nation when they have been adequately informed of simple recourse to stop the raid but choose not to take it. While I think every player should have the opportunity to play the game, I suspect that there is a much more marginal benefit to saving those players than to make attempts to save the unaligned who does choose to try to stop the raid. Now, stopping the raid can take many forms. Again, using Red as an example, this usually involves speaking to a representative of Red Dawn and having our officials begin the intercession process after a determination has been made that the raid qualifies as a raid under our policy (i.e. the raid is not retaliatory for now-raided Red nation's offensive actions, etc., etc.). What the policies of alliance's like GOONS does, is to make any recourse for stopping a raid either impossible or so difficult or demeaning as to force nations who are otherwise much more active on a spectrum of activity out of the game. Thus, when the Revenge Doctrine was fully respected, going back to the pool metaphor, there was a line drawn in the pool. Nations on the inactive side of that line were so inactive that there were unwilling or unable to take a rather simple path to recourse when they had been raided. Nations on the active side were able and did take the recourse that Red Dawn offered then. Where that "line" is determined by how simple the mechanisms are that stop the raid. When the mechanism is "PM for peace," it is rather simple to stop a raid. When the mechanisms was to use the Revenge Doctrine, it was somewhat more difficult. When it has been easy for a nation to stop a raid, such as when GOONS and other alliances fully respected the Revenge Doctrine, we had a much larger pool on the "active" side of the line, who could stop the raids. But now that GOONS has made it effectively that in order to not be raided, at best you have to do something very demeaning on their forum, or more realistically, you are required to fight against the entirety of the GOONS alliance and their not-considerable group of allies, you have moved the line in the pool so far that essentially only the most strong and most active nations can ever stop or defend themselves against a raid. And thus, a large number of nations, who otherwise I believe are worth "saving," who are reasonably active, reasonably strong, and reasonably politically sophisticated, die. I think that hurts the game, and the flaw in your analysis is that it does not properly recognize the spectrum of political activity among the unaligned.

I'm just going to chime in here, having read the last few pages of posts: You know what this all sounds like? I hear about negotiations, white peace, reparations, declarations of war, etc., etc. This sounds like an alliance-to-alliance war. You don't make peace with nuclear rogues. They nuke you. Why are they nuking you? You have no !@#$ing idea. They just started for no discernible reason. You don't negotiate with nuclear rogues. Why? They just want to nuke you and they're going to keep on doing it. You have nothing to offer them. You don't declare war on nuclear rogues. Why? They're nuking you! You can fight back without any need to recognize hostilities. Nuclear rogues are states that are no longer rational state actors. You can't negotiate, because 1) they don't want anything, and 2) you don't know what, if anything, they want. All they do is nuke. Maybe they're leaving the game, and this is their goodbye present. Maybe they just don't care. Everything in this thread is politics. It's not the highest principled politics I've ever heard of it in my life, but it's politics. GOONS can call Methrage and friends a "rogue" if they want, but it sure sounds to me like he's a member of a microalliance that they're in a conflict with. They're discussing negotiations, reparations, they made a declaration of war. These are not things you do with a rogue; these are things you do with a rational state actor. And if this is an alliance-to-alliance war, we decline to become involved. Sanctioning is traditionally viewed as an act of war when it is used against a rational state actor, i.e. an alliance. We have no treaty with GOONS that demands we engage in aggressive action along their side in their alliance to alliance war.

[quote name='Choson' timestamp='1285442877' post='2464452'] I can read perfectly fine, good sir. Please tell me how the bolded sections below do not relate to each other since they describe, apparently, our actions as an alliance? [/quote] *writes M.-R. C-O-R-T-A-T-H on the blackboard in chalk* Alrighty. "Do I like some of your alliance's recent actions towards Red? No, of course not. I find them abhorrent and parasitic..." Let's start with the first sentence. The subject of the sentence is "I". The verb is "like." The direct object of the verb ("like") is "your alliance's recent actions towards Red". Let's unpack that direct object. What is the direct object? "actions." What kind of actions? "actions towards red"? But lo! It's not just any actions, but there is an adjective, "recent" and a possessive pronoun phrase of "your alliance's." Thus, the direct object are the "actions" with "towards Red" describing what kind of actions, and "your alliance's" describing whose actions. Let's move on to the next sentence. Again, the subject is "I" (Cortath). The verb is "find" meaning "believe" rather than "seek." The direct object of find is "them." "Them" is a pronoun. What does them refer to? Why, the direct object of the previous sentence: "actions!" Abhorrent and parasitic are adjectives describing the direct object. Leave the apple on my desk.

[quote name='Choson' timestamp='1285441891' post='2464435'] You must have biases if you are willing to use such strong adjectives as "abhorrent" or "parasitic". To say otherwise is highly hypocritical of one's self. [/quote] You must be incredibly stupid if you think you can read my mind. Unlike you, I don't prefer to paint with a broad brush onto an entire alliance from one or two incidents.

[quote name='Beefspari' timestamp='1285439592' post='2464409'] As said there are different forms of aiding. One form would be secretly sending stockpiles of guns and missiles and bombs to someone and denying that you had any involvement. Secret aid. This sort of thing is a sneaky underhanded move that is definitely cause for reps, and very large ones, or war. One form would be openly assisting by sending money and weapons openly and admitting to the world that you're eager to publicly assist. Another form would be denying sanctions for no particular reason, or just because you don't like the person being attacked. That is, taking a stance that nuclear rogues are completely acceptable as long as they're attacking someone you don't like. You may not be [b]directly[/b] assisting that mugger by letting him beat up someone, but standing there watching isn't going to win you any fans. Nor are you going to convince anyone that you're "neutral" because you aren't doing anything about the situation even though it's fully in your power to. Unfortunately, red sphere knows that there's little if any precedent for considering refusing sanctions "assistance," and are quite happy to "assist" rogues in any way that they can't [b]quite[/b] be held accountable for. [/quote] Comrade, you seem to have, as you did in our IRC conversation, some sort of mistaken perception about my feelings. You seem to think you know a bit about my feelings for GOONS. You say I "don't like you." Let me refute that claim. I am entirely indifferent to you. I cannot recall having warred with GOONS. I do not recall GOONS helping us on any significant matters. We are neither friends nor foes, but know that when I think of the letters GOONS, they drip with nothing but the most lackluster indifference. I admit, I have biases. I prefer neither milk nor sugar in my tea. I prefer my babies a la crue, and I think anything beyond tartare is barbaric. I do not, however, harbor any biases towards your alliance. Do I like some of your alliance's recent actions towards Red? No, of course not. I find them abhorrent and parasitic, but I am a very patient man, and it will take many more actions from you to color my indifference evil. *** I will point out the irony of you using a "mugger" metaphor in describing the relationship of GOONS towards a Red nation.

[quote name='Kalasin' timestamp='1285419411' post='2464226'] Believe you me, I would *love* to fight the NPO. I happily invite you to declare war on us. [/quote] Your bravado is as foolish as your love.