Drostan

You do realize that it is fairly routine for Intelligence clauses to come into a conflict when allies find themselves more or less on opposing sides right? And usually they meet and agree to suspend it temporarily. I cannot tell you exactly what happened, but I can tell you that surely this was not the only instance of Intelligence clauses causing conflicts of interest between allies. You're being a drama llama. I am sure communication between Grub and Archon doesn't need Bob Sanders as a buttress.

The true answer is the one that makes the most sense: it wasn't a trap but TOP presented an opporunity and people took it. If TOP hadn't spent the last few months alienating friend and foe alike, this never would/could have happened. Nobody could have predicted TOP would just declare on CnG. You saw the reactions, everyone was surprised. As is usually the case, the side that gets ganged up on doesn't so much fall into a trap as slowly dig their own grave over the course of months and months of bad FA. While I am sure it will soothe some egos in TOP, they should be even more ashamed that there was no trap. They set and sprung the trap on themselves. *shakes head* Crazy days on Planet Bob.

Dishonour has a new name. Throwing off the shackles of the treaty web doesn't need to involve giving all your former allies and some of your current ones the finger. That's a poor deflection. Even if by some miracle you end up coming out on top here, good luck ever restoring any vestige of dignity to your alliance's name. Scratch that, I don't actually wish you luck as I'd much rather your alliance bear this scar indelibly.

I've never been a huge fan of NSO in general, but even I can appreciate this gesture. Good to see an alliance exercising their sovreignty for something other than preserving their infrastructure. Good show.

That is a very nice flag, my friends. While I don't much care for NpO's recent actions, I appreciate allies that stick by their friends as does most of Planet Bob. Have a good, clean fight.

*rubs hands together* This is going to be sweet. o/ Stickmen. The only thing missing was that sweet war flag I designed for you.

I don't think anyone expects you to understand that not everyone cares about their infrastructure more than their sovreignty/principles.

Yeah, I couldn't stand all those whiney posts from PC... oh wait. What are you talking about? Chalaskan: You've got to take a timeout, sir. You're getting carried away. Anyway, good luck PC. I am jealous of your involvement. May you make each nuke count. o/

From this day forward, Grub, apparently it is you. If any act has ever justified called the moralists hypocrits than this is it. I don't blame Polar for what they are doing as they seem utterly convinced that it is the right thing to do. But don't kid yourselves about it. You are the dominating force that is now actively policing the conduct of Planet Bob and threatening military intervention. You are asking the world to bend to your will or you will attack them. This is a dangerous precedent and if people don't see that they will in time. This war, like many before it, is about ego. And while I am being harsh with my statements above, I don't actually blame Polaris for this. I only wish to ensure that each member of Planet Bob understands what is going on here. Many thought it would be \m/ that shook things up, and in a round about way they were right, but it is Polaris that are the true earth-shakers here. Good luck imposing this moral standard on the rest of Bob over the coming months. I admire \m/'s unwillingness to trample on its own members and alliance sovreignty in the face of danger. Perhaps there are many like this, but we rarely find out. Have a good fight guys, I am one of those who believes that even violence is a form of communication.

It is if you don't have a war chest heh.

If you were going to do this you should have announced it so that people knew you were available. There are still lots of raiders out there who want casualties but the problem is that many of them have grown out of range of most unaligneds. Tech-raiders have definitely gotten lazier though as the number of targets has declined. Anyway, I can't help but note the irony in chiding these 'tough guys'. heh. Good luck with... teaching... showing... whatever it is you're trying to prove.

You should probably make an official TOP signature with that in it. heh.

\m/: more than a little rough around the edges.

I agree with a lot of this. I just don't think these changes can be made. Ultimately, CN is a cult of personality that worships the old. It makes it very hard for newer players to get anything but Sim City out of this game. Beyond that, I believe that the political goals of a few of the more dominant alliances pretty much stagnate the ability for younger or smaller alliances to shake things up. Those respectable old alliances that still operate on the new-treaty-a-day model make it impossible for much interesting to happen except when they've saved up for a year and designated a new target to nail to the wall. These wars aren't really that fun and once again don't do much for newcomers. Even smaller alliances can't really fight without it turning into some big conflict where they are almost entirely forgotten. But if they don't sign treaties with alliances, bullies like me will tech raid them out of boredom. So there you have it. I also agree that the updates to the game have not really done much to shake things up or add new dimensions to gameplay. There were all kinds of great wonders proposed for implementation that would have given those leviathan nations at least something worth spending money on. But instead Admin decided to work on his own pet project and we all went into OUTER SPAAAAAACE! In summary: there is no hope for CN. Get used to this boring way of playing, or quit. heh. Not meaning to be mean, but I just don't see it changing.

Aid thief and general scumbag would be a wicked official title. Duly noted, IAA.

People will believe what they want. But I believe that when alliances are no longer as close as they once were and membership seems to be headed in different directions, the honourable thing to do is cancel the treaty. Letting dusty old treaties sit on the shelf binding your hands and feet is not the right way to go and I will never be persuaded that it is. Alliances and governments change, and I am glad to see that people are re-examining their treaties more regularly these days. Hopefully I am not alone in this.

Yeah, MK's public channel never has offensive material in it. My point is not to tear MK down, but rather to suggest that people approach \m/ differently (whether rightly or wrongly heh). It's difficult because I don't quite understand how this situation occured and what was said. It's obviously worse when people are publicly mouthing off to the leader of another alliance, but even still. The way I see it, \m/ is being who \m/ is and apparently that includes off-colour humour. They may not be the best at apologizing, but I still think that they are trying to make the effort at all deserves some credit given their usual attitude. I still think you have to read this in pretty bad faith to come down on them so hard. I don't promote censoring my internal community for the betterment of foreign visitors usually. Obviously there are limits to that and those may have been exceeded here, but that's what this apology is all about, no? \m/ doesn't tell its members how to act, and as such, those partaking in the community may expect some distasteful stuff. I actually prefer this approach to alliances that gag their own members. I still feel alliance leadership's foremost responsibility is to the liberty and rights of their own members and only secondarily to others. Obviously it's different if leadership was making racist remarks towards Grub. I doubt any apology would be enough there. Ultimately it's up to Grub whether he wants to take this apology seriously or not, but I don't see it as a back-handed apology so much as trying to explain how it happened. And here I always thought I was the pessimist.

I normally agree with Bob Janova, but lately... I don't really understand your point. You say that outrage and even conflict is justified as Nordreich got rolled for less (which isn't really true when you consider the aesthetic of the alliance but that's a debate for somewhere else) and then say it was an illegitimate CB in the first place. The real mistake \m/ made was thinking that Planet Bob was ready to hear this apology. You should have kept it in private because you should know by now that peace brings out the moralist attack dogs in everyone. [ooc]If we were going to crucify every alliance whose members made off-colour jokes on irc, then we'd have one hell of a job ahead of us[/ooc]. If this announcement was being made by MK, you'd all be kissing their butts for how honourable it was. Anyway, obviously people are actively trying to dislike you, and as such you have to decide to accept being hated... or wear a mask for the rest of the world while doing your own thing internally. I don't know the nature of these comments, but some pretty distasteful jokes get thrown around in most alliance channels. Should have just swept it under the rug like most people would. Good luck with the sensitivity counselling I know you're putting your members through.

It's always a tough call to make, but it's reassuring to see that people are actively questioning the sense of their treaties and being a bit more careful about them. Doing it in a classy fashion is even better. o/ FOK.

Just saying how I would have handled it, though seeking a protectorate is fine as well.

I am not a member of the aforementioned alliance so forgive me if my take is not representative. But I think the overwhelming attitude is that alliance leaders are responsible for the protection of its members and it's a hostile world out there. If a leader is not to be remiss in his duty, he either needs an elite fighting force scary enough to ward off potential raiders, or he needs to ally himself such that raiders will find other targets. Those non-participant alliances in CN politics are viewed as mere fodder and with understandable reason. Many alliances are striving to advance an ideology, and those 'neutral' alliances who refuse to get involved might as well be siding with the powers that be as their attitude preserves the authority of the dominant alliances. So when an alliance wishes to challenge the conventional ways of Bob politics, they inherently view the neutrals as a potential tool. Usually a tool in the sense of they will rob you of your technology so they can put it to use in launching missiles and the like. Even if they force an alliance to seek a protectorate through this, you can see it as an ideological victory as they have converted you to their way of doing diplomacy and surviving on Planet Bob. They have also generated public interest in their cause (even if it starts out being mostly negative). Paperless diplomacy is a luxury affordable only by the powerful and well-connected alliances of Planet Bob. It makes sense for those in such positions of power, but not so for the relative newcomers of Planet Bob. First you've got to play by their rules before you can break them. And it's a long road usually. If this protectorate is temporary, I'd be thinking about getting a less temporary one. If it was not these fellows, someone else would have raided you eventually. These guys were making a statement by following up on the cancellation with Sparta so swiftly. Most raiders would have waited a month for you to fade into obscurity and then been relentless and passed you around like a poorly rolled joint. Such is the nature of Bob. Make good friends, because without them, life is not worth living and is certainly much harder.

There are many moralists left on Planet Bob. FoA should make it their business to seek them out and get them to declare in solidarity agains \m/, GOONS, etc. I have little sympathy for those alliances who know neither the military nor the PR method of fighting a war.

While I too find myself inclined to hail this move as a great step forward... I agree with spaar in that this could really go both ways. Without treaties obligating an alliance to fight, I'll bet it becomes very easy to talk oneself into neutrality and staying out of a lot of conflicts. Time will tell the story on this one, but I think paperless diplomacy makes it a lot easier to see alliances for what they really are. That being said, I've got faith that the Grems won't use this to stay side-lined if a friend comes under fire. Since there's no more papers to be signed, I'd like to state that I think most of us in Kronos consider the Grems our friends I just hope that if someone decides to take the initiative and attack Grems (please do), that the world will prove the merit of this move with its support. I have no doubt of it. Best of luck with this Grems, and I sincerely hope this will serve as an example for many other alliances. Even if they don't want to dive in head-first, at least simplify your paper by getting rid of those musty old treaties everyone knows are not representative of your relations. Most alliances have at least one of these... take it out back, and shoot it! o/ EDIT: That's the other great thing about this move, it forces diplomats to be on their A game and not to lapse into complacency as is too often after a treaty gets signed. Grems will have to go out of their way to let their friends know who they are, but I don't see that as a bad thing. I'd rather that than be chained to people I haven't even spolen with for months. I think it's a good thing that people won't have as clear an idea what the sides in a war will be, it certainly makes curb-stomping harder. The one downside is that it may just lead to everyone having no guts at all and stagnation. But it will only take one alliance in a paperless world to set off quite a chain reaction. *gets giddy at the thought of wars where courage actually means something*

If people love FoA so much then they should sign a treaty so that they can step in and put a stop to this alleged abomination. Kudos to all those alliances who refuse to bend their knee to the will of the general public of Planet Bob. I fully support raiding from unprotected or politically isolated alliances. It is the responsibility of the leadership of said alliances to protect their members and yet it seems nobody ever notices their failure. Forming an alliance is a great responsibility and should not be taken lightly. For those who choose to go it alone, they must be prepared to fight. The inhabitants of Bob have gotten too used to binding themselves in paper chains. It is time to break free of those. If this action disgusts you as much as you would have us believe, then petition your alliance's government to intervene. Raids of this sort and smaller scale go on daily, and your alliance sits by and watches. At worst you throw a few pointed words at the perpetrators. If you believe so strongly in the injustice of this, then how can you live with your inaction? Those alliances that merely sit on the sidelines complaining when something like this happens are complicit in the act. And yet, everyone is waiting for public opinion to give them the green light to do what they want. This is sad. It's time people stood up and shook off the bonds of the old way. The world has changed and we must change with it.

I, Drostan, hereby declare my support for the removal of the turnip smiley simply to infuriate those Dutchies as they are the only people I ever see using it. It's practically become a warning sign that the post below will contain 90% certified broken English. I suggest we implement the parrot swivel-head smiley, because it does everything the "OH SNAP" smiley does but with more style. And that one parrot graphic could replace a good number of posts made on a daily basis here. They say a picture is worth a thousand words... here's hoping that parrot will spare us all many future lengthy "NO U"s.