Why what went around is not coming around

[Deruvian]

npo didnt ask their friends to commit a crime, they asked they asked them merely and in general terms 'help us.'

if i had a friend on trial for, even murder lets say, and it was far too early to figure out for myself exactly what happened, you'd bet i would defend him, and i wouldnt regret that decision no matter what the situation turned out to be in the end. thats the thing about friends, youre supposed to trust them. it is obvious that a number of alliances were so distrusting of their 'friends' that they were willing to assume the worst of them. that, to me, is despicable.

But that's why non-chaining clauses are there. Military treaties can only be activated after the onset of war. This means that any CB (fabricated or otherwise) or any underhanded proceedings (such as declaring during peace terms, etc.) would have been laid out in the open. Defensive clauses imply action after war has been declared which means that it already isn't too early to figure out what exactly happened on the case. Also trust is a two way street. The fact that MCXA, IRON et al were all taken by surprise with what happened speaks volumes about the trust and relationship present.

[Senes]

I really hate to stand in league with the "yeah this totally deserved a thread" crowd, but OP seems to simply be restating the same party lines drawn in every other one of these philosophical exercises lately.

It's not hypocrisy, because when we do it it's justice!

This anger-blind line of thinking will not result in change. If it went that far it would just result in NPO(2nd) bloc-ing back up another year from now to take double plus revenge against whomever happens to be standing on the other side of the line when the time is right. It doesn't matter how strong your emotions are or how deep your wounds go, you cannot exact change by continuing business as usual.

I think that the demonizing of some people and the lionizing of others is largely what causes the problems on Planet Bob[...]

I would say that this is exactly it. Politics ruled by angst and loathing are unlikely to be a major step forward from whatever assumptions that many people here are making of their targets. Edited May 6, 2009 by Senes

[Hyperion321]

NPO wasnt on the losing side if people honored their treaties... MHA/Sparta/co all have MADPs with NPO

We had an MDP. Thanks for doing your research.

[Kevin Cash]

A. In the event that one of us comes under attack, the other shall provide all possible assistance. An attack on one shall be considered an attack on the other. Assistance is defined as military, economic, intelligence, diplomatic, and all other forms of aid possible to provide. In the event this clause conflicts with other agreements, each of us agrees that, except for the Mobius Accords, this agreement shall take precedence.

B. Should one of us engage in offensive warfare, the other shall have the option, but not the obligation, to provide military, economic, intelligence, diplomatic, or any other form of aid.

C. Notice of offensive military action by one must be given to the other no less than 24 hours prior to the commencement of hostilities. This time period will be used for the consideration of whether to undertake supportive offensive action.

D. One of us will not engage in, encourage or support offensive military action against any alliance which the other is obligated by treaty to defend. If we learn of potential attack, we will actively enourage our treaty partners not to attack the treaty partner of the other.

E. If one of us is involved in war or a situation which could lead to war, it is the duty of other to offer diplomatic aid toward the peaceful resolution of the situation, should such help be requested.

highlighted interesting parts

first read section a and section b. mha was not obligated to attack ov, however, when other alliances attacked npo, mha was to consider them as an attack on itself. i see no line in section a which absolves mha of this responsibility.

some will argue that npo violated section c; this, now that i have the text in front of me, is obviously false; it is obvious that the npo was not extending a hand out for assistance with ov, and thus it was unnecessary, perhaps unintelligent but nonetheless unnecessary for them to grant 24 hours notification for the purposes of mha considering whether or not to opt in on the aggression portion of the treaty.

most importantly, note the first bolded section of the treaty, which stats that this agreement supersedes all other agreements other than the continuum.

other parts of the treaty not quoted here make mention that npo and mha shared an 'eternal friendship,' yet, mha did not afford npo the trust they deserved and instead chose to assume the worst in their so-called friend.

mha violated this treaty on multiple angles; there is no imaginary clause that lets thm skirt around their duties, and it is clear that an 'attack on [npo] is considered an attack on [mha]' and as such when, for example, god attacked npo, they also attacked mha, or at least this treaty would have provided for such.

thank you whoever it was that posted the link; i myself learned something new about how deep the levels of treachery within karma actually go.

[Hyperion321]

see raji's post below yours:

"NPO wasnt on the losing side if people honored their treaties... MHA/Sparta/co all have MADPs with NPO "

to add to his point, citadel failed to defend og when og was attacked, instead following gremlins when gremlins decided that an odp with fark was worth more than the codex.

GRE does not sign ODP's. They had an MDoPDP with Fark. Again, thanks for doing your research.

you can, of course, choose to ignore the facts if it suits your ends, but note that it makes you look rather silly

[Kevin Cash]

But that's why non-chaining clauses are there. Military treaties can only be activated after the onset of war. This means that any CB (fabricated or otherwise) or any underhanded proceedings (such as declaring during peace terms, etc.) would have been laid out in the open. Defensive clauses imply action after war has been declared which means that it already isn't too early to figure out what exactly happened on the case. Also trust is a two way street. The fact that MCXA, IRON et al were all taken by surprise with what happened speaks volumes about the trust and relationship present.

see my above post, mha-npo treaty contained no such imaginary 'no chaining clause' and if you believe otherwise i implore you to highlight the relevant sections of the treaty that explicitly state that it is a 'non chaining' treaty.

[Venizelos]

i read a post earlier on that talked about the people that used to side with NPO but are now fighting against it, and it said that these people should be punised as well.

i find that statement illogical, and i think its completely opposite with the whole way things have worked out.

the fact is, NPO was seen for a long time (and still was shortly before the war) as a safe and relatively ok side. most of the most negative things NPO has done have happened quite recently. so for pragmatist people, it was either stay sort of neutral with your own bloc, or with the anti-NPO side, and get stomped and bullied, or go with the NPO side and at least survive, if not thrive, and receive protection.

sure, you'd be dragged in a few curbstomps and take out some people for no good reason, but you gained from it, so alliances kind of went "meh" and continued with it.

but slowly a "x alliance is next" mentality developed, because the pattern of isolating alliances and then stomping them developed and repeated a few times, and especially last august the case of polaris showed that nobody was really safe, regardless of how deep in the NPO side they were.

i personaly think that the noCB war being regarded as a war of NPO's creation is wrong and it was actually the first instance in a long time that things didn't go NPO's way, but most people blaimed NPO for it (and its NPO's fault that they are blaimed for everything, because they built the image of bring the hand that pulls strings everywhere) and it was a wake-up call for many alliances to start rethinking their policies.

anyways, imo the important thing for karma is that those alliances changed their mind and went against NPO somewhere along the way, and holding grudges on them for past actions that they seem to have regretted themselves by now isn't a smart thing to do.

Edited May 6, 2009 by Venizelos

[Deruvian]

see my above post, mha-npo treaty contained no such imaginary 'no chaining clause' and if you believe otherwise i implore you to highlight the relevant sections of the treaty that explicitly state that it is a 'non chaining' treaty.

I saw that part when I reviewed MHA's treaty but I wasn't talking about MHA alone when I was talking about non-chaining treaties. You accused other alliances such as Gre, Sparta, etc. of cowardice and I responded in kind.

i read a post earlier on that talked about the people that used to side with NPO but are now fighting against it, and it said that these people should be punised as well.

i find that statement illogical, and i think its completely opposite with the whole way things have worked out.

<snip>

anyways, imo the important thing for karma is that those alliances changed their mind and went against NPO somewhere along the way, and holding grudges on them for past actions that they seem to have regretted themselves by now isn't a smart thing to do.

Kind of like witness protection program

Edited May 6, 2009 by Deruvian

[Kevin Cash]

GRE does not sign ODP's. They had an MDoPDP with Fark. Again, thanks for doing your research.

i apologize for my error. can you help me by pulling up the relevant treaties so i can make a proper judgment? thanks.

(lo and behold, i, like other humans, am not perfect... cute attempt to 'use my own words against me' though, very cute. but unlike karma, i actually admit my screw-ups )

[Commisar Gaunt]

It's not hypocrisy, because when we do it it's justice!

Yes, putting NPO on the losing side automatically results in Karma being the bad guys. I certainly see where you're coming from. Point out the first instance of hypocrisy not residing solely in simple minds and maybe you have some sort of case. Tech deal reps don't count as hypocrisy either. I do tech deals all the time, and I have yet to hear anyone complain

highlighted interesting parts

first read section a and section b. mha was not obligated to attack ov, however, when other alliances attacked npo, mha was to consider them as an attack on itself. i see no line in section a which absolves mha of this responsibility.

some will argue that npo violated section c; this, now that i have the text in front of me, is obviously false; it is obvious that the npo was not extending a hand out for assistance with ov, and thus it was unnecessary, perhaps unintelligent but nonetheless unnecessary for them to grant 24 hours notification for the purposes of mha considering whether or not to opt in on the aggression portion of the treaty.

most importantly, note the first bolded section of the treaty, which stats that this agreement supersedes all other agreements other than the continuum.

other parts of the treaty not quoted here make mention that npo and mha shared an 'eternal friendship,' yet, mha did not afford npo the trust they deserved and instead chose to assume the worst in their so-called friend.

mha violated this treaty on multiple angles; there is no imaginary clause that lets thm skirt around their duties, and it is clear that an 'attack on [npo] is considered an attack on [mha]' and as such when, for example, god attacked npo, they also attacked mha, or at least this treaty would have provided for such.

thank you whoever it was that posted the link; i myself learned something new about how deep the levels of treachery within karma actually go.

Keep on kidding yourself when you think that treaties are permanently binding in all cases. If an alliance my alliance was treatied with did something that my alliance in no way endorsed I wouldn't exactly step up to the plate to take responsibility for it.

[Kevin Cash]

I saw that part when I reviewed MHA's treaty but I wasn't talking about MHA alone when I was talking about non-chaining treaties. You accused other alliances such as Gre, Sparta, etc. of cowardice and I responded in kind.

Kind of like witness protection program

well then i implore you to bring up the relevant sections of those treaties as well.

[Monster]

I'll admit my mistakes as well. I was wrong about the MHA treaty. Yeah, hammer me on it.

[Kevin Cash]

Keep on kidding yourself when you think that treaties are permanently binding in all cases. If an alliance my alliance was treatied with did something that my alliance in no way endorsed I wouldn't exactly step up to the plate to take responsibility for it.

so you accuse mha of dishonesty when they signed on to that treaty, which clearly and multiple times states its intent to last, and i quote, 'until the end of the universe'

good to know... but i give mha more credit than that. not much more though.

[Kevin Cash]

I'll admit my mistakes as well. I was wrong about the MHA treaty. Yeah, hammer me on it.

wasnt the mistakes i was referring to that karma wont admit, but thanks for playing i guess?

[Monster]

wasnt the mistakes i was referring to that karma wont admit, but thanks for playing i guess?

I was just correcting my earlier statements.

[Sigrun Vapneir]

I grant that the NPO might have overreacted. I'm just saying things aren't as simple and black and white as people make them out to be. I think that the demonizing of some people and the lionizing of others is largely what causes the problems on Planet Bob and I was just pointing out a case where I thought the demonizing wasn't entirely warranted.

I realise you are just trying to be reasonable but you couldnt possibly be more wrong.

I was there and I was in a position to know.

[ChairmanHal]

A lot of cybernation rulers argue that the coalition known as "Karma" is no better than NPO if it dictates harsh terms to its enemies, and some even seem to argue this simply because of the war. Both assertions are nonsense.

Depends on whether or not you truly want to keep the moral high ground or surrender it in favor a vengeance. Also, what form that vengeance takes. Remember, that among your own numbers are alliances that are guilty of cooperating with NPO's schemes and committing their own atrocities over the Planet Bob time line. Where is their "punishment"?

What went around:

NPO's record stands on its own. We are not in need of a history lecture at this point. Those not in the know can look at the wiki and get the picture.

What is coming around:

A member of a small alliance receives worthless intel about NPO from Blackstone. NPO bullies and pries. NPO and one of its allies declare on that small alliance because it has too much backbone to put up with NPO and TORN's arrogance and defend their member. Its too late before NPO realizes that through treaty chains they will be on the losing side of a fight that they picked.

That ally was TORN, who I believe is now at peace. A peace they were allowed to have, even though they, like many other current and former NPO allies could be claimed to have helped in the committing of atrocities.

.........

Whereas all too often NPO schemes and concocts ridiculous caustic bellies, this one against NPO and its client state alliances is totally legitimate. Even if Karma imposes harsh terms on NPO et al it still doesn't fulfill the concept of payback because of the context. For there to be any genuine payback, "Karma" would have had to make up some nonsense excuse to attack NPO et al and it just didn't happen that way. Its too late for that too.

I find this strangely amusing, given the hours of conversation over several months that went into organizing Karma to begin with (and please, enough with the "Bart Simpson" defense on that point). We could also get into what the responsibilities are of a treaty partner if they know that there is a plot against an ally even if there are conflicting treaties involved, but that is a side issue. No...I will concede the point. A valid CB did in fact exist for Karma. It was emphasized over and over in conversations regarding the possibility of war that only a rock solid CB would be good enough to do it right. Mission accomplished.

So all those who think that "Karma" is anything like that which it fights against you need to examine the context. Whereas NPO has fomented many wars against others out of greed and hate, the current war against it is one of legitimate self defense.

You knew your enemy well. They bit and they bit hard on the bait. The cherry on top the ice cream sundae of course was that they then panicked, a NPO first, and tried to leave TORN out to dry to get away. This made them not only look "evil" but foolish.

The truly sad part is that NPO *knew* this moment was coming since December. It's almost like they let it come.

No, not all of the wars that NPO has fought were illegitimate, but then its not as though NPO only schemed and trifled once, realized its mistake, apologized, and improved itself. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me a dozen times, I must be planet bob reacting to NPO aggression... NPO getting checked is long over due and don't pretend that it doesn't deserve it or that Karma is anything like NPO.

I would not confuse the two, no. This is now a 30,000 member Morals and Ethics class. Demonstrate, Karma, what you've learned.

EDIT: for clarity

Edited May 6, 2009 by ChairmanHal

[Kevin Cash]

The fact that you think people are in control of Karma is hilarious.

yet i constantly here, for example in the tsi/tp debacle, that 'karma representatives do not support this' and that pc and friends are 'not a part of karma' that they 'dont represent karma'

so make up your mind please? do you have structure or are you a loose banner that anyone can insert themselves under?

one thing i found about liars, is that they can only lie so far, and if you press them hard enough, their lies eventually come full circle and contradict one another. this is what i am starting to see from karma.

ok i stole that one from 'phoenix wright: ace attorney'

but its still true

[Deruvian]

well then i implore you to bring up the relevant sections of those treaties as well.

I backtracked and realized I was talking about the Grämlins' codex when talking about non-chaining clauses.

V. On Treaty Chaining

No mutual defense agreement shall chain with other agreements not signed by The Grämlins

That says that they won't treaty chain. If I'm not able to find non-chaining clauses in the other treaties then I admit I was wrong.

[Kevin Cash]

I was just correcting my earlier statements.

my apologies for that, i get a bit excited during full blown propaganda wars

carry on

[Matthew Conrad]

Honestly, I think it comes down to the "Mutual" in any pact with Mutual in it implying more than blind faith following someone.

OOC: MDP's don't work in RL quite like how some of us would like to interpret them, for example. Like signing legal documents, certain circumstances, even if not specifically stated as a clause, can void them if deemed so by a superior court.

[Hyperion321]

i apologize for my error. can you help me by pulling up the relevant treaties so i can make a proper judgment? thanks.

(lo and behold, i, like other humans, am not perfect... cute attempt to 'use my own words against me' though, very cute. but unlike karma, i actually admit my screw-ups )

You made no error other than the treaty strength. GRE activated the optional aggression clause in their treaty with Fark to help them defend RoK against IRON. OG was attacked before GRE sided with Fark. However, the GRE codex prevents them from entering in to the war from a defensive context in favor of OG (see codex of war, article V) anyway because OG came in to defend NPO via defense obligations.

I'll cite the codex just to make my point clearer.

V. On Treaty Chaining

No mutual defense agreement shall chain with other agreements not signed by The Grämlins.

GRE activated an offensive clause in their Fark treaty. Article V of the codex does not cover offensive clauses, thus, their DoW was legal. Now, although OG is in Cit, and GRE is obligated to defend them if attacked, the codex prevented them from defending OG because article V refers to defensive clauses. The mutual defense aspect of the citadel treaty could not be activated by GRE because OG was attacked in response to their assault on GR. A GRE response against DE for attacking OG would be considered chaining, and was thus illegal in terms of the codex.

Did I get my point across clear enough?

edit: forgot the last url tag.

Edited May 6, 2009 by Hyperion321

[Kevin Cash]

I backtracked and realized I was talking about the Grämlins' codex when talking about non-chaining clauses.

That says that they won't treaty chain. If I'm not able to find non-chaining clauses in the other treaties then I admit I was wrong.

thank you, but may i have a link to that treaty? i find it curious that gremlins is singled out by name...

[Deruvian]

thank you, but may i have a link to that treaty? i find it curious that gremlins is singled out by name...

It was actually their codex which overrides their treaties.

[Vhalen]

however, what is, and what disgusts me, is that they left their friends in old guard to get pounded. i dont know why so many people think treaties contain invisible clauses that state 'if you dont agree with x event that happened outside the parties to this treaty you can ignore your obligations"

I suppose you'd have had them fight on both sides? Also, I'm not alone in thinking they made an effort to ensure OG didn't get pounded terribly long.

Also, if this thread has taught me one thing it is that Kevin Cash should be fully ignored. Answering his posts would just be lowering your own IQ. Please, for the sake of yourself and the thread. Stop replying to him.

I'm inclined to agree with you here, but I'll leave this one post hanging out here anyway, since I've yet to interject here.

so you accuse mha of dishonesty when they signed on to that treaty, which clearly and multiple times states its intent to last, and i quote, 'until the end of the universe'

good to know... but i give mha more credit than that. not much more though.

I suppose this is where someone should bring up the OoO and how much NPO values treaties when they're inconvenient? Okay, I'll bite.