mpol777

Peace is good. Almost as good as your sister.

Not to mince words, but there was no backstabbing of NoV. Quite the opposite. We punched you straight up in the face. I don't expect you to forgive or forget and it wasn't exactly the nicest thing to do, but war never is. There was no backstabbing though.

Add bacon and a few lines of coke and this is just about perfect.

I have to hand it to you. Even I'm not a big enough !@#$%^& to say something like that.

Shhhhh It's a sekrit!

What no reach around? C'mon... that's funny !@#$ right there, I don't care who you are. FAKE EDIT: Seriously, no bad blood on this side and peace is good stuff.

Out of your league.

By many if not all. Myself included.

I remember when FAN hid in bunkers and only moved out into the world by blading at 45 degrees for the first month of her existence. I remember when a member of GATO attacked a FAN member and we retaliated instantly, creating the first FANpile. I remember when FAN screamed her first battle cries and piled into GWII. I remember when Legion broke the X Nuclear Rogue policy during GWIII. I remember when FAN stopped guiding itself by the core ideals. I remember when the world cheered our loss of NS and predicted our imminent disbandment hailing those who were against us. I remember when FAN didn't die and the Initiative disbanded. I remember when FAN was considered 'irrelevant' and mocked. I remember when our enemies fought amongst themselves and some never returned. This is a short list as there are a myriad of events, conversations and times that pop into my head on occasion. Some certainly better than others, but they all make up the history of FAN and myself. I think these kinds of reflections are important as it helps one decide what worked and what did not. FAN is currently and will continue to be, so help me, guided by what is FAN and the events of the world will not change that. We strayed from that course for a time and we have as much blood on our hands as *insert current bad guy here* and in some cases more. No regrets. No apologies. It is what it is. We will continue to stockpile hookers and blow for the eventual ZPOW that the prophecy has foretold of. We will continue to build our ammo forts up and provide the world with quality gun porn. We continue to move to a defensive shooting position behind solid cover so as to protect our members' freedoms and rights to self-defense. My reason for sharing all of this is both as a gesture towards the world at large, but also a warning to others. This new conflict has folks screaming about how "they" have it coming. We all have it coming. Instead of gibbering about this and that, just make sure you are right with yourself. You will get yours at some point. Nobody gets out alive. So when it comes your time if you are at peace with who you are at least you have something. Of course if being yourself means being some kind of raging !@#$%^& you might want to be someone else for a while. Alright. That's it. On with the general ranting, raving and shaking of fists. Oh yeah... hubba

Hmmmm. Your list differs from my list. I guess we need to send the meth fueled monkeys we call diplomats out to make sure we don't miss anyone. shahenshah, I think things have been put into the past by many. Some will certainly hold onto grudges for a very long time. Which isn't too terribly bad. Peace doesn't require that everyone be friends and take long hot showers together 'til the wee hours of the morning, just that there isn't outward hostility.

It is true that just because subversive actions aren't the only option, they still are an option. It's just the nature of the beast. It used to be when an alliance member was attacked by a nation of another alliance words came before retaliation and now that isn't the case. Nukes used to be held as a weapon of last resort, but now they are flung freely into the night sky like so many pieces of confetti. Spying was shunned publicly and privately and now it is as common as buying technology. War, and the world in general, has certainly gotten much nastier as the years have gone by. So yes it would be unreasonable to expect hugs and kisses even if leniency is granted. One should expect to be under siege by any and all means at all times. There is a difference however in the mindset of a prisoner as to a free man. A prisoner focuses on his captors while a free man is just generally paranoid.

I wonder if those who are promoting this being an 'endless' conflict of punishment, have any experience with that sort of thing and truly understand what it entails. I'm pretty sure the idea of running a group of dedicated folks off Planet Bob has been proven impossible and so you are left to deal with these prisoners. And therein lies the rub. You can't just smash them to bits and say "HA!" and then ask them to sit there with their thumb up their $@!. Well you can, but you can't expect compliance. Instead you will get to deal with all of the fun things they will do like collect intelligence on you, send subversives to play the politics of your alliance to their ends instead of yours, have nations steal tech deals, add sleepers that you will help rebuild under your protection with your aid money and a myriad of other enjoyable activities. Will you really ever feel comfortable dumping money to small nations to hold and keep safe when you never really know if that nation is actually your enemy? Even if you decide to lock down recruitment in an attempt to stop some of these things, can you be sure the allies you are bound to by treaties have done the same? That's the funny thing about a 'prison' such as this. The guards must be ever vigilant while the prisoners can rest easy as they can move when they choose. It must be tiresome for the guards. They also have the hard decision of releasing those they hold. Nobody wants to spend every waking hour attempting to make things secure, but if these people are so dangerous in prison how can they be let out? A quandary for sure. After a while I really do wonder who is the one being punished. I've spent more time in the hole than most and I can honestly say I'd never put someone else in there. Not because of some moral question of right or wrong, but because I know all of the things that would await me on the other side. Whatever the outcome and decisions that are made as to the treatment of others, I only hope folks think long and hard about the unintended consequences of their actions first. Well... unless they're an enemy of FAN still... then forget all that thinking stuff and do something stupid.

*mpol starts to mumble something about 'irony', but stops in mid-mumble when the pron he's watching takes an interesting turn. Who knew you could do that with a hammer?

I really hope folks see the magnitude of FAN's situation. Folks wanting to kill us, folks wanting to "help" us... That whole "FAN is irrelevant" might be a !@#$@#$ blessing.

Actually you did not. Maybe it was I that formed the question incorrectly or maybe one question was not enough. A man/woman that has passion may or may not change the world even if that person has the strength and power to do so. Passion, or as I like to think of it, will requires strength and power to affect change, and it is the change that the will is directed towards that I question. If I change myself I have changed the world as I am part of the world. This is very different from the goal of changing others in order to change the world. It's really the difference between a leader that leads because of rank and one that leads because others follow. I see power and strength as internal forces. In my mind not only is it impossible to have external influence with out the internal, but the external is irrelevant as to what drives me. So what drives the Sith? You've stated the factors, but not the goals. There must be a destination. Even if that destination changes over time.

A question if you would permit me. With the focus on "Passion, Strength and Power", is it the internal or external forms of these that the Sith find more important? One is impossible without the other, I'm simply wondering which is the prominent goal.

*mpol checks off number six on his list of seven signs of the apocalypse

My only complaint in an otherwise great observation is the use of the word 'we'. 'Caustic belly', treaties and other muck are excuses for war, not reasons as you so well put. It is the morality that Valdimir was discussing that causes the need for such excuses in many. It is the idea that one must give a reason for war so that one can justify to themselves that war is the best option. The particular excuse is given so that the unwashed masses will give praise and support which in turn supports what the aggressor 'thinks' is right. The same can be said for peace however. There are excuses for peace the same as there are for war. We've all witnessed times when someone has not fought because of some trivial thing as many as we've seen the times when they have. The lie, as you put it, goes both ways. Faith in oneself makes a reason out of an excuse. It is the difference between, "I do what is right because I think it is right." and "I do what is right because you think it is right.". The line is often hard to judge. Of course in the end the real judge is yourself. At least it should be.

If you are discussing FAN you are discussing me. FAN has steered itself in the direction chosen since the community was formed. The conclusions you've drawn from past events are formed by your perceptions and while your perceptions are your form of reality, they aren't necessarily true reality. That is unless you are omnipotent. Which is apparently not the case based on your comments. Don't worry. I'm not either and since I'm a much better individual than you it's not expected from you. There are always multiple realities. You have slightly higher level access to that which is the NPO than I do, so our views of the NPO will differ in a similar way as our views of FAN will differ. Couple that with your belief in morality and the inherent need to categorize under that and I can see your point of view. I know it to be incorrect, but I can see how you got there. Or these are not your views at all and this is simply a means to an end. Whichever is the truth of the matter is insignificant and personally I wouldn't want to know which it is. I love mysteries. I do wonder where you came to the idea that "the slim possibility of getting out from war" has arisen. At least with your faction any talk of a future peace was suspended when it was made known to us that you refused to talk about the war with us. If you are in fact talking about our war, please do invite us to the conversation at some point as it would likely speed negotiations up considerably.

LIES!!! Wars only last a week. Two at the max. The best strategery for war is to run around wildly flapping your arms in a semi-choreographed manner as to confound enemies with dancing prowess. This is FACT and cannot be denied.

I believe you may have misconstrued my own sense of self with morality in my statements in the past. I had a moral compass once, but it just kept spinning in circles (counter-clockwise by the way) so I just hucked it in the creek. Even without one I've never been lost, because wherever I am, I'm someplace. In the same vein, I somehow tend to come off as a very venomous person at times. So while I may have seemed angry or "outraged" in reality I'm always giggling to myself. I find the world vastly amusing. It isn't just you. Moral and immoral folks have a hard time deciphering amoral individuals. Luckily however, the reverse is not true. One that believes in morality, whether they adhere to it or not, uses that morality as a gauge when interpreting the world around them and they tend to lump everything into either a moral or immoral category. It simply does not compute that there are individuals that have no sense of that and thus those individuals are all over the map and lack categorization. Whereas an amoral individual can recognize all three groups because there is no need to put things into neat little piles and the basis of judgment comes from their own unique set of rules. Where will FAN be in the future? I can't say, but wherever we are, there we are. That's enough for me.

I'd simply like to point out that FAN had bloodlust before bloodlust was cool.

If those that fled the field of battle did so out of trickery instead of cowardice, then we will compliment them on learning something from us and then continue the original war.

I swear I've read something like this before. Hmmm.. Oh yeah.. this is it. Welcome to 2007. You'll catch up eventually.

I'm not down with the whole viceroy thing. Besides after hours of failed negotiations about how I was spying on myself in an attempt to cause my own destruction I might just implode and create a black hole that would suck in all of Cyberverse.