Alan Shore

I didn't do this one. As for why, find my first post here if you want to know.

Very much considering it, if Legion would have me. I know these words would have caused massive mental trauma to any who read them but a year and a half ago but Legion is my favorite alliance in CN right now. As for the expected drama thread, it has been called off on account of Blackbirds. Might as well have fun here, there won't be any more.

Was I now? That would falsely imply I had anything to do with a decision making process I was systematically excluded from. As for reputation, of that I have no doubt. Considering you never dealt with me, that is an awfully bold statement. However, I do admit I may have to defer to your judgment on driving alliances into ditches, you certainly have more experience than I in that regard. I see at the end you just completely lost it. Terrorist? Death wishes? You should go back on your meds, clearly you aren't presentable without them.

Change at last. After everything that has happened, everything that was done to me, Cortath is still someone I have faith and trust in. He is someone I respect. I hope that he can make all the changes Pacifica needs that I failed to. Best of luck and greatest speed, Cortath, in pulling the Order out of the ditch the previous owner left it in. If there is anyone left in the NPO who can, it is you.

Look, I don't intend to continue this thread any further, but two points. First, I do not accept Griswalds was a spy. He wasn't happy with the way Polar was going and worked with Moo to change it. He was not an active leak of information or answering to NPO bosses on how to handle Polar. That was simply never the case. Or, if I am wrong, it was over my head. As for Ursarkar, my understanding is he has enhanced access, by Polar's choice, to their forums due to his artistic contributions. He has used that access to report back certain posts of the Polar leadership bragging about the NPO being destroyed, how it was deserved harsh terms, and so forth. To me, that is not a spy, that is just a leak. A spy would imply he either entered your alliance to gain information or changed alliance loyalty without telling you. You continuing to post anti-NPO crap in front of an NPO member is on you, not on the NPO for spying on you. Also: [23:15] <Zhadum> Eh, doesn't seem to be much hate. Some annoyance you didn't fight with us but I'd rate it pretty minimal [23:15] <Venizelos> haha [23:15] <Venizelos> NPO expected GATO to help them? [23:15] <Venizelos> that is ridiculous [23:15] <Zhadum> More hopeful than expectant

Of course not? How do you make people work if they know they are not moving up? Not quite though not as far off the mark as I initially thought. Depending on the person and the department, a lot of the middle people just end up in orbital cliques, their relative power determined by the power of the IO they orbit. If an FA IO is in power, the FA middle people have a lot of strength, should they get moved to the margins, they can expect to have no say whatsoever. The influence of the mid level is almost entirely at the whims of politics at the top levels.

I never said it was a meritocracy, it isn't any more than High School politics are. However, the idea that there was an active effort by the IOs to stop middle people from doing work just so they wouldn't be outshone is silly beyond words.

No, I consider him more of a traitor because once a group kicks you out you have no obligation to keep their secrets. No, the face means what you said was wrong on pretty much every level and I have neither the time nor the inclination to go point by point and refute everything wrong with it. The face was an expression of disbelief someone could post what you just posted, and, what's more believe what you just posted.

Not true, a number of people posted the usual "hails" and garbage when Ivan turned up, however, the only person actually sincere in them was Mussolandia. For everyone else, the complaining started on day one and the attempts to retake the NPO within a couple more days. Ivan likes to claim it was only when he threatened the IO status quo that we turned on him but the fact is he was pretty much an unwelcome interloper the moment he walked in the door. We just kept it quiet long enough to do something about it. Its like he couldn't even read what he was replying to.

Except you are wrong. A traitor is one who acts or attempts to act to betray an entity to which they owe allegiance. Fact is, I really so far have barely acted, and none of what I did I did when I actually owed the NPO any loyalty or confidentiality. Fact of the matter is, once they kick you out you are no longer actually capable of betraying them.

Not really, if I were a crony I wouldn't be washed up, traitor.

Of course I'm aware, that was my designated role in the NPO. A verbal hitman called in to crush a post, where possible through logic or logs to the contrary, when not through any means necessary. One of the reasons I am hated so much is because I did my job often and well. None the less, the point I am making is there seem to be two independent arguments. One that I am selling NPO lies, the other I am the new Doitzel come to destroy them where Karma failed to do so. I guess what I am really asking is could you, the people, settle on a label for me quickly so I can start wearing it properly?

Wait, am I here to paint the NPO as evil, villainous maniacs or tow their party line as their staunch defender? I'm confused.

I never said anything about NSO. You also missed Corrinan and Heft and some other guy.

Dear God, 11 pages and I haven't even posted yet. Rather amusing watching the old haters, really, calling them anything else would give them too much credit. In particularly Ivan, the once and would be future king, prowling around the thread taking cheap shots where he get them; backed by his minuscule flock of washed up cronies. Hard to decide if it is pitiable of laughable. Of course, no small amount of Polar hate in here too. Not one post here and I've already ripped the title of most hated player in CN from Bilrow. Yes, I will be creating my own thread, most of you, I expect will be disappointed. I'm aware a lot of you are expecting me to go full on ripping into the NPO, tell you how terrible and corrupt and evil they were. I'm not, that's not why I'm here, it isn't why I will be posting. Believe me or not, I will be posting exactly how I saw things and how the NPO saw things, in general terms. I cannot, nor do I presume to speak for the Imperial Staff as individuals, however, I can point to the distinct trends in what they said behind closed doors. Further, I also am not going to do the expected 180, suddenly deciding everyone who ever worked against the Order was right and the NPO was horrible and wrong. We all know doing so would be BS. Sometimes, fact was, NPO was right. Sometimes they got the short straw. Sometimes they deserved the short straw. Just an alliance like any other, trying to do what is best for themselves. Sometimes I may not be right, my knowledge is fallible like anyone else's, sometimes I will tell you something that clashes with your own experience. For example, TOP and IRON members mentioning my notes about Polar causing relations breakdown. Maybe it is true, maybe it isn't, but that is what is and has been flying around in the top levels of the NPO. So, that said, don't let this get in the way of the sniping/defending/repeating how interesting it is/saying you already knew it. Wouldn't want to derail the thread.

Then what is the "objective" reason to deny us? Your current power in the world is based on the NPO having lost the war and no longer being a major power and being someone you can point to as a universal enemy. Your alliance may not have started that way but that is where you are now. I will note you made my point for me, if the NPO weren't around there would be a good deal more in the way of power struggles, which Karma wants to avoid for as long as possible. Nor Rok I presume. No, I suppose in cases like this it is better to not look too closely at what your allies have done in the past, or at least not admit knowledge of it. No... I was merely pointing out that the next great power struggle could destroy you as the last one destroyed us. I make no comment on disbandment. How does the length of cooperation change anything? What is at risk? What could be lost from the treaty? How is it a reward for us to be able to sign it? None of that explanation makes any sense. I mean, yes, if there were something that could go wrong and cause damage were we irresponsible or ebil, then I could see needing to see some responsibility before allowing us to sign. However, for something completely harmless such as those, and for something that is of some importance to the future of all the other alliances on Red, being obstructionist in this nature cannot be explained away by just saying "we need to see a little more first". Another one from Captain Strawman. I never said you wouldn't have a reason for existence, I said it would prove a political liability by increasing the degree of power struggle in the world when you lose the capacity to keep the world united against a common enemy, that presently being us.

One important point completely overlooked in the OP is that rarely (read: almost never) does anyone jump straight from act of random individual to punishment on an alliance scale. Generally the cause for punishment on an alliance scale is a refusal to do anything about it, or at least, a sufficient amount about it. Say, for example, a senator from alliance Cat gets bored and sanctions a member of alliance Dog. Dog goes to Cat and demands something be done about it. Usually, if the response from Cat is considered reasonable, Dog will not go after the whole of alliance Cat. More often, what happens is Cat tells Dog that if they don't like it they can do something about, or that they will remove the guy from senate but not expel him, or that they will do nothing to make up for the damages done by the individual acting as their representative who they gave the power to do harm in the first place, etc. What this poll sorely neglects is that very often it is the response of the alliance being "punished" that dictates whether the outcome is against an individual or an alliance as a whole. The problem then, is what if the government refuses to punish the nation that committed the act? Do you then attack the individual who committed the act and the government who refused to do anything about it? So now we have gone from an individual who engaged in the act and a government who supported it after the fact, or at least wasn't willing to do enough about it to satisfy the aggrieved party. If they are all attacked, what do you expect the members of that alliance, who, almost certainly pledged to defend their alliance mates and to follow the orders of their military command, who, in all probability were the people who were just hit as conspiring government members, to do? Holding an individual responsible for an act only works if the government of that alliance allows it to work. Otherwise, inevitably either war follows or nobody is punished.

You hope. Someone won't survive the next conflict, don't pretend to be so self-assured as to think there is no way it could be you. Yes, the alliances on our front, otherwise known as Karma. Funny, they seem to have a lot of contact with the alliances on the NPO front, namely Rok, for you to know nothing about them. I can only assume that means you are not paying attention, much like the rest of this post. Yes, and if we look relatively normal, we are no longer the great evil, which is an unfortunate political situation for you. You are still out to get us and protect yourself. You do need us to be the big evil. Us being the big evil gives your position stability as it keeps people looking at us and not you. The fact of the matter is under the direction of other alliances within Karma, UED has attempted to create strife within Red, this is a simple fact. Though, you do have the cart before the horse, there has been a good deal more demonstrating your intent towards Red than just the treaty, that is merely the latest example of it. Of course, all of this was explained in the post you ducked. I have to say that any news that looks like the NPO is regaining some normality or displaying anything resembling friendliness, cooperation, support is bad news for Karma. As long as everyone is still convinced, that is they do not need to be convinced contrary to your post, that NPO is evil incarnate and everything done to the NPO is because we deserve it, they won't see you for the hypocrites you are. You need us to be bad so you can justify everything you are doing in the public eye as "justice" or similar nonsense, that if true, would have you crashing down the gates of Sparta, TOP, VE, etc. If ever your abuses are unveiled as simple abuse, what you claim to stand against, you might have to answer for it. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to you to continue playing the hero and every hero needs a villain, us. I won't have to say anything. You will allow us to sign a treaty that does nothing more than help stabilize and codify a mechanism for structuring the Red team in a non purely chaotic fashion as soon as it is too great a political liability to continue to deny us to do so. Again I note not once have you established an actual harm that would come of us signing it, or an actual good that comes from denying it to us. Clearly then, any harm or good done in your actions originates from your end, not ours.

I'm sorry, the too cool for school defense lost effectiveness with me somewhere around the sixth grade. Would you like to play again? If there is no Karma, who told us we couldn't sign the treaty? Owait... Between a UED directed effort and the NPO, as I said. Because we look better if we are demonstrably playing well with others, in particular others on Red given our history with the color. It is for the sake of appearances. I never said anything about how interesting it would be, I merely noted that is very much against your political interests for us not to be. Again, too cool for school does not work on me. You are of course welcome to try again instead of this half hearted attempt at ducking.

No, you rejected it because you require the NPO to remain the universal bad guy so people don't look at Karma and their behavior. If there exists the perception that the NPO is playing nice with other alliances, that the NPO liberalized Red and is working with the fellow inhabitants of our sphere, that maybe we are fully capable of change, then you no longer have us as the "hated other" to point to. Then, if the NPO weren't the hated other, they might recognize that for example, a full half of the hated viceroys in history who are still around are on the Karma side. They might recognize that a full half of Karma either was directly supporting the NPO domination of the world through most of our existence or were allied to people who were. They might recognize the alliance of Karma already brutally penalized a barely involved alliance in the Hegemony with massive reps and demands that a certain member leave their government simply because they did not like them. If people stop hating the NPO for a moment, just one moment, they might recognize the Karma and the people therein have a track record of doing everything they now pretend to be against. Besides that aspect of it, the need to keep attention focused on us to avoid losing your new found and very much tentative grasp on power, the other reason is Karma is busy trying to cause a Red civil war of sorts and so Red Unity would hose them. So far we have seen red alliances pushed out of talks by Karma, they being UED and SWF. UED, under Karma direction was attempting to merge into a mega alliance specifically to fight NPO on red, or even their initial attempt to make Red Dawn a military bloc just so the NPO couldn't sign it. UED, for all intents a Ragnarok puppet state, has been promoting red instability ever since the original Moldavi Doctrine was removed. I hardly think this a coincidence. Ergo, keeping NPO from being part of the color treaty, on paper, plays into their general behavior of turning Red hostile to us. Having spoken to half the people you named as knowing the true reason we didn't join, one didn't know anything about it at all, the other said the reason was because "you didn't want us signing anything right away". How is that an objective reason? How is that any reason at all? Well, simply, because objectively this plays into your political game of the moment of making the Red team a battlefield , the other nations on red that get caught in the middle of this be damned, and it makes people less likely to look at you. So, the too long, didn't read version, the reason we can't sign is more than just maliciousness, it is a calculated effort to continue the war they signed peace in and make sure people are paying attention to anything but themselves.

First, that is highly debatable as when you hit a certain member of the alliance, the whole alliance tends to hit back. Second, that is open to tremendous abuse as a certain member could then engage in gross acts of misconduct against the enemies of an alliance, for the expressed benefit of the alliance, then throw themselves on a sword (OOC: or reroll) to avoid all responsibility. Third, that is largely irrelevant because the innocent victims are no less innocent. That is your opinion, and while it is a very simple concept, it also does not capture the reality of things. The reality is alliances are almost always collective defense pledges, by joining you become the soldiers the leaders send to war should war arise. Alliances are an exercise of collective reward when things go well and collective responsibility when things go poorly, by signing up you assume all the risks that go with it in case your faith was misplaced. At best you make a case for individual surrender terms, but even then I'd say it is a weak argument.

Is it honestly your position that every man, woman, and child in a nation that commits an act of war against another is responsible for that act of war? If not, then you agree that should the aggrieved nation retaliate against their aggressors they are willfully attacking individuals who had nothing to do with the original grievance? If it is then wrong, in all circumstances, to war in such a way that innocents are harmed, you agree that all war in this land is wrong. Simply put, an alliance is a collective agreement. I give my government my strengths; my armies, my ideas, my works, my defense, my loyalty. In exchange, they take my strengths and the strengths of everyone in my alliance with the trust that they will use them to advance my position or my beliefs in the world. If at any time I do not believe the government is doing this, I am free to leave the alliance. As long as I continue to lend my strength to an alliance, I am complicit in what they do because I am part of what is supporting their capacity to do it and they are doing it in my name. I may not always be aware what they are doing, but having given them my trust and my consent to act as my leader in joining the alliance, what they do reflects on, and ultimately, what they do I can be held responsible for.

Should have thought of that before it became the latest thing you hid behind to escape responsibility for your failings. OOC: You did. She turned you down, you retaliated by spreading around logs and doing other things, just as you said you would. Hardly my fault that was the best you could do.

How nice, a thread in my honor. Haven't had one of these since before GWIII. Always nice to be so hated, to have your very existence cause spasms of uncontrollable frothing in your enemies, were I to be generous enough with my words to raise what Vox is to the status of an actual enemy. An unending stream of hatred and personal attacks, all funneled into me. Very little makes one feel more important than being the object of obsession for so many. Still, it is not enough. I want more. More attention. More hatred. More outrage. As such, allow me to set a few things straight. First, I wrote most of the piece MoB has been credited with. Second, I ordered it posted. Therefore, by transitive property, I insist all the hilariously phony outrage levied against her instead be channeled to me. Yes, yes, I know, you are all absolutely shocked, SHOCKED, that a piece was created explaining Sileath was removed from our Diplomatic department over sexist remarks and subsequently left the Order and that it was noted he had had trouble in other departments. Still though, that shock would be better enjoyed over here so I ask you all to pay it forward. Still more, I know Vox likes to harp on some logs between Doitzel and I. OOC: I note they keep forgetting when discussing the events surrounding that that Doitzel was attempting to blackmail my RL girlfriend into letting him into a channel by threatening me, but I suppose that is to be expected. IC: They always love to clamor to the moral high ground, then try to change the topic when they are demonstrated have engaged in the same conduct for which they attacked others. Still, their hypocrisy is hardly news. Why so many dove off the Vox bandwagon as quickly as they climbed on in the beginning, they became worse than everything they claimed to stand against. What is amusing is their entire article amounts to one tech scammer, one guy who got banned from a semi-public channel for three minutes, and an article about said individual leaving the alliance after sexist remarks. What happened to the good old "the end is nigh" stuff you had going before? "Oh lawd, the NPO bank is collapsing. Oh lawd, the tech trade is breaking down". You guys used to have some really good tinfoil grade tabloid reporting. Now what are you reduced to? A three week old temper tantrum and the 10,000th aid scammer in CN? I hope next week's is better; if your tabloid falls through I may have to devote manpower to create one in Media.

Admin legitimized it, allowing people to use it, however, he made the defeat alert more powerful to counterbalance it.