Sonata

Our friends? We should teach Francesca not to speak for us.

I think the point is this, you and a select handful Crimson Guard members took in a significant portion of the reps. Consider that you were getting 84 million (or some value of cash + tech that adds up to reach 84 million). The aid from IS looks like this: Hell Scream: 9 million Shadow King: 9 million BetterNotBeDeleted: 9 million anto475: 3.1 million Francesca: 3 million Olaf Erickson: 3 million After you and a select few each take in 9 million, plus some background noise from those 3 million people, you disband your alliance. All this talk about tech is basically a smokescreen, because the surrender terms allowed you to convert money to tech, so you could have had tech payments sent to the big nations. All you had to do was not post the disbandment announcement until those nations had their tech. Yet you don't. This just doesn't hold up in the light of day, period. As for your talk about being ever so good, it seems you missed the "Don't leave money on the table" lesson, something most of us learn early on as "waste not, want not."

There is a massive humor difference between watching a gang of thugs throw an innocent party into a brick wall/off a bridge or watching a drunken individual stumble off a porch and land face down in a thorn bush. Of course there is also humor in watching a Deputy Sec of State shove both feet into his mouth at the same time and then trying to fit a third one in there. Even if he's doing it on his own time.

Two Virdian nations engaged him today, all he is trying to do is get someone to attack him prior to update so he can attempt to disrupt their stagger and escape to peace mode in seven days like the coward that he excels at being. I'd advise against taking Ryan up on his offer unless you want have to explain to the Viridians why you screwed their stagger up.

Since the Crimson Guard no longer exists that of course implies any treaties they had are null and void. So I assume Internet Supheroes will not have to pay off what they agreed to upon surrendering to Crimson Guard? Or do the former member states of the Guard take a different posistion?

You're correct in the realm of pure math, where a large alliance will overwhelm the smaller one with its larger nation count and strenght, and that assumption scales, such as one large alliance being destroyed by a bloc of alliances or a larger bloc destroying the small bloc, but in there are many smaller alliances that are secure because they have normalized relations. These come in the form of protectorates, defensive pacts, blocs, take your pick. These treaties bring security through various means. In some cases they might allow a group of smaller alliances to have a larger total strength than a single midsized alliance. In other cases the smaller alliances might be weaker than said midsized, but they are left in peace because they are large enough to promise a bloody and unprofitable war. The Crimson Guard has none of these. In some cases they actually seem proud of their treatiless state. Rather they depend on the moral highground and appeals to the community to gain support, as opposed a normalized treaty network. That is of course their choice, but their choice brings limiting factors to their actions, namely they can operate in an enviroment where they have the support of the community so their boasting and eroding of their popular support is a boneheaded move on their part. Of course now they seem to have established a de facto protectorate with Invicta, even if they lack a treaty to go with it, so they're really no different than any other microalliance surviving via the strength and will of its protector. They might strut and posture if they wish about defeating IS, but we all know who really did.

The respect here should be directed at Invicta and those who backed Invicta's intervention to the point where Invicta was able to appear to be at the tip of a large enough to give IS pause and force PWN to back down. Crimson Guard is worthy of no respect. If this raid had executed by a group with better public relations or at a time when alliances were involved in a major war and lacked the troops to spare for side offensives the Crimson Guard would be still be fighting and likely losing. Francessa's words have no power, unless there are major powers willing to take up your cause. Crimson Guard's security is not something they have secured on their own, rather it depends purely upon their ability to convince others to fight and posture for them. Perhaps after this merger Francessa keeps alluding to they will find a better stance, but at the moment they are weak. Consider as an example this "protectorate" of Solitude. The Crimson Guard lacks the ability to simply take this Bird of Passage as a protectorate, rather they load the treaty with escape clauses in case the Virdians decide they are not through with Bird of Passage yet. In a simple form the treaty reads "We take the Bird of Passage as a protectorate, unless others take exception, at which point we will back down." This is how the Crimson Guard lives, on the sufferance of larger alliances. They are not independent, for they can only undertake actions that please the world community. They have no true freedom, only the false freedom given to small children or spoiled pets. In the end only the strong will survive, and the Crimson Guard will not be amongst the survivors.

Almost anything (IC) is fair game in war, however for every action there will be a reaction. Look at how the entire conflict evolved, starting with a GDI member targeting a Pacifican nation. This was followed by GDI members counterattacking the Entente when the Viridians began engaging the raider in a police action, and the GDI proving to be difficult/stalling regarding paying for the raid. The Virdians then expanded their measured response to focus as a police action against the alliance as a whole, providing terms to allow GDI nations to surrender from on the onset and clearly focused on offering white peace to the innocents Ryan had dragged into the charnel house. Rapdily defeated on the battlefield GDI members instead opt to be warfare targetting the name of the Virdian Entente, as opposed to surrendering. In every case you can see where GDI expands the conflict in some manner and the Viridians merely increase their measured response. Nothing is off the table in war, but the more you chose to put on the table in the war the more you're going to lose at the end of the war (if you lose). War is not purely the numbers and little markers on map, how you move your pieces around has military and political consequences. Edit: Grammar

Best of luck to iFok with the transition and may you enjoy a successful run with Bartimaeus.

Give in to your hate, it will take you to great places, like membership in our Order.

Congratulations to our brown friends and the Orange Defense Network.

Speaking of speaking for things, would you mind terrible losing about 500 NS? I'm going through my first set of wars and military training and would love to have my nation's first set of wars involve conflicts against persons of note.

The fact that you consider the worth of the person to only stem from physical goods says everything that needs to be said about your personality. Perhaps rather than making snide comments directed at the Dark Lord you should spend your leisure time becoming active in your alliance and contributing to the well being of the whole?

I feel as if one must consider the mandate the leader has before making this decision. If all citizens of that alliance are eagerly lined up and cheering for the leader and behind the concept of starting active military operations, than yes all are culpable. On the other hand if this leader is being obstructionist and preventing peace, yet the citizens are working to remove the leader via impeachment or some other structural process one should, in a perfect world, give those citizens time to find new leadership and try to resolve the crisis in other ways. This is an ideal solution only though, because giving your enemy time can be a double edged sword if they end up merely using the time to organize as opposed to changing leadership. At the end of the day one has a primary duty to their citizens and that must be discharged above all other concerns. This means that a proper leader would err on the side of attacking aggressively when the hostile party is weak and ensuring military victory early on, thus the alliance as a unit is held responsible. A leader might however structure the terms differently based on whether the nations of the opposing alliance show themselves to be in agreement with their leader's aggressive policies or not.