NPO History Discussion

[Dr. Dan]

NPO probably was in that same basket of people surprised by the amount of opposition. It had started with VOX but slowly grew to a point where sanctioned alliances, as well as quite a few non sanctioned but respected alliances, were openly critical of NPO, something that hadn't been seen in a long time. NPO quite possibly have believed that it would only be those alliances fighting, not realizing the huge wave of hate that had built up over time.

I can't believe that.  They are not completely incompetent.  There were lists that were somewhat accurate.  I believe it was not a surprise, but a last glimmering hope that perhaps they could garner a force now and make something of it rather than be in the center of a complete and total curbstomp as the force of time made the odds worse and worse.

Edited August 24, 2009 by Dr. Dan

[WalkerNinja]

Does it still count as blindness if they were told the box was there?  They knew it would happen and went through with it anyways.  The reasoning I was given was a suddenly new born idealism that spying should be punished rather than adhering to any sense of pragmatism what-so-ever.  It's not like they were never pragmatic before.  What changed? 

Imo, it was still a sense of pragmatism in trying to make one last ditch effort before the storm. 

Not all box canyons have commanches lying in wait. Yes, some people told them, "Gee, that place looks ripe for an ambush!" But if they didn't believe them, and went in anyways, then they still got ambushed.

It's just like watching Alien. You know that that the Captain shouldn't be running around by himself with an improvised flame thrower. The rest of his crew told him that. You shouted it at the TV screen. He still believes that he can kill the Alien with his improvised flame thrower. None of us (not even his crew) are surprised when he gets eaten, but he surely was. If he knew he was going to get eaten, he would've made for the escape pod and stranded the rest of that crew while they were worrying about him trying to find the alien.

[Master-Debater]

I can't believe that.  They are not completely incompetent.  There were lists that were somewhat accurate.  I believe it was not a surprise, but a last glimmering hope that perhaps they could garner a force now and make something of it rather than be in the center of a complete and total curbstomp as the force of time made the odds worse and worse.

Read the edit Also Probably should be Possibly. Its early for me

But yes your scenario is also a possibility. If that was behind their motives it is also possible that they did it so down the road they can say they went out with a fight instead of a puff of smoke. It could have been used as a way to try to save face instead of just be obliterated. Though I have a hard time believing that they would do this. If they figured they were going to die then IMO they would have stayed low for a while and regain allies then make a comeback, not throw their alliance into an unwinnable war. Like I said in my other post to, the war was much closer at the start than people realize. It was only when Karma started to gain alliances that it turned into an unwinnable war for NPO.

[Dr. Dan]

Not all box canyons have commanches lying in wait. Yes, some people told them, "Gee, that place looks ripe for an ambush!" But if they didn't believe them, and went in anyways, then they still got ambushed.

It's just like watching Alien. You know that that the Captain shouldn't be running around by himself with an improvised flame thrower. The rest of his crew told him that. You shouted it at the TV screen. He still believes that he can kill the Alien with his improvised flame thrower. None of us (not even his crew) are surprised when he gets eaten, but he surely was. If he knew he was going to get eaten, he would've made for the escape pod and stranded the rest of that crew while they were worrying about him trying to find the alien.

"Don't take the bait" was a mantra for months.  They knew it was a trap.  I was in Q government for the months prior to the war.  They had been paranoid as hell up to that point to the point of persecuting certain members in Q.  I don't buy for a second that they didn't know or "didn't believe".  There could be no surprise or shock when the box closed in around them.

[WalkerNinja]

I'll agree, you have perspective on the issue that I don't. However, you see to believe that NPO is not incompentant:

I can't believe that. They are not completely incompetent.

What makes them more incompetant? Knowing that they will get killed if they do X and doing X anyways, or not knowing?

You want to give them credit, but do so by saying that they acted stupidly. I want to give them credit, and do so by saying that they were merely ignorant (on some level).

[Dr. Dan]

What makes them more incompetant? Knowing that they will get killed if they do X and doing X anyways, or not knowing?

There were not ignorant. Knowing and hoping are 2 aspects of human nature. They knew they would likely lose, but they hoped they would not. Their other options were not much better. It was the best they could do. Of course, when it came down to the operation of it all, they were certainly not performing at their best.

Edited August 24, 2009 by Dr. Dan

[WalkerNinja]

There were not ignorant.  Knowing and hoping are 2 aspects of human nature.  They knew they would likely lose, but they hoped they would not.  Their other options were not much better.  It was the best they could do.  Of course, when it came down to the operation of it all, they were certainly not performing at their best.

I simply find it difficult to believe that the Pacifica of cynics like JosefThorne, Umbrae Noctem, Cortath, Vladimir, Moo, BlackAdder, Electron Sponge, Ivan Moldavi, and Dilber would so blindly follow false hope. Pacifica is not known for being a land of idealistic optimists.

[Dr. Dan]

I simply find it difficult to believe that the Pacifica of cynics like JosefThorne, Umbrae Noctem, Cortath, Vladimir, Moo, BlackAdder, Electron Sponge, Ivan Moldavi, and Dilber would so blindly follow false hope. Pacifica is not known for being a land of idealistic optimists.

Heh, Pacifica was/is not the same as before.  Also, I never said it was completely hope, if you look above, I said it was pragmatism of their "best chance".

Edit: It's completely logical. They were losing support as time went on. Ie, that was their best chance. I don't see how that's really that hard to wrap around. Waiting for something better was not likely to save them. We were considering leaving Q at that point. Time was not their friend.

Edited August 24, 2009 by Dr. Dan

[Haflinger]

"Don't take the bait" was a mantra for months. They knew it was a trap. I was in Q government for the months prior to the war. They had been paranoid as hell up to that point to the point of persecuting certain members in Q. I don't buy for a second that they didn't know or "didn't believe". There could be no surprise or shock when the box closed in around them.

NPO government is very large, and what you say applies to a lot of NPO government. It did not however apply to all of them.

Unfortunately so, at least from my IC perspective. Heh.

[Sequoia Throne]

75% alliance in PM? vs 17/18 alliances? That is indeed staggering of historical proportions.

Yet that figure is nowhere near true. I was keeping my eye on how many NPO nations were in peacemode during the war, unfortunately I didn't take any screenshots, but as far as I know it never got as high as >50% in peacemode. I remember it hovering around 35-40% for most of the occupational part of the war.

Edited August 24, 2009 by Straylight

[Darth Revan]

So we should simply ignore the fact that your major opposition of time just happened to lost a large portion of it's privileges around about the time the war was fought. I feel we should look into it a bit more.

I feel you should look into the rules a bit more.

This post ends any and all discussion about alleged mod bias or any other moderation issue in this thread.

[Bilrow]

Yet that figure is nowhere near true. I was keeping my eye on how many NPO nations were in peacemode during the war, unfortunately I didn't take any screenshots, but as far as I know it never got as high as >50% in peacemode. I remember it hovering around 35-40% for most of the occupational part of the war.

We never broke 40% of our Total Nations in peace mode.

May 7 - 21.14% Peace Mode - 52.97% Anarchy

May 12 - 29.90% Peace Mode - 44.63 Anarchy

May 19 - 29.68% Peace Mode - 47.47% Anarchy

May 20 - 29.36% Peace Mode - 40.68% Anarchy

May 23 - 27.42% Peace Mode - 38.65% Anarchy

May 28 - 35.48% Peace Mode - 34.60% Anarchy

May 31 - 33.59% Peace Mode - 34.11% Anarchy

June 3 - 32.05% Peace Mode - 33.38% Anarchy

June 5 - 33.07% Peace Mode - 33.60% Anarchy

June 8 - 736 Total Nations - 35.60% Peace Mode - 32.34% Anarchy

June 10 - 738 Total Nations - 36.72% Peace Mode - 30.49% Anarchy

June 12 - 732 Total Nations - 37.02% Peace Mode - 28.68% Anarchy

June 15 - 725 Total Nations - 35.45% Peace Mode - 27.03% Anarchy

June 21 - 688 Total Nations - 34.88% Peace Mode - 26.02% Anarchy

June 24 - 676 Total Nations - 34.40% Peace Mode - 24.46% Anarchy

June 28 - 676 Total Nations - 33.58% Peace Mode - 25.59% Anarchy

July 4 - 651 Total Nations - 37.02% Peace Mode - 25.59% Anarchy

July 9 - 638 Total Nations - 36.52% Peace Mode - 22.26% Anarchy

July 14 - 638 Total Nations - 38.24% Peace Mode - 21.32% Anarchy

July 19 -620 Total Nations - 38.55% Peace Mode 19.60% Anarchy

[Sequoia Throne]

And I was trying to be conservative about my recollection.

as for ~75% of NPO nations in PM for the last month? That's absolute bull.

I assure you, it is not. It seems your recollection is far and away different from everyone else who paid the slightest attention to the subject.

I wonder how hard you were praying that we didn't have evidence to prove you otherwise. Such vicious propagandizing has been far too common in this conflict. The reparations are already agreed upon buddy, we are already paying the largest debt in history, you don't have to lie anymore!

Edited August 24, 2009 by Straylight

[Fallen Fool]

I simply find it difficult to believe that the Pacifica of cynics like JosefThorne, Umbrae Noctem, Cortath, Vladimir, Moo, BlackAdder, Electron Sponge, Ivan Moldavi, and Dilber would so blindly follow false hope. Pacifica is not known for being a land of idealistic optimists.

JosefThorne and BlackAdder were gone from the game. UmbraeNoctem, and Dilber were inactive as was, to a certain extent, Vladimir. Sponge was in open conflict. Ivan was persona non grata in most, if not all, Pacifican leadership circles. Moo's ability has been questioned time immemorial by a variety of figures. That leaves a solitary Cortath and, while I have a great deal of respect for him, I do not believe its in his powers to hold back the tide of the forces arrayed against NPO like like Moses managed to hold back the Red Sea

That being said, however, I do largely agree with DrDan since his thesis appears to be aligned with the one I offered earlier.

[Feanor Noldorin]

"Don't take the bait" was a mantra for months.  They knew it was a trap.  I was in Q government for the months prior to the war.  They had been paranoid as hell up to that point to the point of persecuting certain members in Q.  I don't buy for a second that they didn't know or "didn't believe".  There could be no surprise or shock when the box closed in around them.

From my own perspective of events your conclusion is the one I find most logical. Paranoia reigned supreme in the last few months so much so that it had become annoying to be in the gov channels. Till this day I can not stand the phrase "tin foil hat" because it was used so often.

Edit: It's completely logical. They were losing support as time went on. Ie, that was their best chance. I don't see how that's really that hard to wrap around. Waiting for something better was not likely to save them. We were considering leaving Q at that point. Time was not their friend.

Agreed

The NPO was not ignorant of the dangers involved in declaring war with OV. They knew the trap was there and knowingly walked straight into it. Perhaps they figured that they could use TOP/MHA/Sparta as well as some of these alliances in the war or have them go neutral before they moved to far away from them in terms of relations. Whatever the case may be the entire situation showed them not to be ignorant but rather completely incompetent in how they handled practically everything.

Edited August 24, 2009 by Feanor Noldorin

[Cortath]

JosefThorne and BlackAdder were gone from the game. UmbraeNoctem, and Dilber were inactive as was, to a certain extent, Vladimir. Sponge was in open conflict. Ivan was persona non grata in most, if not all, Pacifican leadership circles. Moo's ability has been questioned time immemorial by a variety of figures. That leaves a solitary Cortath and, while I have a great deal of respect for him, I do not believe its in his powers to hold back the tide of the forces arrayed against NPO like like Moses managed to hold back the Red Sea

That being said, however, I do largely agree with DrDan since his thesis appears to be aligned with the one I offered earlier.

Let my people go!

[Penkala]

Heft is correct.

From my perspective, the truth of the matter is that the writing on the wall was clear after the Second Patriotic War. After that point, it was inevitable that there was going to be a war between pro- and anti-NPO sections of the Hegemony. The preeminent question was just who would end up on whose side.

In the build-up to the war, however, NPO's leadership was, as Heft noted, impotent for reasons that are debatable. Regardless, by the time of the immediate weeks before the war it was becoming increasingly apparent that, despite NPO's efforts, their political base of support was continuing to dwindle. Presumably NPO's leadership realized this and decided to take a gamble by using the first halfway decent CB to start a war which would rally their base, destroy the opposition before before they managed to really consolidate their position, and hopefully drive the people on the fence into further indecision for at least enough time for the decisive blow to be dealt.

And, honestly, it almost worked. According to some people I know, in the initial days and hours before the declaration it looked like Karma might implode due to various differences. The problem for NPO, however, was that they blew the opening stages of the war. Between declaring during negotiations and leaving TORN behind, NPO managed to consolidate Karma, push the fence sitters into the oppositions camp, and cause major division in their own base. From that point, NPO's fate in relation to the war was sealed.

I posted this in the other thread but it should really go here.

*half a year

I started at the end of November and the war started at the end of April. That's 5 months.

I've been extremely forthcoming and rather detailed in my explanations of the reasoning behind anything I did and I'm open to explaining anything that's asked of me. I'll even admit the mistakes I've made where I've made them. So far your rebuttal to all of my points has been air quoting random phrases and telling me I was terrible ally and to stop blaming you for things that you did because I was bad. That is all very well and good but it's rather below the standard of posting that I've come to expect from you.

You can keep shouting that you're right and I'm wrong because I spin everything, but as long as that is the only thing that you keep repeating, it's not going to be very effective even if it is rather ironic.

Just a quick note, while this may be when you began planning for a defense if the war happened, I know others who started in late October.

From my perspective, the deal was this: SF began preparing to defend itself. It didn't, as some Pacificans say, create a bandwagon of alliances to jump NPO. It was a passive preparation - we weren't going to go out and attack NPO and take them down, but we were going to be prepared to defend ourselves as effectively as possible if we or our allies were attacked. If that attack never came then it wouldn't really matter what we did, now would it? But it did come, as we suspected it would, so SF and others did what they had to do. I don't think many wanted it to happen, because as people have said, we thought we would be losing. As it turns out Pacifica made the largest blunder they've ever made and gained Citadel support for Karma, along with many others who were on the fence. Citadel and others were instrumental in pulling off a victory for Karma.

Quite frankly, the idea that SF or someone else created a coalition to attack NPO is ludicrous. SF just tried to make it so that if a war did come they could circle the wagons as effectively as possible.

Having a treaty with someone, but working for the longest time having a singular goal of taking out that someone, or rather, creating strong enough coalition that could do it, is what it is mate.

This is what I'm talking about. It wasn't a goal to take someone out, it was a goal that, should NPO try to attack SF or their friends yet again, SF could defend itself. The key here is that NPO would have to do something that would lead to SF being in imminent danger. If you hadn't done that SF wouldn't have done anything. It was more of, "OK, so if NPO decides to take out one of us, who do we have with us? How prepared are we on military wonders and warchests?"

Though I'd imagine others have different perspectives.

To address your points, the real blunder was attacking in the middle of negotiations.

According to some people I know, in the initial days and hours before the declaration it looked like Karma might implode due to various differences.

Indeed. One of the three Gromlins ( ) who would decide if they got involved or not (it had to be unanimous from my understanding) didn't want to roll. The other two did. A few alliances decided they weren't going to roll if OV got attacked. In fact a few decided they probably wouldn't get involved in the hour or so leading up to the DoW. But then the DoW came in, and the Gremlin gov member changed his mind and decided that Gremlins would help. This paved the way for Citadel support and built enough confidence that we had a chance that those who had pulled out came back in.

[WorldConqueror]

The NPO was not ignorant of the dangers involved in declaring war with OV. They knew the trap was there and knowingly walked straight into it. Perhaps they figured that they could use TOP/MHA/Sparta as well as some of these alliances in the war or have them go neutral before they moved to far away from them in terms of relations. Whatever the case may be the entire situation showed them not to be ignorant but rather completely incompetent in how they handled practically everything.

Or maybe we just assumed that people would honour their treaties with their oldest allies, instead of joining in on the opposite side of the coalition assembled to attack us. Silly us.

[Penkala]

Or maybe we just assumed that people would honour their treaties with their oldest allies, instead of joining in on the opposite side of the coalition assembled to attack us. Silly us.

It wasn't assembled to attack you. It was assembled to defend itself if you attacked it. You attacked it.

[King Srqt]

It wasn't assembled to attack you. It was assembled to defend itself if you attacked it. You attacked it.

This is very true.

There were not plans to attack the NPO, and if there were they would not have had nearly the support that the Karma war had. If NPO were attacked NPO would have won and everyone knew that.

[WorldConqueror]

It wasn't assembled to attack you. It was assembled to defend itself if you attacked it. You attacked it.

We attacked OV. Not SF, not C&G, not Citadel. We held treaties with a lot of alliances that used aggressive clauses to enter the war on Karma's side. You think that's ok, because it was done to take down big bad Pacifica. I don't agree.

[Haflinger]

This is very true.

There were not plans to attack the NPO, and if there were they would not have had nearly the support that the Karma war had. If NPO were attacked NPO would have won and everyone knew that.

This is half-right.

There were plans to attack the NPO. They never got put into play because the rest of the statement is right.

[Vilien]

This is half-right.

There were plans to attack the NPO. They never got put into play because the rest of the statement is right.

If there were plans fomenting to attack Pacifica among any of the key players before its downfall then I never saw them or even heard of them. I haven't seen evidence to this claim, despite its frequent use, though if you can provide it I will gladly change my mind.

[WorldConqueror]

Thought I'd bring this over from the other thread too.

The change in Polaris was not due to or dependent on the change in personnel, although it certainly helps not to have Sponge running things – their eyes were opened to how they'd been acting and why it wasn't a good idea by the war. From the posts of you and WC in this thread, it appears that the NPO has not opened its eyes. That is the difference, not whether the same people are involved.

Opened our eyes to what? That we signed treaties with two-faced snakes that used the treaty as a cloak to conceal their true intentions, all the while paying us and the relationship lip service? We have learned that lesson very well. I'm sorry, but you should know by now that no Pacifican is going to kneel down and kiss your feet, or pretend everything is daisies and rainbows, and no defeat is going to change that. Sorry to disappoint.

[Dr. Dan]

Or maybe we just assumed that people would honour their treaties with their oldest allies, instead of joining in on the opposite side of the coalition assembled to attack us. Silly us.

Stupid assumption considering the context of the events.  Sincerity is measured in repeat offenses.