Ardus

My memories of you are of a man incapable of leading an alliance even with serious political and military clout behind him. Ivan will succeed because his expectations are simple and because people will make it so. He is an effective figure that sways the emotions of the body politic just by being here; the "Hello" thread is proof enough of that. Eventually the right people will flock to his banner, he will empower them, and through a combination of his powerful personality and their concerted technical/bureaucratic efforts, we will see a worthwhile force emerge.

We're working on it.

You probably shouldn't and I imagine you don't.

That's fine, too. Thrift is a virtue.

Sounds fun. We should go have beer some time so I can interview you for the Post.

Hi Ivan, nice to meet you. My name's Lafayette. I like to write. What do you like to do?

No, thank you for getting blown to high heaven alongside us.

Liar. Those puns were every bit of intended.

Ixnay on the arway.

Your faux moral outrage at both MCXA and TSO entertains me. You're just disappointed we won't all get to start blowing each other back to the Moon.

Fallen or not, this is the smartest thing TSO has done yet. That's not saying much, I know, but still... As for "there wasn't even a war here", that only further strengthens my argument that $1.7 billion isn't that much. The Kingdom had to start payments fresh out of wrecking and getting wrecked. TSO is in pristine condition, nation-wise. A sizable, mid-tier alliance, given good coordination, can ship over a billion in a day. This ain't that bad.

Or destroys all. Just depends on how big the numbers are on each part of the equation.

Given inflation, that's not really all that much. The reparations demanded from Legion at the end of GWIII was what, $700 million? Given how far the game has progressed since then, how many large nations there are today, and how much more money each nation earns, $1.7 billion isn't all that much. It just seems like it because the most recent wars to demand large reparations measured the amounts in tech. How much tech did we ship NPO? I'll just pull 68,000 out of my $@!, I'm not sure if it's right. 68,000 tech divided by 50 tech per slot is 1,360 slots. Valuing the tech at a generous but not uncommon $1.5 million per 50 tech shipment, the total value of that reparation would be $2,040,000,000, or $2.04 billion. That's not much more than the $1.7 billion being forked over here, but it also required significantly more slots. If you place a value on the slot rather than the tech, valuing each 50 tech per slot shipment at $3,000,000, the cost doubles to $4.08 billion. This doesn't take into consideration the slots consumed in the process of shipping aid to the small nations that would have performed the bulk of the tech shipments. That included the cash value of the reparations would balloon over at least $5 billion. That said, I'd still take this. The war necessary to attain a greater sum would be infinitely more costly considering the players involved. A wise decision by all parties involved.

I hate you for making me eat my own words.

Evidence that NPO forces struck too swiftly for their own good. Should have let them built up a bit before stomping them so they'd be in range.

Oh hell, Genesis again.

Hey man, watch where the hell you aim those things. They're dynamite.

We're keeping the Choo Choo.

You've a respectable talent for writing, I'll say that much.

You could impose caps on NS or, more effectively, infra, tech, and land. This would limit how far ahead established players could get and drive them to take more dynamic actions once they reached those caps.

Okay, that's a far more reasonable request. :lol:

The original serious post is the founding of TSO. What appears to have been intended as a co-post is from TOP announcing a treaty between TOP and TSO. This thread has more to do with TOP than it has to do with MCXA, by some standards.

A fair and balanced review of the thread, this is.

I'm going to have to ask you to stop posting Sponge. Your words make too much sense.

Yes, everybody is free to roam the Cyberverse as they want, but there are certain standards and expectations one takes on when they become a leader of their alliance. You can't simply up and walk out on your alliance, you have to ensure they are prepared to keep on going despite your departure. What makes this so controversial is not that one or two notable MCXAers left, but that the bulk of their government up and walked out on their alliance without any clear indication that they took significant efforts to ensure its stability in the wake of their leave. Fresh and Gopher are great guys and extremely experienced, but they're still only two guys and the wholesale operation of the number three alliance is a ton pressure to dump on two people. Is this for the best? Absolutely. MCXA is better off without a government that looks to establish its sovereignty elsewhere and TSO is better off being able to do its own thing. But that doesn't make what has happened here any less irresponsible (to use a blatant double-negative). That's why so many people look at this new alliance, and the decision of TOP to protect it, and scoff.