TsarPrinceps

[quote]What do you get when you have Sexiness and Kittens?[/quote] Bestiality charges? Also/, o/bligato/ry o/ go/es here.

I believe that you conceived to make on Bob for you a Heaven-a brave new world, a promised land, a fortitude of hearts and minds. o/ing this for the awesome concept alone.

o/ing this. We got awesome friends.

[quote]If you are racist, GOONS will attack you with the North.[/quote] This post wins the thread. Kill 'em dead, GOONS.

Congrats MK.

It had been centuries since the Halfhour War. Long years, years covered in frost, years where the Highplain had had to be abandoned, until the wrath of the radio gods on its dried vales would subside. Princeps had been the one to discover it, though-that the radio gods trembled before the might of great Harley. One of the gods of the road, specifically of bandits and thieves, the radio gods kept well away from the works the ancient Federals had erected in Harley's honor. It was Princeps that led a motley assortment of of bikers out of the decaying shell of Lincoln's suburbs. Well, not so much "led" as "was driven out of." But all the same, the rogues and castaways were his, and he led them down the highways he had discovered in his youth were safe. It was when one of his followers wandered off to a nearby stream, and failed to catch the radio plague for it, that Princeps started to wonder. When someone else fired up their netbox, and the radio gods delivered the signal instead of distorting it, he really had to wonder. His grandfather had believed in the radio gods, and there had been people his grandfather's age that had ventured onto the Highplain and caught the radio plague. It had imparted a very terrible message to his peers, but only encouraged Princeps to see for himself. And that's why they were here. "What does the sign say?" asked Princeps of one of the forward scouts. "Hay Springs, population 1047," the answer came back. Like everything built in the time of the Federal Republic, it was crumbling, rotted and rusty. The central feature of towns-of most towns on the Highplain, really-was its rusted-out "grain elevator." Richards' "The History of the Husgar Race" said these things were meant to store local grain for tribute. They had been torn apart for scrap metal everywhere east of Cozad, but here, in the chernobyl wrath of the radio gods, they lingered as towering testimony to the power of the old Republic. "We will make camp in the ridge of pines to the south," Princeps declared. The land was empty of people, but he couldn't be too careful. Here on the plain, they were exposed. That pine ridge to the south would give them some cover. So they made their way to the southwest. Random ranches appeared here and there, rotten and dirty like the buildings of Hay Springs. Soon they were deep in the ridge, following a dirt path barely-intact after centuries of neglect, and they came to the foot of a cliff. "We can't be in the Front Range yet?" wondered one of Princeps' lieutenants. "The maps don't have this," replied another. "Nobody's been here for centuries, remember. The maps I bought at the McNally Guild aren't sure. They say there's some confusion whether the 'Sandhills' and 'Pine Ridge' known to the ancients are the same thing or not." "Well," decided Princeps, "pitch camp here. Get on the netbox and tell Grandfather the radio gods are serving man again, and we're out in the Highplain and safe." The netbox operator got on an internet forum. With the fall of ICANN in the Halfhour War, and the failure of anything new to take its place, no new websites were able to be registered, and what was left of international politics could only assent to a freeze of the existing registry. Consequently, websites that had been completely innocuous centuries ago had been commandeered for other purposes, often nefarious. Grandfather had handed down ops to a site called the Fora, which had been in the family for hundreds of years. Princeps, indeed, was named for the site's founder, a distant relative. And indeed, the value of owning such operative websites was such that clans had formed around them in the years of the frost, and endured to this day. Politics back in Lincoln had been based on them, and other clans had started to push the Forite clan out of the city. Which is why Princeps was on the run, and in the middle of a wasteland. "Grandfather says that he's coming with the rest of the clan from Lincoln. And you're to name the camp Kythera." Princeps chuckled at that-Kythera was a subforum rumored to exist somewhere on the Fora, but had never been found-not even by admins like himself. It was a myth, a hidden place-just like this Pine Sandhills Ridge he found himself in. "Kythera it is, then," Princeps declared.

He slaps that puppy on his Sherman and turns water into hookers. Party at the Imperial Palace.

Tidy Bowl Man, Jesus Christ rolls down your streets in a tank and endorses my iron rule. Then He dares you to do something about it.

International politics is anarchy; you may have natural rights but they're irrelevant without any competent authority to recognize and enforce them. Really, rights theory is irrelevant here, and you're only entitled to what you can impose on others. If you're unaligned or barely-aligned and you attack an aligned nation, you'll be paying whatever reps the alliance wants you to or getting ZIed, and that's if you're lucky. If you're in an alliance and attacked by a rogue in an alliance of near or equal power, it's really just a matter of how good your diplomacy is, who your friends are, and how much your alliance is willing to fight for you, and what your alliance's goals and their allies' goals are in regard to the attacking alliance. If you're in an alliance and are attacked by a rogue in a much stronger alliance, you get what they're willing to give you. That said, this fundamental international anarchy is only the framework. Most alliances are quite cordial with other alliances in practice, even ones they have no real need to be cordial with. But confusing best practices with fundamental rights is dangerous.

I'm a lover, not a fighter. Wait no. That's the complete opposite of true.

[quote]Indeed, you could have done worse but I don't see how that justifies your actions. Also, regardless of what you called your attacks, your individual nations have waged war upon other nations. It's silly to distinguish between a tech raid and a war in an attempt to explain your actions. The end result is the same. One side gets stomped for the gain of another.[/quote] We're not the Forite Order of Long Walks On The Beach and Candlelight Dinners, sorry for the mix-up.

We've been talking to Alpha Omega throughout this whole situation and they've been nothing but decent and forthright. A classy alliance run by classy people.

I would like to congratulate Vilien on his decisive leadership of TMF. By adopting FORA's model of handling rogues for itself, he is leading TMF into a bold new future.

[quote]anyone gonna lol harder when some noob joins FORA and hits someone substantial? Keep this in mind everyone since it is their policy not to deal with 1x1 hits =) What goes around comes around. They do this don't they?[/quote] The answer to that is to not let complete idiots join FORA, I would think. We've been pretty good on that front. Anytime you let someone in an alliance, your nation is essentially signing an MDAP with it, as well as all the other nations in that alliance. That means that at a fundamental level, you answer for your buddies, and they answer for you. That said, we're not heartless. Everyone in the Blue Oyster Cult except for the original raider has been peaced, to my knowledge. We got our revenge, anarchied them, and now we're riding into the sunset.