Shan Revan

Huh. That's really quite impressively straight forward. Doesn't even need to be in 3D to be understood.

Haven't seen Crabby in a while sadly. BnT was on the IRON forums a little recently though.

Hmm well cool this thing I made 10 years ago is still going. What's up with the holes in the flag though? edit: I restored my nation temporarily for this post. nostalgic.

Yeah, I can remember being perhaps unnecessarily condescending a few times with new fok, my bad. And yes this is getting a bit off topic. Should probably set up some kind of history QA thread or something but :effort:

I remember it was more because you guys were kinda new and causing a lot of problems with rogues and stuff and generally not sticking to conventions, or weren't really interested in some multilateral agreement. We basically didn't trust you to behave responsibly with it at the time. So yeah we were kind of threatened about it. Eventually we did start a rotation plan (although I think that was just TOP and ourselves) once things settled down and we were all allies anyway. Orange definitely had some dark days though.

The map looks barely any different than when I left. Except maybe emptier.

Back then all of the 6(?) or so spheres had a major alliance and they each had treaties recognising each other as the sole legitimate alliance of there sphere and owners of it. They were all picky about it but basically we were the first alliance to come along after all the spheres had been taken, suddenly appearing from no where, bigger than half of them already. (about 60 members I think it was?). We were also really nuke heavy and raced NPO to the first alliance to 100 nukes, we lost but barely. Also sanctions didn't exist back then. There were three ranks of elected colour officials "Consul", "Praetor", and "Quaestor" or something like that. Senate ranks. With the highest ranking getting something like a +8 to happiness and the lowest like +4. They also see all the information that you see on your own screen but not on other nation's... basically it gave the alliance holding it unlimited free spy reports from the guys holding it. It wasn't actually any use back then though..

Oh yeah, ODN ended up just being chill and sharing though so no smashy smashy for them. edit: although I wonder if that might partly have been because they were in the process of paying their punishing reps of $500,000. Probably not, Pope Hope always seemed pretty chill.

Nah, that was before we went public, but good memory! We found out about the moldavi doctrine and decided to invade purple or orange since both alliances that owned the colours at the time looked pretty inept/weak. We chose orange in the end because ODN had just gotten smashed by NPO in the citrus war and why make it harder than it already was. Somewhere along the line we decided we should probably let in dirty outsiders, and then give it a proper name and charter and stuff, which did guarantee the alliance wouldn't just fade into non-existence in 6 months when everyone got bored and quit but it did change the alliance a lot. Our official motto was "sealand delenda est" as our forum was in a formal state of war with the principality of sealand Good memory though!

It didn't start out as bad posters. It just happened sometime when I wasn't looking, and then it was too late. I don't think I've seen that sig since 2006. Nostalgia. But yes, you're a bad everything. EDIT: For what it's worth IRON,I do hope you succeed. Whether I agree with the course or not. So Goodluck. Sorta.

Yeah we had a NAP of which this treaty is a rewrite of. We signed it like a week before GW1 and we served notice that we may have to cancel it (but weren't doing so at that time). We were politically active back then but mostly we had only just started the "sign NAPs with everyone" pseudo neutrality "independence" policy. Yessss.... "good". Heed not my posts, for I am nobody of interest. Mostly an historic document.

IRON members are notoriously bad posters. Is it really a surprise?

I got really excited for a second when I saw the title thinking maybe Doitzel had returned to us. Alas.

It was somewhat of a two way street on that one, it wasn't the intended outcome by any means but things change and we perhaps should have accepted that more than we did at the time. I'm pretty sure there's a saying about a road and good intentions that might be appropriate?

Hey, I'm still around... Sorta. Confriming this to the IRON members, IRON has indeed stabbed several good allies in the back (and some not so good ones), either through knee jerk reaction (NPO-Karma), Cowardice (NoV, ONOS, original VE... sorta), or unintentionally/incompetence (Polaris... well sorta not really it's complicated..., TOP - well that was was more intentional but we wanted them beside us not against. ) and probably a handful of others. Possibly ODN depending on how broad you want to get. Most alliances that have done anything of worth in this game have a similar list though. Hell at one point we nearly straight up attacked Sparta whilst a treaty was active because we forgot it existed. Good times. Oh don't be too mean to DK, he's one of the better new councillors in ron. ;) (ron really is a terrible insult though) Well the last time it was nearly cancelled was during GW1 so it kinda is. This is a bad post and you should feel bad.

The biggest problem with your idea etc is not so much the cost as others have suggested (although it is an important and legitimate issue) but rather that alliances already mostly have the ability to handle this themselves and don't have much need for merceneries. It's kind of their primary purpose of existence and it gives your own members experience and things to do and there's probably not a whole lot of incentive to protect a random mercenary group.

I have nothing ill to say of TOP - they are smart and steadfast allies and good friends to keep. Although we find ourselves in an unfortunate parting of ways, I will continue to hold great respect for Paradoxia and shall think of them with fondness. Certain individuals did not lie when they said we shared a special history and relationship and even if our bond be lessened by this, I hope this is not the end of our tale. So with all that in mind, wisdom and prosperity to some of my oldest friends and allies. It's been the best of times.

[quote name='Maelstrom Vortex' timestamp='1341107570' post='3000884'] Do you know what red and green make? It's not an altogether pretty color. [/quote] Yellow. It makes yellow (in an additive colour space, in subtractive it would just make lime green). Sir Paul, always a master of amusement. Keep the reports coming.

Man that's a hard riddle. You got me.

[quote name='Unknown Smurf' timestamp='1340803835' post='2998319'] Hahaha classy? Whoever thinks that is retarded. IRON sees an opportunity to roll an ex-foe due to the VE/NPO war and is taking it/getting ready for the backlash. There is absolutely nothing classy about this. Iron got pissed at lsf for apologizing and offering to pay reps for a joke that was not even half as bad as what MK members do on a daily basis. IRON then rolled the entire alliance for that joke made by one member because they didn't pay the reps within 24 hours ...probably because they were already at war with an alliance 10 times their size. Pfft. Classy... smh. The only thing IRON did right was acknowledge they $%&@ed up all of Nordreichs staggers. [/quote] Damn. You got us. Yes, that's exactly what right. All of it. Kudos, well played and keep fighting the good fight.

[quote name='karkani' timestamp='1340164190' post='2989643'] [b][size="7"]DO NOT JOIN IRON MEMBERS.. THEY ARE JUST NUTS.. TRUST ME... I'VE BEEN A MEMBER OF IT... I DIDN'T GET ANY HELP FROM THEM... THEY ONLY CONSIDER STRONG NATIONS.. IF YOU ARE A NEW COMMER, AND WANT TO DEVELOP YOUR NATION DO NOT JOIN IRON... JOIN IN ANY OTHER ALLIANCES[/size][/b] [/quote] Hi there everyone, my name is Shan Revan and I am one of the original founders of the IRON alliance and am currently serving on its government again. I just wanted to say that everything this individual said is true. We are absolutely nuts, believing in crazy concepts such as providing guides, personalised and informative analysis of posted problems and reasoning based on years of experience, and empirical evidence. I have watched this alliance slowly go mad with its forbidden knowledge and arcane understanding of the game. As this fine gentlemen says, you can trust what he says to be true. Even more concerning was the way this gentlemen was not assisted whatsoever! Despite numerous threads he made in which our previous mentioned madness and arcane knowledge and reasoning was readily shared he become increasingly distraught. I can only conclude that someone must have been helpfully shielding him from our insanity by hiding everyone's helpful posts from the gentlemen as he continued to plead for help and rightfully taking none, or few of the suggested actions that may have resolved his issues to heart. Whoever the brave soul that shielded him against our facts and logic were is a true hero and should be rewarded if he ever comes forward. This obsession with useful information will be our undoing and obviously we need to cure this madness of facts to provide help to our newer members. Finally he points out our greatest pitfall of all, our proven ability to grow nations. It's absolutely true. We don't want small nations and have sadly stooped to using the derangement inducing knowledge to accelerate small nations growth into large nations. Some might say this is a good thing but at what cost? Is it really worth our mind? The very soul of this alliance? I agree with this most wise of persons. Our madness must end. I am immensely sorry Karkanister, my alliance is a failure and its horrible and impersonal machinery has chewed you up and spat you out in its lunacy of trying to provide understanding and friendly community and so many more awful experiences. I have failed you and every one of my members who have passed through our corrupted halls and I can only beg forgiveness from all of you. I therefore must agree that under no circumstances should you join this alliance unless you are awfully wrong in the and and you want to have to be part of the deranged, but friendly community who tries to help you quickly grow your nation through its vast stores of forbidden knowledge which you too might come to understand, and thus be corrupted with. Worse still joining this alliance might see people post in your threads, answering questions, even if they are somewhat silly with useful, practical and correct information that is likely personalised to your particular situation just as this poor man was. So please, stay away. It's not safe here!

[quote name='Aggressivenutmeg' timestamp='1340198272' post='2989982'] If he were actually trying to get GLOF to declare then he would have used a proxy and he would not have been sitting on #blackguards, #lsf and a million other channels. [/quote] Actually just 3 channels, one of which was #iron-private. Which incidentally isn't one of ours (we're far more creative than that and better at channel management). The next was #glof, and finally #blackguards, which admittedly is a point to you but given the general obscurity of blackguards I'm not exactly calling that obvious. And the tired/drunk defence just as equally makes it viable incompetence. I'll be honest though, even if it is a drunken joke, we don't care and it doesn't change a thing from our perspective. You still go to jail if you drive over someone drunk as opposed to aiming for them maliciously. (no I am not equating his actions to manslaughter or murder).

@Whiners Oh please. Boohoo. They reps are a pittance and barely even a token showing. If we really intended on extorting them, and we were certainly in a position to do so, why would we bother with 100 tech? Asking for the offender's head is fairly standard practice, it shows LSF does not condone the behaviour and it's not as if we care what he does after we're done with him. For all we care he can return to LSF after we're happy - we've hardly sentenced him to PZI or anything and it's not as if LSF made any counter-offers or attempted to negotiate alternatives for his removal if they had such a big problem with it. In fact we were told that our request as a whole was quite reasonable. People seem to think we're naive enough that we expect LSF to be appreciative, of our magnanimity (Well I suppose that would be nice), but the fact that they seem so willing to excuse the offenders behaviour is the most insulting part of all. In fact several members preceded to mimic it after expressing our distaste of it in presumably a display of frustration (and in a far more joking, albeit more crass manner than the original). This was understandable and was also a much smaller offence than the original and resulted in minimal change of the terms. If our feelings were the main focus of our "persecution" then we'd have been handed a lot of far more compelling reasons to demand recompense. Let it be clear, IRON does not take kindly to the malicious impersonation of our members, leader or not. Jokes, albeit sometimes distasteful, typically are not our concern. However we will not tolerate when people impersonate our leaders to other officials, falsely misrepresenting our wishes. particularly when doing so during a state of global heightened alert and attempting to incite wars, regardless of their being drunk, "making a joke" (which I still don't buy because he was still intelligent enough to attempt to hide his IP, albeit unsuccessfully), incompetent, unsuccessful, or any other excuse is just the icing on the cake and is utterly inexcusable and demands a reaction on our part. We have been very understanding, despite the serious circumstances we find the world in and offered LSF what we believe to be a slap on the hand. We couldn't care less about MK's war, or NoR's war or Int, or LSF or any of this !@#$%^&* so long as we're not part of it. We would happily destroy LSF if that seemed the best course of action, but we recognise that it would give undue hardship to our allies and would be unfair on LSF's allies. Yet we can not ignore transgressions against our friends or ourselves and thus must take at least [i]some[/i] action and whether you agree or not, it has been a very restrained approach on our part, despite the behaviour of LSF, and we feel it was a very measured response even by modern standards. [quote name='Mogar' timestamp='1340161247' post='2989609'] looks like we might see the first 4 front war in our history. perhaps CnG is aware DR is currently not in a position to act upon those CBs, the timing of this little party matches up a bit too well. [/quote] It would indeed be inconvenient for some, and that would be unfortunate, but don't expect DR to flinch at the challenge if it came to pass. Quack Quack. [quote name='Rudolph' timestamp='1340162856' post='2989628'] I find this to be amusing since a simple /whois and knowing people's IP (Especially if they're the leader of an alliance) would have shown the truth from the getgo. [/quote] Guess how it was first noticed. Yep, the whois at the start of the conversation. Guess how he was first busted - despite attempts to hide his identity through mibbit his unique IRC IP hash was quickly matched and he has since widely confessed guilt. Just because you're caught doesn't undo the crime. [quote name='Gingervites' timestamp='1340170443' post='2989821'] Of course not, LSF is more of a bridge than a target. Int is also not the target more like bait(enabled by LSF's stupidity)for Valhalla to get to other alliances. Now LSF is still your ally and to say "$%&@ them" isn't the best way to address your ally. Everyone in Bob that is at least semi active knows that LSF f#&@ed up and has done/is doing some very stupid things and it is 100% their fault and not yours. Yes IRON got a little butt hurt about this but there is no way that this will go far enough to drag you in so take a chill pill and calm yo titts. [/quote] Indeed. IRON is no stranger to pre-empts or aggressive declarations. If we really thought it was in our best interests to kick things off we would have just pre-empted like we have done so numerous times in the past, hell even against a far more impressive C&G than the present. We have no issues with INT or the rest of them. [i]We even discussed the matter with The International before in order to help prevent any potential conflict from expanding[/i] See also: [quote name='Feanor Noldorin' timestamp='1340160416' post='2989598'] Members of DR have been given two clear CBs on your idiotic friends which would drag you into a conflict but instead of perusing them they've led it slide. Clearly they are looking at going after your bloc. [/quote] This ^^^. [quote name='USMC123' timestamp='1340163380' post='2989632'] So expulsion of a member plus reps is a good set of terms for a joke [/quote] A good joke is meant to be funny. A good joke isn't done in private where those who would find it funny can not see it. A good joke isn't done maliciously trying to hide your identity. A good joke doesn't attempt to start international nuclear war. [b]IF[/b] this was a joke at all, it was a bad joke and bad jokes are no laughing matter. [quote name='Comrade Craig' timestamp='1340157549' post='2989548'] I'm personally offended by the LSF's behavior in this affair, because it feels like a slap in the face after everything they've put INT through. We busted our ass to broker something for them, and they respond with this garbage. $%&@ them. But alas, this is also about IRON's royal family and its belief that it should be immune from ridicule. Some dumb kids made fun of IRON gov on IRC by doing a terrible and unserious parody, and we find ourselves here. IRON gov isn't this vain, nor this petty. No one really believes that this IRC stunt was anything except playful foolishness. This move from IRON can be interpreted only as an intentional provocation and escalation. If this thread had contained a heartfelt and genuine apology (accompanied by whatever other concessions were demanded), Valhalla woulds just show up in a few days with a new manufactured CB. If anyone wants a piece of me, just click the damn link in my signature already. Why torture the sad little anarchists? We all know they're not the target. -Craig [/quote] I'm glad we agree on LSF being pointless !@#$heads who aren't worth your trouble. I recommend re-examining your allies in the future and your defence commitments. To be honest I get the impression they should probably do the same. Secondly I am glad you recognised our royal status and feel this justifies changing our government to a formal monarchy and aristocracy. You have inspired me greatly and clearly the bourgeoisie had a pretty sweet deal so I might as well grab a slice of that sweet, sweet, oppressive pie for myself. Unfortunately you seem to have gotten a bit distracted after that, no one wants a piece of you. Why would we want that? It makes no sense. No one over here is buying it was a joke either.

What's fun for them in their subsidising the costs of your misconduct? If you really don't want to be responsible for your actions for months, and you don't want to quit, then there is an option open to you. Re-roll. Sure it still has a cost associated with it (your present nation and its resources) but time wise it's about a month at most!

1. ZI= Zero Infrastructa = zi. 2. Is it a solution? Perhaps. Is it going to happen? Hell no, it's not going to happen, for numerous reasons but mostly because then you'd collectively be at a disadvantage for the next "real" war that came up. Politics is a zero-sum game, if you want to play politics, you don't needlessly hand away your percentage of strength with frivolus "just for fun" wars. If people really want a war that badly without good or any reason then they might as well accomplish something with it at the same time. Of course if you don't want to play politics then you're free to do so but then again alliances who don't play politics aren't likely to be in this war.