Warning

[HeinousOne]

There's this fancy thing called freedom of speech. I know it may seem odd that Pacificans have it... but anyone is allowed to speak their mind. Really, they're allowed to if they want to. It just may get them in trouble sometimes

Not sure why calling out supposed allies that speak in not so kind ways about your own alliance is enough to get in trouble but it is in Francograd. Paranoia is a real !@#$%*, turns you spineless.

Edited September 9, 2009 by HeinousOne

[Desperado]

I'm sorry but your lack of spelling and/or grammar just took away any credibility.

[Vhalen]

Please verify that number.

I believe that number is taking into account the fact that NPO basically drained its applicant AA (at various times during the war, it was pointed out that those numbers had dramatically decreased, while the number of new, very low NS nations in NPO correspondingly increased), and they still ended up 300 or so nations down. Since many of the nations in question had been applicants for some time, and swiftly became members during the war period, there was apparently nothing prohibiting their joining prior to the wartime drop in NPO membership. Since they somehow didn't make it into NPO until it was necessary to camouflage membership losses, then suddenly got sworn in, their padding of the membership total can be seen as artificial. (I imagine these nations aren't being counted as part of the total, and that's the discrepancy you're seeing. Taking this into account, the 500 estimate is probably on the low side.)

[Augustus Autumn]

I believe that number is taking into account the fact that NPO basically drained its applicant AA (at various times during the war, it was pointed out that those numbers had dramatically decreased, while the number of new, very low NS nations in NPO correspondingly increased), and they still ended up 300 or so nations down. Since many of the nations in question had been applicants for some time, and swiftly became members during the war period, there was apparently nothing prohibiting their joining prior to the wartime drop in NPO membership. Since they somehow didn't make it into NPO until it was necessary to camouflage membership losses, then suddenly got sworn in, their padding of the membership total can be seen as artificial. (I imagine these nations aren't being counted as part of the total, and that's the discrepancy you're seeing. Taking this into account, the 500 estimate is probably on the low side.)

The claim is that Pacifica has lost close to 500 members. Considering membership as never higher than 1,000 and current membership stands at 636, again, please, verify your number. This time, please use fact instead of estimates.

[Choader]

The claim is that Pacifica has lost close to 500 members. Considering membership as never higher than 1,000 and current membership stands at 636, again, please, verify your number. This time, please use fact instead of estimates.

It's doubtful anyone aside from perhaps NPO has exact figures on how many nations joined/started wearing the AA during the conflict, though by the end there were well over 100 nations with seniority lower then the length of the war. No, I don't have hard proof, probably no one does at this point. What is absolutely provable is that NPO granted applicant amnesty to anyone willing to fly the flag and fight, and continued recruiting operations throughout the war.

You probably weren't padding losses. I'm sure it was primarily intended to take advantage of any means available to you in a losing war. You can get righteously indignant over the lack of a photographic tally of the departing and joining NPO members, but it will take a long time before memories fade enough for those lines to work.

[Chalaskan]

I'm sorry but your lack of spelling and/or grammar just took away any credibility.

I really grow tired of the grammar police. This is an international site with english being a second language to many. Please stop bashing people for lack of knowing your language.

It is disrespectful and based on bad logic.

I would say that the actual numbers, and numbers suggested for the loss of NPO nations by both parties are skewed, probably somewhere in the middle.

Edited September 9, 2009 by Chalaskan

[Yggdrazil]

The aggressors were the NPO.

You cannot win a war without going on the offensive, taking the attack to the enemy. Therefore, offensive action is aggressive and after the first two days NPO was on the defensive and Karma the aggressor.

Edited September 9, 2009 by Yggdrazil

[Cataduanes]

You cannot win a war without going on the offensive, taking the attack to the enemy. Therefore, offensive action is aggressive and after the first two days Npo was on the defensive and Karma the aggressor.

SO the initial aggressive action is not a major factor?? who fired the first shot? it was not Karma thats for sure, and taking a counter-offensive does not mean the the title of being the 'aggressor' miraculously shifts from one side to another

[Francesca]

Uh, what? Karma gave NPO peace because the alliances fighting them decided to give them peace. In case you aren't aware, the Karma war was pretty massive. Apart from Karma alliances and Hegemony alliances there really wasn't much strength out there. By the time Karma decided to give NPO peace the Hegemony forces had been decimated. So who exactly was it pressuring Karma into giving them peace?

Hm.... let's see... what about that Polar announcement?

Either they work damn fast on NPO members these days or you were with NPO for a much longer time than you are willing to admit.

Or perhaps I've spent the last four months gradually changing my views.

The aggressors were the NPO.

Edit: Bob Janova, honestly, many members of the NPO will always believe they were the victims of aggression, no matter the fact that there was no war until the New Pacific Order declared it.

Sethb of Ordo Verde was considered to be spying on the New Pacific Order, which was an aggressive action.

Why does anyone let Francesca have the mic?

I'm allowed to comment in these announcements, just like everyone else. I thought Karma was about liberating the world from the New Pacific Order, so that people had the freedom to express their views?

[Yggdrazil]

You cannot fight a defensive war and win without going on the offensive(aggression).

Edited September 9, 2009 by Yggdrazil

[Teriethien]

You cannot fight a defensive war and win without going on the offensive(aggression).

Ugh, no. Going on the offensive is not the same as aggression. Yes, Karma went on the offensive, we all know what happened. But you then went on to assert that doing so is aggression, without a single thread of logic or reasoning to back up such a statement. It is completely unfounded and an obvious but also very bad attempt at painting the former Hegemony as victims of aggression.

[Vladimir]

I would argue that the war was one of Karma aggression from the start -- from ordering OV not to accept a peace deal when they were going to so that things could escalate to the cutting off of early peace talks when it looked like we would agree to terms, events were orchestrated to turn a minor incident into a major conflict. But I doubt that will gain much traction with the Karma loyalists here.

The point being made, I think, is that the defensive objective was accomplished almost immediately (even if you want to ignore that it was accomplished before the war began). From there the objectives changed and the war took on a new character that had nothing to do with the defensive action. How often was OV discussed after the day 2 of the war? And how often was revenge/freeing the world/revenge/multi-polarity/revenge? These were aggressive goals, not defensive.

[Bob Janova]

That may be partially true, although OV was certainly discussed quite frequently throughout the war, at least by their allies (who are most of the alliances on the NPO front). There were some people who wanted to beat the NPO and your attack on OV gave them an opportunity to beat you. That doesn't change the fact that you started the war and were therefore the aggressors, though – if you hadn't, there wouldn't have been a war at all for you to be beaten in.

You cannot fight a defensive war and win without going on the offensive(aggression).

This is intentional misdirection, I'm sure. Just because all past wars have been so heavily one sided that the aggressors won (with the possible exception of the UjW, where you'll get a different answer depending on who you ask) doesn't mean that it has to be that way. Of course you need to make offensive war declarations to win, and even declarations of war in a coalition-scale conflict, but that doesn't make you the aggressors.

Sethb of Ordo Verde was considered to be spying on the New Pacific Order, which was an aggressive action.

'Considered' by no-one except the NPO, TORN and TPF, and roundly ridiculed by everyone else (including you, I imagine). The aggressive alliances were repeatedly asked to provide proof that this 'spying' had occured (by OV, not Blackstone, which most people accepted had happened) and did not do so. You know as well as I do that every alliance accepts information. And secondly, even if it were true that OV was spying on you (which it wasn't), that still wouldn't make them the aggressors, it would just make your aggression justified.

I would argue that the war was one of Karma aggression from the start

Haha, you would. It's arguments like that that make people not take your better arguments seriously, though. Karma didn't even exist when the first accusations and talks with OV came up, because that was the thing that really made people come together (although some had already come due to the rumour mill indicating a hit on PC the previous week). OV were advised that they'd be backed up if they didn't back down to unfair demands, and when TPF refused to give up their source (remember, the 'crime' of accepting screenshots was exposed by leaked screenshots and logs) to the same punishment they were demanding for Seth, there wasn't a fair deal on the table.

Yes, interests on both sides escalated what could have been swept under the carpet into a major issue – starting with NPO, who could have written off a fairly meaningless screenshot or simply gone after the spy who leaked it, including also OV and their close allies who could have taken an unfair settlement to avoid war with the Hegemony as so many others in the past would have done, and including also the parts of what came to be Karma that were backing them up in order to defeat the hegemony. But the fact remains that without the war being started by you, it wouldn't have been started at all, and that completely voids the idea that Karma were aggressors or an aggressive entity.

That said, to drag the discussion back somewhere towards the original point, hopefully the experience of the war has at least taught you to curb your aggression and the wiser NPO will be welcomed back into the international community – not watched in fear and with weapons cocked as the OP seems to be.

[avernite]

Spying is not agression?

Dozens of MDP's would disagree with that assertion, and indeed for those who consider SethB to have spied, calling Karma the agressors seems logical.

And aside from that, if SethB spied, NPO did not start the war, just as people who refuse to accept white peace after being techraided do not start their war. They escalated it, to be sure, and that can be considered a misstep or not, but calling NPO the agressor to me requires the conclusion that SethB did not spy.

Even the counter-espionage from TPF would not be agression, IF they started spying only after SethB did. It would be courteous to state who spied, and indeed required to actually end up at peace, but retaliating against attacks is not equal to the initial attack.

Of course, this all rests on 'did SethB spy?' and on that opinions are clearly divided.

[General Ozujsko]

I'm allowed to comment in these announcements, just like everyone else. I thought Karma was about liberating the world from the New Pacific Order, so that people had the freedom to express their views?

Oh, this has nothing to do with the NPO. This has to do with the drama-factory you call your mouth. I left MCXA because I couldn't stand all of your posts about literally nothing. And, as luck would have it, here you are, spouting off, just saluting a different flag.

[Teriethien]

Spying is not agression?

Dozens of MDP's would disagree with that assertion, and indeed for those who consider SethB to have spied, calling Karma the agressors seems logical.

And aside from that, if SethB spied, NPO did not start the war, just as people who refuse to accept white peace after being techraided do not start their war.

You seemed to forget the part where the NPO & friends discovered SethB was 'spying' through spying. Besides, spying may be a casus beli but to equate it to a declaration of war is being disingenuous.

Even the counter-espionage from TPF would not be agression, IF they started spying only after SethB did.

So if they spied on the OV and discovered that SethB spied on them, that's magically called counter-spying and therefore morally correct now is it?

[Luis Quezada]

The OP seems a bit paranoic and I doubt he has any good reason to hate NPO (if his nation is the same age as his forum account). In any case they dont have the friends anymore and talking about what caused the war is irrelevant seeing as everyone peaced out already.

(just realized that vox spy joined NPO and its the most hilarious thing Ive seen this week) :lol:

[Bob Janova]

Besides, spying may be a casus beli but to equate it to a declaration of war is being disingenuous

I wouldn't go that far, but apart from the aspersions cast upon Avernite's character, this is my view – and one which is actually supported by certain treaties explicitly defining retaliation for spying as an exception to the mutual defence requirement, since if spying was considered direct aggression by most of the political world, that clause wouldn't be necessary.

However, considering the spying was never done by OV, it's not really relevant .

[Cortath]

Oh please, Janova.

Let me spell this out, because revisionists like you seem to have tried to wipe this from history: sethb said he spied.

So, no, it wasn't just NPO, TORN and friends who thought OV spied. OV thought OV spied, as did VE. OV was more than willing to come to an agreement, whereby sethb would go through one round of war for his transgressions. OV was pulled back from making that deal by her overlords, who wanted to use the opportunity to take us on. The logs are posted publicly in the original declaration of war, but I don't expect people like you to read them.

[Vhalen]

The claim is that Pacifica has lost close to 500 members. Considering membership as never higher than 1,000 and current membership stands at 636, again, please, verify your number. This time, please use fact instead of estimates.

Well, I do know that a month or so into the war, over 160 members (4 pages @ 40/page) had less seniority than the length of the war, and of those, maybe a dozen had 10k NS or higher. Add to this that the "NPO Applicant" AA currently stands at 6 members. Prior to the war it was, shall we say, significantly more populous. Now, let's take a look at the math. By your numbers, we get about 350. Add to this the 160 minimum just discussed, and we're over 500 already.

Now, I was just trying to explain to you what the discrepancy between your number for losses and the other poster's was likely caused by. You'll have to forgive me if this subject isn't meaningful enough for me to make any significant effort to dig up numbers (if it's even possible after this long) for the applicant AA, and running membership totals from from the war's onset until now, but denying that it happened just makes you look like a little kid with his fingers in his ears, going "La la la la la, I can't hear you!" Furthermore, since it seems from your previous response that you're set on completely ignoring anything I say, it's hardly productive to continue in this line, so with this post, I'm about done with this.

[Chief Savage Man]

I would argue that the war was one of Karma aggression from the start -- from ordering OV not to accept a peace deal when they were going to so that things could escalate to the cutting off of early peace talks when it looked like we would agree to terms, events were orchestrated to turn a minor incident into a major conflict. But I doubt that will gain much traction with the Karma loyalists here.

The point being made, I think, is that the defensive objective was accomplished almost immediately (even if you want to ignore that it was accomplished before the war began). From there the objectives changed and the war took on a new character that had nothing to do with the defensive action. How often was OV discussed after the day 2 of the war? And how often was revenge/freeing the world/revenge/multi-polarity/revenge? These were aggressive goals, not defensive.

Your assertion that the war was caused and escalated by OV refusing a peace offer is ridiculous. Because OV didn't roll over to your demands does not make them aggressors. Having the gall to refuse the demands of mighty Pacifica is not aggression.

Secondly, the Karma War escalated because it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. It was a minor incident, I'll give you that. Was it orchestrated to become a major conflict? No. The anger that was pent up in thousands of CN player exploded all at once. It was a spontaneous outburst in response to the many wrongs done unto them by the NPO. So yes. The goals were aggressive. And they were vengeful in nature. But the NPO deserved it all, and you can't deny that (although I know you will.)

[Azaghul]

The claim is that Pacifica has lost close to 500 members. Considering membership as never higher than 1,000 and current membership stands at 636, again, please, verify your number. This time, please use fact instead of estimates.

NPO has about 200 members with seniority less than the start of the war. That means about 436 members that were in NPO at the start of the war were in it now. That's about 50 under half your starting count.

Oh please, Janova.

Let me spell this out, because revisionists like you seem to have tried to wipe this from history: sethb said he spied.

So, no, it wasn't just NPO, TORN and friends who thought OV spied. OV thought OV spied, as did VE. OV was more than willing to come to an agreement, whereby sethb would go through one round of war for his transgressions. OV was pulled back from making that deal by her overlords, who wanted to use the opportunity to take us on. The logs are posted publicly in the original declaration of war, but I don't expect people like you to read them.

Where in the logs does he say that he spied.

Another thing about those logs, Mhawk and others were very good at bullying using intimidation: trying to intimidate OV into a deal. The fact that it might have worked temporarily before OV's allies called BS and told them not to accept does not prove anything.

[Delta1212]

I would argue that the war was one of Karma aggression from the start -- from ordering OV not to accept a peace deal when they were going to so that things could escalate to the cutting off of early peace talks when it looked like we would agree to terms, events were orchestrated to turn a minor incident into a major conflict. But I doubt that will gain much traction with the Karma loyalists here.

The point being made, I think, is that the defensive objective was accomplished almost immediately (even if you want to ignore that it was accomplished before the war began). From there the objectives changed and the war took on a new character that had nothing to do with the defensive action. How often was OV discussed after the day 2 of the war? And how often was revenge/freeing the world/revenge/multi-polarity/revenge? These were aggressive goals, not defensive.

Let's say an armed man breaks into your house. You immediately shove him back out the door and lock it.

Ok you're done. No need to call the police. He's out of your house. Your defensive objectives have been met. Of course, he's still right outside holding a gun, but any further action on your part would be aggressive against him, not defensive in anyway.

In fact, that's not even a complete analogy. The man in question has been breaking into houses and terrorizing people in your neighborhood over perceived slights for ages. Once some people ran him out of their house but he got away from them then came back later and shot everyone in the house in the head and continued doing what he was doing. Now he just broke into your house and you pushed him out the door.

How the hell is going outside after him and disarming him you being aggressive? The defensive goals were not met as long as you had the ability to immediately turn around and attack again. Getting you to stop attacking doesn't meet defensive goals as long as you're still holding a gun, because you've damn well shown your willingness to use it.

[Delta1212]

Oh please, Janova.

Let me spell this out, because revisionists like you seem to have tried to wipe this from history: sethb said he spied.

So, no, it wasn't just NPO, TORN and friends who thought OV spied. OV thought OV spied, as did VE. OV was more than willing to come to an agreement, whereby sethb would go through one round of war for his transgressions. OV was pulled back from making that deal by her overlords, who wanted to use the opportunity to take us on. The logs are posted publicly in the original declaration of war, but I don't expect people like you to read them.

You might want to go check your logs. We offered one week of war for SethB and NPO said ZI minimum and turned it down.

Edited September 9, 2009 by Delta1212

[Vladimir]

Your assertion that the war was caused and escalated by OV refusing a peace offer is ridiculous. Because OV didn't roll over to your demands does not make them aggressors. Having the gall to refuse the demands of mighty Pacifica is not aggression.

Not what I said. See Cortath's post above.

The fact that it might have worked temporarily before OV's allies called BS and told them not to accept does not prove anything.

Told them? Another victory for sovereignty. But it actually went further than that; OV were informed that even if they reached an agreement with us (which they had) it would be ignored by their allies and they would attack us using the incident as a pretext.

That is one of the worst analogies I've ever seen, Delta1212. Here's I'll give you another horrible analogy for your collection.

A man steals something from your house, you go to make sure it doesn't happen again, you both reach an agreement, a dozen random guys come into the room yelling "Aggressor! Tyrant!", tell you both that the agreement is irrelevant. They then take out a collection of crowbars, baseball bats and golf clubs, and start beating you over the head with them. As you lie bloodied on the floor, your broken limbs scrawled in every which direction, the men continue to beat you while crying out something about the inevitable threat you pose to them and debating whether to cripple you or if the best defensive move is to kill you. Slowly recovering in hospital, the limbs failing to heal due to artificial interference, you see the dozen men through the window panicking that in a few months you might be able to move your finger again.

And here are the logs of VE looking at OV's agreement and then ignoring them in order to get a war with us. Clearly not okay with the one week fo war against Sethb.

23:46] <Impero[VE]> rayvon is willing to give the choice to seth on his own

[23:47] <Impero[VE]> to resign and appologise

[23:47] <Impero[VE]> and face ZI

[23:48] <Impero[VE]> <@sethb[OV-DepMoFO]> I will not see OV come to any harm on my behalf

[23:48] <Impero[VE]> ^and seth will do that

[23:54] <Impero[VE]> nevermind, change of plans

[23:54] <Impero[VE]> im sorry.

[23:55] <Impero[VE]> it would happen anyway [23:55] <Impero[VE]> our allies would defend seth as a person

[23:55] <Impero[VE]> no one will have this !@#$ anymore from them

[23:55] <Impero[VE]> im sorry

[23:55] <Impero[VE]> theres no more to discuss

[23:55] <Impero[VE]> the matter should have never been brought up