The Day Today - A Brief History of January 2021

[Johnny Apocalypse]

1 hour ago, Lyanna Mormont said:

 

This. This is the part that you never understood and it is freaking sad. When GK spoke, did you just refuse to listen? The reason that we do not merge? Is because we are not the same. We have different cultures. We have different identities. You saying this only proves that you never once understood what GK believed in or what he was working to accomplish. Some people build. They inspire loyalty. GK was like that.

 

 

 

14 minutes ago, Jason8 said:

Really, as allied leadership sitting in the coalition channel, the DoW made it real easy to say "Well, the aggressors are idiots, we're all in, no questions asked."  Had there been definitive proof of stupidity showing COBRA didn't deserve the backup, I would've had a hell of a time (with SirWilliam and master hakai) committing Kashmir to enter the conflict, let alone talking our alliance membership into it.  That's literally how this all works.  I've personally been on both sides of that coin in the past.

Obviously Kashmir ❤ COBRA, so we were obviously here, yo.  But CBs are important, no matter what some people say.  Being straightforward and honest is the way to go.

 

Also very much this.

[Kapleo]

2 hours ago, Lord Hitchcock said:

there was a point where I often wondered why TPF, Cobra, and TIE didn't just merge into one. 

Bruh, you couldn't be more far from reality. Here's a little something from inside:

 

When we are not fighting outsiders, we are fighting among ourselves, and it's amazing.

[Jason8]

1 minute ago, Kapleo said:

Bruh, you couldn't be more far from reality. Here's a little something from inside:

 

When we are not fighting outsiders, we are fighting among ourselves, and it's amazing.

Can confirm.

[Lucius Optimus]

52 minutes ago, Kapleo said:

Bruh, you couldn't be more far from reality. Here's a little something from inside:

 

When we are not fighting outsiders, we are fighting among ourselves, and it's amazing.

Dammit Kap. Stop giving away the secret recipe!

[Lyanna Mormont]

1 hour ago, Kapleo said:

Bruh, you couldn't be more far from reality. Here's a little something from inside:

 

When we are not fighting outsiders, we are fighting among ourselves, and it's amazing.

If I don't yell at Kap monthly I assume he is dead.

[Kapleo]

Well there ya go lol

[Lord Hitchcock]

4 hours ago, Johnny Apocalypse said:

 

 

I get it, but do you know how much of a pain in the butt it is to coordinate wars on?  
 

3 hours ago, Kapleo said:

Bruh, you couldn't be more far from reality. Here's a little something from inside:

 

When we are not fighting outsiders, we are fighting among ourselves, and it's amazing.

 

2 hours ago, Lucius Optimus said:

Dammit Kap. Stop giving away the secret recipe!

 

2 hours ago, Lyanna Mormont said:

If I don't yell at Kap monthly I assume he is dead.

I have absolutely no doubt, you all come up with some interesting stuff.

[jerdge]

8 hours ago, Lord Hitchcock said:

I will bite on this because I understand this frustration. Having fought Doom Squad for years and their alias as other alliances, it was sorta ridiculous. One minute they were part of Doom Kingdom and the next minute they'd run off and form Doom Squad and waive any accountability back from the alliance they were just on- and ultimately went back to. [...]

Having spectated this from the outside numerous times, I have to say that I still can't completely wrap my mind about (what from the outside seemed to be) the usual response from the attacked party.

If a nation attacks your Alliance they're an enemy, if they then unilaterally (without having been cleared by you) switch Alliance Affiliation they are still an enemy, if their new (old) Alliance protects them from the consequences of their actions then they're enemies too. If the notion of Alliance still makes sense, at least.

I can't understand why anyone ever accepted to be fed any other narrative.

(I understand not having the firepower to engage everyone on the other side, but that's not my point.)

[HeroofTime55]

16 hours ago, James Spanier said:

 

As was stated (and demonstrated) within the peace summit as well as several DM's, there was no point in presenting or litigating the logs publicly. Literally neither side will ever agree they committed wrongdoing regardless if they have or not, and the two sides that generally be at the moment make up the vast majority of the posters on this forum. There's no real middle ground to convince, so why commit to an argument that will never resolve in a satisfactory way? Everyone thinks they're the hero of the story.
 

I don't actually believe you are this stupid, and I hope you can one day find a sense of self-dignity to stop parroting this nonsense.

[Tevron]

1 hour ago, HeroofTime55 said:

I don't actually believe you are this stupid, and I hope you can one day find a sense of self-dignity to stop parroting this nonsense.

 

I'd love it if you made actual points instead of just thinly veiled insults to people you don't like. The fact of the matter is it was never worth litigating this war because people were always going to circlejerk in disagreement with the CB, logs present or not. Just take a look at the TIE war and how Lucius' actions were religiously defended by his allies almost universally. Juxtapose that to how veracity's situation was handled and you can see that there are different standards of behavior from different spheres in general -- there is simply little to no reason to litigate what is considered good and bad conduct diplomatically when it is evident that hurling subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) insults at rulers who are outside of your sphere is the major substance that is offered every time. That has always been and will always remain the recurring problem for the vocal minority that dominates the OWF, especially regarding the promotion of falsehoods to push spun narratives.

Take this quote for example, an idea I repeatedly saw 'parroted' on the OWF and also in DMs that has no basis in reality.

Quote

The crime, in this case, was an attempt to get RFI/Oc to wipe NG and Cobra out of the game. Make the punishment fit the crime, you say?

 

To demonstrate how untrue this is, here are some quotes from the planning channel for this war:

 

Quote

[1:49 AM] I think objectives won't be determined by us anyway, least regarding NG/COBRA.
[1:49 AM] How do you mean?
[1:50 AM] They're so unpredictable that even if we meet objectives, it's unlikely to end on our terms due to that.
[1:50 AM] So broad ones are almost necessary.
[1:52 AM] It's not like we'll be pressing for terms

[1:56 PM] The war shouldn't be a drawn out affair, and harkening back to the 'good old days', the way these sorts of things were handled.

 

[1:21 PM] We level them and we're done unless it becomes global
[1:21 PM] We don't need to get a surrender or apology from them

The Bicycle War was never a war of extermination; if that was the goal then I don't think a single AA in the coalition would've signed up for it. Your harassment aside, we're not about driving people into the ocean. And please, treat other people decently and attack their arguments instead of them, it would really do a lot to make people outside of the usual twenty posters engage with the dialogue on the OWF.

[Stewie]

6 hours ago, Lord Hitchcock said:

I get it, but do you know how much of a pain in the butt it is to coordinate wars on?  
 

 

 

As someone who has been in MilCom for some of the largest wars bob ever had.  Yes.

 

6 hours ago, Lord Hitchcock said:

I have absolutely no doubt, you all come up with some interesting stuff.

 

Indeed

[Stewie]

5 minutes ago, Tevron said:

 

I'd love it if you made actual points instead of just thinly veiled insults to people you don't like. The fact of the matter is it was never worth litigating this war because people were always going to circlejerk in disagreement with the CB, logs present or not. Just take a look at the TIE war and how Lucius' actions were religiously defended by his allies almost universally. Juxtapose that to how veracity's situation was handled and you can see that there are different standards of behavior from different spheres in general -- there is simply little to no reason to litigate what is considered good and bad conduct diplomatically when it is evident that hurling subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) insults at rulers who are outside of your sphere is the major substance that is offered every time. That has always been and will always remain the recurring problem for the vocal minority that dominates the OWF, especially regarding the promotion of falsehoods to push spun narratives.

Take this quote for example, an idea I repeatedly saw 'parroted' on the OWF and also in DMs that has no basis in reality.

 

To demonstrate how untrue this is, here are some quotes from the planning channel for this war:

 

The Bicycle War was never a war of extermination; if that was the goal then I don't think a single AA in the coalition would've signed up for it. Your harassment aside, we're not about driving people into the ocean. And please, treat other people decently and attack their arguments instead of them, it would really do a lot to make people outside of the usual twenty posters engage with the dialogue on the OWF.

 

Well that explains why you couldn't identify your end goals when we asked during the summit.

 

Note for aspiring leaders and everyone in life. 

 

Go to war with a general knowledge or concept of how to win the peace.

[Tevron]

Just now, Stewie said:

 

Well that explains why you couldn't identify your end goals when we asked during the summit.

 

Note for aspiring leaders and everyone in life. 

 

Go to war with a general knowledge or concept of how to win the peace.

Another thinly veiled insult ! BINGO!!!!!!

In seriousness, I understood the objective rather clearly to be a bit of punitive war followed by white peace, with the hope that we could all move on but the expectation that this wouldn't happen, since it was apparent that certain people, namely Thrash, were unwilling to bury their overall grudges with RFI, especially CLAWS. I entered and left the peace summit satisfied. If my allies had other objectives that were left unmet, that's news to me. 

 

The above quotes were to demonstrate that we never intended to push for any disbandment or extermination of your alliance, especially since most of the blame falls on just a couple individuals. Personally, I hope that this is the end of the story of the Bicycle War and we can finally move on in a more productive direction. You're welcome to open an embassy and re-establish ties with GATO. Our alliances have history together and the General Assembly does genuinely like some of your members. Had I been exposed to your fairly cool-headed disposition, it's very possible that this war may have never happened, at least on the GATO end of things.

[Stewie]

14 minutes ago, Tevron said:

Another thinly veiled insult ! BINGO!!!!!!

In seriousness, I understood the objective rather clearly to be a bit of punitive war followed by white peace, with the hope that we could all move on but the expectation that this wouldn't happen, since it was apparent that certain people, namely Thrash, were unwilling to bury their overall grudges with RFI, especially CLAWS. I entered and left the peace summit satisfied. If my allies had other objectives that were left unmet, that's news to me. 

 

The above quotes were to demonstrate that we never intended to push for any disbandment or extermination of your alliance, especially since most of the blame falls on just a couple individuals. Personally, I hope that this is the end of the story of the Bicycle War and we can finally move on in a more productive direction. You're welcome to open an embassy and re-establish ties with GATO. Our alliances have history together and the General Assembly does genuinely like some of your members. Had I been exposed to your fairly cool-headed disposition, it's very possible that this war may have never happened, at least on the GATO end of things.

 

Wasn't meant to be seen as a thinly veiled insults Tevron. I apologise if you think it was.

 

Its interesting you raised thrash as he was not involved with the summit..

 

Was utilising a case study for teaching people across bob.  Don't declare war or have arguments with people unless you know what your best and worst case scenarios are.

Edited February 2, 2021 by Stewie

[Tevron]

18 minutes ago, Stewie said:

 

Wasn't meant to be seen as a thinly veiled insults Tevron. I apologise if you think it was.

 

Its interesting you raised thrash as he was not involved with the summit..

 

Was utilising a case study for teaching people across bob.  Don't declare war or have arguments with people unless you know what your best and worst case scenarios are.

 

Apology accepted, no harm no foul. I raised the other points to establish further context, since it seems there is a lot of misinformation floating out there.

[Lord Hitchcock]

14 hours ago, jerdge said:

Having spectated this from the outside numerous times, I have to say that I still can't completely wrap my mind about (what from the outside seemed to be) the usual response from the attacked party.

If a nation attacks your Alliance they're an enemy, if they then unilaterally (without having been cleared by you) switch Alliance Affiliation they are still an enemy, if their new (old) Alliance protects them from the consequences of their actions then they're enemies too. If the notion of Alliance still makes sense, at least.

I can't understand why anyone ever accepted to be fed any other narrative.

(I understand not having the firepower to engage everyone on the other side, but that's not my point.)

 

That's a great question Jerdge,

 

The formation of nations who wanted to be involved always came with a pitch after they branched out and formed their satellite alliance as their 'own entity'. The pamphlet was always the same, acting on their own behalf, no affiliation with the mothership, etc. They branched off so that no accountability would lead back to their home base or that the alliance was actually split on what direction they wanted to take and so let the hawks form as a satellite and let the doves stay home. By the time the conflict had settled and they scurried back to their old alliance, we were all too exhausted to care. And accountability can really only take place when they actually go back, what's to say they weren't going to stay as a new formation?

 

Examples of these included War Jesus (Kashmir) and Doom Squad (Doom Kingdom)- the leaders of these motherships always told me the same thing, acting on their own accord. Most all of our conflicts were never with Kashmir or Doom Kingdom. This isn't specific to micro affairs, Blood Pact was a branch from Doom Kingdom and Sparta participants when battling World Task Force, or was it Pax Corves?.

 

In terms of ever attempting to bring accountability towards the home base, that's essentially what the entire Monsters Inc - Screaming Red Asses war was about. Our dismay with SRA was because one of their members, Dream4Weaver attacked while not as an SRA member and eventually went back. I worked tooth and nail to get Walsh to admit accountability and never could, because you know, e-lawyering.

 

It's why I really don't blame Lucius for bringing up Doom even though Doom is long gone. There is a moment when you realize that it's not an alliance your at odds with but a few nations absorbed in an entity that can't move in a cohesive direction as an alliance. Here's an example, I absolutely 110% did not want to help make Methrage a senator, I thought it was a terrible idea because he was just out for himself and it was sure to bring trouble- I lost that argument- but as an alliance we went that route and I backed it 100%. Because if you can't back your alliance whether you agree or disagree, what's the point of being in an alliance? The counter argument to this, I think would be activity- which I don't buy because Siberian Tiger Alliance was old and pretty inactive and they got moving when they felt they had to.

 

You've been around long enough, what are your thoughts on this?- I really want to know.

Edited February 2, 2021 by Lord Hitchcock

[Johnny Apocalypse]

Do you not see the irony in this about face where you now are taking a stance against people hopping affiliations to sponsor certain alliances and not being held accountable?

 

That is literally what you allowed to happen when you formed your alliance. They joined you from DBDC and scampered back to CLAWS when you posted your own attempt to surrender, with White Chocolate posing as good cop and Banned acting as bad cop throughout. Both claiming to be acting of their own accord and neither party was held accountable by you; their home alliance or even their bloc allies for this very blatant and open sponsorship of hostilities against my alliance (and our uninvolved allies; NLoN springs to mind). As a result we viewed DBDC/CLAWS as a hostile entity, we may not have formally declared conventional warfare on them but it should come as no surprise to anyone that we considered them enemies due to these actions.

 

If you want to talk about accountability for this kind of thing, you might want to reflect on how you enabled and encouraged what you now claim to be opposed to.

 

I actually hoped this was something that would end up being a matter for discussion during the peace talks so that it could be addressed and put to bed. It was considered by us to be a violation of the NG-RFI NAP in relation to aggressive behaviour toward allies of either signatory, something which Lowsten can attest to being raised with him  last year. Unfortunately it was not addressed (because it wasn't deemed 'relevant' to the matter at hand), but as long as this kind of behaviour does not repeat itself against me or my allies I'm willing to consider the score on that front settled now.

Edited February 2, 2021 by Johnny Apocalypse

[Lord Hitchcock]

2 hours ago, Johnny Apocalypse said:

Do you not see the irony in this about face where you now are taking a stance against people hopping affiliations to sponsor certain alliances and not being held accountable?

 

Just like your internal arguments- we hold disagreements. I also see the irony from specific alliances on your side, including your own alliance, that have supported and engaged in this practice. 

 

Now a fair reply is that as a different leader, you have chosen to take a different position and shift your alliance down a different path. In a linear timeline of events, one where the very first hit on KNB wasn't sanctioned by your decision, I questioned how much the apple fell from the tree. 

 

Edited February 2, 2021 by Lord Hitchcock

[kerschbs]

4 hours ago, Tevron said:

Another thinly veiled insult ! BINGO!!!!!!

In seriousness, I understood the objective rather clearly to be a bit of punitive war followed by white peace, with the hope that we could all move on but the expectation that this wouldn't happen, since it was apparent that certain people, namely Thrash, were unwilling to bury their overall grudges with RFI, especially CLAWS. I entered and left the peace summit satisfied. If my allies had other objectives that were left unmet, that's news to me. 

 

The above quotes were to demonstrate that we never intended to push for any disbandment or extermination of your alliance, especially since most of the blame falls on just a couple individuals. Personally, I hope that this is the end of the story of the Bicycle War and we can finally move on in a more productive direction. You're welcome to open an embassy and re-establish ties with GATO. Our alliances have history together and the General Assembly does genuinely like some of your members. Had I been exposed to your fairly cool-headed disposition, it's very possible that this war may have never happened, at least on the GATO end of things.

side note we have an embassy, I’m in NG GOV and post there. If you want to have a more substantive discussion we certainly can, I normally just say hello to all my old friends. 

[Lyanna Mormont]

5 hours ago, Tevron said:

 

Just take a look at the TIE war and how Lucius' actions were religiously defended by his allies almost universally. Juxtapose that to how veracity's situation was handled and you can see that there are different standards of behavior from different spheres in general --

 

veracity's situation - He messaged me asking me to tell him when we would be hitting NPO (LOL) and to let him know so he could join in. Then he left Claws and declared on Cobra.  His AA is called, Cobra permanent war. veracity has been playing this game since I was around 9 years old. I am sure he knew what he was doing.

 

Now, maybe GATO wouldn't pursue a rogue? You guys might be fine with someone declaring on you and naming their AA, GATO permanent war. Cobra isn't going to let that go. We like to give people what they want. 

 

 

 

^{Note: This post has been marked "thinly veiled insult free" by a group of unbiased peers employed for this purpose}

[Tankobite]

5 hours ago, Tevron said:

Just take a look at the TIE war and how Lucius' actions were religiously defended by his allies almost universally.

 

 

So religiously defended we accepted responsibility and told our allies to stand down and they did.

It's almost like when there's a valid CB presented, people will accept it and stand aside.

[Johnny Apocalypse]

5 hours ago, Tevron said:

There is simply little to no reason to litigate what is considered good and bad conduct diplomatically when it is evident that hurling subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) insults at rulers who are outside of your sphere is the major substance that is offered every time. That has always been and will always remain the recurring problem for the vocal minority that dominates the OWF, especially regarding the promotion of falsehoods to push spun narratives.

 

 

Please delinate any falsehoods within OP. If you wish to counter what you consider to be falsehoods, might I suggest (as I repeatedly have done in the past) that you attempt to seize narratives yourselves.

 

Referring to us as a "Vocal Minority" for example is a falsehood. If there is a majority who disagrees with what is being said then why do they not step forward to express this? Claiming "there is no point litigating" because of a "vocal minority" countering any argument put forward is oxymoronic if those who are vocal are indeed in the minority. If there exists a silent majority who disagrees then there should be no problem pushing the narrative according to the 'truth' that you perceive, no?

 

You keep pushing this absurd line that a minority of people are seizing the agenda to your detriment, yet there are many more of you than there are us. It would seem (to me at least) that your gripe stems from the fact that we are mobile and active within political discourse and your people are not. Maybe that's because they don't agree with your line or maybe it's because of apathy, I couldn't possibly say. Either way it strikes me very much as a you problem, not the other way around.

[Canik]

9 hours ago, jerdge said:

Having spectated this from the outside numerous times, I have to say that I still can't completely wrap my mind about (what from the outside seemed to be) the usual response from the attacked party.

If a nation attacks your Alliance they're an enemy, if they then unilaterally (without having been cleared by you) switch Alliance Affiliation they are still an enemy, if their new (old) Alliance protects them from the consequences of their actions then they're enemies too. If the notion of Alliance still makes sense, at least.

I can't understand why anyone ever accepted to be fed any other narrative.

(I understand not having the firepower to engage everyone on the other side, but that's not my point.)

In some cases the enemy might only return home only after they are safely out of range. If you can't attack them, then the alliance they're in isn't really protecting them now are they? That's where it gets tricky. In general I think the attacked alliance doesn't truly accept the narrative, they just think they can't do anything about it. Not without risking extreme punishment, which indeed they may get if the enemy's side is overwhelming powerful and morally corrupt.

[jerdge]

7 hours ago, Lord Hitchcock said:

You've been around long enough, what are your thoughts on this?- I really want to know.

I have been around for a long time but most of it I've been in an alliance that notoriously didn't hold grudges - more for lack of interest than anything else - and which has been barely existing for the last years. Before my GPA time such "opportunistic" alliance hopping wasn't a thing.

With that said, when a conflict ends each party should IMHO bring to the table all the issues they have, and work to have them addressed. This issue should too totally be expressed, if not for another reason to force the other party to make an effort to defuse it, making concessions or spending part of their diplomatic capital on it.

Then of course it's very different depending at which end you are. If you're the losing side, going after this or that of your opponents makes little sense, either you're ready to give everyone peace or you go back to the battlefield. If you're the winner you should keep people accountable, no matter what absurd e-lawyering they try to defend themselves with.

 

The only instance in which my alliance was involved in a case like that was when oyababy attacked three/four GPA nations. When we didn't just give him peace, in fact the very day we staggered him with a 30k tech nuke turret, several DBDC nations formed one of those expendable alliances we're talking of, and that threat was used to put pressure on our government in our talks with the DBDC over the issue.

It was several years ago and the GPA is basically dead now, I think I can share my point of view about that crisis without betraying anyone or breaking any clause of confidentiality. I wasn't part of the negotiations, I wasn't even there and I saw the logs only after the facts, IMO unfortunately we totally screwed that up, failing to push our point of view and to get the most out of the situation. Our government didn't really raise the issue of accountability, which was one of their major mistakes IMO. They just panicked, I'm afraid. Others may disagree, at any rate we'll never know what would have happened if things went different, as they didn't. Had I've been part of the talks things would have probably went totally south and full war would have been assured, also because the DBDC, especially Cuba and their more-FA oriented guy (I now honestly can't recall the name of, a former GPA member anyway) sincerely hated me (RL hate, on a game, for my posts in the Suggestion Box, that's how far RL stupidity can go... but I digress).

In short, the threat of great destruction - "extreme punishment", in Canik's words - convinced our top government that it wasn't worth it, that the general membership had to be protected from that. I disagreed and I still strongly disagree but alas, I was already little really active and it was that much time ago.

Also note that in our case Oya hadn't changed his DBDC affiliation to attack us and the "fake" AA (I used to refer to them as Squirrel-something, I don't recall the real name, it might have had an 'S' in front of it) never exchanged blows with us, so that situation wasn't really the same of what we're discussing here. Although it had to do with accountability, thus it's not totally off topic.

 

Edited February 2, 2021 by jerdge
usual stupid typo-s

[jerdge]

4 hours ago, Canik said:

In some cases the enemy might only return home only after they are safely out of range. If you can't attack them, then the alliance they're in isn't really protecting them now are they? That's where it gets tricky. In general I think the attacked alliance doesn't truly accept the narrative, they just think they can't do anything about it. Not without risking extreme punishment, which indeed they may get if the enemy's side is overwhelming powerful and morally corrupt.

They might be out of range at the moment they "return home", but what about what happens from then on? I think it's more about that "extreme punishment" part.

IMHO people should never just give up and hope that the bully doesn't come back, they always do. But what would and could a useless hippie like me know about it?