Kiss Goodbye

I remember, two years ago when I was a diplomat in the RIA, first heading over to CSN to meet with their leadership and discuss the future of our alliances. It makes me very happy to see this. Bravo. You people have always had class.

I'm interested in hearing the more explicit reasons why they were removed. I hope you do eventually decide to tell us, but if not I understand that some things are private.

Fight Club?

Realistically, what will maintain peace is the fact that most of the folks who are influential in all of the major power spheres are, generally speaking, pretty good guys who aren't hard to get along with. So long as all of us keep electing leadership that aren't massive !@#$%bags, I don't think there will be anywhere near as much of an itch for war across the community as a whole. Of course, small scale conflicts will still arise, but I'd like to think that on the larger scale we don't really have anything to gain from killing each other.

Realistically I do not expect them to surrender until their loss of lower-level members forces them to make major changes, and not just in terms of accepting whatever Karma does decide to offer as terms. Giving up things permanently like the Revenge doctrine probably are seeming to be too big a blow (in their view) until after they no longer have the lower-tier nations to actually enforce it.

I am very glad to hear that.

Cool. GLOF are an awesome bunch who've been very good with tech deals to me.

hahahaha...awesome.

Nice shot from Slumdog Millionaire. Loved that movie.

I'm not sure what makes you assume that. It's not that hard to save up a billion dollars. For me it'd take two months on top of my current warchest.

Whatever bad Karma NpO built up in the past has long since been paid up. Grub is a classy guy, and this Paradoxian has absolutely nothing against Polaris, even if that feeling isn't mutual.

It's unlikely that anyone in a position to have 'hegemony' is interested in doing so. Most of the new powers are quite insular, and that hasn't appeared to change yet.

Likewise, opinion in TOP is not universally biased against any one alliance. You know that our leadership has a ton of respect for you, Hoo, as do I. I am disappointed to see that some of those who seem to have legitimate concerns voiced them here in a rather obnoxious fashion rather than taking them up directly in our IRC channel. Unfortunately a number of our people replied in kind, and the end result is, as they say, like wrestling with a pig. Didn't look too good for either of us. I hope you don't perceive the hostility from a few folks who blew their tops as a general feeling, just as we as a whole do not assume as such from the members of your alliance who did so.

If you are interested in having a better understanding of why we have been seeking white peaces I encourage you to contact our government. In the past they have been more than happy to discuss concerns--if you're skeptical of this ask KingSqrt. I encourage TOP members to stop responding to discussion not related to the peace, as discourse of this manner has inevitably lead to unnecessary flaming from us. Calm your tempers and try to stay on topic. On a personal note, I hope all of the alliances who fought alongside us are aware that we do not consider their efforts to be irrelevant or insignificant in any way, and we respect the significant effort that has gone into their fighting. I wish all of you who plan to continue to fight on other fronts good luck, as we continue to do so ourselves against Echelon.

Realistically, had Genmay and /m\ stayed on in the war, and fought well, they'd have gotten terms. I mean, look at what happened when NPO attacked MK. The intent there was fairly obviously aimed at getting them to disband. MK fought incredibly well and while their terms were harsh, they were real terms.

You and I could talk separately regarding hookers 'n blow, but our government could provide you with answers to your concerns at the very least. There was a fierce internal debate leading up to war, and even in the first days of war, regarding what we should do. We had expected to have more time to prepare ourselves and ensure we weren't stuck on the fence, and were surprised to discover otherwise--something very bad for a democratic alliance, as things don't get decided as fast. The members of our gov were working around the clock to come up with a solution, and they could share a lot with you that might help you understand our perspective. I've got some understanding of it but nowhere near as much as them, and while they'd be happy to talk to you if you approach them, they can't be checking every OWF topic. You obviously want to know what was going on in our heads in the past few weeks. You're the MoD of an alliance who fought BAPS alongside us--I believe you deserve coherent answers. The government can answer that; the average person checking this thread, probably not.

IRON's top nations mostly have $1 billion warchests. They're ready to fight already. The thing that started this whole ****storm was that NPO was really weak in that department. They may well not have enough to fight a prolonged war.

I think that you might be benefited by discussing your concerns with someone from our government over IRC or PM. The discussion here has quite obviously turned into a flamewar and won't accomplish much.

Realistically it seems likely that friendly relations between the 3 most powerful blocs that are involved as Karma (Citadel, Superfriends, Complaints and Greivances) will be built up in order to develop some degree of stability, and disagreements will be smaller in scale. I don't think future wars will be a series of curbstomps but rather actual struggles from one alliance to another. This is likely if only because all three of the strongest 'factions' within Karma are, generally speaking, quite respectable folks who neither go looking to start fights nor practice unethical strategies (such as spying). Of course, you never know what might happen down the road.

I'm mostly disappointed you guys didn't get a completely white peace. You fought well and deserve that, but I'm sure you'll be back above 1m NS in no time.

Pino, Offler and I used morse code for our second war. :-) First DoW was a line-by-line quotation of a Byzantine war poem.

I'd track you down to give you a high five if you posted a video of yourself doing that.

Cool, good luck to you guys.

We don't have sidekicks. We have partners. Equals.

You know, I always wondered why some alliances had to issue gag orders. Now I know.