Lewin

[quote name='potato' timestamp='1327872430' post='2909752'] I must be tired but I don't get your point anymore. You're repeating ad nauseam that they should "ban people for OOC attacks on and off-site". I'm saying the mods already do punish people for off-site posts even if they say they don't. Feel free to correct me and/or be more precise as it has been a long week and I am exhausted. [/quote] Ah, the thinly veiled references designed to give the finger to the mods in such a way that your friends can understand and yet won't be so obvious that it gets you in trouble. Did you ever find out who narked on you?

[i]Lewin shook his head. He did not think it was necessary or funny to have threads like this.[/i] Ah CN. Maybe you would attract more players (or returning players) if you had a nicer community.

[quote name='Mergerberger II' timestamp='1313900737' post='2785437'] I thought it was a very well-written piece that could be rather well-applied to the current political climate as viewed from a certain perspective. Well done. [/quote] Thank you, the kind words are appreciated. [i]Lewin bowed.[/i]

A wasteland. Over a gleaming crystallised landscape moaned a chilling gale that sent thousands upon millions of icy particles flying aimlessly through a pale gradient of fog. Among them stumbled an unlikely visitor bearing a blank complexion; a Lonely man seemingly unhindered by the blinding storm, yet weighted down by an unseen force. If he did still breathe, the heat emanating from his incomprehensible mouth lost itself in the deathly stream of nothingness. Shadowy eyes downcast, he pressed on in the direction the wind travelled, despite the way that his body continuously evaporated, losing itself in nebulous striations that gradually became one with the emptiness of the air. He was like a fresh painting set aside to dry, only to be cruelly smeared and ruined by the mischievously treacherous hands of someone lacking the capacity to comprehend or appreciate him. His own hands could not be seen; they disappeared somewhere into his body. There was barely a space made by the parting of his legs as he walked. The voice that accompanied his uncertain breaths was faint; silence would take its place soon enough. If he did still see out of those abyssal holes in his head, he looked upon nothing but the thick ice sheet below, blanketed by the dull veil of grey-blue above it. If he did still think, he knew not the reason for his continued journey into the nothing ahead of him. If he still did think. His still audible steps echoed through the plain, as if he was in a chamber rather than a frozen desert, for what seemed to be hours—days. Weeks. Months. Years. Just when it seemed as if he would finally fade away completely, there was a lull in the storm and a strange warmth at his back. Recognising it, he came to a halt as the pale grey-blue gradually softened into a mellow yellow-orange until he could see it in his peripherals. As if broken from a spell, he gasped, clutching at his chest as his lungs remembered the caress of true air. His voice was weak and shaken and his hands trembled as he fell to his knees. When his heart relaxed, he paused for a long moment, his empty sockets staring down at the crystal frost. Within it, he saw a face that was familiar, but no longer his own. Looking uncertain, he turned, intending to find the source of this light that seemed to hold that which was so alien to wherever this place was: life. What he saw was fire. Fire, painted across the skyline, writhing about chaotically in a dangerous tarantella, yet surprisingly cohesive at the same time. It was a colossal entity, stretching far and wide, and in its enormous presence, the wind stopped. And then, it all came back to him in a terrible collage of images, triggered by the dark silhouettes of people, and places, and machines, flying over this creature’s mass. He remembered struggle. He remembered bonds that he once held dear. He remembered victory. He remembered the subsequent deconstruction of his world. He remembered his fall into the void. He had become a mere echo in a fragmented ocean of memories. A single tear escaped the black holes on his face, his expression one of finality and understanding. That which defined him, represented by this monster that seemed to speak voiceless, yet kind and soothing words in his head, had finally found him once again. He remembered purpose. And then, the aura that shimmered off of him grew and, falling once again to his knees, he bowed his head, submitting to the creature. The flames expanded, swallowing the ice and the pale, dead canvas. Blackness. The silence was complete.

What I’m about to publish dates from an earlier time when I actually gave a damn, so you’ll have to forgive the melodrama. Remember, pre-Karma we actually believed that our fight was a matter of good and evil. Or at least I did. For various reasons I could not publish it until now. I think it captures the spirit of our world post-WotC. [quote] Spirit. It cannot be broken and it cannot be stolen away. Those on EZI lists and near deletion may feel otherwise, and certainly Pacifica would have us believe it so. But in truth, the spirit remains, sometimes buried but never fully removed. That is the false assumption of the Francoists and the danger of such reductionist materialism. The Imperial Officers, I have come to learn, claim to have a ‘scientific’ understanding of human psychology. Francoism is supposedly their most important contribution to our world. I think not. Better to call Francoism Vladimir’s greatest lie. The physical powers of the body cannot be separated from the rationale of the mind and the emotions of the heart. They are one and the same, a compilation of a singular being. It is in the harmony of these three – body, mind, and heart – that we find spirit. How many tyrants have tried? How many rulers have sought to reduce their subjects to simple, unthinking instruments of profit and gain? They steal the loves, the beliefs of their people; they seek to steal the spirit. Ultimately and inevitably, they fail. This I must believe. If the flame of the spirit’s candle is extinguished, there is only death, and the tyrant finds no gain in a kingdom littered with corpses. But it is a resilient thing, this flame of spirit, indomitable and ever-striving. In some, at least, it will survive, to the tyrant’s demise. Spirit. In every language, in every nation, in every time and place, the word has a ring of strength and determination. It is the hero’s strength, the mother’s resilience, and the poor man’s armour. It cannot be broken, and it cannot be taken away. This I must believe. [/quote]

After every major war, there has often been a period of relative peace. The Unjust War, for example, was followed by ‘Pax Pacifica’, which was interrupted only by the occasional BLEU curbstomp. This did not lead to the end of politics, however. In fact, it lead to the War of the Coalition, which I personally think was the best time CN has ever seen. The moralism, the despair, the bad guys who were good at playing bad guys... and of course, the political struggles which happened afterwards and lead directly to Karma, despite the fact that everyone claimed it was the end of CN. After Karma happened loads of people quit, or proclaimed that a multipolar world was boring (in fact, I think it was Delta who proposed some theory where the political scene would lead to perpetual peace.) So why should this war be any different? Politics will continue, I’m sure of it. CN won’t die on us because of this. I don’t see why anyone would find Pax Pacifica more interesting politically than the peace that will come about after this war. There are other reasons for the decline of people in this planet. Besides, this war would have happened anyway, and either way whoever won would have been the dominant force in CN. Thus, we would have a dominant group in power regardless of whether we have the war now or later. NPO has... a bit of a track record, when it comes to hegemonies. Personally I would rather have PB as the dominant group in power because they refrain from the use of viceroys and the like (believe you me, it really sucks to be under a viceroy) and also because the OWF is much more free than it used to be. People often mistake ‘group of people in power’ for ‘hegemony’, but this is a misnomer because of the connotations of the word ‘hegemony’, which is associated with the stuff NPO used to do. In this sense, PB is a kind of ‘benevolent hegemony’, or at least moreso than NPO would be. Onto your second conclusion. I admit there is some truth to what you say, but at the same time I would question whether anything was different in NPO’s day. CBs were invented then just as they are now. For example, the War of the Coalition was not fought because Hyperion violated the standards NPO set. Polaris and her allies could not have avoided that war by keeping to the standards NPO set. Hyperion’s only crime was to unknowingly tech deal with Chickenzilla’s reroll. That’s not something Hyperion could have avoided. Clearly 1V and friends wanted a casus belli and got one. After that, MK lived in constant fear of being attacked, and tried to keep to NPO’s standards, even to the extent that they started to self-censor on their boards for fear of providing NPO CB material. However, even that wasn’t enough to guarantee they wouldn’t be hit. Thus, we can conclude that a casus belli is rarely, if ever, the reason for a war, and therefore there’s little difference between Doomhouse being honest about the fact that they don’t have a CB (oh and by the way, that’s not a precedent, for example, TOP attacked C&G without a CB) and NPO’s elaborate explanations and manufactured CBs. Either way, you’re getting attacked because you’re out of grace with the current group of people in power.

If only the 'people in the know' have anything relevant to offer on these forums, why did you make this thread?

I once met a bird and it taught me to love, I met a man, and he taught me to hate, I met a communist, and he taught me to think, I met a Polar, and he taught me pain, I met an idealist and he taught me to believe, I met a banned member, and he taught me to fight, and finally I met a reroll who knocked some goddamn sense into me.

Admin is not a deity, and the terms of service are not an ethical framework.

The problem is that to demonstrate that objective truth and objective ethics exist, you need to resort to real life arguments. I would be quite prepared to demonstrate the existence of objective truth to you, but questions of metaphysics and the existence of God simply don’t belong in the politics of an internet nation game.