Proko

[quote name='Vladimir Stukov II' timestamp='1322790338' post='2858755'] Maybe you should learn to comprehend what you read before opening your mouth and looking like a fool. [/quote] lol "why don't [i]you[/i] learn to read" every time you grunt you somehow sound even more like a pig. I want to hear IRON's lilting lullabies, not your indulgent bleating.

why did someone from IRON post this if the surrenders are only accepted at TOP's discretion [reps must be paid before surrender, reps are approved by TOP]. your strings only seem longer, my marionettes. If I wanted to surrender only to you, IRON, would you let me?

It is a real shame to see UINE go. No matter how you judge their internal operations, they stood with us through thick and thin, and we will remain indebted to their memory. So long, UINE.

[quote name='Carfre Inpor' timestamp='1280957589' post='2401002'] Someone likes some C&H Good luck guys! [/quote] I'm really pleased someone caught the reference.

[quote name='Zorn1' timestamp='1280879025' post='2400109'] Neither did we [/quote] Go sign up on our boards. Time for you to leave the nest and meet some non-Polars Also, thanks Bob!

[quote name='Ryuzaki' timestamp='1280831136' post='2399337'] I want to say good luck, I really do, but direct democracy? Really? [/quote] There are two of us. If we somehow acquire fifty more members, we'll consider revising the Charter.

[quote name='cookavich' timestamp='1280813079' post='2399222'] Good luck Z and Mori. I mean that. [/quote] Don't be a stranger!

[quote name='Uralica' timestamp='1280812044' post='2399196'] Some might be. Others probably aren't. This one is probably in the "might be" category. [/quote] It isn't.

[quote name='Corinan' timestamp='1280811855' post='2399194'] I think they're doing it just to spite me. Might just be my ego though. Shouldn't your flag have some combination of black, red, and green in it? Blue doesn't really strike me as African. [/quote] It's Klein Blue. This is a Toto-themed alliance. Any relation to the (OOC) Continent (/OOC) is coincidental. The shape on the flag was inspired by Toto's album artwork.

[quote name='Mussolandia' timestamp='1280811163' post='2399164'] What a wonderful song. What a horrible alliance. [/quote] I insisted on Klein Blue for the flag color

[quote][center][img]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a110/Numenorean5/AfricaFlagWave.png[/img] [b][size=5]The Charter of Africa[/size][/b][/center] [b]Preamble[/b] Africa is founded on the principles of blessing the rains. The sovereign nations of Africa acknowledge that it would require more than one-hundred (100) men to cease the alliance from interfering in conflicts in which Africa feels its interests may lie. [b]Article I: Totos, the Rights of Totos, and the Council of Totos[/b] Each member-nation of Africa is known as a ‘Toto,’ and shall be referred to as a ‘Toto’ throughout the rest of this document. Every Toto is given one vote in all alliance decisions, including charter amendments and approval of new Totos. The only governing body of the alliance is the membership, henceforth known as the Council of Totos, or simply the Council. Decisions will be executed following a vote that passes with a simple majority (>50%), unless otherwise specified in Africa’s charter. Administrative privileges will be retained for the time being by the Africa founders, until a vote by the Council of Totos re-establishes administrative privileges. [b]Article II: Membership Applications[/b] Africa does not have an open recruiting policy. In order to join Africa, an applicant must inform the Council of their intent to join, and then endure a screening process lasting as long as the Council deems necessary. During this probationary period, the prospective Toto will better learn Africa’s culture, and the Council will better learn the applicant. Under special circumstances, and following a vote requiring a simple majority, the Council may permit the applicant to join the Africa alliance affiliation until they are either rejected from or accepted to the alliance. After every Toto of the Council is satisfied with the probationary period, an official vote will be taken by the Council, lasting at least 48 hours or until every Toto has voted. The vote must pass by a 2/3 majority for the applicant to be accepted as a Toto. [b]Article III: Blessing the Rains[/b] Africa is a direct democracy, in which all official members belong to the Council of Totos. There is no defined individual leader, and the forum administrative privileges are to be retained by the founders until otherwise decided by the alliance. All decisions that affect Africa will be subject to a vote by the Council, requiring a simple majority, and will stand for no more than 48 hours, unless otherwise stipulated in this charter. If every member has voted or declared their intention not to vote before the 48 hour period elapses, the vote will be considered complete. Every Toto is afforded one vote in alliance decisions. Members abstaining from the democratic process will be considered to have removed themselves from the voting pool. [b]Article IV: Secret Codes[/b] Any secret plan must have a secret code. The more complex it is, the better. Everyone already knows pig latin. Phrases like, ‘Code Blue’ are cool. [b]Article V: Diplomats[/b] Africa will welcome diplomats to its boards and allow them limited access to public boards and special diplomatic forums. Access for diplomats beyond these forums will be subject to a normal vote by the Council. [/quote] Our forums are located at [url]http://s4.zetaboards.com/Africa/[/url] Our public IRC channel is #Africa [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCca5mPMp9A]The Official Africa Anthem[/url] Signed, [i]Zbaldwin[/i], Toto [i]Moridin[/i], Toto

It is a shame to see the cancellation, but good luck to both parties. We are still here for you, UPN

[quote name='Ardus' date='24 June 2010 - 11:25 PM' timestamp='1277436318' post='2349549'] I did what was necessary. As long as Polaris stood strong so would Pacifica, no matter what position it took with regard to its brother. Together their strength was insurmountable. Opposition fueled the overwhelming strength of the Continuum. Only with a defeated BLEU could Pacifica fall. It wasn't exactly fun. I like most Polars--they're even more aggressively idealistic than Viridia. Nueva Vida is arguably the most kind, patient, and honorable alliance I've ever had the pleasure of working with. But what needed doing needed doing--and I did it. I disagree wholeheartedly that my actions prolonged anybody's reign. [/quote] I wish you knew how much most of us hated Pacifica back then. If the goal was to kill Pacifica, there was no need to hunt us once the OoO was canceled and Sponge was out. But by that point you had played your part, I suppose.

Congratulations to our newest Minister, Zorn, and to our newest Deputy, Zessa

This is the most excellent thing to come out of this game in months.

[quote name='Jrenster' date='11 April 2010 - 03:34 AM' timestamp='1270971234' post='2256247'] No, he's not leadership. Yes, I have seen those posts. There were five or six. Out of an alliance of one hundred and twenty six people. If you recall, I was one of the few that actually congratulated you. There were two or three others that did the same. So if you want to cherry pick, there you go. You can take this for a fact or not; only a few vocal members truly resent you. The rest simply do not care. Unless you bring up your revisionist history. That is when people like me spring up to defend ourselves. [i]I[/i] did not bring up anything about the semantic argument with Fark. I do not recall any other Sith members doing so. I could be wrong. And do not try to spin this Fark relationship into something of a minuscule matter when your Imperator Emeritus just confirmed that one of the reasons you did not attack Fark was because you liked them. And I do not want to see this thread derailed either, but when I will call out bad arguments when I see them. And I will slam dunk on them. Especially on your mindless drivel about us "crying" over you. Hear me out. There are many of us who do not wish you ill will. We do not want to become friends with you anytime soon, but you will see a vocal few who have feel that you betrayed them. And you will hear their justification quite clearly. Otherwise, I am getting a little tired of seeing dozens of posts from people in CnG, SF and Polar bandwagoning on this "NSO is bawwing" issue when only five or six did so, and other Sith congratulated you. [/quote] I will be completely honest with you when I say, first, that I am really happy to hear most Sith have no opinion of us, and, second, that I did not know that. My genuine impression, from posts made by footsoldiers to the Emperor himself, was that the Sith hated us. I know you, Lennox, maybe one or two others congratulated us, and I was grateful. I recall you did the same when we re-established our RoK treaty. Thank you for your warm wishes. They were islands in the ocean of antagonism from your comrades though. While one or two kind posts were welcome, most posts were full of far more vitriol than can be reasonable justified. You did bring up the semantics argument, but this line of debate is stemming into pettiness. Many people noted, possibly independently, that the Sith seemed to be crying. You then disputed that claim. Calling someone for a semantic error is beginning the argument, right? And my arguments aren't bad! They're as manipulative as yours

[quote name='Jrenster' date='11 April 2010 - 02:54 AM' timestamp='1270968842' post='2256228'] I don't get it. Why do you all of a sudden have to make the post of one man from the NSO to make it representational of all of NSO? You did the same thing with Grub as well. Lumping all the blame to one man of the alliance sure makes for a bad argument. And you know who Musso is. He is very dissatisfied with your recent actions. You, who he called a brother a few months ago, have just aligned yourself with our greatest enemy in the last war. I would not say he's crying; more like he is showing an intense amount of resentment toward you. While I don't resent you, I see how it can be justified. [/quote] It was an example. If you have difficulty finding more examples, there are hoards of NSO posts in this thread, from different people, with nearly identical content and attitude. I selected Musso because I believed he was active leadership. I could be mistaken, I am not sure who is Sith leadership anymore. [quote name='Jrenster' date='11 April 2010 - 03:00 AM' timestamp='1270969189' post='2256230'] I do not want to play the semantics game with you. You opened relationships with Fark, and you have intentions of continuing such relationships. That is what I meant. As for our bitterness, we are fully justified in it. Polar treated us like garbage in the last war. Does bitterness equivocate to crying? I think not. There are some Sith that resent you fully and they will be very vocal about it. The rest of us place you people at a position of neutrality. [/quote] You're the one who began this particular semantics argument. 2,000 Sith come into this thread to tell us that we are bad people for signing a fun and very loose treaty with our friends, an alliance whom we were definitely getting to know much better well before the war started. They come in mass quantities with extreme bitterness and [i]without clear intention[/i]. Are they secreting excessive water through their tear glands, causing it to overflow from the eye? No, probably not. Do they sound like they could be? Sure, who cares. Immaturely expressing resentment, crying, whatever. If you want to drop the semantics, consider it dropped. But it certainly seems like you're crying, because so many of you have nothing better to do than to stalk every Polar announcement (and some non-Polar announcements) and remind us how much you hate us. It's been noted, thanks. Yeah, we'll be continuing relations with our new treaty partner. They're great fellows, you should try getting to know them. They have a good sense of humor, they are known for honoring their treaties, and they present themselves intelligently and rationally. They have been one of my favorite alliances in the game for well over a year, if not longer. And I am both proud and pleased to see a document like this finally signed. I do not intend to see another Polar treaty announcement locked because your alliance is obsessed with pretending you did not try and manipulate Grub in the last war. I am not going to get into the details of [i]why[/i] you are all still crying about the last war. If you want to talk about the Polar-Fark treaty and what it means to NSO, be my guest

[quote name='Jrenster' date='11 April 2010 - 02:38 AM' timestamp='1270967884' post='2256221'] Had Polaris members not cared, perhaps they would not care to respond to our posts. If they did not respond, then you would have an argument and I would agree.[/quote] "Stop poking me back when I poke you. You're clearly the problem here, if you weren't provoking us by responding to our verbal attacks, it wouldn't be so bad." [quote] No. You are not being objective. Sorry. I would qualify those initial posts as "complaining" at worst. They are disappointed with people who they called brothers two months ago, and now they see those same "brothers" aligning themselves with people who we called enemies during the last war. They have a perfect legitimate cause for concern. The difference between them and I is that they chose to call it out publicly. To call them out like "bawwing your hearts out" is a hyperbole to all extents. Sith do not cry. [/quote] As I have just argued exhaustively with Bob Janova, we did not align ourselves with Fark in almost any way. The only military change to the political climate is that Fark and Polaris are no longer going to attack each other. Since Polaris and Fark were not already attacking each other, this doesn't actually matter in any immediate way. Just expect us not to attack each other. And, in the short term, expect no future Polar treaties with any SF alliances that are not on Aqua. Again, go read Musso's post. Or any of the other bitter, broken-hearted, unreasonable nonsense your comrades are throwing around. The Sith do cry, and if you can somehow disprove that with something in this thread, I'll be amazed.

[quote name='Jrenster' date='11 April 2010 - 02:10 AM' timestamp='1270966235' post='2256210'] Apparently whenever we disagree about what Polar does, everyone wants to exaggerate it and call us out for bawwing out hearts out. [/quote] No one needs to exaggerate it. Go read Mussolandia's first post in this thread. No one needs to manipulate posts like that to make your alliance look like a crying child.

[quote name='Bob Janova' date='10 April 2010 - 06:20 PM' timestamp='1270938023' post='2255848'] Not necessarily, no. Typically when an alliance is conflicted it will go with the side that it has more ties with. You can see this in the pattern of broken treaties in UjW, BLEU war/noCB and Karma (not so easy this time as most people had non-chaining treaties so they were just ignored not broken). Having an extra treaty with one side makes you a lot more likely to roll with that side next time you end up between conflicting interests. [/quote] Either we honor our treaties or we do not. Either we are reliable or we are not. You can enter into specifics about patterns of behavior regarding how an alliance will act in a war, but you are viewing those actions in the context of binding treaties. In purely military terms, this treaty is only binding in one way - that Polar and Fark cannot directly engage each other in combat. There is not even an optional defense clause on this treaty, so in theory this treaty should have no effect on military interaction with the exception of that single provision. I know what you think of us, but how is this treaty hurting Fark in any [i]actual[/i] way? Unless you can prove that we are [b]more likely[/b] to attack our treaty partners than not our treaty partners, then Fark is losing next to nothing by signing this. Paint us with whatever colors you would like, but if you are correct that our unpredictability is endemic to the structure of Polaris itself (which I strongly do not believe it to be), then Fark has gained or lost nothing here. Nor have we bound ourselves further to Superfriends in any [i]real[/i] way, contrary to the perception that a treaty, no matter its content, inherently binds two alliances closer than they had been. Hey Bob, let's sign an empty treaty. [quote] [u]The Empty Treaty[/u] Article 1. This treaty contains no provisions Article 2. This treaty cannot be amended in any way at any time. Article 2a. Ever. Article 3. Signatures Signed for Proko: Zbaldwin Premier of Proko Signed for Seria: [/quote] Now we are more likely to roll together if we ever have conflicting interests. Just sign EDIT: Article 2 contradicts Article 1 But you get the point.

[quote name='Bob Janova' date='09 April 2010 - 08:41 PM' timestamp='1270860059' post='2254814'] If it was that meaningless they wouldn't have signed it in the first place. Sure, it's not as bad as signing an MDP with Polar right now but it's still a sign of dubious judgement to align yourselves politically with them. The RoK treaty does not bind Polar strongly enough to SF/SG, as can clearly be seen by the fact that they started a war that resulted in them fighting against SF directly. So it makes sense that, as a wildcard, you'd want to bind them in tighter with another treaty. I don't doubt that there are some real friendships behind this, though you've got some really mixed messages in this thread ('This was in the works for a long time' and 'Polar have changed, we have Penguin not Grub now' don't go together well), but after Polar's actions in this war I would have thought that the idea of treatying with them was not such a good one. [/quote] Either we are going to respect the will of our treaty partners or we aren't. If your perception of us is correct, that we are this irrational monster that you're painting us to be, then one treaty with SF, or two treaties with SF, etc. would not necessarily matter. If we are going to ignore our treaty partners, then they are going to be ignored regardless of quantity. Right? I don't see why not. Additionally, there is no indication, from my perspective in Polar leadership as well as yours in Viridia, that Polaris will be signing treaties with any members of SF in the near future besides the Aqua twins. Unless you know something I don't. Diffuse as the defenses supplied by Polar/Fark leadership, Polar membership, and interested bystanders may be, you haven't exactly labored to disprove them. This treaty is effectively a NAP. But for intellectual exercise, I'll give you another. Without this treaty, Fark runs the risk of being attack by Polar in a fit of irrationality. With this treaty, Fark runs the risk of being attacked by Polar in a fit of irrationality. Given that your perception of us as this wantonly aggressive machine is correct, and I would emphasize it is not, then Fark is basically making Pascal's Wager. They don't know if we'll turn into the Hulk, but in case we do, better to have a document saying we won't attack them than to not have one. There, now you have another defense of the treaty.

[quote name='Bob Janova' date='09 April 2010 - 09:03 AM' timestamp='1270818175' post='2254229'] I'm pretty confused as to why anyone would sign a treaty with NpO after the way they've behaved in the last two months. [/quote] Similarly, I'm confused why anyone is doubting Fark's judgment. You would think, considering the intensity of Polar-Fark relationship over the past few months - as opposed to, say, the intensity of our relationship with VE (and you) over the past few months - that Fark would be in a better position to qualify what constitutes a foreign affairs mistake. as well as whether their friends (Polar and Fark being friendly alliances before this treaty) can be defined as a politically unreliable alliance. It is not as though Fark has a history of signing weak treaties - they actually seem to have a higher treaty retention rate than most other alliances of their size. If their record is anything to go by, I would say Fark seem to have a very good idea of what they are looking for in an alliance, and how to maintain a friendship through a treaty. If you want to accuse Fark of having bad judgment, then you would need to somehow prove they are deviating from their normal, rational, foreign policy. Either Fark is making a mistake with this NAP and thereby acting somewhat out of character (their high treaty retention proving their generally intelligent foreign policy), or you're wrong. I would consider your confusion more of a result of your ignorance of the Polar-Fark relationship than your own exhaustive knowledge of my alliance's character.

[quote name='Bill Adama' date='09 April 2010 - 02:05 AM' timestamp='1270793134' post='2254056'] We drink Stella instead of Heineken now. [/quote] Crunchy, crunchy Stellas. [img]http://www.gifbin.com/bin/052009/1242032359_haters-gonna-hate.gif[/img]

[quote name='supercoolyellow' date='08 April 2010 - 10:43 PM' timestamp='1270780984' post='2253808'] I'm sure this is alluding to some history event I don't know of, but when did talk about the treaty begin? [/quote] I dunno. Yesterday, maybe.

[quote name='supercoolyellow' date='08 April 2010 - 10:34 PM' timestamp='1270780428' post='2253786'] Now I'm curious how long this treaty was in the works. In my mind if it was planned before the war, it would explain why NpO did not hit Fark. If it was planned after the war... [/quote] Started planning around March 2007.