Sigrun Vapneir

That is true IRL but not necessarily so in cybernations. Many players are more than willing to take nukes. Something nations in real life are extremely averse to doing. This changes the equation drastically.

Yes, that really doesnt make sense. The alternative hypothesis that comes to mind immediately is simply that their dislike of ODN was the key factor.

Nor is it unique to Pacifica. Any functional alliance has stories just like that. So? When you catch a serial killer you dont let him free just because he was a nice guy to his wife and kids at home.

I'm sorry, I must have missed the treaty announcement where NPO and Blackstone Collusion admitted to being allies, could I get a link?

A very subjective and squishy difference for your board lawyers to have fun arguing with, yes. Just about any piece of information you could think of, one could argue on the one hand was at least potentially critical to ones security and simultaneously you could make the other argument as well. In contrast, the difference between spying and receiving information is clear and unambiguous. Every attempt is being made to blur that distinction but it only works on those who are dead set on finding some excuse, any excuse, for what NPO did. Now, I said at the time, and I will stand by it - IF the NPO had come to OV playing the heavy with their "evidence" in a legitimate attempt to counter Blackstone, I would have been supportive of that. Blackstone was spying, the evidence showed there was a connection of some sort with Sethb, it would have been legitimate to try and use that as a lever to get cooperation and information to use against Blackstone. Instead Blackstone were allowed to go their own way, peacefully and unmolested, while apparently handing over the "evidence" to the NPO as a love token. Now why Blackstone was sending love tokens to their supposed arch-enemies there is a question for another day, but it's hard not to suspect the obvious. At any rate, as there was no focus on the actual spies and no attempt to get at them, the evidence of spying just has no logical connection to the assault on OV.

While that is true, not everyone found the Hegemony objectionable in and of itself. Speaking for myself I would keep an open mind. I had a lot of interaction with the NPO while Ivan was running it and I liked them, a lot. Never had a problem with them. Hegemonists? Sure. But whether it was real or only a clever ruse, they seemed a reasonably benevolent and honourable hegemony at the time. Reasonable people that could be dealt with. Later, when I had to deal with them under Moo, however, none of that was true. There was neither the reality nor the facade of benevolence, or honour. Just brute force, sadism, and arrogance. Now maybe the change didnt coincide with Moos ascension. I was kind of tuned out for a bit between the two periods. Maybe the old NPO just *pretended* to be decent folk because they didnt feel secure enough. Maybe the later, arrogant NPO was their real face all along. But for me that's just speculation, what I know is I never had a problem with them earlier. So I would be more than willing to give it a chance. Not likely to happen, though.

It's not just contrary to what everyone else thinks - I would be the first to say that if you agree with everyone else you are probably wrong. The trouble is you guys seem to believe totally crazy things, demonstrably, objectively untrue. Like I have seen MANY NPO members who obviously believe they are in a defensive war. This is demonstrably, objectively wrong. It isnt a matter of opinion. Similarly, many seem to think that OV was proven to be spying. In fact no evidence was ever presented that OV was spying. There was clear evidence that Blackwater was spying. Blackwater apparently handed that evidence to the NPO as a love token right before they disbanded and the spies walked away with a nod and a wink from the NPO. It is obvious that the NPO leadership is busy stuffing the members with lies. It's not surprise if the members tend to believe the leaders, and then parrot those lies, in fact I would be surprised if it were otherwise. However the sad fact is that the more effective they are at this, the worse the situation becomes for the membership. Fighting an "eternal war" against unjust attack, when one has no other option, is one thing. That would be noble, and draw admiration and praise. Fighting an "eternal war" by *choice*, when your side launched the unjust attack to begin with, when merciful terms have been offered and rejected, entirely because your leaders refuse to admit to the facts of the matter, is not. It's stupid, tragic even.

Hi Daimos, Are you new or returning? I hope it will manage to admit its mistakes and learn from them. In this case I could see it growing to take up a prominent and honourable role in the world again, as it did some years ago. I fear, however, it will be allowed to find peace in its current position, with the current leaders, and become nothing more than an ignorant and bitter collection of pawns for them to use as they plot revenge. Basically see the first answer. Depends on which way that goes. Regardless of which way things go otherwise, the NPO will likely be laying low and building strength when the next medium-sized or larger war hits. I assume you mean that - small ones happen every day. It all depends on what road y'all choose Also remember that "Karma" is a force of nature, not an alliance It's being called the Karma war (although more properly called GWIV) because the simple fact is the NPO p***ed off/on just about the entire civilised world over the past year. It terrorised many, many victims, some completely innocent, some less so, but in the end it just made so many enemies that very nearly the entire world spontaneously moved together to bring it down. That isnt something that just happens. That took MANY months of work, poor work but work nonetheless, on behalf on NPO government. When virtually the entire planet stood up as one to end that reign of terror, it wasnt a strong coalition with real ties. Just an incredible mass of people standing up at once and saying "no more!" So of course once the current war ends you can expect those alliances to go different ways. If my hopes come true, you could wind up allied with some of the more peaceful alliances, if not then you will wind up allied with others, either way I suspect it will happen though. Case 1: No, NPO will quit blaming others for NPO actions and realise there is no need for vengeance. Case 2: Absolutely. NPO will find new focus by planning the humiliation and destruction, one after the other, of each and every alliance that fought against them, and several of those who defended them as well. Not likely would be my guess, but your guess might be better than mine on this. That depends entirely on internal NPO factors. I wouldnt want to see that happen, but then again if y'all cant get a decent government in it would probably be better to disband than continue to drag the name of Pacifica down. Required for scenario 1 I suspect. Also seems unlikely at this point, unfortunately. But it really is your only hope. Yes, absolutely. Who? That is for the NPO to answer. But you need a wholesale .gov purge if you are to have any chance of becoming respectable again IMOP. NPO influence was squandered by your leaders ages ago. They seem to have felt that they had enough raw power they no longer needed it. If you manage to reform and become respectable again, you will regain some influence.

I dont agree with eternal war without condition, even for them. But if it were my call they wouldnt be offered peace again until their .gov is changed. Once those who pulled the strings are gone and someone who is not total scum becomes Emperor, white peace would be fine with me. But I wouldnt even discuss the issue until there is wholesale regime change.

Personally I couldnt see any outcome that leaves the "leaders" of the NPO in place as even approximating justice. The majority of the members, like in any alliance, are probably relatively ignorant and innocent, it is the leaders who have ridden the NPO down from the top of the world to the bottom with their actions. They work in the shadows to hide their dishonour, and clearly control the information the rest of the alliance receives quite effectively. Of course the NPO members are free to leave, and it's easy to say anyone left at this point must be scum like those they follow, but I believe that would be a significant misunderstanding of the situation. From what I can see the rank and file appears to be so thoroughly disoriented and confused by the propaganda they are being fed they actually think this is a defensive war! I believe, and may bodies of law agree, that someone so thoroughly out of touch with reality cannot be held morally responsible for their actions. So I couldnt really view as just any punishment that targets them. But if the leaders are allowed to escape punishment, if indeed terms are eventually agreed to that leave them in place while demanding heavy reps of the rank and file, this will only solidify the place of those leaders, and the effects of their propoganda internally as well.

Congrats OMFG, FCC!

Considering the contents of the most recent pacifican announcement, I am shocked anyone is even willing to offer the NPO terms. Certainly if the boot were on the other foot they would not treat you so kindly.

A very honourable announcement. No surprise there. Keep doing it right NoR.

If he were really playing a new character it would be unlikely to have come up in the first place. To be fair, it's an IC organisation which requires both as a practical and normally legal necessity access to an OOC private computer system, with OOC forums, etc. Also whenever these things come up it seems the person involved isnt really RPing squat, it's just a dodge. Potato says "you said you were a noob but acted like you knew everyone" - that doesnt sound like RPing a new character to me...

I thought that was MK?

I'm sorry, where were you when it was GATO or GPA using peace mode again? At any rate, if you were an economist, you might be familiar with the concept of opportunity cost. Even if they are gaining NS and will continue to do so despite ongoing war, they will gain it much slower than they would in peace. The logical consequences of this is that if they want peace they are better off getting serious about negotiating peace sooner instead of later. If that's not happening it can only indicate they really expect those fighting them to get tired of it and give them what they want sooner rather than later as well. Face it, if they fight as long as FAN did, and then get white peace, economically speaking they still would have been better off bringing all the PM nations in and paying reps instead.

I aint him, but I would pretty much expect any alliance at war to use nukes at the earliest opportunity, so I wouldnt expect it to affect terms at all from that perspective - it's just what you do. However if you do manage to pull off a non-nuclear war, then the damages are obviously less, so from that perspective reps should be less.

Fail troll is fail. Props to the guys at IRON that nuked me every day for two war cycles and took the same without whining about it. And to all Karma allies.

/me salutes IRON, an honourable foe. And I am very happy to see we are again at peace. May this one last even longer than the last one.

A very merciful peace. Hopefully this will end here.

The reps being asked are tiny by comparison with reps IRON demanded from others in the past. IRON could pay them easily and quickly. For now, IRON prefers to argue and fight. Disappointing. In addition to there having been no Citadel at the time, it would have been *extremely* out of character for most of the folk that now make up the Citadel to do that then. NPO at that point could still claim to be a somewhat *benevolent* hegemon with a straight face, and UJP were the bad guys. Doh!

So, despite the understanding that in general it's bad form to infringe the sovereignty of an alliance (particularly considering how often wars are one-sided curbstomps with no provocation lately,) the peace term that removed him was *not* an example of injustice perhaps?

Thank you, at least, for that. I agree with you completely. And I've never been against "EZI" absolutely. I have had people before who just kept coming back over and over again attacking us with nation after nation because we defended one of our own alliance member when he "raided" said alliance member, for an example. It was a fair bet on our part that his 6th nation was going to attack us just like the previous 5, so watching for it and even hitting preëmptively when we could made sense, no? So sometimes it makes sense OOC. Still effectively genocide IC, PZI is as well though, that could be played around if people could be arsed to care. But for the past year or so it seems more and more often there it is practiced as a mode of griefing, and there really is a big difference.

Even if that were true (and we'll never know now) any coalition that would have attacked the NPO would be missing a large portion of the force that wound up uniting because they started it, and almost certainly lost.

This. And sometimes it is better to disband than to continue to exist as a shadow/refutation/parody of yourself. Or as a puppet. But if that's why an alliance disbanded, then when it becomes possible for them to exist again, if they want to, then more power to them.