Thoughts on Causes and Effects of the Karma War

[WorldConqueror]

You could make the argument that those that spoke for Karma most often on the OWRP during the war talked about morality as being their reason for participating. A fair number of people even drank that Kool-aid. But the vast majority of those who fought in the war on the Karma side, including much of the leadership, only had a vague notion regarding the "immorality of NPO" or just saw a challenge as old as man--kill the mammoth. You also had any number of side agendas that played out. Make Echelon pay. Make TPF pay. If Valhalla got off "lucky", it was only because those fighting against Valhalla had no real agenda against it except that they were on the wrong side of the war. It helps to explain the relatively easy terms other alliances got as well.

Also, OV was a pawn. If NPO doesn't understand that, then they are doomed to be tripped up again.

Oh no, don't get me wrong, I for one think that most of the Karma leaders don't believe in the morals they were espousing back then, I know that they were just keen to take a swipe at Pacifica. But, that's not my point. My point is that their most used rallying call and justification was morality. And so for that reason, now that the war is won, they can not sit here and tell me that the war had nothing to do with morals. I remember when the surrender terms were being handed down, people in the Karma alliances were speaking out against the continued application of harsh peace terms, and what answer did they receive? "This war wasn't about morals". "We never said we would outlaw that". Maybe you didn't but you certainly implied it. I don't really care if you are the worlds biggest moraliser, or have none at all really. Just be consistent, and don't justify a war with something one minute, and then say it had nothing to do with it the next.

And yes, I would say Valhalla is lucky in regards to who they ended up fighting, as they were one of the most hated of the 'Hegemony', and got off quite lightly.

And of course OV was a pawn. Doesn't change the fact that attacking them was justified.

These morals were espoused by various Karma representatives. Archon and LiquidMercury for instance whose memorable posts on the OWF are to this day...

...some of the most laughably hypocritical posts ever seen, in the context of the end of the war?

[ChairmanHal]

Oh no, don't get me wrong, I for one think that most of the Karma leaders don't believe in the morals they were espousing back then, I know that they were just keen to take a swipe at Pacifica. But, that's not my point. My point is that their most used rallying call and justification was morality. And so for that reason, now that the war is won, they can not sit here and tell me that the war had nothing to do with morals. I remember when the surrender terms were being handed down, people in the Karma alliances were speaking out against the continued application of harsh peace terms, and what answer did they receive? "This war wasn't about morals". "We never said we would outlaw that". Maybe you didn't but you certainly implied it. I don't really care if you are the worlds biggest moraliser, or have none at all really. Just be consistent, and don't justify a war with something one minute, and then say it had nothing to do with it the next.

I recall NpO (with propaganda support from NPO) made the case that the Unjust War must be fought, in part, to help eliminate tech raiding and other forms of petty bullying on Planet Bob.

I objected then...now I'm just amused.

No, there *were* people who made the Karma War a holy crusade, just as there were individuals and alliances back in 2007 that made the Unjust War in a holy crusade against what they saw as alliances that tolerated petty bullying. But the answer to the question as to what the Karma War was all about is really, "it depends."

And yes, I would say Valhalla is lucky in regards to who they ended up fighting, as they were one of the most hated of the 'Hegemony', and got off quite lightly.

So lightly we're still rebuilding infra.

Oh we got pounded fair and square. It was a hard fight and we gave worse than we got. But I would never characterize what Valhalla went through as "getting off light". Were we pounded worse than Echelon or TPF? Absolutely not.

And of course OV was a pawn. Doesn't change the fact that attacking them was justified.

Someone mused once that it seemed like NPO attacked OV knowing what would happen and that, in essence, "the fix was in."

I don't subscribe to that theory, but I do believe that NPO leadership launched that war under certain assumptions about who its friends were and the line up for a larger war and they were wrong...very wrong.

[WorldConqueror]

I have to disagree with the idea that ethics weren't a big part of the motivation for at least some alliances in Karma. They were, and the general pattern of friendly peace terms given to Hegemony alliances shows that there really was a sense of 'doing the right thing' about Karma. Only Echelon and TPF got harsh terms, along with the NPO who were always going to, compared to 10 or 20 alliances who got zero or low reps. No viceroys were imposed, no wonders were decommissioned, no governments were forcibly removed. EZI is now forsworn by every major alliance; even PZI is rare, and criticised. For many people, Karma was about removing the 'evil' hegemony and making the world a better place, and despite the attempts to rewrite history, that was largely successful.

Yes, NPO and a couple of other die-hard Hegemony alliances got high reparations. You didn't get any 'evil' terms to comply with, though, and in the opposite situation you would probably have forced alliances into disbandment. TPF, at least (not sure about Echelon), were offered peace much earlier in the war and chose to fight on, doing large amounts of unnecessary damage to the alliances they were fighting; it's a pretty blinkered view to say that reparations aren't justified in that position. (The same was true of IRON, though they didn't get such high ones in the end anyway.) NPO are the demonstration of what Azaghul was saying when he mentioned that we weren't against harsh terms, we were against excessive terms (for alliances who didn't deserve it); NPO started the war, they kept the hegemony together for two years and bore responsibility for most of its worst acts – they deserve the terms they got. Alliances which entered due to treaty commitments got an easy peace (and yes, that includes TPF, they just chose not to take it).

Of course, not everyone shared the same view. Some alliances (most notably most of SF but spread throughout Karma) were simply in it to win the war, and weren't particularly concerned with moral objectives. There's nothing wrong with that, and these alliances did not see any reason to waive the usual reparations to cover some of the cost of winning a war, though they did agree with not including 'evil' terms. But overall, Karma was an ethical coalition and it has made the world better.

Now, re the questions raised in the OP itself: the principal cause of the war was, of course, the attacks by TPF, TORN and NPO that started it. Beyond that, I would agree with the idea that paranoia was the main cause, and several instances of it at that.

Immediately before the war, there was a paranoia that the power structure was breaking up and that they must strike before it had shifted so far away from them that they would not win – and ironically, a paranoia of being spied upon that resulted in several major alliances not being fully informed of the plans, which resulted in the power structure breaking up much worse. It had been clear for some time that Sparta, MHA and TOP (not to mention the myriad alliances with MDPs to a 'core Hegemony' member who cancelled around the time of the war) were not totally happy with the political structures, but holding a Continuum meeting without them and then declaring war without informing them was a sure way to make them flop off the fence onto the opposite side.

The worst case of paranoia at that time was the idea that they would be attacked if they did not do so first, and not on their own terms. As far as I'm aware (and I was involved with what became Karma from a very early stage, when it appeared there might be an attack on VE a week or two before, and when there were rumours of a hit on PC a few days before the real war), no-one had ever planned an aggressive war against the hegemony. It would have been totally impractical to do so; most major alliances had MDPs with it, and everyone in Karma had PIATs that would have required notification of the plans to the very alliances that would be implicated in defence! The idea that the NPO was in any imminent danger was pure paranoia, and would not have stood up to scrutiny – but we still hear that justification for attacking in discussions today.

Looking further back, the paranoia about compromised communication channels certainly helped to break up the political grouping around the NPO. Communication in Continuum had never been great, ever since VietFAN II back in December 2007 when open discussion on the internal boards was suppressed, but after a couple of high profile leaks from the government forums and IRC in 2008, it was basically non-existent. As well as the 'evil Hegemony' aspects that drove a moralist alliance like mine away, there was simply a feeling that we weren't 'real allies'. The Continuum boards, even at the top levels, never had the engagement between signatories that the Citadel ones do, and that old chestnut 'communication issues' meant that most Continuum alliances did not feel close to each other. Governments can hold such a political structure together in the good times, but member level opinion was hugely negative – Grämlins, FOK and MHA all left on the back of massively one-sided membership polls.

People like to elevate Vox's importance in that paranoia more than is justified, in my opinion. Yes, they did have a role – they reminded the main powers that their communication channels were vulnerable, and managed to keep penetrating the Sanctum for long periods. But Continuum was already paranoid; the attacks on Hyperion were not announced even on the government area before they happened (which resulted in a big split between Valhalla and TOP/Grämlins), for example, out of fear of leaks. Citadel and TOP (and OG? I forget) were also spied on by Vox, but that didn't greatly affect their operation. Vox's main role, in my opinion, was the public relations one – making it acceptable to criticise the NPO and the hegemony (though even there, the presence of Citadel, Superfriends, NpO and C&G as forces too large to be destroyed probably helped as well), and publicising its factionality.

As for the effects of Karma – well, it's still rather early to tell. We're currently still in the chaotic multipolar post-war anarchy, and we won't truly know the effects until a new world order emerges; the character of that order will be the lasting effect of Karma. Right now, things are better, as I said earlier: no EZI, no viceroys, no forced disbandments, no stompings on poor CBs. Those things are in line with the objectives of Karma, but they would also be the result of no faction having the power to do any of them at present, so I think it's too early to be sure what the long term effects are.

PZI is not rare, it's just done a lot more quietly than it used to be. I seem to remember SSSW18 getting fairly heavy terms too.

We would have forced alliances into disbandment? Come on. How can this line still be being used? Is MK still here? Athens? Seems so. Yet we've hated MK since their inception, and Athens attacked us in the WotC. And they've survived. So have most of the others we have gone to war with. Just because a few have disbanded does not mean that we forced them into it. Hmmm, who was that orange alliance that started the war alongside us? We bore responsibility for its worst acts? Like letting you roll Polar, you mean? SSSSW18 entered due to treaty commitments.

If you weren't going to change anything when you won the war, you shouldn't have spouted all that moral crap all the way through it. Otherwise people tend to assume you are going to act in a moral way when you are in a position to.

[WorldConqueror]

I recall NpO (with propaganda support from NPO) made the case that the Unjust War must be fought, in part, to help eliminate tech raiding and other forms of petty bullying on Planet Bob.

I objected then...now I'm just amused.

No, there *were* people who made the Karma War a holy crusade, just as there were individuals and alliances back in 2007 that made the Unjust War in a holy crusade against what they saw as alliances that tolerated petty bullying. But the answer to the question as to what the Karma War was all about is really, "it depends."

Maybe we should ask "The Voice of Karma", eh? Of course, he didn't speak for anyone when that announcement was made, and it was certainly never authorised. Guess Archon just felt like giving a speech that day.

So lightly we're still rebuilding infra.

Oh we got pounded fair and square. It was a hard fight and we gave worse than we got. But I would never characterize what Valhalla went through as "getting off light". Were we pounded worse than Echelon or TPF? Absolutely not.

I meant in the peace terms, not during the war. I have no idea how the war went for you, I was slightly busy at the time. I imagine a lot of people are still rebuilding infra, I'm still down 5700 infra since prewar. But I don't think you're sending out more tech than you have on top of that.

Someone mused once that it seemed like NPO attacked OV knowing what would happen and that, in essence, "the fix was in."

I don't subscribe to that theory, but I do believe that NPO leadership launched that war under certain assumptions about who its friends were and the line up for a larger war and they were wrong...very wrong.

Well there's a lot of theories floating around about the start of the war. Personally I think it was a combination of miscalculation, and mistake that compounded the miscalculation.

[Il Principe]

At some point or another treaties would be cancelled/created, or simply ignored entirely/worked around. Also, you mention MHA. They had a treaty with Gre the same calibre as their treaty with NPO. They probably would have ended doing the same thing, avoiding NPO and hitting other big players on that side.

No. You are very wrong. We had strong treaties and friendships with both sides. We were not that fond of Q anymore, but we were close friends and allies with a lot of alliances in it. If the situation would have been different we would have taken a different stance.

Immediately before the war, there was a paranoia that the power structure was breaking up and that they must strike before it had shifted so far away from them that they would not win – and ironically, a paranoia of being spied upon that resulted in several major alliances not being fully informed of the plans, which resulted in the power structure breaking up much worse. It had been clear for some time that Sparta, MHA and TOP (not to mention the myriad alliances with MDPs to a 'core Hegemony' member who cancelled around the time of the war) were not totally happy with the political structures, but holding a Continuum meeting without them and then declaring war without informing them was a sure way to make them flop off the fence onto the opposite side.

I never understood the actions of NPO before this war. And I do noth understand why they started it in the first place. There were a lot of alliances that wanted to fight them but more that would have defended them. Their position would have been a lot stronger if they just had strenghtened their defences and their friendships and waited for the aggresive alliances to attack.

Maybe they became unsure because of the cancellations of some of their treaties? Maybe they thought attacking to be the best defense? Insecurity (because of VOX, the cancellations and their bad press in general) is the only reason I can think of.

[Stumpy Jung Il]

PZI is not rare, it's just done a lot more quietly than it used to be. I seem to remember SSSW18 getting fairly heavy terms too.

We would have forced alliances into disbandment? Come on. How can this line still be being used? Is MK still here? Athens? Seems so. Yet we've hated MK since their inception, and Athens attacked us in the WotC. And they've survived. So have most of the others we have gone to war with. Just because a few have disbanded does not mean that we forced them into it. Hmmm, who was that orange alliance that started the war alongside us? We bore responsibility for its worst acts? Like letting you roll Polar, you mean? SSSSW18 entered due to treaty commitments.

If you weren't going to change anything when you won the war, you shouldn't have spouted all that moral crap all the way through it. Otherwise people tend to assume you are going to act in a moral way when you are in a position to.

Do you know anything about what happened to GOLD and LUE (just two examples) or do you really think you've never pushed alliances to disband?

As for the war, I fought the war with ethical purposes, I think that was pretty evident in my writings during the war. I don't see why people are denying it now.

[WorldConqueror]

Do you know anything about what happened to GOLD and LUE (just two examples) or do you really think you've never pushed alliances to disband?

As for the war, I fought the war with ethical purposes, I think that was pretty evident in my writings during the war. I don't see why people are denying it now.

We fought them, they folded. You can push, but you can't force.

And people are denying it because it no longer suits them. Can't be acting all moral when, now that you've got a bit of power, you see the utility in those same policies that you railed against to win a war only a few months ago.

[Stumpy Jung Il]

We fought them, they folded. You can push, but you can't force.

And people are denying it because it no longer suits them. Can't be acting all moral when, now that you've got a bit of power, you see the utility in those same policies that you railed against to win a war only a few months ago.

Apart from reparations, which we only assigned to you for reasons I have had to explain 1 billion times at why this doesn't apply, I have not seen Vanguard do any of the things we preached against.

As for GOLD, you informed them that they'd all have to join NPO PoW indefinitely if they ever wanted peace. They disbanded because this was ridiculous. Sorry, but you can't expect pity after making moves like that.

[Il Impero Romano]

The Karma war was about many things.

I'm not sure where the confusion for some people arises. Over all, yes there was an air of moral retribution, but that is unavoidable given the past of the opposing side. So, you say, why then did some alliances not conform to the perceived moral bar that was set? The answer is simple, the Karma war was also about not trying to control your allies, and ending the insulting back room pressure that regularly went on between "friends". I could probably think of a wide variety of different reasons that you could see put forth from the different members of those associated with Karma, and examples from others within the same group that directly contradicted those of their neighbor, but that would be pointless.

Nothing is absolute. You can have a high overall standard, and still have dissenters within the group. You can have benevolent goals you wish to reach, and still be pragmatic in your approach.

[Bob Janova]

PZI is not rare, it's just done a lot more quietly than it used to be. I seem to remember SSSW18 getting fairly heavy terms too.

PZI is certainly rarer than it was; none of the alliances I'm close to have anyone on it, for example. Does it still happen? Yes – Karma wasn't an act of God that cleaned the slate of all bad deeds.

Re SSSW18, that wasn't my front so I'm not sure. My guess is that they got harsh terms for similar reasons to TPF (other OPP or ex-OPP alliances might have done too), for carrying on the fight after they were offered peace and the result of the war was clear. But even if not, the fact is that, overall, Karma did conduct war and peace in a more moral way than the hegemony.

We would have forced alliances into disbandment? Come on. How can this line still be being used? Is MK still here? Athens? Seems so. Yet we've hated MK since their inception, and Athens attacked us in the WotC.

You did not have the political capital at that point to force alliances to disband, and MK would have caused a major loss in strength due to 20 day nuclear anarchy if you hadn't agreed to peace around the time that you did. The best examples for this would be LUE and NAAC, both disbanded by the Orders (back when you were close) for, effectively, being on the wrong side too many times. (GATO also had their core crushed out of them for similar reasons.) You also disbanded CIS more recently. Mind you, I didn't say you would, I said you probably would (and I meant 'you, the Hegemony' not NPO specifically), and I believe you would have done. It's a matter of opinion at this point since you didn't win, but it was the prevailing opinion of alliances that entered for Karma that if we lost we wouldn't be getting terms.

Hmmm, who was that orange alliance that started the war alongside us?

You mean TORN? Yeah, they got off extremely lightly, in my opinion, though it's effectively a dead alliance now so it's not that relevant in the macropolitical picture. The issue there is that no-one believes that such a small alliance could actually be the one that pushed the war; without NPO collusion and full military and political support, it wouldn't even have been a glorious suicide. But yeah, I won't argue if you tell me that TORN should have been held to account more for their role (as NPO and TPF were).

We bore responsibility for its worst acts? Like letting you roll Polar, you mean?

No, not that one – NPO was as far in the NpO camp as it could be without completely losing the support of the rest of its allies. I'm not so sure that rolling NpO was a bad act; it was more a 'Karma episode 0', an attack born of Polar's 'evil' acts in the past and a thirst for righteous vengeance. I was thinking more of VietFAN II, the killing of two neutral alliances by the Orders, and the persecution of NoR, although the attack on Hyperion would be up there too – all started by you or by allies who only had the strength to do so because of your support. Being no. 1 carries with it responsibility to use your power responsibly; if Grämlins started attacking small alliances for nothing, TOP and MHA would carry some responsibility for that if they supported us.

If you weren't going to change anything when you won the war, you shouldn't have spouted all that moral crap all the way through it. Otherwise people tend to assume you are going to act in a moral way when you are in a position to.

As I pointed out several times in my last post, Karma has changed things.

[Delta1212]

You know little about me and nothing about my history. Therefore, I don’t think you should come to conclusions about how much information I have had available from friends in Karma, or even conclude that I didn’t have access to Karma boards myself. Furthermore, to claim that you are correct about a topic merely because you know more about it is a classic example of argument from authority, which is simply incorrect. I stand by what I said before, which is that ethics were fundamental to Karma and the rise of Karma. For evidence of this, read the Cyber Nations Forums for the few months prior to the Karma War, read WarriorConcept’s or Jerdge’s anti-EZI campaign... just open your eyes.

Based on what you've posted so far, I'm just going to continue assuming you didn't have access to the Karma boards. Now, you've accused me of arguing from authority because I'm pointing out that there is more information available that you seem to be lacking and I've pointed you in the right direction to find it. If you did have access to the Karma boards, I recommend you go log on and read any topic at random with more than five replies. See if that jogs your memory about how unified we all were behind anything let alone a set of moral and ethical principles. If you didn't have access, then please go ask someone.

Now, to make this whole situation funnier, after accusing me of arguing from authority, your evidence to debunk me is "open your eyes." It does work like that. Now, to be fair, you did cite WC and Jerdge's anti-EZI campaign. The problem with that, is that it proves that WC and Jerdge had an anti-EZI campaign. VE created the ZIPP around the time of the NoCB War. Was Polar attacked in the name of ethics and abolishing the evil practices of the hegemony? Unless you can find me somewhere that all or even most of Karma signed onto an ethical standard, it means that while a lot of people did fight for ethics, it wasn't a unifying force behind which the coalition rallied.

Do you know anything about what happened to GOLD and LUE (just two examples) or do you really think you've never pushed alliances to disband?

As for the war, I fought the war with ethical purposes, I think that was pretty evident in my writings during the war. I don't see why people are denying it now.

Unless I missed someone's post, I don't think anyone has said that ethics didn't enter into it. I know I personally said that ethical considerations were at the forefront for a fairly sizable and extremely vocal subset of Karma. That means it was a major theme in the war. That doesn't mean it was a unifying thing that was the primary motivator for the entire coalition. I'm not gnashing my teeth against the idea here. The grand total of reparations my alliance has ever accepted in our entire history amounts to exactly none, which is more than most of the people most loudly espousing ethical conduct. Even so, the primary motivation for me fighting that war was defending my allies.* My secondary motivations was making the world a more interesting place by breaking up the ruling hegemony. After that, if we made the world a nicer place, well that's cool, too.

Now, those first two motivations, defending allies and breaking up the political landscape a bit, represented a rather huge portion of primary motivations for a lot of people I spoke with and even a good chunk of the people I didn't speak with but who made their feelings known fairly clearly in public. However, the people mainly interested in either fixing all of the bad stuff Continuum had done or getting revenge for all of the bad stuff Continuum had done tended to be a lot more vocal about it on the forums than the people who were there primarily for treaty obligations or because they wanted things shaken up a bit because, let's face it, "You're evil!" gets the blood boiling a lot stronger than "I'm fulfilling my treaty obligations!" or "This place is kind of boring!" and people who are impassioned about something are more likely to be the ones going around proclaiming it. So yes, ethics were a major part of the war or there would have been effectively no one going around talking about them, but they weren't a unifying force, even if most of the people who didn't care went along with it either because it suited their own objectives (disbanding all of your enemies is a quick way to make things boring against, for example) or because they didn't really care and if someone else cares strongly about something and you don't, you might as well go along with their wishes. Which, once again, means that a decent chunk of the coalition had to put ethics high up their on the "things they care about" list. It just wasn't the point of the war, because that assumes there was a consensus on why people were fighting it and there most definitely wasn't. Anything there you disagree with?

*At that point, I'm expecting someone from NPO to come in and go on about how "defensive" the war was like every other time I've said this. You know what? You attacked a direct ally of two alliances I am in blocs with, one being in SF. There is no way you didn't know we'd get dragged into it on the other side and you wouldn't have attacked if you thought you were going to lose, which means the only reasonable expectation you could possibly had was that the war would turn into a stomping of myself and my direct allies. My defense happened to be better prepared than your offense, and I have absolutely no sympathy for you.

[Azaghul]

At some point or another treaties would be cancelled/created, or simply ignored entirely/worked around. Also, you mention MHA. They had a treaty with Gre the same calibre as their treaty with NPO. They probably would have ended doing the same thing, avoiding NPO and hitting other big players on that side.

You're assuming Gremlins would have been on board with an offensive war, which they most likely would not have been.

I get greed out of this because as I mentioned, it was clear something was going to happen (no doubt through large scale war) that would involve NPO. There was a damn good chance that whatever happened was going to happen on a paper thin CB, much like it did with the NoCB war and with NPO's during the Karma war. The only time it wouldn't have been so "paper thin" is if NPO and company did something to truly warrant war in a very short amount of time.

Many alliances correctly assumed that NPO would start a war and prepared for it to varying degrees. I still don't see greed in that.

There's always one that takes control. "Self defense". lulz. You keep on coming back to that. The only one that got hit without getting ample warning was OV. Everyone else by extension was just defending them, and the people who defended them, and the people who defended the people who defended them. So many chaining treaties. Definitely self defense. Definitely.

It's quite obvious that the attack on OV was not just meant as an attack on OV, but was an attempt to get at it's allies. Zhadum said as much. Defending allies in that context is a form of self defense.

Not only are you receiving countless dollars, not only is Karma accredited with the massive PR bonus of "freeing" bob from the ebil clutches of NPO, but most importantly your blocs that were once Karma are now on top of the game. That's the real profit you got from this. The reps are making sure that NPO stays down long enough for everyone to secure that lead, along with giving a little boost during the process.

How much are those blocks doing with that power?

I find it hilarious that the Karma-ites can say that ethics had nothing to do with it. Ethics and morals were your rallying cry and the basis of your movement. You simply turned your back on them once the power relationship changed.

No one has claimed that ethics has nothing to do with it. We're just pointing out that it wasn't the only motivation, that it was partnered with varying other motives to varying degrees, and that there was no universal agreement about what exactly they were.

Nor did we "turn our back on them", the peace terms given on the whole were much lighter than those given in the past.

[Branimir]

Actually, a lot of things mentioned as changed in the politics due to "karma war", weren't really changed by "karma war".

Actually a lot of political changes came prior to the war by shifting political pressures and by mass propaganda, and Vox can take a lot of credit for it-- kudos.

Things like PZI were disowned prior to any fighting. War it self didn't changed that, changed political climate did.

Viceroy thing isn't used any longer for a while now, not due to "karma war", but by the ruling of god that made the usage of such political tool highly harder and ineffective. Also, political climate toward the tool previously used by various alliances like NPO or RoK to name some, changed as well before the war and was not due to it.

What was effectively changed by the fighting it self, was dispersal of political power. War didn't changed much in terms of political policies, those were changed more in time previous to the war as mentioned. War actually continued many practices of before and showed a lesser amount of changing political practices then the period that preceded it. So we did have bullying out governmental individuals (caffine), harsh terms (paying more you have, paying limited to certain nations etc.) deemed justified (arent they always deemed that way by the victors?). Change came in that area, only by things like wonders were not to be destroyed, if some are to be banned from purchase.

And the thing about viceroy is that you can create similar impact on an alliance without it. By determining that you can set alliance's treaties, change their political policies eternally, you do basically most that viceroy would do only not via an individual.

So, the change in political policies in many regards can also be seen as evolution of the same policies into more sophisticated measures. A lot survived.

I think that the real analysis and emphasis should be on the Voxian era preceding the war. Real actual change came then, not that much by the war.

Edited October 12, 2009 by Branimir

[Azaghul]

Yes, NPO and a couple of other die-hard Hegemony alliances got high reparations. You didn't get any 'evil' terms to comply with, though, and in the opposite situation you would probably have forced alliances into disbandment. TPF, at least (not sure about Echelon), were offered peace much earlier in the war and chose to fight on, doing large amounts of unnecessary damage to the alliances they were fighting; it's a pretty blinkered view to say that reparations aren't justified in that position. (The same was true of IRON, though they didn't get such high ones in the end anyway.) NPO are the demonstration of what Azaghul was saying when he mentioned that we weren't against harsh terms, we were against excessive terms (for alliances who didn't deserve it); NPO started the war, they kept the hegemony together for two years and bore responsibility for most of its worst acts – they deserve the terms they got. Alliances which entered due to treaty commitments got an easy peace (and yes, that includes TPF, they just chose not to take it).

To expand on TPF's terms, while the length of the war was a major factor, another factor, at least from MK's view was the fact that they had a significant role in starting the war, particularly Mhawk in negotiations. We did not consider them to be just a peripheral alliance that was only honoring a treaty. Their terms probably wouldn't have been much different if they had taken peace earlier, but they would have been quite a bit easier proportionally.

The other factor in TPF's terms was PC, which at the time wanted hard terms, stemming from the bad history between them. A lot of negotiating and compromising went on to come up with terms that everyone on the TPF front found acceptable.

Also Echelon's terms in their application ended up being significantly less hard than they were on paper.

That being said both the Echelon and TPF terms were relatively easy compared to terms given in the past to secondary alliances.

[Bob Janova]

Actually, a lot of things mentioned as changed in the politics due to "karma war", weren't really changed by "karma war".

Actually a lot of political changes came prior to the war by shifting political pressures and by mass propaganda, and Vox can take a lot of credit for it-- kudos.

Things like PZI were disowned prior to any fighting. War it self didn't changed that, changed political climate did.

While this is true, the changes were made, as you say, because of political pressure, mostly from the alliances that would later become Karma. (VE for example was the trailblazer on EZI and ended up right at the core of Karma.) The hegemony never saw anything wrong with those practices and only made the moves in order to try to shore up the political support they were losing with the 'moral' alliances. I would say that the Karma War made sure those changes stuck, and Karma felt that the Hegemony alliances weren't really changing, they were trying to score PR points to fend off a big political defeat.

[Azaghul]

Paranoia is the NPO's weakness. We exploited it to great effect. TWiP was an incredible political coup not so much for its content but because it essentially made it permissible and eventually trendy to criticise the NPO publicly. As time went on it became clearer and clearer that NPO no longer had the capital to risk putting dissenters down (not just because said dissenters would wind up joining Vox) and things spread like wildfire.

Another significant victory was, as mentioned, making Q so paranoid and afraid of one another that they stopped communicating properly. We did have sources even at the highest level of Q, no matter how many times people want to accuse us of more nefarious methods, and they well knew it. The results are pretty clear; I know NPO pissed off certain alliances with the treaties they signed without forewarning Q. Later came the formation of segments within Q itself -- the same sort of factionalising that killed WUT.

Really the whole thing is a testament to the ineptitude of NPO during the lead-up. There was nothing they could have done specifically to get rid of us, but they could have employed much more effective methods of damage control to hold their web together. We can only speculate how long it would've lasted but at the rate they were alienating their allies it almost seemed like they were trying.

If one wants the true origins of the Karma War one need only look to its predecessor the year before. The casus belli against Hyperion, the terms given to MK and the rest of CnG, the exiles from Polar, the attack on Polar literally for the reason of "electron sponge" (who was long gone, at this point), etc. put so many people on the warpath against Q and friends I couldn't even put a number on it. Even long-dead communities that are scattered all across the world were getting in on it, and that's the secret to any success we had: networking.

It was pretty interesting reading TWiP and seeing people praise it more and more openly.

The noCB war was very different from previous wars in that it disproved the old saying that the victors write history. Vox had a large part in it. So did MK, we thought we were gonna die anyway so we went all out on both PR and in-game unlike most alliances on the wrong side of a war in the past. We both did a lot to defy NPO in-game, MK by first strike nuking and Vox by challenging red on the Senate. Everyone on our side in that war did what we could to ridicule the CB on Hyperion, and GGA/Valhalla and Hegemony in general did a very poor job defending it when it was already pretty indefensible. Our propaganda was very effective, and Hegemony was ineffective in dealing with it. After MK surrendered Vox continued that fight.

I also think Gremlins deserve a lot of credit. They didn't intentionally try to break up the power structure, but they refused to let themselves be silenced and openly spoke their minds before it was cool to do so, and started the trend of leaving Q which eventually became a flood. NPO didn't have the political capital to counter it, due to Gremlins popularity, nuke count, and close ties to TOP, OG, and MHA.

[WorldConqueror]

Apart from reparations, which we only assigned to you for reasons I have had to explain 1 billion times at why this doesn't apply, I have not seen Vanguard do any of the things we preached against.

As for GOLD, you informed them that they'd all have to join NPO PoW indefinitely if they ever wanted peace. They disbanded because this was ridiculous. Sorry, but you can't expect pity after making moves like that.

I expect no pity, and am not surprised at the terms we got. I'm just pointing out that people did use morals as a big part of the Karma war, and now that it's over they can't say they didn't.

[Branimir]

While this is true, the changes were made, as you say, because of political pressure, mostly from the alliances that would later become Karma. (VE for example was the trailblazer on EZI and ended up right at the core of Karma.) The hegemony never saw anything wrong with those practices and only made the moves in order to try to shore up the political support they were losing with the 'moral' alliances. I would say that the Karma War made sure those changes stuck,...

War was about relocation of power. Its only real result and product was that.

Voxian medium war influenced the change in political practices and atmosphere.

As such war didn't change most that its attributed to it, in regards to political policies and that is what I am saying.

So when we talk about effects of the war, I usually find that we are talking about things that happened before the war, changed by other things then the war.

....and Karma felt that the Hegemony alliances weren't really changing, they were trying to score PR points to fend off a big political defeat.

Must say this doesn't make much sense to me, as making those changes was a political defeat on its own.

[WorldConqueror]

*At that point, I'm expecting someone from NPO to come in and go on about how "defensive" the war was like every other time I've said this. You know what? You attacked a direct ally of two alliances I am in blocs with, one being in SF. There is no way you didn't know we'd get dragged into it on the other side and you wouldn't have attacked if you thought you were going to lose, which means the only reasonable expectation you could possibly had was that the war would turn into a stomping of myself and my direct allies. My defense happened to be better prepared than your offense, and I have absolutely no sympathy for you.

Last time I did that, I ended up liking you far too much. I think I'll just quietly state my disagreement and find another post to say angry things about.

[Bob Janova]

War was about relocation of power. Its only real result and product was that.

I guess that depends on your point of view. Obviously in order to bring about the 'better world', a war had to be fought and won, because power had to be redistributed before anything could be done. Just winning a war doesn't bring about the changes that we have seen, though. You're not wrong, it's just a different way of looking at the same picture.

Some things were changed through the war, though (or at least first demonstrated through the war), standards in peace terms being the obvious example.

Must say this doesn't make much sense to me, as making those changes was a political defeat on its own.

A minor concession, designed to mitigate against a much larger defeat in future, can be a good move. That's certainly what I read the giving up of EZI and freeing GATO as, particularly as neither of them actually cost you much.

[Branimir]

A minor concession, designed to mitigate against a much larger defeat in future, can be a good move.

Then we arent talking about pure political defeat, but avoiding a war defeat. You only mentioned political defeat as changing your policy due to unpopularity would be solely a political defeat.

Anyway, doesn't matter really, terminology be used as it is.

[Delta1212]

Last time I did that, I ended up liking you far too much. I think I'll just quietly state my disagreement and find another post to say angry things about.

We certainly wouldn't want that.

[Rafael Nadal]

Finally got around reading this thread. I have to say I'm agreeing with basically everything Bob Janova is saying.

[Heft]

While this is true, the changes were made, as you say, because of political pressure, mostly from the alliances that would later become Karma. (VE for example was the trailblazer on EZI and ended up right at the core of Karma.) The hegemony never saw anything wrong with those practices and only made the moves in order to try to shore up the political support they were losing with the 'moral' alliances. I would say that the Karma War made sure those changes stuck, and Karma felt that the Hegemony alliances weren't really changing, they were trying to score PR points to fend off a big political defeat.

That's not really true, at least not in the incredibly broad and general terms you use. There was a legitimate shift in attitudes and perception in the period before the Karma War among a number of the "hegemony." The softening of policies is partially because of the lack of political dominance (which also predated the Karma War, even though most didn't catch on until the war kicked off), but also partially because of the genuine softening of attitudes. Also, while there were certainly leaders who resisted any attempts at change, memberships in alliances all around were much more susceptible to those "bad" influences, which in turned forced their leaders to change whether they wanted to or not.

The Karma War may have cemented some things (though even that remains to be see, and I don't honestly believe for a second that the basic attitudes that led to all of those excesses in the first place are actually gone, moreso just that no one has the necessary power to engage in them). But the Karma War did not create any of these changes, and I suspect that a truly detailed analysis could easily show it sweeping away some of the changes that were beginning to occur. The hegemony was slow and very conservative, but change was happening, and a considerable portion of it was legitimate, or at least as legitimate as the change we see today.

[WorldConqueror]

We certainly wouldn't want that.

Oh gawd no. Next thing you know I won't be eating babies.