What was he thinking?

[Gen Lee]

Does anyone really care what Chill's opinion on the validity of the cb was?

He was the only one whining that sethb should be Zi'd in the room, and it is pretty obvious he wasn't doing it for his delicate sense of what is right or wrong. He did it solely to placate TOP and Crymson's desires. Without TOP teetering through which side to join errr pretend to join, there would have been no discussion.

[King Chill I]

Does anyone really care what Chill's opinion on the validity of the cb was?

He was the only one whining that sethb should be Zi'd in the room, and it is pretty obvious he wasn't doing it for his delicate sense of what is right or wrong. He did it solely to placate TOP and Crymson's desires. Without TOP teetering through which side to join errr pretend to join, there would have been no discussion.

Yes and IRON would have defeated itself and we would have all gone home happy campers.

Edited June 29, 2009 by King Chill I

[ChairmanHal]

Little known fact, I had already said that if it came to that id get out of the way and let someone else take over for Gre. However, i was hoping it wouldnt come to that and that negotiations would lead to at least a postponement of the conflict.

Of course i had never anticipated that NPO had gotten as incompetent as it turned out to be.

If you hadn't figured out by January that NPO was playing defense and easily influenced into not taking aggressive action, then you weren't paying attention.

This war took place at a time and place of Karma's convenience. That's a major reason for its success. You could have no more have postponed it any more than I goaded it into happening sooner.

Do you see my point? Things were afoot that they fight over later when they write the Wiki entry. Meaningful things.

[King Chill I]

If you hadn't figured out by January that NPO was playing defense and easily influenced into not taking aggressive action, then you weren't paying attention.

This war took place at a time and place of Karma's convenience. That's a major reason for its success. You could have no more have postponed it any more than I goaded it into happening sooner.

Do you see my point? Things were afoot that they fight over later when they write the Wiki entry. Meaningful things.

I very much agree, on the tactical level though we did have a couple of false starts.

This could have been another one had it not been for the attack in the middle of talks.

[Delta1212]

If you hadn't figured out by January that NPO was playing defense and easily influenced into not taking aggressive action, then you weren't paying attention.

This war took place at a time and place of Karma's convenience. That's a major reason for its success. You could have no more have postponed it any more than I goaded it into happening sooner.

Do you see my point? Things were afoot that they fight over later when they write the Wiki entry. Meaningful things.

Had NPO not attacked, a war would not have started. I'm really not sure how you think we orchestrated NPO attacking OV with no input from them. If they were easily influenced into not taking aggressive action, then they wouldn't have taken aggressive action because a ton of people were telling them not to. I'm really not sure why you keep saying this stuff. It doesn't make even remotely logical sense.

[Melchior]

Who are you?

[ChairmanHal]

I very much agree, on the tactical level though we did have a couple of false starts.

This could have been another one had it not been for the attack in the middle of talks.

The timeframe I was given in mid-March by a member of an alliance in Superfriends placed the war near the end of April at the very latest. I called out the treaty cancellations with NPO more or less in the exact order they came about to members of Valhalla in our IRC chan. At first I think they thought me mad, then a prophet. I was neither.

You are correct in that there were a couple of false starts prior to the OV incident. However, make no mistake that OV knew that Karma had its back. That NPO went ahead and launched a planned attack even as others dragged them back into an IRC chan one last time was only icing on the cake.

Edited June 29, 2009 by ChairmanHal

[ChairmanHal]

Had NPO not attacked, a war would not have started. I'm really not sure how you think we orchestrated NPO attacking OV with no input from them. If they were easily influenced into not taking aggressive action, then they wouldn't have taken aggressive action because a ton of people were telling them not to. I'm really not sure why you keep saying this stuff. It doesn't make even remotely logical sense.

Let me clarify.

Attacking OV was supposed to be a quick smash and grab. They had done it before in prior months to more than one small alliance, making them into tech farms (granted at reasonable rates). No, their concern was "the big one", a large war that would see them at the center of the fight. For example, to this day it still makes absolutely no logical sense why they didn't cancel their treaty with Ragnarok after the Grinch Logs incident, take the usual diplomatic steps (NATO was more than willing to dump Ragnarok at one point), and have Q rolling them...except that you had members of Q resisting the call for war. Several months before NPO would have whipped the troops into shape and went in anyway. Instead they blinked.

OV turned out to be an ambush. A nice, big hairy ambush and they were caught off guard.

You say the war would not have started. Not that day maybe, but it would have started sooner rather than later and to deny it to me is laughable at best. I sat on that side of the table. I saw the cards until well into the game.

[Trinite]

Cake or death?

I always thought that sethb getting ZI for TPF's spy would have been a good compromise. My understanding was this was the plan... then NPO attacked.

I was also against the war going in entirely because it was on the eve of finals, and that sucked. The whole thing was a !@#$ show, but it had to happen somehow I guess. Too many lines being drawn. the problem people had with Chill was he was ignoring the lines his alliance had already drawn. It was really annoying to watch people ignoring lines. We draw them for a reason... amirite?

[sethb]

I always thought that sethb getting ZI for TPF's spy would have been a good compromise. My understanding was this was the plan... then NPO attacked.

I think another one was my ZI for mhawks .

[Penguin]

3 - As far as me getting out of the picture goes, that was due mainly to internal and personal factors or put more simply, it wasn't fun anymore which defeated the purpose of playing a game.

I really don't want to believe that you think this is legitimate excuse for a high government official such as you were to abruptly quit during the peak of inter-alliance tensions. Members play this game to have fun, but leaders must on occasion sacrifice their own enjoyment in order to take on the responsibility of leading their alliance and serving their people. This explanation strikes me as very irresponsible. I was much more willing to accept that you resigned your post because you did not agree with the majority of your alliance, which is what I thought until I read this thread.

Had NPO not attacked, a war would not have started. I'm really not sure how you think we orchestrated NPO attacking OV with no input from them. If they were easily influenced into not taking aggressive action, then they wouldn't have taken aggressive action because a ton of people were telling them not to. I'm really not sure why you keep saying this stuff. It doesn't make even remotely logical sense.

I don't know a whole lot about what happened, but you must have considered that NPO's attack on OV was a direct result of Chill's (and by extension The Grämlins) apparent hesitation in supporting OV. Would NPO really have gone through with the attacks if they thought the world was already united in support of OV? It seems to me that Chill's statements contributed a fair amount towards turning the OV incident into a full alliance war, though that was purportedly not their original intent. Not that this invalidates your point that NPO would have easily retained dominance if Karma had split in half before the war.

Edited June 30, 2009 by Penguin

[AirMe]

Let me clarify.

Attacking OV was supposed to be a quick smash and grab. They had done it before in prior months to more than one small alliance, making them into tech farms (granted at reasonable rates). No, their concern was "the big one", a large war that would see them at the center of the fight. For example, to this day it still makes absolutely no logical sense why they didn't cancel their treaty with Ragnarok after the Grinch Logs incident, take the usual diplomatic steps (NATO was more than willing to dump Ragnarok at one point), and have Q rolling them...except that you had members of Q resisting the call for war. Several months before NPO would have whipped the troops into shape and went in anyway. Instead they blinked.

OV turned out to be an ambush. A nice, big hairy ambush and they were caught off guard.

You say the war would not have started. Not that day maybe, but it would have started sooner rather than later and to deny it to me is laughable at best. I sat on that side of the table. I saw the cards until well into the game.

You give Karma way to much credit. I was sitting in the MK gov channel the night the war broke out and he was sure that he had negotiated a peace deal and was about to lower MK's alert level. And then, BOOM, NPO attacked OV as it was wrapping up.

If you think Karma was some organized force before hand, you really don't pay attention to the history between some of the alliances that ended up making the core of the group up.

[Tygaland]

Cake or death?

I always thought that sethb getting ZI for TPF's spy would have been a good compromise. My understanding was this was the plan... then NPO attacked.

That would have averted the war but the NPO refused to hand over their source and when OV then refused to hand over sethb the NPO attacked OV and here we are.

[ModusOperandi]

I took a bit of a sabbatical from CN but now that i can tolerate it a little more I am willing to put an end to the speculations of what I wanted, what I said and what I did and I guess more importantly why I did it.

I was gonna write a wall of text but figured this way would be easier and will save me time on bs arguments since I can answer directly to specific concerns.

Ill start of by putting down the ground rules.

1 - Only logical and polite questions get answered. What I deem crap will be ignored.

2 - I believe that SethB deserved to be ZIed because he clearly accepted info not just from a disgruntled member of another alliance but a dedicated spy network that had as its purpose the destruction of another alliance. Its a fine line but I think the difference matters. You can say that everyone does it (eg. getting info from Vox), maybe, but if you get caught you gotta take the punishment (so we can skip that argument).

3 - As far as me getting out of the picture goes, that was due mainly to internal and personal factors or put more simply, it wasn't fun anymore which defeated the purpose of playing a game.

Ask away.

What if someone thought you deserved to be ZIed for quitting the game but coming back, hmm? Heavy is the hand that waves around.

[Marty McFly]

For example, to this day it still makes absolutely no logical sense why they didn't cancel their treaty with Ragnarok after the Grinch Logs incident, take the usual diplomatic steps (NATO was more than willing to dump Ragnarok at one point), and have Q rolling them...except that you had members of Q resisting the call for war. Several months before NPO would have whipped the troops into shape and went in anyway. Instead they blinked.

This intrigues me, when exactly did this happen? I must not have been around.

[rishnokof]

... For example, to this day it still makes absolutely no logical sense why they didn't cancel their treaty with Ragnarok after the Grinch Logs incident, take the usual diplomatic steps (NATO was more than willing to dump Ragnarok at one point), and have Q rolling them...except that you had members of Q resisting the call for war. Several months before NPO would have whipped the troops into shape and went in anyway. Instead they blinked. ...

If you think Ragnarok was ever in danger or going to get rolled, you are deluding yourself.

[Azaghul]

Yes and IRON would have defeated itself and we would have all gone home happy campers.

Or your opinions didn't really represent Gremlins.

If you hadn't figured out by January that NPO was playing defense and easily influenced into not taking aggressive action, then you weren't paying attention.

This war took place at a time and place of Karma's convenience. That's a major reason for its success. You could have no more have postponed it any more than I goaded it into happening sooner.

Do you see my point? Things were afoot that they fight over later when they write the Wiki entry. Meaningful things.

Uh, NPO was the one who started the war. The idea that the defenders "chose the time and place" is crazy.

Let me clarify.

Attacking OV was supposed to be a quick smash and grab. They had done it before in prior months to more than one small alliance, making them into tech farms (granted at reasonable rates). No, their concern was "the big one", a large war that would see them at the center of the fight. For example, to this day it still makes absolutely no logical sense why they didn't cancel their treaty with Ragnarok after the Grinch Logs incident, take the usual diplomatic steps (NATO was more than willing to dump Ragnarok at one point), and have Q rolling them...except that you had members of Q resisting the call for war. Several months before NPO would have whipped the troops into shape and went in anyway. Instead they blinked.

OV turned out to be an ambush. A nice, big hairy ambush and they were caught off guard.

You say the war would not have started. Not that day maybe, but it would have started sooner rather than later and to deny it to me is laughable at best. I sat on that side of the table. I saw the cards until well into the game.

A lot of people guessed correctly that NPO would make an aggressive action against that side of the web to try to wipe them out and were preparing for it. That doesn't mean they were being aggressive.

OV is not a very disconnected small alliance, they had MDP's with VE, GOD, and Vanguard, well connected alliances. At a minimum it was obvious that an attack on OV would bring in Superfriends and C&G. How were you expecting those blocks to react?

[Saber]

I disagree. Viewing stolen information has historically only ever been condemned when it was someone weaker doing it to someone larger and been used as an excuse for a war that the stronger party was already looking for. There are plenty of major players that are known to have accepted private screenshots from dedicated spies and haven't had to deal with consequences for the act. Need I remind you of the screenshots taken of the Polar forum a year ago. Citadel certainly didn't have a problem taking and using those screenshots, provided by a dedicated spy, but not one they had planted themselves. It's not so different a situation, the screenshots in the Polar incident were just more interesting and got spread farther and faster as a consequence. (For the record, I didn't have problems viewing said screenshots either, so that's not a shot at Citadel, it's merely an illustration of a point that Chill's premise is without merit). The historical precedent has never been "accepting screenshots is a CB" but "accepting screenshots of someone who doesn't like you and has more friends than you is a CB because people with big guns can get away with using it as one."

Which makes it, of course, a !@#$%^&* CB.

I have to address this. I am surprised no one else already did.

There is several degrees of difference between NpO screenshots and what Sethb accepted. First major difference is that we had absolutely no contact with the spy, it was dumped via anonimous post on several alliance forums. We have immediately informed NpO of the event and have attempted to identify the spy. This is extremely different to what Sethb did, who not only was in direct contact, but through some interpretation can be seen as "instructing" the spy in what to do.

So, no, Citadel and Polar screenshots are nothing like Sethb screens. We not only did not participate or condone spying (anyone who knows me would know that I immediately shut down any kind of "screenie" offering, and would inform the alliance the spy was from), but we even cooperated against it.

Yes, after the screens were dumped we did not close our eyes and ignore security threat we found in them. However Sethbs situation was extremely different and it would be great if this situation was not brought up as example. It really does not apply.

[wickedj]

If you think Ragnarok was ever in danger or going to get rolled, you are deluding yourself.

You mean Rok isnt some tiny little alliance that can be bossed around? So much for my plans to single handedly destroy Rok

[King Chill I]

I really don't want to believe that you think this is legitimate excuse for a high government official such as you were to abruptly quit during the peak of inter-alliance tensions. Members play this game to have fun, but leaders must on occasion sacrifice their own enjoyment in order to take on the responsibility of leading their alliance and serving their people. This explanation strikes me as very irresponsible. I was much more willing to accept that you resigned your post because you did not agree with the majority of your alliance, which is what I thought until I read this thread.

I don't know a whole lot about what happened, but you must have considered that NPO's attack on OV was a direct result of Chill's (and by extension The Grämlins) apparent hesitation in supporting OV. Would NPO really have gone through with the attacks if they thought the world was already united in support of OV? It seems to me that Chill's statements contributed a fair amount towards turning the OV incident into a full alliance war, though that was purportedly not their original intent. Not that this invalidates your point that NPO would have easily retained dominance if Karma had split in half before the war.

The only responsibility i have to a game is to get enjoyment out of it. Sleeping 2 hours a night for 2 weeks is not my idea of enjoying anything.

As for the second part, you are assuming I had that much of an impact or that NPO really cared what i said.

@Azaghul: They did differ to a degree but at the beginning we discussed and did everything together. Just because everyone was screaming war doesnt mean we didnt try to cover all the corners.

@Trinite: If we had played this by the "lines" Gre would have fought in a minor front of this war while Fark, Rok and possibly MHA took the brunt of IRON (remember kids TOP was allied to IRON). Moreover, all our treaties are non-chaining so even though it wasnt an option, technically speaking we could have stayed out.

Fact is we took a major dump on the "lines" concept and did what we had to do and did so at fairly considerable costs.

Edited June 30, 2009 by King Chill I

[Blue Lightning]

Does anyone really care what Chill's opinion on the validity of the cb was?

Presumably so, as they asked.

He was the only one whining that sethb should be Zi'd in the room, and it is pretty obvious he wasn't doing it for his delicate sense of what is right or wrong. He did it solely to placate TOP and Crymson's desires.

What room are you talking about? If you mean the peace-term discussions, Crymson was in the room mediating and generally working his arse off to prevent the war from starting. If he had anything to say on his or TOP's wishes, he would have said it himself.

Without TOP teetering through which side to join errr pretend to join, there would have been no discussion.

Are you saying that there would have been no peace-talks at all if TOP had not been unsure of their course of action at the time?

Also, keep pretending we didn't do more damage to our enemies than any of the other KARMA alliances did to them put together. If you tell a lie often enough, someone will believe it.

[Delta1212]

Also, keep pretending we didn't do more damage to our enemies than any of the other KARMA alliances did to them put together. If you tell a lie often enough, someone will believe it.

Excuse me, but what?

[King Srqt]

If you tell a lie often enough, someone will believe it.

you guys should put that on your flag or something.

Edited June 30, 2009 by KingSrqt

[Gen Lee]

What room are you talking about? If you mean the peace-term discussions, Crymson was in the room mediating and generally working his arse off to prevent the war from starting. If he had anything to say on his or TOP's wishes, he would have said it himself.

Dude, that post went way over your head.

The room i speak of is where Karma met up days before the war. TOP wasn't there sorry you weren't invited. But don't worry you had representation (insert - chill). Now are you following?

Probably not. But if you couldn't follow my first statement you most likely have no clue what happened, and I haven't the patience or the time to catch you up.

Are you saying that there would have been no peace-talks at all if TOP had not been unsure of their course of action at the time?

Also, keep pretending we didn't do more damage to our enemies than any of the other KARMA alliances did to them put together. If you tell a lie often enough, someone will believe it.

It is really sad that you can't admit abstaining from nuking and spying nukes was not helpful to those you fought with. It was only helpful to you. Honestly it's common sense, basic math, are you smarter than a 5th grader?

*sing the last sentence to a catchy tune

[enderland]

Also, keep pretending we didn't do more damage to our enemies than any of the other KARMA alliances did to them put together. If you tell a lie often enough, someone will believe it.

Wow this is an unbelievable leap from:

Without TOP teetering through which side to join errr pretend to join, there would have been no discussion.