Thoughts on Causes and Effects of the Karma War

[D34th]

Karma War happened because simple things in my opinion:

1. NPO made the mistake of not see that they enemies were grouping and that they could be in the weaker side in case of war.
   
2. NPO declared an offensive war(their biggest mistake in my opinion) under a weak CB in such political climate what made them lose importants allies like TOP, MHA and NpO who had MDPs/MoADPs treaties with them and would fight in Pacifica's side in a defensive war.
   
3. NPO's enemies realised that they finally had the necessary strengh and the necessary excuse to fight hegemony, destroy Q and take the power. That's explain why so many alliances used optional defense/offense clauses in their treaties to join the Karma side.
   

Edited October 13, 2009 by D34th

[Cataduanes]

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.

Yeah very true, but many also fought out of sheer hate for Pacifica. Do you not recognize that many fought for vengeance and stated as much at the time?

[WorldConqueror]

Yeah very true, but many also fought out of sheer hate for Pacifica. Do you not recognize that many fought for vengeance and stated as much at the time?

Oh no, hatred of us was the primary motivation. Morals were used as a facade in order to drum up support, which is kinda funny, coz now they're stuck with them. But I don't remember anyone actually admitting they fought out of hatred.

[Cataduanes]

Oh no, hatred of us was the primary motivation. Morals were used as a facade in order to drum up support, which is kinda funny, coz now they're stuck with them. But I don't remember anyone actually admitting they fought out of hatred.

heh i did, would you like me to pull up the links?

[WorldConqueror]

Sure, if you want.

[Blacky]

The chances of that occuring are absolutely minimal, and if it did it would be easily solved amongst the involved parties.

OOC: There is no way that it can be solved via IC methods. What this means is that it would need to enter the realm of the OOC, that is to say that person would need to in some way verify that they are indeed a different person. So how this differs from a typical EZI is that somebody completely uninvolved can also be harassed. Again, the fact that it hasn't happened yet, doesn't negate the fact that it involves OOC verification -- and that is essentially EZI.

PZI that carries over to new nations/rulers is just as bad as EZI.

[shahenshah]

[OOC: In a word, yes. Re-rolling with the same leader name is making no attempt to change the character that has been sentanced to the punishment. PZI as I've always understood it is indefinitely holding a character at ZI. EZI is indefinitely holding a player at ZI, regardless of the character they're role playing.]

[OOC:Indefinite seems to be the common word in both apart from ZI.]

Amusing to see people getting all defensive when you usher the 'm' word ..go on. I think everyone has been covered..the ebil NPO, thier ebil associates..but one sub-set of associates seems to be missing...the opportunists ;], I'll just leave it at that.

Edit:

+ I cant recall me agreeing with Cata on any prior occasion. What is this strange world you have created.

Was an interesting read at first, now its all 'we were not fighting for morals, omg who told you that?', bubye

Edited October 13, 2009 by shahenshah

[Poyplemonkeys]

[OOC:Indefinite seems to be the common word in both apart from ZI.]

Amusing to see people getting all defensive when you usher the 'm' word ..go on.

Edit:

+ I cant recall me agreeing with Cata on any prior occasion. What is this strange world you have created.

Yes indefinite is a common word in both of the definitions, however it's not the words that are the same, but the words that differ that show you the difference between the two. You weren't trying to imply that they are the same are you?

OOC: There is no way that it can be solved via IC methods. What this means is that it would need to enter the realm of the OOC, that is to say that person would need to in some way verify that they are indeed a different person. So how this differs from a typical EZI is that somebody completely uninvolved can also be harassed. Again, the fact that it hasn't happened yet, doesn't negate the fact that it involves OOC verification -- and that is essentially EZI.

PZI that carries over to new nations/rulers is just as bad as EZI.

I believe it could be solved. Of course it's dependent on the punishing alliance's acceptance of the IC methods. If alliances decide they need OOC evidence to decide it then it may become a problem. I personally believe it would be pretty easy to determine whether or not it was the same person just from observing IC behaviours such as the growth of their nation, and chatting to them IC. If someone decides they want OOC evidence then it's a problem with that person, not the application of PZI.

Again though I'll point out the complete irrelevance of all of this due to it never happening in over 2 years of my time in the Cyberverse, and how unlikely it is to ever happen given the odds.

[Azaghul]

Strength can only be judged relatively. It is better to have 5 million strength compared to your competitors at 1 million, than to have 10 million strength compared to your competitors at 20 million. By the same logic loses are also relative. Thus in war it doesn't matter how much you lose in absolute terms, but rather it matters how the strength loses of all alliances affected the global structure of power. In this there are clear winners and losers, not only losers.

If your responding to my post, I was responding to the idea that "Offer someone a share of the record breaking reps that will be extracted and you will be able to buy a lot of support."

The alliances that won the most in terms of relative strength were those that stayed out, or didn't fight hard.

[King Chill I]

Karma had a full spectrum going from lets get revenge, rape and pillage to those advocating for a new world system (based on either morality or a mix of that and realpolitik). The reasons for fighting were as many as the alliances involved on that side.

In the end, despite my pessimistic expectations, id have to confess that more or less the middle prevailed.

Heh, maybe the less sensitive areas of the karma forums should be opened as a historical record.

EDIT: I should add that even the moralists knew that NPO would have to be pretty much flattened (likely in company with TPF and Valhalla).

Edited October 13, 2009 by King Chill I

[astronaut jones]

Karma War happened because simple things in my opinion:

1. NPO made the mistake of not see that they enemies were grouping and that they could be in the weaker side in case of war.
   
2. NPO declared an offensive war(their biggest mistake in my opinion) under a weak CB in such political climate what made them lose importants allies like TOP, MHA and NpO who had MDPs/MoADPs treaties with them and would fight in Pacifica's side in a defensive war.
   
3. NPO's enemies realised that they finally had the necessary strengh and the necessary excuse to fight hegemony, destroy Q and take the power. That's explain why so many alliances used optional defense/offense clauses in their treaties to join the Karma side.
   

The NPO's problem was that they surrounded themselves with too many alliances that merely wanted the protection that association with them provided. They had very few true friends, and they realized that much too late. I'd even argue that a lot of the alliances that stayed to fight with them during the karma war weren't their true friends, but friends of other alliances still in the fight. That's not to say they weren't loyal, but that their loyalties were to other alliances.

The NPO just had too many people wanting to be associated with them, their "posse" was too big, they were rollin' 100 deep when they should have been rollin' 5 or 10 deep.

[R&R-Viking]

heh i did, would you like me to pull up the links?

I fought them out of hatred, too, but I'll allow the busybodies to do the legwork for themselves.

[Sigrun Vapneir]

[OOC: SNIP]

Please quit polluting the conversation with this otherworldy gibberish-talk.

The practise in question is one of waging perpetual war against a nation with the ultimate goal of utterly eliminating every last man woman and child, carried to the point where even new nations suspected of connection with the exterminated are attacked in the same way. No otherworldly gibberish is required to express the thought, the word 'genocide' is succinct and accurate.

[ChairmanHal]

No, no. Just because we were a hodgepodge of individuals from different backgrounds does not mean that we did not have genuine conviction in our ideals. Taking down NPO was a part of it, as they were the central figure and the centre of power for the Hegemony, but there was a lot more to it that simply came before or during the war: shifting PZI to be a socially unacceptable practice, liberating the red team, achieving peace for FAN, etc. We were more successful with some than others, and obviously we couldn't have continued on simply on the basis of the resumption of interfering in alliances' internal politics (i.e. barring Caffine from leadership in Echelon), but it was about a lot more than revenge on NPO. At the onset of the war when it looked like NPO was being abandoned to a fate of curb-stomping I was in a bloody rage and ready to carry on to bring the war to those culpable that were weaseling their way out.

Excellent points. Karma did indeed bring all that up at various times. I even remember agreeing with you on some of them, including peace for FAN.

BTW, I also remember that night...and deciding that if you guys on CN Radio didn't calm down, you were going to pop a blood vessel. I would have asked you if you wanted cheese with the whine, but you were all too far gone for that.

There was no question as to whether or not Valhalla was going to war. We had too many friends fighting, owed too many debts of honor to do otherwise. We also still held onto Q and that made committing IRON, Val, TPF and the remaining members to fight a foregone conclusion.

What was also a foregone conclusion, thanks to intel provided by a source from the Karma side, was that it would be a losing fight. We charged down the barrel of the cannon anyway.

Side note: Poor Caffine came to me privately before the war (late March/early April) to ask what was going on. I laid out the whole plan for him...the pre-timed treaty cancellations, the secret meetings, the major players in the coalition against NPO. Apparently 1V wasn't talking to each other anymore or NPO forgot his briefing papers (assuming NPO even had any...). Everything I told him was news to him, or so he claimed.

It is rather sad...and about a telling a moment as I can think of in the whole lead up to the war.

[zzzptm]

The NPO PR machine is still running with the "Big Lie" program, it seems. Pacifica needs to realize it's had a beating coming for a long time, and it got one, good and hard. The Karma it reaped was not a pretty, clean-cut sort of justice, with all sorts of moral ends tied up neatly. It was a beatdown with nuclear horrors. Tanks rolled across its villages and hamlets, putting them to the torch. Soldiers stormed Francograd and struck the Pacifican star, trampling that hated symbol under their feet. Bombers flew sortie after sortie, flattening the cities of Pacifica in relentless waves of incendiary attacks.

There is no question in my mind that the arrogance Pacifica still shows continues to feed hatred of the NPO. The fury of the past has not been fully expiated. It can be revisited upon NPO again and again until it seems that the alliance truly knows humility and truly shows a change in its ways. No amount of blustering PR from Francograd is going to change the fact that it has always failed to rally anyone to its cause and has only served to remind the world of why it hates the corporate body of Pacifica so much. The Karma War began when people began to no longer fear NPO and instead began criticizing it openly. It will truly end when Pacifica expresses honest remorse for what it did. It's not a matter of satisfying terms of a treaty or equality of treatment for other alliances that may have done the same as NPO: it's about what the NPO sowed and that it has yet to reap so much more.

Pacifica may have done the same as a hundred other alliances, but it did what it did in a way that caused it to become hated, and that was its key mistake. It is better to be feared than loved when one cannot be both, but one must be feared in a way that does not generate hatred. That NPO continues to spew lies that generate the same visceral hatred shows how little things have changed in its corporate body politic.

I am sure that NPO will make another gross miscalculation and bring down another rain of nuclear fire upon it. It is not humble, and therefore not teachable. It will make the same mistakes over and over again until it humbles itself.

[Cataduanes]

Edit:

+ I cant recall me agreeing with Cata on any prior occasion. What is this strange world you have created.

Hang on i am confused...are you agreeing with me Shah??

I fought them out of hatred, too, but I'll allow the busybodies to do the legwork for themselves.

Goddamn your right! B)

[Lonely]

My intention originally was to incite debate in this thread and then withdraw to observe the reactions, but I’ve decided a few comments deserve my attention.

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.

Rather than debate my own qualifications for disclose on this subject, I will simply direct you to Bob Janova, who has stated his opinions in this thread. However, what I will say is that after Karma’s ethics started to waver, there were indeed disputes over how Karma’s opponents should have been treated, especially towards the end of the war.

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.

The counter-evidence I provided, as you actually stated in your post, were the anti-EZI campaigns. I wouldn’t dream of simply saying: open your eyes. Or perhaps I would, but I didn’t in this instance. Also, I find your request that I provide you with a document which Karma signed regarding ethics to be unnecessary. Ethics don’t need to be official to unify anything.

Strength can only be judged relatively. It is better to have 5 million strength compared to your competitors at 1 million, than to have 10 million strength compared to your competitors at 20 million. By the same logic loses are also relative. Thus in war it doesn't matter how much you lose in absolute terms, but rather it matters how the strength loses of all alliances affected the global structure of power. In this there are clear winners and losers, not only losers.

Out of interest, Vladimir, do you personally acknowledge Pacifica’s defeat in this war, according to your own understanding of what defeat is?

[Bob Janova]

Rather than debate my own qualifications for disclose on this subject, I will simply direct you to Bob Janova, who has stated his opinions in this thread.

Delta's right though, not everyone shared my opinions. Some people and alliances in Karma were fighting on a moralist basis, some weren't. (I think I said that in my previous posts.)

[kevin32891]

The only effect I got from the Karma War was that I got ZI'ed twice. And left the NPO when the war was over.

[Lonely]

Delta's right though, not everyone shared my opinions. Some people and alliances in Karma were fighting on a moralist basis, some weren't. (I think I said that in my previous posts.)

Of course. But the majority of them opposed Pacifica on ethical grounds, especially prior to the war.

[Vladimir]

Out of interest, Vladimir, do you personally acknowledge Pacifica’s defeat in this war, according to your own understanding of what defeat is?

Obviously, as I noted several times during the war.

Contrary to all the misinformation that has been spread around about my position on the Great Patriotic War, my point there is that the Orders were winning the military battle (coaluetion alliances were leaving, surrendering or collapsing at a great rate and our relative position within the conflict was on the ascendency). Clearly this wasn't the case in the recent war (although we did as well as physically possible in the circumstances).

People have such a great desire to see the Order lose that they tend to reverse and project their own normative stance onto me by claiming that I am incapable of admitting Pacifican defeat. On the contrary, we have lost battles throughout history, from Ukraine, to Palestine, to the north Pacific, to the latest war. I have no problem at all recognising a defeat; but only if it actually was a defeat.

[Ivan Moldavi]

Obviously, as I noted several times during the war.

Contrary to all the misinformation that has been spread around about my position on the Great Patriotic War, my point there is that the Orders were winning the military battle (coaluetion alliances were leaving, surrendering or collapsing at a great rate and our relative position within the conflict was on the ascendency). Clearly this wasn't the case in the recent war (although we did as well as physically possible in the circumstances).

People have such a great desire to see the Order lose that they tend to reverse and project their own normative stance onto me by claiming that I am incapable of admitting Pacifican defeat. On the contrary, we have lost battles throughout history, from Ukraine, to Palestine, to the north Pacific, to the latest war. I have no problem at all recognising a defeat; but only if it actually was a defeat.

Remember that you only lost the North because you lost faith in a member of the Senate and wanted to play nice with the constitutionalists.

[Vladimir]

I confess I may have been responsible for a slight strategic misjudgement there. But without such mistakes and their subsequent lessons we wouldn't have the strapping young officer you see before you today. So while we may have lost the day, ultimately it was the world that won.

[Lonely]

Obviously, as I noted several times during the war.

You stated before the war came to a close that short of a miracle, Pacifica would lose. I did not see you personally state that Pacifica had been defeated, after the war concluded. Of course, you have now, so that is not an issue.

[OOC] Your post is screenshotted and added to favourites for future reference. [/OOC] Yes, I am that cynical.

Contrary to all the misinformation that has been spread around about my position on the Great Patriotic War, my point there is that the Orders were winning the military battle (coaluetion alliances were leaving, surrendering or collapsing at a great rate and our relative position within the conflict was on the ascendency). Clearly this wasn't the case in the recent war (although we did as well as physically possible in the circumstances).

I would debate this further, but it is hardly the time or place.

People have such a great desire to see the Order lose that they tend to reverse and project their own normative stance onto me by claiming that I am incapable of admitting Pacifican defeat. On the contrary, we have lost battles throughout history, from Ukraine, to Palestine, to the north Pacific, to the latest war. I have no problem at all recognising a defeat; but only if it actually was a defeat.

Please do not misinterpret my question as indicative of immense desire to see Pacifica fall.

[shahenshah]

Yes indefinite is a common word in both of the definitions, however it's not the words that are the same, but the words that differ that show you the difference between the two. You weren't trying to imply that they are the same are you?

I am looking at similarities.