Crymson

Discussions on 'free speech' on the OWF aside, I think it'd honestly just be nice if we could all be more respectful of each other and use these boards to engage in genuine political discussion rather than insulting those who attempt to initiate it.

Haha. Well, I can't speak to that time; however, I'm of the opinion that intelligent discourse was considerably more the norm on these boards in the pre-Karma War times. I'm not sure what changed, but I'm sure you'll agree with me that any movement away from such is a negative thing.

Well-put. I hope that all of us can work towards making these forums as they once were---a place in which reasonable discourse is encouraged rather than defamed.

Edit: I was linked to a post in this thread and I mistakenly thought the thread was made up of recent posts relating to current events (I did not look at the title). Apologies for the inadvertent gravedig. I imagine this will momentarily ruffle some feathers, but bear in mind that it is, in fact, seven months old, and it bears no relation to the current situation. Feel free to heap on the ridicule.

By their own admission, they feel they've done nothing wrong and are making amends only as a result of the bad PR their actions have generated. I ask the following as a genuine question, not as an attempt to troll: how does the above fit in with what you've said?

In response to the OP: When beginning any attempts at making amends for one's actions, it is generally wise to admit responsibility for one's actions. Also, it is generally inadvisable to note that your attempts to make amends with the other party stem mostly from your desire to avoid public disapproval.

Not as a whole, no. A couple of alliances, yes.

We saw very little possibility of the terms being amended. In the event, the terms Echelon eventually agreed to were the terms that were offered originally---terms that were offered without the consent of TOP and TSO, terms that we'd certainly not have ratified. Given our treatment during the process and given strong hints by others involved that we were deliberately not contacted for express approval of the surrender terms before they were presented to Echelon (which is absolutely standard procedure with joint terms, and takes all of 30 seconds) because they feared we'd not agree with the terms, we decided that we no longer had a place in the war. In the event, Echelon was also happy to take white peace at the time it was given. For information purposes regarding our affair in the terms process for Echelon during the war, note that the announcement on the subject versed our feelings on the subject. Seeking an alliance's approval for joint surrender terms before they are presented is very much common policy, and it requires only a tiny bit of common sense to figure that it's both the right thing to do and a necessary thing to do. We had excellent reasons to think that our consent had been deliberately not sought out---too, we had no idea that the terms were going to be presented until we were invited into a channel and watched it happen---and in any event there's absolutely no excuse for terms to be offered without prior consent and without prior notice.

You indeed said we left Q within five days of that bloc being involved in a war, a statistic you used to label us as a 'survivalist' alliance, to support a claim that we left the bloc during that timespan in order to avoid war, and to support a claim that we thus 'refused defensive assistance' to all seven alliances then in the Continuum. Given that the latter two have been effectively refuted and given that the meaningless statistic in question thus does not at all support your label of us, how on earth does listing us as having left Q within five days of war have any relevance whatsoever? Also, you're effectively contradicting yourself; first you have said, on the basis of your own assumptions, that the time of departure has meaning and supports your claims, and then, when confronted, you transitioned into saying that you were merely listing the time period in question---a transition which you undertook without removing the claims and negative implications you were using that time period to support. Where on earth did I say that sorting out the chaining treaties from the no-chaining treaties didn't matter? I expressly said the opposite to you on IRC, just as I have on several occasions in this thread. Accusing me of taking this too seriously sounds like a real cop-out, a way to avoid admission of your own errors (it also simply doesn't fit, based on your level of participation in this thread). Yours was a slanderous thread based on basely incorrect information, and I wanted the true information to be presented so that the record could be set straight.

You've chosen to ignore everything we've said regarding the subject. We've mentioned the facts that we'd been discussing exit from the Continuum for quite awhile before this and the fact that we simply cannot move that quickly as an alliance given our style of voting; while you can choose to either ignore these or not, a more demonstrable fact is that our notice of intent to exit the bloc was served before the issue between OV and TPF/NPO erupted. Given that we gave our intent of notice to leave before it was even hinted that a major war might erupt between those alliances---and given, indeed, that the alliance vote regarding our potential exit from the Continuum was held the day before our notice was served, thus increasing the time between our decision and the war to something in the realm of 100 hours---how could it be possible that we canceled as a result of fears of the war that erupted soon afterward? I mentioned this in my initial response to you. Why did you choose to ignore it? By that rationale, you'd be eliminating a good portion of all of the MDPs that exist on Planet Bob, as a tremendous number of them have no-chaining clauses; and unless you've no brain to go along with your head, you know full well the good reasons for MDPs to have such clauses.

You list TOP as having 'denied military assistance' to x number of allies. It'd have been difficult to deny military assistance to Q, given that we were no longer part of the bloc when it went to war (note that the involvement of many of those who were in Q during the war could just as well have been due to other treaties as well, given that many of them had overlapping treaties with the NPO). As for the rest, it's rather difficult to deny military assistance to an ally when it is neither required by the treaty nor requested by the allies in question. As such, your changes only reflect a further lack of information. Per your quote of Khyber: note that he was not in TOP government during the Karma War, nor is he in government now, and as such his opinion should not necessarily be taken as being representative of the TOP membership's general sentiments on the matter. However, since you have knowingly taken one general member's opinion as demonstrative of that of the entire alliance, does that mean that we should take your slander of TOP as representative of your entire alliance's feelings toward us?

There are two possibilities here: 1) You're being facetious, which seems unlikely considering your role in this thread. 2) You really haven't spoken with those with whom we've fought. Your behavior in this thread certainly points to one very obvious thing (aside from your apparent lack of ability to take responsibility for actions and admit to errors): you know very, very little about TOP and equally little about the CN political community and its history. In any event, you've slowly responded to the confrontations of your allegations by a gradual resort to simple, standard trolling. If that isn't a sign of a sense of personal defeat as regards this discussion, I'm not sure what is. o7 I'll respond to this simply for the purposes of information and clarification: Ice's reference to being ZId regarded his experience during the Unjust War; he was part of Gen[m]ay at that point. This was indeed something he did not specify; however, he also did not claim that he was ZId during the Karma War. For the record, the Unjust War was over two years ago. In reference to your argument, however, I argue that it is certainly possible to buy back from ZI to 10,000+ infra if one has a sizable warchest. Matt Miller is proof enough of that.

Let's be done with this thread for now; our interactions with those accusing us of whatever manner of things are not producing anything constructive.

It was three days, not two. The OP made reference to a three-day notice of cancellation, yet still claimed that there were only two days between our notice of cancellation and the announcement of our withdrawal from the Continuum. As Ice says, it's also impossible, based on the fact that all matters are discussed at length before our representative voting body---which, indeed, votes on the basis of the aforementioned discussions---for TOP to react so quickly. This is how things are done in TOP; either believe it or don't believe it.

Try again, Jack. You didn't own up at all. What treaties say is of utterly paramount importance as to whether or not those treaties were violated, a fact that I don't believe many will disagree with.

Not really. I just like to encourage people to take proper responsibility for their actions.

The OP apparently is unwilling to concede that his allegations toward TOP were incorrect. This is rather low, given that all of his arguments were refuted and that, further, he has gone so far as to admit to me on IRC that he wrote a slandering thread without doing proper research first, but that he is unwilling to own up to it. Given the OP's claims that he is swamped by queries regarding this topic, I'll give him some time to admit to his errors before I resort to simply dumping the pertinent logs into this thread. A few words of advice to the OP: if you wish to create a thread making significant negative implications about an alliance and you do not wish it to be labeled as blase slander, I suggest you put in the time to research the information before making the thread. Of course, such won't be necessary if the simple intent of your post is to slander.

That you have chosen to completely ignore my post, a post that effectively disproved your original assertions, speaks volumes regarding your intentions in starting this thread and regarding your desire to actually discuss rather than simply slander. In case you missed it, you may find it by clicking here.

As I was leader of TOP throughout the Karma War, I'm happy to address this; our common policy is to avoid engaging in discussion with those we feel are simply slandering us rather than attempting to encourage any legitimate discussion, but I'll provide information on the pertinent points of discussion for those who care to see fact-based claims rather than the blase conjecture provided by the OP. Regarding Q: Discussions regarding our departure from Q had been underway for weeks before the Karma War. Departure from Q required 72 hours notice; our notice was posted before the issue between OV and TPF/NPO erupted, and it was related to our desire to pursue a different direction and not at all to any threat of war that we were seeking to avoid. Given that there was no threat at the time we served our notice of intent to withdraw, I find it hard to believe that any connection can be drawn. Feel free to contact our former allies in Q to confirm this. Beyond this, I suggest you check your math, as 72 hours previous to April 20th equals April 17th, not April 18th. Regarding Old Guard: OG was in the war as a result of an MADP with the NPO and treaty obligations via the Continuum, as I recall. As such, activation of our MDP with that alliance was inapplicable; they were in the war as a result of other treaty obligations, and our treaty with Old Guard did not chain. This is the pertinent section of the treaty: Further, Old Guard did even not at any point attempt to activate said MDP, thus making your point utterly wrong. Regarding Valhalla: As with the Mobius Accords (Q), discussions within TOP on cancellation of this treaty had begun well before the Karma War erupted, as our relations with Valhalla were sparse and there was a general feeling that we shared nothing in common with them so far as goals and priorities were concerned. Valhalla agreed to waive the seven-day cancellation clause on the treaty. Further, this MDP could only have been activated on the basis of chaining, and---you'll notice that this is a common theme in our treaties---a no-chaining clause was present in the treaty text. It is as follows: Given that any obligation to enter the conflict on Valhalla's behalf could virtually only have been a result of chaining, I'd call rather silly any implication that we canceled this MDP in order to avoid having to avoid war based on treaty obligations. Regarding MCXA: I'll here mostly be repeating my paragraphs concerning our MDP with Valhalla, as the situations were virtually identical: as with the Mobius Accords (Q), discussions within TOP on cancellation of this treaty had begun well before the Karma War erupted, as our relations with MCXA were sparse and there was a general feeling that we shared nothing in common with them so far as goals and priorities were concerned; it is worth mention that this was in part due to the exodus of members from MCXA to what would become TSO, as amongst this group was virtually everyone with whom we had ever worked in diplomacy with MCXA. Further, this MDP could only have been activated on the basis of chaining, and---you'll notice that this is a common theme in our treaties---a no-chaining clause was present in the treaty text. It is as follows: As with Valhalla, given that any obligation to enter the conflict on MCXA behalf could virtually only have been a result of chaining, I'd call rather silly any implication that we canceled this MDP in order to avoid having to avoid war based on treaty obligations. To summarize: I believe the evidence presented above proves that there was no violation of any of the treaties listed above, and that nor did we cancel any of them in order to avoid war. The sad reality is that you---likely knowingly---created this thread with absolutely nothing on which to base your claims besides superficial information, and with an apparent utter lack of effort to gather any information on the topic. I can only assume that this was a deliberate, utterly conjecture-based attempt to sully our name. If you're really interested in putting forth valid points, rather than simple assumptive insults, best try to do your research before your next attempt. o7 TOP

Amen. Exactly.

Given the wish for military action against Polar that existed in many other alliances at the time, TOP's participation was certainly not necessary for the war to go forward. Feel free to ask around about that to the others who were, in the event, involved in the war. Per the necessity for a 'war-oriented Grandmaster': I'll re-iterate again that I was acting only on the basis of the desires of TOP's membership at the time. Such is how representative democracy works. In any event, trust me; the membership was geared up for the war---it was a long time in the coming---such that any Grandmaster who was in office at the time would have had to be criminally irresponsible to not make an effort to bring it about.

I seem somewhere along the way to have achieved a personal reputation per dealings in foreign affairs. While Grandmaster of TOP, it was my job to represent and execute in foreign affairs the desires of TOP's membership, and I always did my best to do so; whatever aforementioned reputation I have is undeserved, as I was never acting on the basis of anything but the above. As such, attributing any sort of personal responsibility to me in foreign affairs matters would be rather silly. Further, it'd be very misplaced in this case in any event; hostility against Polar at the time was immense and held by many, many alliances, and it was that---not some backroom dealings---that in the main brought the war about.

Your reference to the forces arrayed against Polar in that war as a 'Citadel fire-team' is very misplaced. The force that initially declared war on Polaris was composed of nine alliances spanning (including overlaps) five different blocs, and it was certainly NOT a Citadel operation.

Both statements you've made here are entirely subjective. Per the 'rant' in question: there were, I know, many who felt the same as Grub did on that particular issue.

I misread, then.