Anu Drake

As our world warms, the passage becomes navigable. Good to see this, very good. o/ Pacifica

Congrats to CCC, you've picked up a great ally.

Two very cool and smart alliances always make a good pair. Congrats.

Thanks Bilrow. I obviously didn't pay for the whole thing (just wanted to), but the aid was delivered as much as possible as quickly as possible from the 11th on.

[quote name='ChairmanHal' date='16 May 2010 - 07:37 PM' timestamp='1274053038' post='2300584'] Anu could have kept reparations coming in, 6 slots, every 10 days to GOONS, but that's not what Anu did. 5/15 - $9 mill 5/9 - $3 mill 5/5 - $3 mill 5/4 - $6 mill 4/21 - $9 mill Total - $30 mill So is it a NATO problem, an Anu problem, or is GOONS being particularly silly? [/quote] I haven't deleted any aid. I've had 6 slots going to GOONS nations at all time since I started the payments. The days are off in some cases because I had to wait a day or two to get new names to send to and (shocker) every once in a while I had to actually wait until I had enough money to send it. In one case on this last round, one of the nations was deleted so I was waiting on the new name. In this same cycle I sent aid to someone who asked me to send it to someone else last cycle but had not updated the list so I sent it to him again and was waiting for a new name.

[quote name='AirMe' date='16 May 2010 - 07:21 PM' timestamp='1274052065' post='2300565'] As much as I respect Anu, presumably he has 6 slots. You should have had 6 nations send out the reps and then have Anu pay them. It is idiotic to say you didn't pay the reps because Anu wanted to pay them all himself. He is a reasonable man and understands that getting these done and over with would have been better for NATO instead of this route. [/quote] And I would have done that, no problems. But it didn't seem that there was that much resistance to the plan. I saw it as a sort of directed graduation bonuses or whatever GOONS does with their new members. But I'm not an elected official so I don't know what the higher level conversations were (and I don't go on IRC), so it was a case where I'd get a list every 10 days, send the aid out and from the back and forth I received from GOONS nations there didn't seem to be a problem. Looking back, if we knew this would be the outcome, of course I wouldn't have offered or 'demanded' (shut up Lenny) to do this. Just like looking back we should have known that not having set out a specific repayment schedule was walking into a vulnerable pr situation.

[IMG]http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u55/AnuDrake/goonspeace.jpg[/IMG] I think I can be forgiven to post in this thread since I am mentioned. The individual nations I've been aiding throughout this have been cool and enjoyable to work with. There was no timetable, and due to the history I have personally with GOONS (last one, not this one), I wanted to put the rebuilding of my nation on hold and take the burden of the reps on my shoulders alone. Despite the fact that the old alliance disbanded and we fought a several month war with them and never received as much as a hello when they came back. Where are our reps for 'winning' that war? This GOONS jumped on NATO after we were already at war with 8 or 9 alliances at the time and demanded reps despite the fact that they were only hitting our already destroyed small nations, bragging about the fact that we were so 'weak' and taking every opportunity to troll us since then. With all of that said, why would I volunteer to pay the reps off myself? One, it was in the hope that the aforementioned manner in which the reps were agreed to wouldn't cause all of our members to have a continuous hatred of GOONS (extortion was already being bantered around). Two, its just money and my alliance comes above that. The offer to double up each aid package with tech to shorten the time frame was rejected (that's fine, understandable that you want to keep the small nations in tech circles). If we were on a schedule we would have used far more resources and my personal offer would have been cast aside. Lessons learned.

OOC: Starfox, godspeed. Wishing you all the safety and luck in the world, you've chosen a tough path and a very respectable one. Please be careful out there, the world doesn't need to lose anyone with your intellect and wit /OOC Congrats to the new leadership, hope you have a good run at it.

That is certainly sexiness. Congrats, and thank you for providing that picture.

Sad to see our longest standing treaty be downgraded, but am happy it is on friendly terms. MHA & NATO made a great pair a long time ago (eons in the cyberverse) and those times won't be forgotten. Godspeed, friends and thanks for all the fish.

Congrats to both alliances. Also hai Pansy, miss you.

This is awesome, thank you Blunity. And this has to be the first and last time the words 'upstart' and 'ancient' were used to describe us and another alliance and we aren't the ancient ones

[quote name='Alfred von Tirpitz' date='02 April 2010 - 10:01 AM' timestamp='1270216848' post='2245320'] Nevertheless.. for daring to replace Anu, for assuming you were fit to even walk in his shadow... ZI, the lot of you. And you there, LnK... swords at dawn. [/quote] Soon Alfred, soon. Don't worry though, the transfer of power was at my request, as was the choice of Lenny as King. Lenny has finally consolidated his power in both the divine and operational sense. No influence of course, from the little red guy on his shoulder...

I enjoy Rebel Virginia and Electron Sponge too much to put them on the list, but I wouldn't defend them. But it takes one to know one. I'm a complete egomaniac within NATO, just not so much out here or on IRC.

Can't believe you elected Lenny. For shame, NATO.

Damnation on getting me to post here again. But have to make it perfectly clear. NOBODY on Aqua pressured or requested that we leave. Just because you don't share other alliances' politics doesn't mean we weren't 'welcome' on Aqua by the vast majority of alliance leadership. Alfred and pigsticker have it right, this was our decision as an alliance. If my historical account of our time here led people to believe we were asked to leave, I apologize. The fact is that several members of aqua alliances told us to stay, even some from those that have decried the decision as rash.

[color=#0000FF][b][size="5"]Darkly, Deeply, Beautifully[/size][/b][/color] [b]Something about the singing about the sky.[/b] [i][b]Warning:[/b] Boring historical information in first several paragraphs. If you just want to know what this announcement means, read the last two. [/i] North Atlantic Treaty Organization formed in June of 2006 and shortly thereafter became one of the first alliances to make the new sphere Aqua our home. With our close ties to MHA and generally good relations with the rest of the team, it was a great experience. We learned diplomacy and extended our influence through strong relationships. In Aqua's early days, the power hierarchy was yet to be established. NATO brought together other alliances on the team and held a security summit in the hopes of reaching some type of color NAP. Ancient history is ancient history, but for newer actors on the global scale, this project was a failure. With the crumbling of WUT, we were intent on continuing our close ties to MHA, Pacifica, Polaris and others and so entered the UJW. This entry broke two major treaties we had. One was with \m/, whom we felt justified in doing given their actions towards us in the previous two weeks; a recent influx of very intelligent \m/embers to NATO and a leadership that was unexpectedly torn apart. That justification was something we regretted afterward and has been the guilty driver of treaty-making since that war. The other treaty broken that night was our MADP with then-new to the sphere Mushroom Kingdom. The treaty itself was offered and signed by our side in the hopes that a new Aqua alliance that had just left GOONS (for the most part) and NATO's ties to Polaris might help ease the deepening WUT crisis. But the big boys were in charge of destiny and there was no GOONS peace. This meant either staying neutral or going against MK. We decided that the war was too big to see us staying out of it. As is the gentleman's agreement on the sphere, no Aqua alliance would fight another, so we ended up fighting GOONS and about five other smaller alliances. We broke our treaty with MK, but if we had been on the other side, we would have broken many more than two treaties. After the UJW there was the Continuum. Despite continuing strong relations with MHA and Fark in Trident, it was evident that our voice carried more weight in tC than it did in Trident. Superfriends was already at work dismantling the Hegemony, and had deemed us a troublemaker and stooge of Pacifica. Of course, we were, by their definitions. The reality from us was that we believed in the Continuum and felt it was the most important place to focus our small diplomatic resources. So again, sphere relations suffered. Then came Karma, and the utter PR failure of the mass cancellations. We were a vocal proponent of the idea, because we were all angry at Pacifica for their actions leading up to that war and wanted to send them a message, knowing that none of us were going to back out of fighting due to tC. But canceling a full 24 hours before attacking left a whole day of scorn and that led to being called members of the Coalition of Cowards. It was a war tactic that failed. We were always going to war (we've been in more than most of CN), but the name stuck as did our association with it. So that was a major setback. Being unprepared and getting out early because math is math and white peace is good didn't help our stature either. Finally there was the last war, where we declared via an optional aggression clause, and had TFD come along. We had other CBs that could have been used, but we chose this one. We could either hit an alliance in Superfriends, which contain the two Aqua alliances of Ragnarok (our former protectorate) and Fark; or we could hit someone in Complaints and Grievances, which contained Aqua alliances MK, =LOST= and Athens. We ended up attacking CnG - Federation of Buccaneers - and upheld our policy of never going to war with another Aqua alliance. We were declared on (rightfully so) by MK and Athens - plus Alchemy, DICE and Aloha - though MK and Athens gave us the same treatment we gave them in that it was only a forum war. Before this point, it had been becoming very clear to us where we were in relation to the rest of Aqua, and that many of our former friendships with the sphere were only shadows, or nonexistent, of what they used to be. This war was the nail in the coffin of Aqua relations for us. Given our efforts in the past year in attempting to regain some of these relationships, and failing, we have come to a point where we don't feel that we can gain any more traction with the sphere outside of the treaties we already hold. This isn't to say that things have been bad for us. NATO has a remarkable ability to stay the same small size, fight it out in wars then rebuild back to that same small size. We have a large number of members that devote a great deal of time and energy and fun to make the community enjoyable. Some stay and don't leave, some stay for a while and then leave, some come back; such is the life of any alliance. We are proud to say that we are the birthplace of so many alliances that are still around - NATO has always enjoyed having too many big fish in a very small pond, and so either by protection or by new alliances, part of our community is shared across the world. Some of our Aqua treaty partners, both past and present, were incredible friends at certain points in our relationships. We shed blood together, we worked as teams on coalitions. But other times the relationships have been cold and distant. We take some responsibility for this due to our friendships with alliances outside of the sphere for straining these relations. We have learned to base treaties on friendship and that is what we have done ever since the aftermath of UJW. We must now follow what we feel is the right path. [i]We lay no blame on any Aqua alliance for the degradation of our relationships and we wish only the best for the color, the sphere, the team that we called home for well over two years. [/i] [b]The membership of NATO has voted to join the team of our Blood Brothers and make our new home on the Blue sphere.[/b] [u]Signed,[/u] Anu Hakim Semi the Hard Hogosha Njero bigbull Lenny N Karl Joe Boo Jace Couture Aress Sumpwa BOOSHIFIED Mick Jones AtheistRepublican ZePear tommyknocker2121 Devo Analyzer bedeur asapilu Pollexter Tallon KING TOM Decius Brutus gstills22 Venom4Viper Warden Llama Farmer Iskander President Patton wentworth Sengala Ivan Danko Deep23 BillyAnderson Eleandrus Tony Blair and all the other NATOans...

Bad title made me almost miss saying happy birthday, brothas. Looking forward to continuing our friendship for another 3 years. Congrats to the award winners as well, especially DK, who I know has been a great friend to TFD. Very fitting.

[quote name='arentak' date='02 March 2010 - 06:48 AM' timestamp='1267530698' post='2211195'] Whenever I see Anu Drake, I think "Anu Drake cares" [/quote] I think "Hey, that's me". Love you Prince, don't be late this time, you know how hungry I get. Sorry to see this happen again and as always best wishes CDT, you'll do just fine.

Karma is retribution for past actions Once that happens, the fields are even Balance shifts again after

This war I took 6 and shot out about 13, 7 or 8 connecting (not going to go back and look). Overall, from my bio: An ancient race of modern clones developed deep within the island of Numeria. Population 23 humans, 40,000 perfectly beautiful and responsive clone women, and one satisfied King. 43 nukes taken, 65 delivered. Sadly, some of those I received were from a war that I was not even remotely prepared for and I didn't have any clones to add to my casualty count. Those are the worst moments, when you take nuke attacks and get no casualties. It is all loss.

To a very good war, I salute our opponents, praise and thank our allies, and say o/ peace. The reps for FoB are more than reasonable, and should help them get back on their feet. We may have surrendered, but we put up a good fight and would have continued to do so, as would have our opponents. But the question came down to why? We had no stirring hatred on our side, and many were questioning the need of the war from the start (and before). So peace is good, the blood brothers will help FoB out now and GOONS gets some money for piling on our low to mid sized nations and shouting victory while we were already deeply entrenched in war. But that's what we get for attacking FoB in the first place, we went on the pre-defensive offensive along with our allies and met too much resistance. Reps are fine in this case as it does come with the recognition on our part of aggressive hostile acts. Not sure why TFD is paying reps on our behalf but I'm sure we'll be doing our part helping with those.

Good post, but the war is not over yet for everyone.

Congrats to UCN for gaining peace, fair terms as well. Thank you to GOONS, PC and =LOST= for bringing this to an end for our friends at UCN.