[Crimson Guard Edict #9: Notice of Disbandment]

This is, actually, false. The true reason was impatience...Francesca and other people in the government were tiring of waiting, and I believe that they felt that the Guard was ready to reveal itself.

Structurally, it was. Diplomatically, it was not, and Francesca received much...shall we say...scolding (for lack of a better word...she is no child) from myself, and likely others, for it in private.

*snip*

I don't see why this is so hard for you guys to admit it. It's not like it's a terrible thing to be incompetent so long as you can recognize it and learn from it and cease being incompetent through your experiences. But denying it so persistently leads me to believe none of you learned a damn thing.

"We weren't incompetent, we just made mistakes all over the place that were obvious no-brainers." No, you were incompetent. Deal with it. It's not a dirty word, so go ahead and say it.

It is perhaps the sole reason as to why Francesca is not quite ready to lead an alliance...at least...not as the sole ruler. I have no problem admitting that. I think it is at least fair to say, however, that she has the mental competence and the potential to do so (and so did her government), and I find it unfair that she is chastised as much as she is. She made some errors, but to her credit, none of them were fatal: the Guard survived through most of its hardships. Banned Member, baseballer, the Superheroes, Forum difficulties, IRC difficulties...

...nowhere was the Guard destroyed in all of this. I believe that that deserves some measure of respect, both to her, and those others who served under her regime.

In bold: she's no more advanced than she was when we tried her out as a deputy division commander back in MCXA. So I have to disagree and audibly chuckle at you thinking that.

As for these mistakes not being fatal: they got you into a war, and CG has disbanded despite winning the conflict. CG was doomed from day one. So many people could call that one without difficulty. Whether they wanted it to succeed or fail is moot, members of both those groups could easily see this as the inevitable outcome. She failed as chancellor, the government failed in its role.

I, for one, see the Crimson Guard as Francesca's first experiment...her first experience as a leader. It failed...but now that she is aware of the headaches and all-around difficulties associated with such, I believe that she will approach it much more wisely in the future...and she shall have my continued support and counsel. Some of you may call me naïve...so be it.

No, it's her 3rd or 4th at least. She tried climbing the ranks within several alliances, and failed at that because she spied and ticked off leadership. Then there was that *other* red alliance she was a part of that folded as well. The only difference is she was the top dog this time. She's held gov positions before and failed to impress or was forcibly removed from office.

She had our counsel once too...she repaid it by spying on us and has since called the leadership that raised an alliance from nothing to 3rd ranking sanctioned alliance in record time, and now has successfully launched another alliance all incompetent when she can't even maintain the same AA for more than a month.

yes, you are naive. This is far from her first anything in regards to knowing about those headaches. Hopefully she realizes why those of us she dislikes in TSO have always acted as we do and realizes just how foolishly she has conducted herself in regard to us. I doubt it, but she has been largely silent since this all happened so I dunno.

[Crimson Guard Edict #9: Notice of Disbandment]

After this, I am done with this thread. If you don't get it now, you're either trying to be cheeky or you're just unable to learn, and I'm not going to waste my time either way.

Here goes:

#1: I will be the first to admit that the admission of Banned Member and Baseballer were mistakes. At the time of their admission, from my personal experiences with them, they seemed like reasonable people. Fran felt the same way and so we judged them according to their merits (Banned Member remains skilled in Internal Affairs, and Baseballer, immaturity aside, is a great codes guy). The 'second chance' policy regarding membership was indeed legitimate, because they were initially granted a second chance. Not many alliances would do this. The second chance was then legitimately forfeited when both members took advantage of the trust we had placed in them. I won't go into the details, but this situation was clarified sufficiently in Edicts #2 and #4.

#2: If you're referring to Edict #2: Statement of Clarification, then we were acting on the advice of the ODN's government, who were, at the time, considering protecting us (to my knowledge the Government remained in favour of this, but certain actions by Baseballer turned the membership against CG, and by ODN Charter the membership must approve treaties), to clarify the situation regarding Banned Member and some other issues. The generic community response to this Statement was a "Good to see you're clearing things up" sort of thing, check it out if you don't believe me.

#3: Francesca's conduct towards TSO is completely reactionary. Though I have no actual evidence to satisfy everyone else, I'm going to assume that you are aware of her unpopularity within your alliance, and how that is communicated to her. If absolutely necessary I'm sure Fran herself has evidence. As I understand it she is often chastised by certain members of your alliance, which probably goes back to their mutual MCXA roots, and has little bearing on this topic.

#4: Diplomatic resolutions to the IS crisis were sought. We are not retarded, we have been playing this game for a very long time and we all understand that that would be preferable. As I said, they were sought before the public announcement, and continuously sought afterwards. The reason for their lack of success is because we consistently demanded reparations for the unfair damage done to our nations, apparently this was too far. On a separate note, protectorates were never finalised the ongoing merger talks, which consumed us. After the ODN's Assembly rejected a protectorate, it became a lower priority since a merge seemed to be imminent. I admit this was not smart, to be so public without a protector, but we felt that since a merge would be happening it would be simpler just to focus on that. Our bad, of course, but not enough to label us noob, or 'hopelessly inadequate'.

#5: My last point regarding merger talks applies here too. Though I might add that all of the pre-war Edicts, or supposed 'broadcasting', happened as a protectorate was being processed by the ODN. In all honesty, I thought it was a shoe-in.

#6: Un/Fortunately, the claiming of the moral high ground is something inherent to both Fran and I. Anyone who has watched my posts during my time here might agree. But regardless of how you spin it, CG did occupy the moral high ground curing the IS crisis. IS was in the wrong. With regards to 'acting like the best thing on Red', well, that is subjective, and I disagree that our collective conduct reflected such an attitude.

#7: How dare you claim to know how we thanked the alliances which supported us? On one hand you're saying "Private channels for the WIN: Less Edicts you attention whores!", and then you advise us to publicly thank them? CG's gratitude was sufficiently shown to our friends; had we made an announcement we would only have copped it more. Believe it or not, we were mindful of the amount of announcements we were making. At the time when it may have been appropriate to publicly thank our supporters, there were already two 8 page + Edicts floating around. So we thanked than privately, as we had done anyway.

#8: CG did not seek pages and pages of responses to our Edicts. Each Edict was intended to clarify cloudy situations which were more or less the most important things happening publicly in the community at the time. The fact that they received the colossal response that they did is more due to the fact that the post-Karma community was dieing for a scandal, than our intentional seeking of attention. Secondly, regarding the '6 hours of diplomacy', I know that Fran [OOC]has a lot going on in RL at the moment. A lot.[/OOC] Whilst this might/will seem like a cop out, and/or a mute point, I think it should none-the-less be factored in when fairly judging her all-around capability. And anyway, since when did we judge every diplomat according to the standards set by the GW greats? This is just criticism for criticism's sake: give us a break.

#9: For the record, I was CG Government, I was the Minister of Foreign Affairs. And the issues/events/scandals leading up to the disbandment make it a lot more legitimate. You could obsess over these reasons and endeavor to discover them all, or you could just let us go. We are all exhausted, and simply do not care for reps anymore. Though we will be eternally grateful for those who helped us achieve them.

Your tenth point was a summary. I think my points have already addressed it.

To conclude: Sure, CG made some mistakes. But if we were to sit around and critique each and every alliance and their mistakes to the same, obsessive degree that we have CG's, the Crimson Guard would not look quite so bad.

Kent out.

1 & 2: you're not telling us anything new. We know. The problem is that in your edicts on these matters, instead of posting the edicts and leaving them at that, your leaders took the opportunity within the threads to troll and flame and fight both those individuals and other alliances and individuals for stating their opinions on the matter, and in some cases without their presence or provocation. I'm sure that such low-brow behavior and controversy played some role in you guys not receiving a protectorate. Regardless of mutual dislikes, no one wants to sign a treaty with a new small alliance that picks fights with established alliances. It's simple bad business.

3: I'm calling BS on that "reactionary" defense of her actions. Talk to Bryn of MCXA, he's played witness to her instigating and persisting in trying to pick fights with TSO members in #mcxa despite being told by MCXA gov to stop publicly and privately, and also by the individuals she was trolling to just leave them alone. Once again, this is a situation in which you have HER side of the issues between her and us, but not ours. Talk to Nintenderek, he can tell you, from a chain of PMs between him and I, that she's not as innocent as she likes everyone to think in this matter. The difference is TSO's guilty members in this affair, myself included, will own up to their actions and admit when they provoke her. She however, still cannot admit to stirring the pot just as much as anyone else involved. I covered this in a post in one of your previous edicts.

4: Once again, not telling us anything I didn't already cover, you're just putting a positive spin...but it still looks bad on you. I never called you retarded, just incompetent. I stated you sought diplomatic resolutions....according to fran for all of 6 hours. Like I said, talk to any order emperor past and present. Talk to the leaders of any sanctioned alliance past or present. It takes well over 6 hours to conduct successful diplomatic maneuvers in most situations. Or perhaps, since you had no treaties and were already being nuked, it was a noob decision to even try at that point and you should have just gone through private channels to seek help from those that had considered signing you guys to protectorates. Just some food for thought, but if I have no military muscle and I eat a nuke, I'm not going to waste my time demanding compensation from the guy that nuked me. I'm gonna scramble and get my buddies on him. Yes, it is incredibly bad. Dare I say deplorable. It is incompetence.

5: and you're once again ILLUSTRATING your incompetence. Let me spell it out for you: it is incompetent to turn the spotlight on yourself unless your back is covered by either your own muscle or a treaty system that is already signed. "Being processed" or "considered a shoe-in" DOES NOT COUNT. This is NOT horse shoes, we do NOT throw hand grenades on Planet Bob (OOC: next update to the war system maybe, admin, please?). A competent alliance government would know to not go running around publicly trolling individuals and alliances, airing their drama laundry publicly, all whithout an ability to defend themselves. No one would have minded waiting a week or two before your next lame edict...you would NOT have have a riot outside your gates full of disgruntled nation rulers demanding the next good word about CG. WAIT TIL YOU HAVE THE DOCUMENT SIGNED, SEALED, DELIVERED, AND READY TO ANNOUNCE BEFORE YOU ACT LIKE A BIG DOG IN THE YARD.

We're halfway done and all you've done is repeat my justifications for calling you incompetent. How you do not realize why these things are such obvious noob mistakes is beyond me, but the fact that you want to try and defend your experience by listing how long you've all been playing and you still made these mistakes just makes me wonder if it's more of an inability to learn as opposed to a lack of experience.

6: I wasn't referring to IS attacking you. I was referring to your leadership's pettty behavior to random individuals on IRC and on these forums, and then claiming to not know why we come at them angered and annoyed with their stupid antics. That is jr high crap. No one in their right mind is fooled by it, and we all know you all know exactly what you're doing when you play that little act so why you think you're getting away with it is beyond us. You're just embarrassing yourselves when you try things like to de-hop and kickban us in other people's channels when we haven't said anything to you in over half an hour. The other thing I was touching on was claiming the solo victories or successes in regards things like the resolution to your IS crisis. Everyone knew CG didn't resolve a thing, other people stuck their feet in (morally justified, I might ad, it was simply right to do)and resolved it for you because your government was too incompetent to do it on their own. That said, CG's gloating easily left a terrible taste in a lot of mouths, like your 6 hours vs their cocking their unobligated rifles for you is what tipped the scales in your favor, since that's ALL you did. Your insisting on still claiming to be morally superior when you have several prominent members telling you specifically why are NOT further cements the negative reflection this attitude has on you. BTW, if you learn ANYthing from TSO, it's that you do NOT decide how your actions reflect on you, the rest of the community decides that. Say whatever you want, it doesn't change that we disliked CG for these reasons, and your refusal to accept that fact means you're in denial hiding behind your inflated opinion of yourselves.

7: If you publicly gloat, you better publicly thank. According to Random, whatever you did was NOT sufficient. Might wanna take it up with him. Question is will you handle the matter from start to finish publicly or privately, or will you mix and match to try and once again inflate the public opinion of you? And you sat you were mindful to not post too many edicts? You selectively ommitted certain announcements? Man, you guys could not have picked the worse ones...further proof of incompetence. You were unprotected: you shouldn't have posted ANY. Back before MCXA formed, MCCF stood silently recruiting and growing for several months before posting a DoE. By the time we did, we had several treaties that covered our backs a sizeable membership that was competent in wars, and we shocked a lot of people at our size without them knowing we existed yet. Then, and even now in TSO, we had and have a policy of keeping our announcements to the bare absolute minimum necessary: declaring existence, announcing treaties/cancellations, and declaring war and peace. We try to avoid plastering our name all over admin's creation because we don't want the spotlight. The spotlight brings problems no matter how well established and protected you are. You obviously, even after CG, still don't understand that.

8: Then why did your membership and your government continue posting in the edicts beyond the initial post? You can say whatever you want about this, but actions speak louder than words. You directly fueled the continued presence of your edicts towards the top of this section much like you are with this one. If you don't want the attention, go away.

9: so you're part of the incompetence. Do all 16 members feel honky-dory with having been nuked and not getting paid for it? Isn't making all the effort to help you get those reps from IS a vain effort a bit of a slap in the face to anyone that helped? They invested in you and got 80+ million or so, right? And after you whined about how you needed help for about a week to resolve the issue, you said "oh, we don't care, lalalalalalalalalalala." And you're going to sit here and speak FOR those alliances and individuals when you say everyone was satisfied with your actions? Shoot, I would have spear-headed the movement in TSO to roll you ourselves for wasting out time had we been one of those alliances that helped you. I'm surprised some of these guys didn't.

10: no, you just repeated a lot of what I said and then said "and that was awesome of us, we're not stupid, we've been playing for years, we were always morally superior, we never trolled anyone" when anyone and their mother on here is going to read that and say "yeah, right...and Doitzel never led the largest spy network in the history of Bob."

Go ahead and critique TSO's mistakes: our DoE and the sloppy separation from MCXA, but we stepped up to offer to pay them back, and took the verbal abuse over our DoE on the chin since we formed and have largely kept our collective nose clean, and quiet, and minded our own business. I think people had pools going for how long til we were destroyed somehow too...but how many months is it and we're STILL going just as well as ever. CG lasted how long and made mistakes with every action they took. Yeah...you still look bad.

What alliance wants to go next? Stack your alliance's mistakes against CG's see how good we can make CG look, guys!

Kent, did you really just challenge us to compare you to any alliance in an effort to trivialize the ways CG failed because of incompetent leadership like yourself? You make me facepalm so hard when you offer yourself up like that. Your alliance just crumbled from the inside out and always had internal and external issues galore, and a negative reputation that consistently worsened. You cannot compare that to an alliance that still exists and expect it to look good. Do not try this.

Here's a list of mistakes you've made just in this thread that further convinces people they're right in their negative opinions of you:

-claiming to be morally superior regardless of anything

-claiming to be perfectly innocent in regards to on-going feuds with other individuals and alliances

-speaking on behalf of other alliances saying they were satisfied with your thanks for their help when one of their leaders explicitly stated already you didn't adequately thank them and wasted their time.

-challenging us to compare CG to any alliance claiming there's no way you'll look as bad if we do so.

-claiming "the majority" agrees with you without any obtainable basis for that claim at all.

Wanna keep going? I can do this all day. CG was incompetent. Your refusal to admit making any serious mistakes when the people they affected are standing right here telling you what they were does nothing but confirm our opinions.

[Crimson Guard Edict #9: Notice of Disbandment]

I made that claim on the fact that most replies to this thread are relatively civil, and include declarations of support, as was seen in all of our Edicts. I'm going to dismiss your points as your opinion, since I think it has gotten to the "agree to disagree" stage.

CG retains a lot of support from notable 'statesmen', just sift through these pages. Our public image may go down in history as 'noob' or 'laughing stock', and this saddens me, but at the end of the day we still have a lot of good friends, and to me this is all that really matters.

No, I see a lot of "oh you're disbanning? Sorry to see you go...oh well" and "so what does this mean for [insert random aspect of alliance]?"

That's very different from "You guys were AMAZING, your government was SPECTACULAR, and your edicts were AWESOME!"

I personally have wished CG well on many occasions. Never once did I support CG, nor did I think you'd rise too high if you were able to stick around, but I wished you well in trying. If these "notable statesmen" (I put that in quotes because just by being nice to you is not what determines someone as notable or a statesman) were really so full of support, you'd have had treaties and would not have been in a situation where disbanning was such a highly considered option.

You can make whatever excuse you want and cop out with "agree to disagree" if you really do want to, but I am very interested to understand exactly WHY you disagree with me, but you seem quick to shy away from justifying your opinion, which disappoints me, but that's what I've come to expect from CG, so I can't say I'm surprised.

[Crimson Guard Edict #9: Notice of Disbandment]

I just don't agree. And thankfully the majority doesn't either. Of that I'm certain.

Claim majority support when you have a poll of everyone's opinion on the matter in hand. I'm not going to sit here and argue "well I bet more people agree with me!"

No, instead, I'd rather you go point by point and explain in detail, in your own words, where and why Random and I are wrong. Don't try to speak for a majority you'll never be able to prove supports you. Would it help if I break down my point of view for you more and use more specific detail?

EDIT: instead of waiting for you to respond, I'm doing it anyway:

#1: Your leaders appointed 2 of the most controversial individuals of contemporary times to key government positions, and when questioned on this, they then decided on the spot to claim to be an alliance of second chances, and in that same announcement stated they'd not extend that opportunity for redemption universally. It was a cheap face-saving spin they didn't even have the stomach to continue lying about believing in when lightly pressed further about it, but all we got was more cheap spin.

#2: In removing both of said controversial members of CG, the leadership either initiated or participated in grand public displays of dramatic behavior.

#3: One of your leaders seemed intent on insulting TSO without provocation. Granted several members of TSO gave as good as they got in that regard, none of them were TSO government...in CG, it was your Chancellor. Even when wished success in meeting the generic alliance milestones like the different million alliance NS levels and such, her response would be to chastise TSO's methods. On IRC, in public channels other than that designated for either TSO or CG, she would go out of her way to make snide comments in the presence of many of our members without anything being said to her, and on at least one occasion in #mcxa, actively instigated and participated in sudden rushes to dehop and attempting to kickban people from both NSO and TSO that she has a public history of disliking without them saying anything to or about her for periods of time over half an hour in length. This is not the behavior one should look for in a leader. This is petty, immature, and just ridiculous. Worst of all, while I'm referencing specific events, this behavior is far from isolated. It's more like a standard from her.

#4: Every bit of information publicly announced in any of your edicts that contained negative news about CG was something that could have been handled behind closed doors without the world knowing. If the world really did need to know, it could have easily waited and probably helped in your diplomatic endeavors to wait to announce the matter until you could tag "the issue was resolved through private channels between the leaders of the alliances involved" onto the ends of them. Your inability to do so makes you look weak, unprofessional, whiny, petty, and self-indulgent. It became pain-stakingly clear why that protectorate that was always promised to be "announced next" never came. Your leadership had zero diplomatic skill.

#5: You never stopped posting announcements even when people stated in your threads that it was not the smartest thing to have such a high profile without any treaty partners. It appears to me IS just got tired of you claiming support without naming anyone or having anything on paper, and decided to call your bluff. I'm honestly surprised it didn't happen sooner. maybe they collectively made a bet with someone else when you'd disban and saw their window to win closing and wanted to force the hand, I dunno, I don't care either. Point is, you broadcasted your vulnerability to the world and then cried, cried, cried when someone decided to take advantage of it.

#6: You made no significant progress in growth as an alliance, but never stopped acting like the greatest thing to do with the color red since Twizzlers went on sale, claiming moral superiority without displaying any morality but boasting a membership filled with checkered pasts. There were few days where I thought groups like Liquor Cabinet ever liked CG for any other reason than their mutual dislike for groups like TSO and others. Unfortunately, that's not enough to make a treaty partner, and your arrogance displayed by your leadership and membership made it really hard to warm up to you (frostbite...crimson guard used images of fire...warm up...see what I did there? I kill me sometimes...not as often as Random would like but it does happen...).

#7: Whenever someone did come to your aid, your gratitude was shorter lived than a mayfly. Where you should have been working to pay back their support with support of your own, you instead claimed solo victory like CG accomplished something when the only reason anything good happened for you, like IS backing down, is because of their fear of the muscle of those standing around you...but never fear of YOU. You never realized that, and if point #6 was a hole in the ground, I'd swear this point would be like a post-hole digger in CG's hands. So many alliances that share similar political views of other alliances as CG did came to your aid and offered a hand, and you took the hand but gave nothing in return. You probably would have gotten protectorate offers in droves had your leaders simply went out of their way to publicly thank these alliances for their unconditional support. But who wants to sign a treaty with an ungrateful alliance whose only recourse when confronted with anything slightly difficult is to come here to the global community and publicly beg for help? You couldn't even expel someone without turning it into a major dramatic point of discussion when no one really cared beyond a simple "oh by the way, about that member that was a problem, we got rid of him, so let's talk treaties..." behind closed doors.

#8: I've seen CG's chancellor claim that 6 hours of trying to resolve a war exhausted her diplomatic skill and patience. Do you realize how many of the Great Wars took months of diplomatic posturing and positioning before either side was ready to make a move? Complaining about 6 hours of inter alliance diplomacy over a war you pretty much asked for is like carpenter complaining about a splinter. That is the biggest signal of all she was not ready for the responsibility of managing an alliance...at least not one as high-profile as she made CG out to be.

#9: Instead of recognizing the utter incompetence of your leadership, your 16 members stood solidly behind them like a bunch of ostriches with their heads in the sand. For the love of Ann Frank, man, you just got promised reps from an alliance that you will never see because your leadership decided NOW, of all times, instead of prior to exhausting the political support in a war of many alliances that had no obligation to you at all, to disban for unclear reasons. You got hosed on reps by a decision your leadership claims to be made without much forethought at all. And yet here you are, still singing their praises? She got asked about those reps in this thread and pretty mush said she didn't care about it, or any of you getting what you obviously felt you were owed by virtue of even asking for them to begin with. At least with TSO, if we don't care about you, we tell you up front and don't waste your time with empty promises and a membership we have no interest in helping you to benefit from.

#10: Even after your alliance disbans, you, sir, are still sitting here, defending how awesome your edicts were when several people are telling you to your face they were terrible and contributed directly to your failure to get treaty partners. These are terrible announcements. They put you in the spot light without a treaty partner, couldn't do anything for you without anyone else's interference in CG affairs, screwed you out of reps they had in the bag for you, and after complaining about 6 hours of diplomacy felt their time was better spent trying ti kick-ban me from #mcxa while discussing membership activity with other current and former MCXA members that didn't involve them. Stop defending this failure of leadership. All it does is convince the global community that CG's incompetence went beyond its leadership and was simply pervasive throughout.

Now, if you care to disagree with any of these and offer some proof or justification why I should change my opinion, feel free. If all you have is "well more people agree with me, I reckon" please don't further perpetuate the opinions of incompetence that is becoming synonymous with CG.

[Crimson Guard Edict #9: Notice of Disbandment]

Enough. Enough with the conspiracies and enough with the digs at our leadership. CG was intended to be an alliance relatively out of the spotlight, for a group of friends. We made many mistakes, beginning with Banned Member and Baseballer, but I refuse to accept this portrayal of CG has some sort of 'noob' alliance. We helped champion Red Unity and had enough friends in well respected alliances to ward off a large scale tech raid. We weren't perfect, but we are certainly not lacking in brainpower.

I will argue several things you claimed here.

When every important decision your leadership makes is a bad one, and they make a high-profile announcement about each of them (multiple announcements about the same issue in some cases) while having no military power or official allies, and get attacked, and all 16 members stand unified in support of the leaders that made all these decisions, you really have little choice but to accept being portrayed as a noob alliance.

The only remote successes CG had always involved someone else's contributions to that success, often in response to some initial failure by CG.

I'm sorry you're having trouble recognizing the situation for what it truly is, but we could do a timeline of all actions CG publicly broadcasted and fill it all in completely with why each was the wrong thing to do in each situation.

[Crimson Guard Edict #9: Notice of Disbandment]

Our Edicts focused on important issues which CG was dealing with. Statement's of Clarification regarding Banned Member, and the ones that came out of the war, were all undoubtedley necessary. I realize that the Edicts featured for days on end, but it's not our fault they were so widely read and adressed. Many alliances with less cause make announcements just as frequently, they just aren't as popular. I'm sorry, but I had to say it.

You seem to not understand the difference between being laughed with and laughed at. The former rarely applied to CG. The latter is not an indication of popularity or that your subject matter was important beyond CG and the other immediate parties involved. The world needed not know the details, and the more we knew, the more like watching a train wreck your edicts became: so disastrous you couldn't turn away...but certainly nothing positive to speak of by any means.

The announcements by other people aren't so less popular than your edicts as they were less amateur in nature...people opened them, read them, made a mental note, and moved on. Yours spawned many comments that were nothing but mockery. This is nothing to boast about or defend. In this case, it's more appropriate to call them "less distracting" than "less popular."

Perhaps if you kept your serious business to private channels instead of airing your dirty laundry out for all to see, and focused on milestone threads that consist of nothing but undeniably positive news that would have had people thinking "oh gee, they're achieving something, cool" instead of "oh boy...more drama news from CG...is it another member issue or another tease at having undeclared support in a dispute with another alliance?" that had so many people betting on when you'd disban.

[Crimson Guard Edict #9: Notice of Disbandment]

OOC: I actually laughed out loud at this. That usually doesn't happen when I am reading these here forums...

IC: Random, Ruler of Amber, laughed out loud at this. It's just so absurd. I mean, basically you did everything wrong. At no point in this alliance's history did it do anything that wasn't foolish, ignorant, and unplanned. And you took advantage of others mercy and helpfulness to even make it as long as you did.

On the plus side, you made a lot of us right by disbanding so quick. I wonder how many pools are divvying out cash right now. Hopefully you've learned a few humbling lessons about alliance leadership and you'll do the sensible thing and join a non-sucky alliance and learn the ropes there. I wont hold my breath though.

I definitely hope you don't hold it for your own sake...she was in MCXA for over a year at their peak back under us (go ahead and hold your opinions of our morals, but you can't argue the stats MCXA had under us) and even after that everything you said in the first IC part of your post applies completely.

Fran, I have 3 things to say to you:

1) TSO continues to grow, has yet to be attacked, we don't put new threads on the big boards every day just to keep our name high up on everyone's radars without any treaties, and we're very selective when it comes to those that seek to join us. Keep this in mind anytime you think back to CG and all the times you made a snide comment about TSO's methods whenever one of us wished you luck in reaching generic milestones of alliance growth.

2)you forgot Banned Member.

3) Curse you for giving me and Random something to agree on. YOU WILL RUE THE DAY!

Good luck where ever you go from here. I mean that with all sincerity.

[The Past, Present, and Future]

Someone should message TSO to post here.

Hey, I did my part. Blame Derek for moving it to PMs.

Christ, you try to do something nice for someone for once in your life and it gets ignored by them. Screw this, I'm gonna go have a cigar...at least Big Tobacco appreciates what I do for them...

[The Past, Present, and Future]

While I do agree that Sileath and Baseballer are quite annoying, if your turning down a protectorate because of Fran, your only showing ignorance and would most likely not make a good protector anyway.

Or it could be that we've worked with or dealt with a few in CG before, in particular Fran and baseballer, and while none of us have anything really against baseballer, we are aware of his actions. As far as fran goes, most of us tend to roll our eyes at her, but there are a couple of us (hi) that have a personal issue with her that she claims to just want to let die, but every now and again, she trolls either the alliance or those members in specific in some manner that we individuals find obnoxious and unacceptable, and then speak up about to remind her we don't buy her line about letting it go for a second (honestly, I have no issue with you, haven't had an experience with you yet, derek, but the only reason I decided to post is because Fran mentioned me by name, so I felt it indeed was my place to state my opinion on matters in this thread).

Fran is useless to us. We've worked with her before and where you say it's that we wouldn't be good protectors for CG(I'm shocked to hear you think we were even considered), it is just as likely given that she already betrayed our trust once that as the head of her alliance, CG would simply be a terrible protectorate for us. It's a 2-way street.

Both sides know we would not work well together in any type of mutual agreement, thus neither side has even considered proposing such an agreement. That's no ignorance on our behalf or hers. It doesn't matter why we don't get along. All that matters is that we don't, and for that reason, neither alliance has an interest in signing with the other. If you want to call TSO members who recognize this ignorant, then you should also call fran ignorant. Or maybe yourself since as far as I know, you only know fran's side of the story and I know of no one in TSO that has talked to you at length or on a regular basis, let alone about our side of the issue between us and fran.

If you are interested, I'm willing to sit down and have a nice fire-side chat with you, explain my side of things when it comes to fran (I'll leave TSO's side to a gov member), and also lget to know you better in general. I'm not so petty that I'll write you off just for liking fran, and I won't swear in anger or insult or belittle you either. In spite of what some say, I am actually civil when I wish to be, and I know when I should be civil. Other than that, I'm all about a good laugh and having fun. Offer is open with no expiration date. Have a good one.

That said, this thread is about baseballer...dude...you just don't get it. You know what you do that angers people, yet you keep doing it. You've done it on such a level that your reputation precedes you. I've had a similar reputation reformation issue, and the only way to get it to change is to stop talking about changing it and just change it. And even then, people still won't let go of the old one. It's far from an overnight process either.

Just deal with it. Behave yourself, turn off your amsg feature, don't troll people, don't make "pity me" threads with a wall of text talking about how you want a second chance. Just lay low, deal with it, don't seek a position of importance, and just be a good, bland drone for a while.

Don't freakin apologize, and don't whine about it. And don't air your dirty laundry publicly when everyone else involved is gonna dispute it at the drop of a hat.

And for the record, I didn't care about you either way, but you put me in a position where I sort of had to take fran's side in regards to how you went about this, so now I hate you.

Have a nice day.

[TSO 3rd Goverment]

The point is that they are all old-timers. I remember Power from back in 2007, when we started [OOC] the game [/OOC] together and went through the academy together, even fought against rogues etc together. As for Boz and Wilking, they've been here forever.

As for some of the people who have spoken in this announcement, none of this is meant as a criticism. It's a mere observation.

When the very basis of our admissions caters to people we've known and trusted for a long time, and our original membership is based of people that, if they didn't help found MCXA, spent a good amount of the last couple years working in MCXA, I have to ask what is with you and your obsession for pointing out the obvious?

You joined around the same time Power did, yes? Then what is with all the crying about old timers when you count him to be one and you've been around just as long as he has?

Seriously, until you make sense and stop contradicting your own logic with your own mere existence, I'm going to have to ask you to refrain from commenting.

EDIT: upon reading my own words hours later, I feel it necessary in the interest of preventing any unintended interpretations of my words to say that I am not promoting anyone hurting themselves in any way with that last sentence, but instead that people review their words before commenting them so as to avoid contradicting themselves so easily or to not even comment if they find they really are lacking a point.

[Crimson Guard Edict #2: Statement of Clarification]

Fran replied to a post reeking with sarcasm. The Crimson Guard's 'second chance' policy is only extended to those who show us genuine good will. You'll have to excuse us if this is somehow unreasonable.

Actually, I was referring to a query convo on irc between myself and her where my initial inquiry was very sincere, as I was legitimately interested in the extent of this policy, and I was met with hostility and condescending remarks, so I returned it from that point on.

It was after this initial questioning turned snarky between myself and her that watchman posted his satire.

Sorry for not making that clear earlier, but yeah...it doesn't change that it's hypocracy either way.

[Crimson Guard Edict #2: Statement of Clarification]

I applaud you for giving people second chances, most people say they will but never do. You guys seem like a good bunch of people and I hope to get to know y'all better

When asked about members of TSO, her response was that "some people don't deserve a second chance." Whether you agree with her about us or not, you can't deny some measure of hypocracy in her policy and her statements about TSO members being welcome to join CG if they leave TSO.

Seems some more clarification on this policy is needed.

[TSO 3rd Goverment]

So I make a polite comment in your announcement, in contrast with the aggression you demonstrated in Crimson Guard's announcement, and I receive aggression in here too. You're obviously a *really* upstanding member of your alliance.

Wow! we matter enough of you to not only read and post once, but check back for and respond to any responses to you! I'm so stoked.

The difference between this and your announcement is that TSO was commented on in a negative manner before we brought our aggressiveness to your thread. Here, you initiated a confrontation with us by putting down the way we do things, which also happens to be the way most alliances, especially most of the historically most successful alliances do and have done things in regards to how they select government members and promote them (usually by experience and competence and loyalty, if you haven't noticed).

My response was justified in that it acknowledged your well-documented disapproval of this method as it has generally held you back (competence and loyalty) in any alliance you weren't a founding member of, and welcomed you to prove the merits of your preferred methods by matching our success with your newest alliance through your methods.

You expect us to refrain from making comments expressing negativity in your announcements. I would hope you would do better than to lead off with one in ours if that is how you feel. If not, I think it would be prudent for you to avoid ours as much as you want us to avoid yours. Agreed?

So yeah...other shout outs:

o/ TSO and our nukes.

o/ Sunny, how's it going, bro?

Watchman, you killed my combo! I shall see you on the field of honor at dawn...don't bother naming your newest nuke...you won't be around long enough to enjoy it! TSO CIVIL WAR

[TSO 3rd Goverment]

Congratulations TSO. No new names here though.

There's something to be said for name value, fran. We don't care if new people make it into government. We care about effective running of our alliance. If someone wants a guaranteed turn, I'm sure you'll be more than willing to accommodate them with one of your experiments on the red team. Let us know when you reach our milestones with your methods.

But I am glad TSO is still important enough in your life to go out of your way to enter, read, and comment on an announcement of ours.

And heaven forbid I not take an opportunity to inflate my own legendary ego: TSO's 998th, 999th, 1000th, 1001st, and 10003rd nukes are all mine. Some punk took the 1002nd

So this milestone is brought to you by Teefus Christ. Walk in the Valley of the Shadow of Darkness, and ye shall know my love.

[Crimson Guard Edict #2: Statement of Clarification]

TFS, you're still around?

Nope, I'm just a figment of your imagination.

Where did you think I'd be?

[Crimson Guard Edict #2: Statement of Clarification]

You're quite at liberty to attack my actions. However, I think it is the mark of a poor debater to ignore the arguments I presented and simply attack me in response, which is exactly what you did. But come, my former brother. This announcement isn't about the past, it's focusing on a bright future for a new, red alliance.

If you want to hear why I acted as I did, we've already got a 20 page announcement for that where everything was thrashed out. See: "Memoirs: MCXA, Vox Populi, and the true meaning of loyalty."

You brought up the past, not us. We just asked about how your policy stood with us because we do have personal issues. People in glass houses, Fran...if you don't like us bringing up your past, don't bring up ours.

You agreed to pay reparations so that Fresh would have a way to avoid war without losing face. There's nothing admirable about paying reps when there's a gun to your head.

But please, this announcement is not about TSO. You don't have any relevance to me or my alliance any more, praise Admin.

We had no gun to our head any more than they did, which is to say not at all. Leadership on both sides, as angry as some might have been, recognized that war was not beneficial to either of us.

I do wish your alliance well, and am disappointed that you still have such a massive build up of bad blood towards us. Perhaps some day you'll legitimately get past it like you claim to be.

[Crimson Guard Edict #2: Statement of Clarification]

Ad hominem, ad hominem, ad hominem..........

So wait...you're allowed to spy on your own alliance and sell them out, but members of an alliance are not allowed to leave at will? And you're allowed to attack our ethics, but we can't point to your own ethical debacles in response?

Is this the alliance of second chances or double standards?

Granted, not everyone can backstab an alliance, avoid certain destruction in an upcoming war, and then be dicks to their former home afterwards, but nobody's perfect.

I was not aware that willingly agreeing to pay reparations to someone while helping them avoid a war they didn't need at the time constituted behaving in such a matter.

[Release from Surrender Terms - MCXA]

Have I mentioned I love you lately, Penchuk? The above is awesome. I can't really think of anything to add, save that I have a little personal bias for MCXA. Ignore Grinder.

If penchuk is any indication, being ignored doesn't make one go away. No one that makes snide comments about anyone has any right to be upset or annoyed when they defend themselves. He understands this, why don't you?

I have no beef with MCXA, but it is inappropriate that whenever someone with any connection to TSO makes an announcement that has nothing to do with TSO for anyone else to come in and take pot-shots at us. We're not exactly seeking trouble out, posting in every thread about any other alliances we can just to insult and bait people into conflict. We find it immature, petty, and rather nauseating that others feel the need to treat us in such a manner.

[Release from Surrender Terms - MCXA]

King Penchuk, hi.

Your extraordinary sympathy for MCXA is a beautiful thing to behold. I thank you for your kind and well thought out criticisms of past leaders. your thoughts were very enlightening. While reading your words I had several "aha" moments - epiphanies, if you will.

Your evaluation of Gopher is no doubt on target. MCXA is in good hands and will accomplish great things. The pilfering Philistines that pillaged the once great MCXA and then scurried away into the night will fall into the flames of hell very soon. I am willing to bet that they will not last past a single month of their DoE with such corrupt scoundrels at the helm.

Onward, MCXA! The good people of Bob now love you. KP is your sympathetic apologist. With such loyal supporters, you are indeed indomitable!

Yeah, I heard those jerks don't even have any women in their alliance. Such backwards-thinking peons they are...I hope someone brings the fight to them someday soon...me, I'm too busy running my mouth to do it myself and can't be bothered.

Oh well...o/ MCXA and prosperity!

[Imperial Decree - New Polar Order]

What has Pacifica done to be treated so well, when they won't even accept their punishment?

As someone who felt their wrath for years, I feel your stance on letting Pacifica off so easily is wrong. They haven't changed at all. They need to pay, and maybe then they will change. I've still never received an apology from even the lowest of the low on the Pacifican heirarchy for over 2 years of EZI.

Anyway, I called this when Frostbite formed. I feel smart now.

And thus why TSO always made sure to specify that we are not part of Karma, and are just Oblivion, there because of a treaty to the only ones that had the guts to stand up for us...

We'd have to be crazy not to take an opportunity to learn from others' mistakes without making the same ones ourselves. Look at your own bitterness and how much it has fueled and dominated every motivation you've had in this game since then. And you still don't see why it is important to NOT show them better treatment? You're praising the idea of unleashing 650 individuals as motivated and active back on this world all still operating in one of the best organized groups this world has ever seen.

If for no other reason to avoid an even harsher backlash to your own revenge, it's only logical to beat them, and leave it at that, and not turn into the thing you've been lusting to kill. If you really think you're so much better than them by virtue of the way they treat their enemies, prove it by showing them how they should do it.

Leading by example is the mark of true strength and character, not waging war with a "NO U" mentality.

[A message from the Alliance of Caffine]

Banning some peacemode loudmouthed "warrior" from govt who got this on himself... funny that now hes the one taking *expletive deleted* to the face and people are whining

o/ MA

O/ KAIT

That could be said of anyone ever banned from government or an alliance via surrender terms from war. It all depends on how their enemy viewed that individual.

Just because you didn't like what he had to say or the way he said it, how is banning him from government any different than any other kind of surrender term individual-ban?

I don't recall Karma's message being "we're against ludicrous terms except if someone's a real jerk."

[A message from the Alliance of Caffine]

Nah, not really.

By all means, go and join another alliance and move your way up the ladder, Caffine. I don't care what you do now.

Then what difference does it make if he joins the gov of Echelon or any other alliance?

If he does not matter why is he the only one singled out in the terms Echelon has?

Wasn't ridiculous amounts of rep, banning people from government, and silly surrender terms and forcing a rewrite of history (admit you started this war!!!) the kinds of things that caused Karma to exist in the first place?

I'm getting mixed signals from Karma here...

[Memoirs: MCXA, Vox Populi, and the true meaning of loyalty.]

Fair enough.

These things are all true. However, I would suggest that based on my conversations with MCXA leadership, they certainly felt that your actions while in MCXA were not what one would describe as beneficial.

You would probably have been much, much better off leaving when you decided that you did not approve of the direction that MCXA was taking. There's no dishonour in losing a political battle and deciding to leave.

Wow...have you and I ever agreed before? This is just getting stupid in here...Fran, you spied out of frustration that alliance politics weren't going your way. You encouraged members to leave while planning on running for office. You've also spent any and all time since the split heckling TSO, and then also MCXA since they gave you the boot. You can NOT sit here and claim to have never intended to hurt MCXA. Only a total buffoon could have trouble seeing how much those actions translate to "I want to hurt MCXA."

But go ahead and keep playing the victim. You'll figure it out someday. I hope it's sooner than later, because this kind of lesson is easiest learned at a young age. Look up Benadict Arnold some time. His case is pretty similar to yours.

[Memoirs: MCXA, Vox Populi, and the true meaning of loyalty.]

tbh, normally when I see walls of text from multiple people defending something I normally just assume that the allegations are true, because in most cases, there is a lot of truth to them if they are so provocative that they inspire several walls of text.

That is as ignorant as someone saying they assume the allegations are false since they are so provocative that they inspire several walls of text.

Try reading all sides of the story instead of just the first one you come across, you'll learn something, I promise. Otherwise you're denying yourself some valuable insight.

[Memoirs: MCXA, Vox Populi, and the true meaning of loyalty.]

No, I think TSO's betrayal was worse, because it was far more detrimental to MCXA. If you're referring to Fresh keeping MCXA aligned with NPO when some others wanted to move away, that depends on what the majority of the members wanted to do, no? If a democratically elected leader goes against the will of his people, then yes, that is wrong. But did the majority (or at least the active majority) really want to cancel on NPO, or was it just Fran's group? (also, is Fresh democratically elected? Now that I think about it, I think the Chancellors are appointed and the High Councilors are elected.)

-Bama

There's one problem with this assessment. The DoE was never meant to happen as it did. The original plan, as I understand it was to have each government member vacate their offices in a staggered manner to allow an over-all smooth transition of new people into office with the old people still present to help them learn the ropes and processes, and as that happened, they would all then splinter off, either all at once or individually, into TSO.

Then we were going to seek to have some sort of treaty with several of those we had while in MCXA, including MCXA itself. Maybe one protectorate and the rest economic agreements to benefit both parties involved, I dunno.

However circumstances got out of our hands and things leaked and a couple people (one in particular who, in this thread, claims to have nothing but the welfare of MCXA at heart) started screaming bloody murder and for everyone in MCXA to run off to other alliances before it's too late. How that was supposed to benefit MCXA to have even more than the 30 TSO members split off, I will never understand, but maybe some day Fran can make a thread explaining that jacked up logic...interestingly she stuck around and started running for office while MCXA was in a heavily weakened state and seems to have had no trouble amassing quite the collection of job titles in a short amount of time.

Then our DoE was posted and...yeah...I try to forget that mistake. But it pretty much burned any remaining bridges for new treaties to old friends we hoped to have.