The Tyberion Covenant

[Margrave]

The Tyberion Covenant has re-emerged onto the global stage. With a dedication to Sacrifice, Unity, and Strength, the brotherhood of the Covenant boldly reclaims its place in the Cyberverse as an organization dedicated to new ideas and strong bonds. Come join us at #Tyberia on coldfront today! Our website will be up shortly.

Signed,

Margrave, Keeper Of Tyberia.

The Tyberion Philosophy

The basic seed from which the concept of Tyberia originally sprung, and which has guided its development from a dream into a reality, is simply this: success. The Tyberion Covenant is designed for the sole purpose of delivering success to its membership. Granted, there's typically some disagreement as to what exactly constitutes success in Planet Bob, but the cold, hard fact remains that everybody knows it when they see it.

In the low-level buzz of chaos that constantly surrounds international politics, it's inevitable that alliances will routinely experience conflicts with one another. Perhaps a rogue member will step out of line, or perhaps some harsh words get out of hand. Most often such individual issues are smoothed over quietly, behind the scenes. But when that doesn't happen, the alliance that gets its way - the alliance that forcefully advances its sovereign claims and enforces them without fail - is rightfully seen as the winner. This is true whether the issue was settled in back rooms, through public media, or on the battlefield. That's success.

This alliance was born from a desire to achieve success for its own sake, as well as a clear-eyed analysis of why some alliances invariably win while others fail. Everything else follows naturally and inevitably from this simple approach.

Victory

From time to time, someone starts a discussion on what factors are involved in winning at large scale inter-alliance war. Typically a variety of things get suggested, with more and more added to the list as things go along. But no matter how detailed or wordy the analysis, there's still one glaring answer which we've never seen publicly mentioned:

Faith.

It's faith that wins wars.

The alliances that are invariably successful in war and in politics are those who enter it with supreme confidence, carrying with them the unquestioned assumption that they will be victorious, and that they will rapidly recover from any damage suffered.

Regardless of relative NS, member experience, organization or the many other factors involved, any conflict ultimately comes down to this: you win when you keep logging in to fight every update, night after night, for as long as it takes. The other guy loses when he gets tired of fighting you and gives up on it. When your enemies lose their nerve and you don't, they surrender and the victory is yours. That's all there is to it.

Everything else is just details. Target lists can be drafted, attacks can be coordinated, supply chains can be organized, nations can be rebuilt, and so forth. Those things are all important, and we intend to do an exceptional job at them. But regardless of such details, the fact remains that any alliance that enters into war with the absolute faith that they shall prevail will nearly always defeat an alliance that isn't so sure.

Culture

Given the central role of an alliance's faith in itself, one of the key steps that any successful alliance must focus on from the beginning is to create a coherent internal culture. Then it must constantly reinforce that culture among its members, so that they are endlessly reminding one another why they fight, explaining to each other what their alliance stands for, and discussing why that's important.

This development and reinforcement of alliance culture is hardly just "frills." Rather, it serves to create an environment conducive to fostering a dedicated, engaged and confident membership base. And that is central to success in everything else that an alliance needs to do. As such, it should be done intentionally, with as much forethought, planning and purposeful drive as any other program.

As with everything else we do, our culture will be focused on achieving success. To that end, we will be uncompromising in everything that we do, reaching for no less than perfection in our thoughts, words, teamwork and actions. No hyperbole can be too much when describing the standards that we expect of ourselves. We reject the notion that an alliance can't excel in all areas of activity equally; there are no trade-offs, no choices to be made between being effective in this way or that. We will have it all, completely.

A strong alliance culture also enhances the CN experience of each member, helping each get as much enjoyment and fulfillment out of their participation as possible. Immersive titles and terminology will help to define a "language" of our own, which will bind us together in thought as well as by oath. A constantly evolving and developing, coherent body of native political theory will help to guide us in line with our founding ideal.

Charters, Rights and Democracy

A great many alliances attempt to import an alien ideology from the so-called "Earth" and apply it to the political realities of Planet Bob. With some of them, such as the so-called "Leftist" alliances, this agenda is obvious. But even concepts such as individual rights and democracy are not native to Digiterra, nor are they a good fit - at least, not if success is your goal.

No matter what any charter says, regardless of how magnificent its legal subclauses are, it can be nothing more than a mere collection of words. It always begs the question - who decides? Who interprets it? Who is responsible for executing it, and who decides whether they did so correctly? The answer, of course, is that you have to trust people to do these things. And if they're not trustworthy, then your charter will fail no matter what it says. However, if your leadership is trustworthy, then you didn't really need a charter to begin with! The word of a truly trustworthy person that they will dedicate themselves to your well being would do just as well, and in fact better in many circumstances.

Another problem with charters is that you withhold something of yourself when you sign them. To sign a charter is to say "I'm loyal to the alliance provided it works the way this document says." The trouble is that no language is perfect enough to cover all eventualities. Loopholes occur, the alliance missteps, and (provided it survives) it revises its charter. Over time, the evolving and growing body of complicated legal documents binding the leadership of most longstanding democratic alliances can become enormous, as well as enormously complex. Those alliances which enshrine the demands of their members in a binding charter inevitably handcuff their leadership to such a degree that they simply can't serve their membership at all well in return.

To maintain individual rights is also to withhold part of yourself. In doing so, you say "you can have only so much power from me, but this I reserve for myself." As the strength of any alliance is only the sum of the dedication invested by its membership, an alliance based upon the expectation of total loyalty from its members will always have a distinct advantage over any alliance that can only ask for some.

Alliances that function democratically are at worst laughingstocks, and at best irrelevant. Most of them fall somewhere in between those two extremes. But in neither case is their membership well served by this state of affairs. Democracy takes an inordinate length of time to produce a decision which is nothing more than an average of all its members' opinions, typically uninspiring. But sometimes, swift, decisive and drastic action is required. It's during such times that the flaws of democracy on Planet Bob become glaringly evident.

It's also a common feature of many democratic alliances to end up becoming essentially "internet communities that happen to have a game attached," rather than engines driving towards the single purpose of real success in Digiterra. Their activity inevitably turns inward upon itself, and away from the realm of global politics. In the end, they become little more than another discussion group, such as can be found anywhere, except one which has allowed itself to become isolated from its topic of discussion.

The Tyberion Covenant

We categorically reject the concept of power for its own sake. In the Tyberion Covenant, autocracy exists only to serve the individual to the greatest extent possible. Each member is not "ruled," but is rather served by the Keeper and his appointees. They exist for no other reason than to support and promote the success of each member. The power they wield is nothing more or less than a tool to be used for that purpose.

Our covenant, the agreement that transfers authority to the alliance, is breathtakingly simple. It doesn't specify or guarantee any rights. It doesn't explain how the government is structured, or lay out the rules by which it will all work. It merely expresses the unreserved and unconditional transfer of power from member to Keeper. The Keeper then delegates that power, establishing the alliance structure by edict.

As that power flows back to the membership through delegation, it becomes transformed. No longer is it undirected, or without purpose. Now that member has a reason to fight, as well as to get the most satisfaction possible out of ruling his nation on Planet Bob. Now that member has been given something in which he can have faith.

Not only that, but each member will find that their power has been vastly magnified through this process. Each individual Tyberian receives not a small portion of its glory, but rather all of it; for glory, like love, is not diminished or lessened by sharing. Tyberia's successes are your successes, because you are Tyberia.

All that we ask is that you give us your all, and we will give you the world.

[Margrave]

Bump of great justice/trying to set up a website/find officers!

[Haven for Peace]

Margrave, I always joined reading your posts. Good luck with your alliance!