Doug Falkner

I never get you confused with Valashu, I get Valashu confused with you. That is I always for a moment think he's you.

Hey Vandal, Nice to see you around. How're things going?

Hey Fran, To be fair, around the time of the war of the Coalition, Fresh really wasn't around (I don't think he was even in HC at the time though he was our senate candidate) and Gopher was getting ready to retire by taking a less active role in things. I don't think he was even in a ministry at that point. So technically yes, a lot of people who are in the MCXA were around during the war of the Coalition (indeed, during that war I was a division commander, or maybe even a lieutenant) but if I remember correctly, none of the remaining folks actually had much of a hand planning the war or saying much about the terms we wanted from NpO. I admit my memory isn't an airtight case but it's generally not completely off.

As for the first question, I don't think we're blaming anyone for anything. I was just clearing up the situation. As for the second question, that's above my pay grade to answer. I'll leave that to Jimmy, Fresh, Ed, or Gopher to answer.

It occurred to me that I still haven't taken the time to tell our opponents in the war that it was a good fight and thank them for the fun the war provided. o/ VE o/ Aztec o/ Ares o/ TS If I forgot anyone o/ you guys too.

I agree perhaps we should have been paying a bit more attention but as I just noted we were a bit busy with internal affairs. Democracy seems to have had bad timing for us.

Maybe we should have been paying a bit more attention to things but we were busy having elections and having a government change-over and all the hullabaloo that accompanies that. We really didn't notice things were up until people started declaring war and launching attacks.

It's not ludicrous insofar as we were surprised that the war happened. We were well aware that a war was happening sometime, we just had no idea it was going to be so soon. We erroneously assumed we had more time to think about what we wanted our position to be. Did you guys realize that the war was going to happen when it did? I don't think it's all that strange that we were caught scrambling. From the sounds of things a lot of people who got involved in this war had to plan on the fly.

Really we had no idea. We've been a bit preoccupied with more internal affairs. It happened that we had elections immediately prior to the war and with elections comes a lot of stuff internally to pay attention to. I think we must not have been paying as close attention to the OWF as we perhaps should. That's not to say we weren't aware of tensions, we just weren't aware they were going to flare up so immediately.

You good sir are right on that count, I was going to bring it up myself but you beat me to the punch. As for the person who said we ran people out of the alliance, they in fact ran each other out. They got a little angry at each other and started expulsion proceedings against each other. I know it sounds crazy but that's what happened. If I was making stuff up, I wouldn't make up something that implausible.

Interested in leasing it?

If we didn't change would I be asking you for hugs? C'mon, we're totally different. Seriously though, we are actually totally different. I've been in MCXA long enough to see two changing of the guards and this time there is actually much more of a commitment to being a benevolent force on Planet Bob. I must admit historically we might have been somewhat more self-interested but with changes in people, there really has been a change in ideals. So about that hug....

It makes me sad to see the lack of love in that statement. Can't we just hug this out? No one needs to disband, everyone just needs more hugs.

Maybe I'm pessimistic, maybe it's that I'm the losing side of a war but I think it's highly unlikely that things will change that much after this war. New people will achieve dominant positions, they'll try to preserve their dominance. Then you'll have a new boss that's just like the old boss, with the exception of the rhetoric. It seems to me, though I might be a bit cynical, that this war won't result in a new dynamic on Planet Bob, just a new set of hands at the reigns. That said, I could be wrong, I'd like to see myself be proven wrong but we'll see how this war plays out.

KP, To be fair, I never personally took reps from Polaris at the end of our war. Indeed, as I have noted elsewhere the vast majority of people in the MCXA who took reps from Polaris fought in various alliances that were allied in the Karma side of the conflict. Most of the people who fought against Polaris and benefitted from it are now in other alliances. Most of us remaining in MCXA have tried to make amends for that war (notice how as soon as the reigns got handed over from the TSO folks we decided to end our terms applying to you). If you're still angry at MCXA you're picking the wrong fight. The MCXA is a new alliance. It isn't hypocritical of me to suggest we get fair terms. I argued for fair terms for NpO at the end of the last war. It was just that at that point I was a relative nobody and no one listened to me but those people who failed to listen to me are gone. All of us reformed clowns are rather fair minded people, which is why we decided to reform our clown alliance. P.S. Also what Dochartaigh said. P.P.S. I've always wondered are you so mad at us because you used to be one of us then things went south? If you want to come home to the MCXA, I'll argue for your acceptance.

At the risk of derailing this discussion, who do you folks think will take the diplomatic top position after this war's over? I must admit I have no idea, I'm inclined to say The Grämlins because they seem to be good at everything but I don't really know enough about the relationships between the Karma nations to really say that with any sort of confidence.

Detlev, It seems to me that the legitimacy or illegitimacy of a war often is a matter of which side you belong in. In general it seems that people winning side or the aggressor of a war will think it's legitimate and those on the losing or defensive side will think of it as illegitimate. That's even happening in this war. For example, being a guy on the losing side, I think there's a case to be made that many of the alliances on the Karma side are folks that have in the past benefitted from and were a party to the way the Hegemony has done things and as such have no real claim against the Hegemony (I admit there are a handful of alliances that I think do have some claim, for example Vox, Fan, MK, NV, GLOF, NpO, but many of the alliances in general were not wronged by NPO but instead, as far as I can tell, just saw an opportunity to get more influence).

I find myself agreeing with pretty much everything that Wentworth has just said. If there is a lesson to be learned from the fall of the Hegemony, it is that force is not the best means of maintaining order on Planet Bob. I'm interested to see if this lesson gets learned by the folks who will now be taking the reigns.

I must admit, I don't know what was going on in NPO at the time. I was simply arguing for a bit of charity for one's opponent rather than to immediately assume the worst. So your point is well taken.

Since we're on the topic of reps from past wars and how they should influence reps in this war, I would like to note that pretty much everyone from MCXA that has accepted reps in previous wars is now in alliances fighting on the side of Karma. So if profits from being on the side of NPO are a primary factor in deciding on reps for this war, the MCXA should owe very little. Actually, if I remember correctly, people who fought in Karma actually owe us reps still, so really, when this war is over, you guys should be paying us stuff. Just saying....

Not to belabor a point but this is exactly the sort of thinking that I was talking about earlier when I said it's inevitable that there will be tyranny. As long as there are folks who think they're the good guys and it's their role to fight the bad guys and keep them suppressed, there will be alliances and blocs that oppress others.

I grant that the NPO might have overreacted. I'm just saying things aren't as simple and black and white as people make them out to be. I think that the demonizing of some people and the lionizing of others is largely what causes the problems on Planet Bob and I was just pointing out a case where I thought the demonizing wasn't entirely warranted.

After just talking to Emperor Fu, I realized that perhaps I overstated something. Earlier I said the GPA viewed itself as in opposition to the NPO. That might not have been put well. I should note that there was no official position of opposition on the part of the GPA, merely that it seemed to me that many members of the GPA viewed themselves as in opposition to the NPO.

I think I did a poor job making my point, I didn't say that GPA was a threat. I explicitly noted several times that GPA wasn't in fact a threat. I just said that I can understand, given the way the NPO approaches things that it is plausible that they believed that GPA was a credible threat and that you can't really demand that a person act only with perfect knowledge, people can only act on what they believe to be the case.

As was noted in my comment that you quoted, I said that I didn't think GPA was a threat. I said, I could see how the NPO perceived it to be a threat in terms of it being a huge alliance that was rather anti-NPO. You have to admit, that as a fighting force the GPA would have been a much larger threat than Vox was, and we all saw how excited NPO got over Vox. With that sort of mentality, I could understand why they viewed the GPA as a threat, even if it really wasn't one. And, people can only act on what they know and what they believe, you can't ask people to have perfect knowledge before they make their choices.