Ardus

If I wanted to whore attention I'd just whore attention. I wouldn't leak TOP posts, especially my own.

I'm sorry you're going to have to offer something better than that.

There's reconciling and there's non-mutually-exclusive. Two very different things. Though, perhaps I'm blinded by my perpetual desire to some day again be aligned to Viridia. *shrug*

Not everybody can live up to the glorious legacy of Argent.

Step further--abandon forums and just have a permanent "TOP General" thread.

after npo comes glof

some little birds tweet true some little birds just poop

I'm sorry this post isn't about me and my privacy handicap in CN and is therefore impermissibly off-topic.

I wish; some love potion would be really handy right now

if this thread has shown us anything is that it's anything but secret

it's all for the fans

oh, also there's that democracy hurdle thing

OOC/IRL

I have no chips. Cashed 'em all out and got righteously hammered. I'll just do what I did last time--throw some Monopoly money on the table and hope nobody can tell the difference.

I play my cards face up.

I hereby claim my rightful title as most leaked CN personality of all time. step off posers

you have a raging erection

If it placates your fears I could mock them mercilessly, thereby demonstrating confidence that they are indeed no threat. It's a complex world. A lot of people are potential threats to a lot of other people.

No doubt; I'm over-simplifying things for the sake of easier conversation.

You'd get more traction if you didn't seek fights based on word choice in an OOC forum. No doubt one can just as easily lambaste TIO for being a divergent mess, especially given their historical inability/unwillingness/etc to project using those treaties, rather than merely attempt to react to the irreconcilable demands they create when one does indeed fail to assert. Given this is the "if you're a dick here you're actually a dick" part of the forum, I was trying to be nice. Being diversely connected is a two-edged sword. Either an alliance can pull the groups together to a single cause and, by doing so, project its will onto others or it can't, those groups rip it apart in different directions, and the alliance suffers, becoming a laughing stock and the object of your considerable scorn. The problem then isn't so much that there are people with diverse treaties, it's that there are too many centers that can't keep all their spokes rolling in the same direction. The answer to the problem is two-fold. One is to work towards slashing treaties so that the whole web is less cluttered with agreements that are in reality mutually exclusive. However, as I've learned through personal experience, people tend to be attached to treaties, which isn't a bad thing, as the alternative would be treaties even more meaningless than the ones we have today. But that leaves us with the TIO's of the world, who don't have any particular desires of which I'm aware (probably because I have little meaningful interaction with them, tbh) that can bring all their connected interests together; we get alliances that couldn't possibly fulfill all their commitments save through incredible luck and/or the hard work of others. I mean, prove me wrong TIO--get your boys and roll somebody. And don't tell me you don't want to, that answer only reaffirms the above analysis. The other part to the answer, paradoxically enough, might be more treaties, such that a functional core is formed that can organize the masses. Right now there isn't one, nor do I see any party both interested and capable of stepping up to the plate in North Web. South Web could be readily enough organized by cooperation between Polaris, RIA, and FARK. This could be a single alliance, but is more often a small group, such as DH or NPO/AI/GOD, to use examples from recent history--a group of people who, once they themselves can reach agreement on goals, can readily enough convince their distinct networks to jump on board. In any event the goal is the simple: that people group up such that their interests align. Too often people sign a treaty with the caveat that, though A will defend B if B is hit, A won't defend B's friend C if C is hit. While non-chaining is a nice insurance against abject stupidity, wholesale indifference by A to his proximate ally in C achieves a limited disregard for the interests of B, who must share some interest with C or else they wouldn't have the damn treaty. A, B, and C must, on some level, have a common interest and be open to practical alignment together, if only under the common banner of B, or else be flogged for creating problems that none of them can elegantly resolve. North Web is a torrid mess of "A & B, and B & C, but not A & C", and that's where you (and I, as evidenced by this thread) get crotchety. None of this is resolved unless people are willing to change and set aside emotions past, both hatreds and friendships. An alliance that clings to everything past is a static alliance, and it will be crushed, without exception, by those willing to move.

pansy seemed cool

Shoulda Stayed Retired

Wait, when did you wind up in charge of TPF? I must have missed that memo or somebody's been goofing with the wiki. I'm not sure why you would be upset if NPO stuck aggressively to clearly defined goals, achieved those goals, and then sued to end the war--to the benefit of your [i]mutual allies[/i] across the no man's land in C&G. Setting aside all the fluff about what GATO did or didn't do that was brought up earlier in the thread, would you have preferred a longer war at their (and INT's) expense?

What the hell does GATO's intrinsic quality as an alliance have to do with IRON dropping NPO?

I'm a big fan