Mr Garcia

My first war was part of the ICSN war in April 2006. I don't remember much of it. I was attacked by one (?) LUE nation, and, predictably, did quite badly. Besides having a "strategy" to nation-building that amounted to buying infra and land in equal measure, I simply didn't realise that war was coming, and I think I was anarchied in one night. Because of this, and because the war ended within a couple of days (one day for me, because I quit the ICSN and swore an oath of non-aggression to the NPO Emperor), my views on war weren't really altered or developed. I learned how to fight properly from the NPO guides when I joined them that summer. Politically, however, the ICSN war was quite influential for me. I and a few likeminded people felt that the alliance had gone down the tubes because of a leadership that tried to act like a big, barking dog, constantly antagonising the NPO without having anything to back it up with, even sending spies to that alliance and LUE, which they treated as a casus belli. The war initiated by the NPO against my alliance actually made me more pro-NPO, just because I felt we had brought it upon ourselves. Besides, I thought the NPO were cool in general, and they actually seemed to have more members who had an idea about communism or socialism. And I figured that if so many people I disliked hated them, they couldn't be that bad.

\m/ was a fun alliance to be in. I joined just before GW2 and I quit CN a couple of months before the UJW started (and a month before some of the drama leading up to it), so I never really developed an opinion on the latter bit of history. I was always pro-NPO, and I joined >_< from the NPO just to raid and have fun while still being in the same political alignment. It's sad that it was disbanded or made to disband or whatever, but that's life sometimes. I guess my feelings about this would have been different if I had been around for all the drama. I don't agree with the idea that we just rode other people's coattails while bragging about our ability to fight. We contributed to a victorious coalition twice, but that's hardly illegal, and I recall we did our part. We also contributed to the beatdowns of VE/CIS/NTO and FAN, which were of course one-sided, but apparently we had no qualms with helping out with curbstomping our former allies for the NPO, GGA, etc. regardless of what happened later. Of course, I was just a regular member and not involved in the workings of higher government, so I don't know to what extent the later conflict was already being shaped at that time.

Still some fight left in the old dog. Hail NSO and all that.

Excellent. I've always wanted to re-read Vlad's old essays in a tiny font on a dark-red background. It ain't real unless your eyes are bleeding.

Are you talking about yourself in that last line? I really like your reasoning: why go with the simplest, most common-sense explanation when you can make up some theory or another? It's peace. We're happy, they're happy, why aren't you?

Hail!

Oh boy, global stability, is it? I keep trying to write a proper reply to this guy, but I constantly find myself deleting the word "idiot". I'm glad we've got proper allies like the NPO who will stick to their treaty ties.

Great arguments about peace mode. I've seen the light and I think I'll just go and surrender now. Or maybe not. I'm sure our leaders are just as eager to get their hands dirty at a better moment. The only thing I'm pissed off about is that it's still 2 weeks until I can buy a wonder again. If I could get my hands on an SDI right now, Rayvon could stay in peace mode for the rest of his life as far as I'm concerned.

I think I can hear the Imperial March playing in my head.

It was already a parody in 2006. To name a few things: - Openly-endorsed factionalism in the ICSN (with a little subforum for each faction). - Hare-brained espionage against the "imperialists" that could only ever lead to one thing. - The language of the denunciations on the public forums after the whole thing had blown up (traitors, counterrevolutionaries, etc.). - The "unity" conference forums that often led to bickering anyway. - The role played by the differences between anarchism, M-L, Trotskyism, etc. - "Socialism in one alliance", the "ICP (M-L)", etc. I'm sure people can think of more.

I'll PM you later today. I was not paying attention for pretty much the entire period of 2007-2011, so I can't say anything interesting about that time, nor about the CPCN, ICP refoundations, etc. I just wanted to expand on the parallel with ancient left history for a bit. I don't know if there is a direct line between ICP/SWF foreign policy then, and INT now.

Maybe you should start a conference again. I wouldn't call it "The Internationale" this time around though. :) The difference between now and then is that the matter never turned into a shooting war, and in the end, all those alliances but the ICP participated in GW1 on LUE's side. After that, the ICSN merged into the ICP, and the rest is history. These conflicts way back in 2006 were just the afterthought of the splintering of the original ICSN. This split, in turn, was the end result of the bitter conflicts that existed within the ICSN long before the NPO and LUE ever laid hands on them. Everyone hated each other's guts. The current situation of INT is interesting in light of the history of the left. The ICP initially had neutrality as a principle, even in GWI, but eventually it joined up with the League, and the SWF with Aegis, and so on. At the time, this was justified with the idea of the NPO and allies constituting a hegemonic imperialist power. Now, years on, this can hardly be credibly said, or you'd have to brand both sides in the ongoing war with this label, and then you'd have to go back to neutrality. In any event, both INT and the LSF have gone their own ways and found their own allies. All the leftist alliances have learned to live in a world where people have different opinions, but the LSF just allies itself with whomever it wants, whereas INT has continued the years-old historical process of the biggest leftist alliance embedding itself into a major power bloc. That is a choice that one can make, but it can hardly be justified by anti-imperialism any more. For INT, the communism is a theme, a flavour, and that's their choice, and nobody can begrudge them that they're big and they've got powerful friends, etc. But they can hardly turn around and whine that the LSF are "attacking their own comrades" when such a connection has not existed for a while now. These are not concepts of anarchism. The wording of this is so general that it can apply to pretty much every situation. The international community, liberalism, pacifism, etc. Indeed, there are very few people who say: "My ideal is isolationism and autocracy where the interests of most stakeholders are cast aside." The very word "stakeholders" is interesting here, because it's one of the worst excesses of local government management-speak (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7948894.stm). Yours is the language of corporatist social-democracy, rather than of anarchism. And of course it's not just your language that is presently playing this role.

The best thing about wartime is when the "honourable" brigade come out of the woodwork to show us their recently acquired student cards at the Cyber Nations E-Law School. It's a bit of a change after almost 4 years of "Because we can", "We are big and you are small", etc. Now you can't read a page of threads like this without someone going: "You can't do this!" "Don't say that!" :( "You started it, because you were the first to formally declare an alliance war!" "It's wrong. Wrooooooong." And a totally fair and not at all caricatural translation of most sustained arguments: "We're not hypocrites! You're saying that we're hypocrites because we're agitating against when we used to support it, but here's the thing: in the past, you did not always criticise this hypocrisy with the same consistency. So tbh I think it's very hypocritical of you to call us hypocrites!" (In reality, the word "hypocrite" would have been misspelled several times already) Ah yes, an essential first-year course at the Cyber Nations E-Law School is Pointing Out Hypocrisy 101. It would be interesting to properly analyse all the accusations of hypocrisy that have been spouted so far. If you tried to express it graphically, you would probably get a hypocrisy chart more complicated than all the treaty webs that have ever existed. The hypocrisy web.

So many people who are surprised at the fact that, regardless of how it came about, it's possible to have a war that both sides feel is worth having for its own sake, because they feel it's right. A war that has plenty of accusations and trash-talking, but is good-spirited at the same time. Would it have been more efficient for the NSO to just pre-empt on Kaskus, regardless of the facts? Probably, but would it have been [i]right[/i]? When you already outnumber and outgun an opponent in every way, is it right to curbstomp them pre-emptively just because they might attack you? Sure, from the point of view of the Sith, it would have been acceptable simply because it's more in our interests than waiting for the attack, but even the dark side can look beyond just short-term interests. On the long term, it is better to go through the motions, even if that means having a few more anarchied nations than the other side for the first couple of days. Better to be an alliance that is known to appreciate the sporting aspect of things. It's more instructive for nations that have never fought before to fight multiple defensive wars than it is to curbstomp some unprepared nations in Defcon 5 and minimal soldiers. People from other alliances should take note of this silly little war, which is largely being fought for its own sake, especially when they are part of some neutral alliance where they only ever shovel tech around, when they are in an alliance that only calls on them for some no-CB curbstomp, or when they are in an alliance that makes them bleed for some other alliance.

[quote name='omfghi2u2' timestamp='1355925033' post='3065797'] So NSO is not going to at least defend their nations getting pummeled by Kaskus? Good to know. -omfg [/quote] That's exactly it. You're spot on, you can read us like a book!

[quote name='Branimir' timestamp='1327414287' post='2906149'] Jack is correct, the text in the original post that serves as a statement from the victorious coalition previous to the quoted instrument of peace, is just a statement from the victorious coalition with which wording anybody can agree or disagree with.[/quote] Exactly. Who cares about who admitted defeat? Seems to me that both sides got out of the war without losing face. Not on equitable terms, but worthwhile to both anyway. The parties in question can always state their own opinions on how they would like history to be written. So the NPO claims victory and then posts these terms? Well, then FAN can make a post confirming that they signed the quoted terms, adding: "We are delighted that we got this peace. While it may look like a defeat to most outside observers, it was actually a strategic victory for us. Free beer and gun porn ITT. Hail us!" Instead, what we get is whining: "ZOMG we weren't informed that your announcement would include your own interpretation of who won. No fair!!! We still hate you guys by the way." Once upon a time, FAN's universal response to that kind of whining was: "Do something about it." That's still good advice.

It is pointless to just make a list with 30 names on it, as some people have done. If people really want to make a "Hall of Fame" kind of thing, then they should at the very least try to define what a "legend" is. It would also be interesting for all of the entries (or at least the top-tier ones) to have some kind of definitive biography, high and low points, and the like. The ones whose main achievements were years ago might even be tempted to share what went on behind the scenes at the time, the kind of thing that most people will never read about normally. Of course, it is always subjective. There are a lot of influential people in all kinds of fields, but only a few of them stand out. A football analogy would be that Cruyff is a legend, while Bergkamp was just a great player. This makes the distinction clear, without diminishing the greatness of the latter. Anyway, they would probably be forced to make some kind of hierarchy, with tiers like: [b]First tier:[/b] those people never to be topped, people who combined several great aspects. There have been a lot of people with organisational skill, military intelligence, diplomatic ability, personal charisma, etc. But also consider just how they put these skills to work into concrete achievements of massive importance, the ability to actively take credit for their achievements so that we may remember their names, a large following, etc. It seems to me that there are only a select few who combined all or most of these aspects. Of course, there are also those who were perhaps strictly organisationally strong (i.e. people lopsided towards one very specific skill which they were excellent at), or people who did not have extraordinary skills except for the charisma and the ability to be at the forefront of extremely important events. Perhaps we need to look at their impact to determine whether they still belong in this tier. [b]Second tier:[/b] I think this would be for people who, for instance, created a significant treaty system or was prominent in a global war, or someone who glued a treaty system with lots of opposite alliances together, those who founded new and unique alliances and brought them to prominence against the odds, but who did not influence things beyond that, on a gamewide scale. So basically people who had an impact, but not one that is necessarily felt by all of us. [b]Third tier:[/b] if people want to even bother with this, it could include the kind of people who just have fame or notoriety in general, or specific achievements that are just plain interesting. People who managed to get their alliances sanctioned despite all odds early on, rogues, rebels, lesser organisers in important wars and alliances, leaders of major alliances that achieved long-term stability and diplomatic and military success for themselves in general, etc.