Bromance

Unless you're a goon probably not, I only joined up during the current war when there was the big SA recruitment drive. I'm just one of a few dozen new bloods that this war brought into the goonfold.

You know how they say the winner of a knife fight dies on the operating table, the loser in the street? That's kind of how this war would have played out if EQ went for the extermination of Competence. They'd have either been left in a state where non-threats have suddenly become a threat, or they'd be maimed to a point where it would take them years to recover. If EQ thought they could put down competence without getting bloodied, I imagine they would. I know I would in their shoes.

I think Competence also had rather more modest goals. EQ set out with the high goal of trying to bring the upper tiers into "balance", while (and I can only speak as a low level goon here) from nearly the get go we where basically ordered to just go out enjoy the war and fight until EQ is forced to white peace. In fact here in goons we seemed completely disconnected from the larger war, I actually fought for two weeks without even knowing what alliances where on the enemy side. All I knew was that we where doing massive damage to NPL and LoSS, and lots of aid kept turning up from TOP and Umbrella, and that was good enough. Anyway back to the point; you can say that Competence came closer to achieving its goals, but that is party because its goals where far more modest than EQ's. To competence victory and forcing EQ to end the war seemed to be one and the same, which I think has been why so many of us see this as a victory. EQ had pretty lofty goals and I think many people are aware that even though EQ achieved a lot, it didn't achieve everything it set out to do.

I think it was clear that EQ was winning this war, even if it was only through attrition. However for them to achieve total victory would have required them to sacrifice so much that many of them found this arrangement more palpatable. The amount of resources, nations and everything else they would have had to give up to destroy competence would have broken many of their own alliances, and left many others extremely depleted. Competence clearly knew this, and it appears the higher ups used it on the negotiation table. I'd like to make clear I'm not implying that EQ didn't have "the stomach" to finish this war, only that it was not in many of their own interests to go for a total victory especially as some of the agreements between the EQ side appear slightly shakey (atleast as an outside observer) On the otherside, this rhetoric about Competence getting it's asskicked is just in poor taste. Competence didn't get it's ass kicked any more than EQ "Chickened out of achieving total victory." What happened was that both sides saw the writing on the wall, the high costs of a continued war and realised that no matter there opinions toward each other it was not in their own self-interests to continue.

NPL even asked me to help attack myself! I tried my best but you can't send forces against yourself it seems :*(