Rating alliances

[Skippy]

Half of SF had a heartattack when reading that post.

The other half (who are probably in the torture chambers now) cheered?

[Kilkenny]

When you set out to detail a massive conflict in the terms that became Karma, you are planning. Whether it is a contingency or an option play is irrelevant, it is a plan. ''The !@#$ has got to stop!!" (actual quote I believe) means something more than we are going to lie here and wait for some other object to be stuffed up our fundamental orifice by the NPO. It implies a proactive stand and proactive planning. BTW, I do not think there is anything at wrong with that. I am always looking ahead a long way in this game, but to continually try to sell the Karma effort as an ad hoc thrown together coalition... that just happens to be exactly the same as the preparations that were clearly in place... doesn't seem to be a mere coincidence.

Mostly true is not true. I will still maintain there was an active agenda to proactively resist the NPO's machinations at every turn and that said resolve was made in the early months of 2009.

You were ready because you had planned to be ready. You had your proverbial ducks in a row and you were lying in wait for several weeks waiting for the trigger. I have no issues with that at all, you did not want to be the aggressors, that's fine, but it does not mitigate the fact that you were ready, ready and waiting.

By bait, I mean exactly that. There were several active attempts to get Karma rolling prior to the OV debacle, whether it was Karma or a chameleon of another colour. Lets be entirely honest here, you guys were waiting for the trigger point, you knew the NPO would react to something eventually but once you are ready and waiting, you need it to happen or everyone loses interest.

I will not dispute that the NPO made this one a no brainer in your eyes, they attacked during negotiations that were being conducted in good faith you say and so it was simple to raise the alarm. I am not for one minute going to suggest to you that the NPO did not make an awful mistake with OV, TORN and so forth..but they would have made another mistake and pai the same price at some stage... because you were ready for them. Effectively you had said enough is enough, the next move they make we are kicking their faces in.

I believe even the NPO saw the inevitable, if even they could see it I don't understand why it is denied over and over.

^^^^ This man speaks the truth, (hmm, might be why I NpO so much). The fact that Karma was planned for so long is obvious from what happened. Anyone with any level of experience in this area OOC US Army NCO with 4 deployments and Intel experience OOC can see that. Not sure why you all seem to be ashamed of the fact that you were able to plan it out and have you plan come together like that. Unless you are scared that if everyone actually knew (and most do) that you had planned a curbstomp you would somehow lose your magic 8-ball.

TBH, the only thing that happens when you sit there and deny any planning was involved with the formation of Karma, and it just sprung up into being is respect. There are a lot of leaders out there who I did respect quite a bit before they started insisting that they didn't plan Karma and rolled into battle thinking the numbers weren't on their side when they clearly were.

You made a better plan, and won. Live with it.

Also with that I have to change my NpO score they are now a 9.

[TIEIXIAIS]

TOP- 7

MHA- 6

Sparta- 5 2

NpO- 6

IRON- 10

ODN- 0

FARK- 4

GPA- 5

NPO- 10

FOK- 5

MK- 3

WTF- 3

TOOL- 8

TDO- 4

VE- 2

Legion- 8

RoK- 0

GATO- 6

CSN- 4

Athens- 2

Gremlins- 8 4

MCXA- 8

UPN- 7

RIA- 3

STA- 5

Invicta- 5

RnR- 5

MASH- 5

NADC- 5

WAPA- 5

NV- 2

NSO- 8

NEW- 5

MA- 5

Umbrella- 8

FAN- 10

LoSS- 5

TSO- 5

NATO- 5

Nordreich- 4

GR- 4

Vanguard- 5

GOD- 5

FoB- 5

PC- -1

Valhalla- 10

GGA- 4

TPF- 20

Edited November 13, 2009 by TIEIXIAIS

[D34th]

^^^^ This man speaks the truth, (hmm, might be why I NpO so much). The fact that Karma was planned for so long is obvious from what happened. Anyone with any level of experience in this area OOC US Army NCO with 4 deployments and Intel experience OOC can see that. Not sure why you all seem to be ashamed of the fact that you were able to plan it out and have you plan come together like that. Unless you are scared that if everyone actually knew (and most do) that you had planned a curbstomp you would somehow lose your magic 8-ball.

TBH, the only thing that happens when you sit there and deny any planning was involved with the formation of Karma, and it just sprung up into being is respect. There are a lot of leaders out there who I did respect quite a bit before they started insisting that they didn't plan Karma and rolled into battle thinking the numbers weren't on their side when they clearly were.

You made a better plan, and won. Live with it.

Also with that I have to change my NpO score they are now a 9.

I thought that you love NpO because of me

[Kilkenny]

I thought that you love NpO because of me

I thought that was our little secret!!!

[Tygaland]

Well if the Karma War was planned in January/February of this year then it is news to me. STA was still under terms from the NoCB War in January and was in no shape or position to plan a new war.

The first contingency planning I saw was when the standoff over the NPO/OV issue emerged and at that point a number of alliances who ended up on Karma's side were non-committal as far as which side they were going to be on if that OV issue developed into war.

So, if was planned months in advance it was done without my knowledge and it was nice of the NPO to go along with the plan and attack OV.

[Azaghul]

^^^^ This man speaks the truth, (hmm, might be why I NpO so much). The fact that Karma was planned for so long is obvious from what happened. Anyone with any level of experience in this area OOC US Army NCO with 4 deployments and Intel experience OOC can see that. Not sure why you all seem to be ashamed of the fact that you were able to plan it out and have you plan come together like that. Unless you are scared that if everyone actually knew (and most do) that you had planned a curbstomp you would somehow lose your magic 8-ball.

TBH, the only thing that happens when you sit there and deny any planning was involved with the formation of Karma, and it just sprung up into being is respect. There are a lot of leaders out there who I did respect quite a bit before they started insisting that they didn't plan Karma and rolled into battle thinking the numbers weren't on their side when they clearly were.

You made a better plan, and won. Live with it.

Also with that I have to change my NpO score they are now a 9.

It depends on what quite of planning you are talking about.

Was there planning within each alliance, and within the MADP blocks? Certainly. Within MK and C&G we certainly anticipated there likely being a war along the lines of what happened and geared ourselves for it. When the various SF members talk about planning, I believe they largely refer to internal SF discussions.

Was their broad planning beyond individual alliances and blocks? Unless it was above even high government and Archon never told us about it... no. And that's the key distinction, where Hegemony conspiracy theorists try to muddle the issue and claim that Karma as an organization existed before it really did.

C&G never sat down with SF and Citadel and told each other that we all needed to prepare to defend each other and prepare for an NPO attack. Though of course various members of C&G signed or had treaties with various members of those blocks, knowing the implications of the treaties as did the alliances signing with us I'm sure. The feeling that Citadel (at least the Gre/Umbrella/FCC half), SF, and C&G were likely going to have roll together (along with alliances like VE, FOK and Sparta closely tied to them) to defend against a likely inevitable Hegemony attack was something that we could each independently observe and which the numerous alliance to alliance ties cemented.

So yes there was planning but there was no planning as a group, as some have insinuated. Planning as a group did not being till shortly before the war.

Edited November 13, 2009 by Azaghul

[Kilkenny]

It depends on what quite of planning you are talking about.

Was there planning within each alliance, and within the MADP blocks? Certainly. Within MK and C&G we certainly anticipated there likely being a war along the lines of what happened and geared ourselves for it. When the various SF members talk about planning, I believe they largely refer to internal SF discussions.

Was their broad planning beyond individual alliances and blocks? Unless it was above even high government and Archon never told us about it... no. And that's the key distinction, where Hegemony conspiracy theorists try to muddle the issue and claim that Karma as an organization existed before it really did.

C&G never sat down with SF and Citadel and told each other that we all needed to prepare to defend each other and prepare for an NPO attack. Though of course various members of C&G signed or had treaties with various members of those blocks, knowing the implications of the treaties as did the alliances signing with us I'm sure. The feeling that Citadel (at least the Gre/Umbrella/FCC half), SF, and C&G were likely going to have roll together (along with alliances like VE, FOK and Sparta closely tied to them) to defend against a likely inevitable Hegemony attack was something that we could each independently observe and which the numerous alliance to alliance ties cemented.

So yes there was planning but there was no planning as a group, as some have insinuated. Planning as a group did not being till shortly before the war.

So there was a little planning, just not a lot?? Funnily enough it is my post that gets commented on, not Grubs. (BTW, I will be sending a bill to you Grub for the laughs you are receiving because of this).

I just don't get why yall seem so ashamed of the fact you actually planned for the war. Unless there was something you had done that is something to be ashamed of?? The fact is it was planned and not a spontaneous eruption of an idea in the days leading up to the war. Do I believe it was in the last days that finally everyone got together on the same IRC Channel to discuss, sure. Do I believe that no one was talking between their allies and drumming up support, heck no. Small meetings between allies and then onto their allies counts as planning too. When that final discussion happened, everyone knew what was going on and the basic plan, because it had already been discussed and approved through various channels. That is how politics works.

Again, not real sure why yall are ashamed that yall planned it?? Isn't that the nature of Planet Bob??

edit: spelling

Edited November 13, 2009 by Kilkenny

[Tygaland]

I'm not ashamed of anything. If I was involved in planning back in January or February I'd tell you. If I was involved in planning before the NPO/OV issue blew up, I'd tell you. I have no reason to hide anything.

The fact of the matter is that I wasn't involved in any planning up until the NPO/OV issue blew up and even then I'd not say what I did was plan as much keep my alliance on alert and then, when the guns started firing, waited for someone to trip one of our treaties. As I said, in January the STA was still under peace terms from the NoCB War so we were not in the shape or able (due to the terms of peace themselves) to plan a war. We were released in mid to late January and I can assure you another global conflict was the furthest thing from our minds as we rebuilt our alliance.

Edited November 13, 2009 by Tygaland

[Tromp]

Let's just say that I find it funny how people not involved in Karma, Hegemony folks even, talk about how Karma was planning this back in January...

[Daimos]

I do not think it was planned. It was all circumstantial.

The NPO have many enemies. They saw an aggressive move by the NPO, they saw a group of alliance willing to fight the NPO, they saw nations allied to the NPO leave them. It was a golden opportunity to knock down the dominant alliance in the game. Thus form the Karma coalition. It was a true perfect storm of events that led to our defeat.

It was a kick in the butt that the NPO probably deserve. In the long run the NPO WILL come out better and stronger for it. The NPO got something to shoot for again.

My personal opinion:

MK ( 8 ) = A respectable alliance. Great leadership. Loyal to it’s allies. Has political might. A great adversary for the NPO.

VE ( 7 ) = A respectable alliance. Good leadership and members. Loyal to it’s allies. VE nations I fought against fought very well. Good adversary to the NPO.

RoK ( 4 ) = Did not impress me during the Karma war. RoK nations I was up against fought poorly.

Invicta ( 9 ) = One of the few alliance I consider true friends of the NPO. I’m also a fan of Half. Great spoke person.

Echelon ( 8 ) = Very loyal to their allies. Their DoW on anyone attacking the NPO during the Karma war when everyone was against the NPO took some balls. Who does not want to have an ally like that?

IRON ( 7 ) = Bad start on the Karma war but when they finally entered, they fought all guns blazing. Doing great on the recovery a sign of good leadership.

TPF ( 9 ) = An alliance that probably was given ample opportunity for an easy way out during the Karma war but they stood their ground and fought with all they got and than some. Great membership.

TORN ( 3 ) = An alliance that should be torn apart. Very poor allies.

NpO ( 8 ) = Respectable alliance. Tremendous political might. Top alliance in Cybernations right now imo.

NSO ( 8 ) = Seems to be pro NPO. That makes me like them.

STA ( 7 ) = Tyga is anti NPO or to be precise anti to NPO’s policies. I respect his opinion though. Good membership.

Sparta ( 6 ) = Seems to be getting a bad rap in the forums. Maybe with good reasons /shrug. Membership seems descent enough.

TOP ( 5 ) = An enigma to me. They are on TOP of the rankings yet I feel they are not. Probably suits them fine. Weak in politics, descent membership.

Ordo Verde ( 3 ) = Not a fan of their leader.

Valhalla ( 4 ) = Poor allies.

Athens ( 5 ) = I do not like or dislike them. Descent membership.

The rest I do not have an opinion at this time.

Edited November 13, 2009 by Daimos

[MCRABT]

Well if the Karma War was planned in January/February of this year then it is news to me. STA was still under terms from the NoCB War in January and was in no shape or position to plan a new war.

The first contingency planning I saw was when the standoff over the NPO/OV issue emerged and at that point a number of alliances who ended up on Karma's side were non-committal as far as which side they were going to be on if that OV issue developed into war.

So, if was planned months in advance it was done without my knowledge and it was nice of the NPO to go along with the plan and attack OV.

Even Continuum were aware of what was going on, it was apparent to all those with any form of intelligence on the matter that a substantial threat was forming. Leaders of Q sat many a times in calls discussing possible sides. It was unilaterally decided around February-March that starting an aggressive war at this time would be a bad move. As continuum began to fall a part it became clear that the likes of FOK, Gremlins, Sparta and potentially TOP would be on the other side. We had hoped TOP would side with Q it didn't pan out this way largely due to poor communication in Q and the growing success of Vox on the OWF.

With retrospect it seems apparent than Gremlins membership in Q was to eliminate any possible threat from Polar, once they had done this they withdrew. Whether or not they set the ball rolling in eliminating what was now the major opposition (Continuum) I have no idea, but it certainly would seem like they had the motivation to do so and possibly the means. If you tie this in with the moralist front first put forward by the Gremlins codex it certainly seems to be a plausible theory. The morale values used by Gremlins undermined the actions of Q against previous alliances but why would they care? They had used the block for what they needed and had now left. Vox later exploited the apparent lack of morality or care for anyone else shown by Q in a relentless propaganda campaign, particularly against NPO.

I'd also speculate about Sparta's role in the Karma war, they were never really all that involved in Continuum action however they had strong ties to SF. I remember the constant "do disrespect our allies" moan whenever someone mentioned a dislike of GOD in particular. I half suspect that they were the probable leak in Q.

Of course this a vastly simplified version of events but it is a plausible theory if you look back at what actually happened. I suspect Gremlins indirectly pushed the agenda with Sparta providing the means for Vox to rally anti Q support. In that regards Karma was most likely a loose defined body of alliances who had a common dislike of a particular group. You had the mob all you needed was the spark to start the riot. NPO attacking OV gave that spark.

Why on earth NPO attacked OV I have no idea, it made little strategic sense and went against everything that had been previously discussed but as has been said by IRON officials in the past in the 24 hours in the build up to the war NPO communication was a complete blackout. We had intel from TORN but it wasn't very accurate as we would later discover.

[Drostan]

I think a lot of people are mistaking the tensions within Q for some wider conspiracy. The sides were taking shape in a way, I suppose, but only because of countless slaps to the face that had been dealt by the NPO to her allies. So those of her allies recently slapped began to re-evaluate their relationships (as you would expect). The NPO had been trying to freeze certain allies out of the discussions, and in a predictable reaction, many of them began to speak to one another privately to discuss the situation. This is what helped draw the 'sides' that would eventually emerge once the whole OV thing kicked it off.

The reason why anyone could have seen it coming is that the NPO had it coming.

EDIT: It's funny to see people scrambling for some year long conspiracy plan in order to avoid having to accept the responsibility themselves.

Edited November 13, 2009 by Drostan

[shahenshah]

If you tie this in with the moralist front first put forward by the Gremlins codex it certainly seems to be a plausible theory. The morale values used by Gremlins undermined the actions of Q against previous alliances but why would they care? They had used the block for what they needed and had now left. Vox later exploited the apparent lack of morality or care for anyone else shown by Q in a relentless propaganda campaign, particularly against NPO.

Didn't they break that very codex they slapped around OWF after leaving Q? But off-course, necessities of war and whatever is popular keeps the principles dynamic understandable. I keep wondering why Bob tries so hard to keeps flying 'we're THE CN moral brigade' every 2nd post. Actions speak louder than daily moral spam, We have enough Jesuses as it is. What I like about some of the Karma alliances is they never hid behind 'we're holier than thou' stances like GOD or Vanguard, we have our differences, but at-least you know where they stand .... and even ODN is better than some, they atleast admit to some of the crap they pulled earlier and have been sticking with one set of the web.

Drostan, some within Q and active treaty partners of Q had as per their own words, had been associated with unnamed Karma for months..I believe ~numbers between 5-8 months have been used.

Edited November 13, 2009 by shahenshah

[Buds The Man]

I think a lot of people are mistaking the tensions within Q for some wider conspiracy. The sides were taking shape in a way, I suppose, but only because of countless slaps to the face that had been dealt by the NPO to her allies. So those of her allies recently slapped began to re-evaluate their relationships (as you would expect). The NPO had been trying to freeze certain allies out of the discussions, and in a predictable reaction, many of them began to speak to one another privately to discuss the situation. This is what helped draw the 'sides' that would eventually emerge once the whole OV thing kicked it off.

The reason why anyone could have seen it coming is that the NPO had it coming.

EDIT: It's funny to see people scrambling for some year long conspiracy plan in order to avoid having to accept the responsibility themselves.

Stop man just Stop. While the scale may be different the plans had been in the works for a while. It was also very well done. Karma needed NPO to go aggressive for it to work they baited and baited and finally got what they wished. Im sure some of you are on the level with saying you didnt know anything till zero hour had almost arrived but to the others be proud of what you did, it was an accomplishment.

[MCRABT]

I think a lot of people are mistaking the tensions within Q for some wider conspiracy. The sides were taking shape in a way, I suppose, but only because of countless slaps to the face that had been dealt by the NPO to her allies. So those of her allies recently slapped began to re-evaluate their relationships (as you would expect). The NPO had been trying to freeze certain allies out of the discussions, and in a predictable reaction, many of them began to speak to one another privately to discuss the situation. This is what helped draw the 'sides' that would eventually emerge once the whole OV thing kicked it off.

The reason why anyone could have seen it coming is that the NPO had it coming.

EDIT: It's funny to see people scrambling for some year long conspiracy plan in order to avoid having to accept the responsibility themselves.

Believe it or not NPO was not the source off the worlds problems, just unfortunate to be powerful, dynamic, efficient and a convenient scape goat for actions perpetrated by a group of alliances. Many of which went on to become a part of Karma who turned around and used the exact same tactics used by Continuum to maintain power. Take a look around things haven't changed much we still have the same bullying tactics (See stickmen, Purple incident). I would go as far to say that the only real change has been in those that now hold power. Sure control is a little more fragmented than it was before and that makes things a little more interesting but the game has stayed the same. The current power blocs maintain that power by the same means as the previous power. Is there anything wrong with that? NO. It's the nature of this game, it's a political simulator and politics is all about power. Don't hate the player hate the game. I'm pretty sure there will be new scape goat to hate 6 months down the line it doesn't take a genius to figure out who that is likely to be. The propaganda and slandering has started already.

Any alliance in this game that tries to preach a moral clause does so because it has a political agenda. Morality in CN is used as a tool for one of two things:

1) To make oneself look good

2) To make someone else look bad.

Quite often it is used for both. To look at it from any other way would be extremely naive. There is always an agenda. As for accepting responsibility yes I have no problem accepting that the other side played the game better but that was all we did wrong. We were outplayed it's that simple.

[Londo Mollari]

but to continually try to sell the Karma effort as an ad hoc thrown together coalition... that just happens to be exactly the same as the preparations that were clearly in place... doesn't seem to be a mere coincidence.

It was very much ad hoc. The coordination among karma alliances (such as there was), the target list for all of NPO's 900+ nations... that was put together in under 24 hours, immediately following the attack on Ordo Verde. Everyone had a fairly good idea of sides because the sides of a few key players were known. Everyone knew that Gre would line up vs NPO. Why was this? Probably not least because of NPO's threats towards Gre. That placed Umbrella, MHA, *probably* TOP, etc. And just about everyone realized that C&G and Superfriends would be on the other side from NPO, again, not too hard to predict.

Mostly true is not true. I will still maintain there was an active agenda to proactively resist the NPO's machinations at every turn and that said resolve was made in the early months of 2009.

Probably true enough, but it was restricted to alliance leadership and high gov, and confined to discussion cells among close allies. Close allies had other close allies, and people quickly gained a sense of who would be with who when the NPO came for one of us.

You were ready because you had planned to be ready. You had your proverbial ducks in a row and you were lying in wait for several weeks waiting for the trigger. I have no issues with that at all, you did not want to be the aggressors, that's fine, but it does not mitigate the fact that you were ready, ready and waiting.

I am proud that we were ready and waiting to resist further threats to our existence and sovereignty. This needs no mitigation.

By bait, I mean exactly that. There were several active attempts to get Karma rolling prior to the OV debacle, whether it was Karma or a chameleon of another colour. Lets be entirely honest here, you guys were waiting for the trigger point, you knew the NPO would react to something eventually but once you are ready and waiting, you need it to happen or everyone loses interest.

I don't know about several, but I can think of at least one where the option was considered and dismissed as an losing scenario. I don't feel particularly bad about that either. In my eyes, a preemptive strike would have been perfectly justified, because it was very, very clear that they would move against us eventually. Divide and conquer, curbstomp and extort. It happened to us, and it has been happening throughout history. You didn't have to be very bright to see that NPO would continue to do these things to people it perceived as 'enemies' for all time if they were not stopped. In reality we were never a threat to the NPO until they made us into one, we were just a unifying focus (as a curbing) for their culture of triumphalism. I for one cannot express in words how overjoyed I am to have played a part in violently ending that, and returning to them and their members what was done to me and my members.

I will not dispute that the NPO made this one a no brainer in your eyes, they attacked during negotiations that were being conducted in good faith you say and so it was simple to raise the alarm. I am not for one minute going to suggest to you that the NPO did not make an awful mistake with OV, TORN and so forth..but they would have made another mistake and pai the same price at some stage... because you were ready for them. Effectively you had said enough is enough, the next move they make we are kicking their faces in.

Even if we had launched a preemptive war, it would have still been defensive in my eyes. Yes, enough was enough, and it was clear what they would do to us in the fullness of time if they were given a chance.

[ChairmanHal]

Honestly, about January or February. Blind Freddy could see what was happening and only drastic action would have changed the fate, drastic action that was advised and ignored.. c'est la vie. I find it completely and totally misleading to suggest that Karma was only formed in the immediate lead up to the war and always have especially considering the logs, spreadsheets etc that were circulating months and months before.(no you can not have my copies). It amuses me to no end that those spreadsheets from early in the year turned out to basically be 100% correct, except for a few notable exception such as NpO who I saw drafted on both sides at various times.

We weren't sure exactly how you were going to fall to be honest.

But please, keep preaching it Reverend Grub...

I know I have suggested this all before and been shouted down by the ''karma leadership'' but I know what I knew and when I knew it and to suggest it was all done quickly in response to OV makes me giggle like a school girl. The final plans may have been thrown together, but the deliberate bait set for the NPO on at least two previous occasions along with the extensive pre-planning and polling made the transition to actual bloc and war fairly smooth I would have thought. The revisionists would forget how many times I was asked which side I was on and for how long. You suggest there were no sides until OV, I again giggle, what was I joining then?

If it is any consolation, I sat in on the damn meetings planning the thing up until late February and was insulted repeatedly by any number of individuals who all but shouted me down whenever I made the exact same assertions. At first I wrote it off as war time propaganda (even though the war was well in hand), but the insults continued well after the war had ended. No Grub, we knew what we knew, but there seemed to be people who had a vested interest in making sure that the appearance that it was a hastily thrown together coalition to back up OV in righteous defense was maintained. Rather than re-writing history, it created a sense (false or otherwise) that at least one very powerful alliance had been lied to in order to get its participation at the last minute, or at least its inactivity during the war and especially while the final beat down was being applied to NPO. That alliance(s) was clearly not NpO--but I will not speculate further here since I am already in dire peril of being referred to as 'Mulder' again.

Whatever the case, I grew tired of the subject and most especially tired of being insulted over it and rarely talk about it now. I only respond here because someone else (you) went through a similar experience.

As Valhalla's thoughts regarding NpO and the war, Bud already summed those up nicely. There is no ill-will from us regarding the role Polaris played.

[Drostan]

There is a wide gulf between being displeased with your current bloc and deciding to head in a different direction, and actively assembling a group to topple the biggest alliance in CN. But you can see how one might transition into another. I think honestly that some alliances have such a slave mentality that they NEED to believe that they were tricked by some superior force. They need to believe that some bigger, badder, bad @#$% totally changed the game (figure of speech) on them by the mere force of their personality.

The truth is that NPO did a terrible job of maintaining their relations and managed to make a lot of people mad during their time at the top. From that point on, something had to give, and yes... people could probably guess what it would be. If there was such a conspiracy, how come the so-called coalition of cowards clearly got caught completely dumb struck?

So to whom do you give all this credit, Buds/Sha/Grub? Was it terrible Sparta and that evil George the Great? I fail to see how they can be incompetent as well as being the puppet masters of Planet Bob. Or was it TOP? See, nobody wants to accept any blame and nobody wants to give any particular credit. It's pathetic. Admit your mistakes.

Moving on to MCRABT's comments:

I am curious to see a more detailed comparison between the tactics of the Hegemony vs those of 'Karma' which no longer even exists? How can Karma be using the same tactics to maintain itself when it is already gone? Honestly, your mirror image argument seems bought wholesale from Pacifican propaganda without a critical thought to accompany it. Your paragraph makes very little sense. I don't hate players or the [ooc]game[/ooc]. Yes, there is still bullying going on. But that's because there's no single entity able to police Planet Bob anymore. A fairly reasonable argument could be made that power is now concentrated in Citadel, but then again everyone's complaining that they're not doing anything interesting with that power so *shrugs*.

I do not believe that things haven't changed. Do I believe that the power now enjoyed by certain parties may corrupt them into abuses? Absolutely. I am just waiting to see it. I don't believe in the moralist crap even one bit. I tech raid even. But that doesn't change history. NPO had it coming.

A lot of ex hegemony people love to believe it's a conspiracy. You weren't out-played politically, you got so strong you stopped playing politically at all. It didn't take some massive conspiracy to bring you down, it took only your complete lack of care and supreme confidence that you had the world under your foot.

At the end of the day, it comes down to Occam's razor. Is it easier to believe that there was a vast conspiracy nearly a year ahead of time that simply threw the innocent yet prominent NPO under the bus? Or is it easier to believe that after many years of stepping on people's toes they had finally made enough enemies that most of the world was ready for revenge? There have been people dedicated to the destruction of the NPO for a long time. I say again, who is it that you credit with this brilliant master plan that set the NPO up and then even got them to sign their own death warrant (declaring on OV)? It's laughable if you didn't believe it so much.

This discussion is tired and pointless. You will always believe that the game (political game) is all about who gets to kick who and that some bigger, stronger, bad guy came and stole your lunch money. What does that tell me? That we'd better hope you don't get power back any time soon.

EDIT: Any fool can think there are sides and ask you to join one. Doesn't make it true. I have been asked which 'side' of the next conflict I am on several times in private. Does that mean there is yet another conspiracy being plotted right now? Give it up, people no doubt talked about what would happen should 'x' occur, but beyond that there was no grand plan. Those against whom Vox wrote its propaganda seem to be the ones who most believed it.

Edited November 13, 2009 by Drostan

[Locke]

Quick, somebody put up a rating.

[janax]

With retrospect it seems apparent than Gremlins membership in Q was to eliminate any possible threat from Polar, once they had done this they withdrew. Whether or not they set the ball rolling in eliminating what was now the major opposition (Continuum) I have no idea, but it certainly would seem like they had the motivation to do so and possibly the means. If you tie this in with the moralist front first put forward by the Gremlins codex it certainly seems to be a plausible theory. The morale values used by Gremlins undermined the actions of Q against previous alliances but why would they care? They had used the block for what they needed and had now left. Vox later exploited the apparent lack of morality or care for anyone else shown by Q in a relentless propaganda campaign, particularly against NPO.

Dear god....this is such a disconnect from reality I'm not even sure how to respond. You honestly have no clue how the Gremlins work if you are actually believing any of what you are trying to sell here.

Didn't they break that very codex they slapped around OWF after leaving Q? But off-course, necessities of war and whatever is popular keeps the principles dynamic understandable. I keep wondering why Bob tries so hard to keeps flying 'we're THE CN moral brigade' every 2nd post. Actions speak louder than daily moral spam, We have enough Jesuses as it is.

They have not violated their Codex of War in any way shape or form that I can find. We also have our own similiar document, I guess that makes us moralist scum as well.

[Bob Janova]

It is funny how the Hegemony folk think that there must have been some vast plot and planning over a long period, and come up with these grand conspiracy theories that just aren't true. I'm surprised that Grub believes it though, as he's never really been into that sort of scheming so I wouldn't expect him to project that onto us.

You had your proverbial ducks in a row and you were lying in wait for several weeks waiting for the trigger

Now this is beginning to come into the realms of what actually happened. As I've said many times, the first time a large subset of Karma came together and started to seriously discuss defensive plans was when it looked like VE might be attacked in late March, just after cancelling their treaties with the Hegemony. That was two to three weeks before Karma if I remember right, and those connections were reactivated when the OV drama was first aired. We had three days to get everyone together while the 'negotiations' dragged on, which is why things looked reasonably well planned in the end – although NPO declaring on day 1 was unexpected even then.

Didn't they break that very codex they slapped around OWF after leaving Q?

No.

Also, an obligatory Moral Police flag can be imagined flying from this post for your benefit.

With retrospect it seems apparent than Gremlins membership in Q was to eliminate any possible threat from Polar, once they had done this they withdrew. Whether or not they set the ball rolling in eliminating what was now the major opposition (Continuum) I have no idea, but it certainly would seem like they had the motivation to do so and possibly the means. If you tie this in with the moralist front first put forward by the Gremlins codex it certainly seems to be a plausible theory.

It is plausible if you're used to long term plotting and the sort of 'ends justify the means' politics that the Hegemony embodied, yes. It's not true, though – in fact the prevalence of dirty politics was one of the reasons we wanted to be out of that group. We joined Continuum because we were persuaded by some of our close allies that it was to be a new type of bloc, that it wouldn't be 'WUT 2.0' or aggressive. Of course, we can see now looking back that it was WUT 2.0 and it did several aggressive actions, which we were unhappy with right from the start (VietFAN 2 and GPA in particular). The actions of some Continuum members in the BLEU war (declaring on Hyperion with a terrible CB without consulting us, and completely destroying the likely popular support for our NpO war, then the peace terms issues) were another mark on that tally stick and our membership had just had enough – although it is probably true that not having the threat of Polar made us more free to make that decision, it's definitely untrue to say it was a calculated move.

I think you can see from the fact that another major alliance (FOK) left soon afterwards for similar reasons, and the fracturing at the start of Karma, that Continuum had just expended its political capital with the more moderate members by the end of 2008, and that our leaving was a symptom not a cause.

I continue to fail to understand why people made (and still do in retrospectives like yours here) such a big deal of our Codex. It's simply a statement of our values and how we will behave, it's how we behaved before we published it (with the exception of a hardening of the rules on reps after our experience with Polar) and it isn't a statement about anyone else's actions. If people were really surprised by our views on reps, aggressive wars and the other things in there then they hadn't been paying attention to us previously.

The morale values used by Gremlins undermined the actions of Q against previous alliances but why would they care? ... Vox later exploited the apparent lack of morality or care for anyone else shown by Q in a relentless propaganda campaign, particularly against NPO.

Vox would have run that campaign regardless, and the same people would have agreed with it regardless. Don't forget that Vox was running that campaign against Continuum and Citadel while we were still members of both, we (Citadel) had our boards spied on and at no stage was Vox a friend of Citadel or Grämlins. Our moral position didn't really have much impact on that, particularly as we weren't actively recruiting so we didn't become a 'moral powerhouse' with serious military implications as a result of Vox's campaigning.

And no, we didn't care if us disagreeing with a position 'undermined' the people who were doing the thing we disagreed with. We never have. If having an alliance disagree with you is such a large problem then that's a problem with you, not us. We disagreed with those actions while in Continuum (just ask TOP), we disagreed with them afterwards and that was one big factor in leaving (why stay in a bloc with alliances you disagree with a lot?).

I suspect Gremlins indirectly pushed the agenda with Sparta providing the means for Vox to rally anti Q support.

Once again you're inventing a plausible but incorrect hypothesis to explain why people and alliances turned against Hegemony. (It's not accurate to say 'anti-Continuum', since Sparta, TOP and MHA together made up something like a half of Continuum's strength at that point.) The truth is much simpler, its actions turned people against it, and the way it treated the leadership of some member alliances turned those alliances against it. We did nothing that caused the splits to happen, we merely reflected them and were more publicly open about our views on global affairs (as we often are).

[ChairmanHal]

It was very much ad hoc. The coordination among karma alliances (such as there was), the target list for all of NPO's 900+ nations... that was put together in under 24 hours, immediately following the attack on Ordo Verde. Everyone had a fairly good idea of sides because the sides of a few key players were known. Everyone knew that Gre would line up vs NPO. Why was this? Probably not least because of NPO's threats towards Gre. That placed Umbrella, MHA, *probably* TOP, etc. And just about everyone realized that C&G and Superfriends would be on the other side from NPO, again, not too hard to predict.

On Planet Bob a qualified military commander with sufficient time on his hands on a consistent basis and a few able assistants doesn't put together a target list until the last possible moment--this to allow for "NS drift" of attacking nations and targets. Even allowing time to divide up targets between alliances (who would be going in against NPO having already been set in advance) and then assign them down, 24 hours is more than adequate against 900 nations. Truth be told you have a nice little javascripty thing all set up to do the work for you in under an hour, but I digress.

Even if we had launched a preemptive war, it would have still been defensive in my eyes. Yes, enough was enough, and it was clear what they would do to us in the fullness of time if they were given a chance.

NPO's time had come. They were out maneuvered politically because there was so much internal drama at the top. Q was divided internally into at least 3 factions and was no longer the massive bloc that it would be suicide to try to take on. Indeed, the evidence suggests that Q was divided to the point of inactivity as early as last December. I have never called to question what motivated the honest hatred of NPO that was floating around out there. I even understood why some didn't so much hate NPO as see it as a challenge that had to be conquered and moved to make it happen. What I've never understood from the very start was the need for people to lie about what motivated them to tear down some portion of the existing paradigm in order to create a new one. It is healthy to shake things up now and again, as a nation ruler, as an alliance, or as a bloc. To be afraid to do something different is to invite boredom.

[shahenshah]

There is a wide gulf between being displeased with your current bloc and deciding to head in a different direction, and actively assembling a group to topple the biggest alliance in CN. But you can see how one might transition into another. I think honestly that some alliances have such a slave mentality that they NEED to believe that they were tricked by some superior force. They need to believe that some bigger, badder, bad @#$% totally changed the game on them by the mere force of their personality.

Are you saying Hegemony got defeated by a smaller force? You like hearing it so I'll just say it as I have no qualms repeating it, you played better, you won.

The truth is that NPO did a terrible job of maintaining their relations and managed to make a lot of people mad during their time at the top. From that point on, something had to give, and yes... people could probably guess what it would be. If there was such a conspiracy, how come the so-called coalition of cowards clearly got caught completely dumb struck?

We're coward coalition for hours of seemingly violating which treaty against ones violated for months?. I cannot speak for my allies nor I was .gov then, I was certainly shocked to see NPO take the obvious bait in that environment.

So to whom do you give all this credit, Buds/Sha/Grub? Was it terrible Sparta and that evil George the Great? I fail to see how they can be incompetent as well as being the puppet masters of Planet Bob. Or was it TOP? See, nobody wants to accept any blame and nobody wants to give any particular credit. It's pathetic. Admit your mistakes.

? When'd I call them puppet masters? And if you read the whole thread, I havent called Sparta incompetent, its alot of other people .

A fairly reasonable argument could be made that power is now concentrated in Citadel, but then again everyone's complaining that they're not doing anything interesting with that power so *shrugs*.

How so Citadel? Even they know any dumb move and they're gone. ATM no one has enough power to seriously out-do other poles, but every pole is moving here and there to obtain the advantage and IMO Citadel is in fact behind the curve. But yea, we heard its cool to call Cit the new bad.

I do not believe that things haven't changed. Do I believe that the power now enjoyed by certain parties may corrupt them into abuses? Absolutely. I am just waiting to see it. I don't believe in the moralist crap even one bit. I tech raid even. But that doesn't change history. NPO had it coming.

Even Rome fell, we know, -.-.

A lot of ex hegemony people love to believe it's a conspiracy. You weren't out-played politically, you got so strong you stopped playing politically at all. It didn't take some massive conspiracy to bring you down, it took only your complete lack of care and supreme confidence that you had the world under your foot. At the end of the day, it comes down to Occam's razor. Is it easier to believe that there was a vast conspiracy nearly a year ahead of time that simply threw the innocent yet prominent NPO under the bus? Or is it easier to believe that after many years of stepping on people's toes they had finally made enough enemies that most of the world was ready for revenge?

Majority of the world stood shoulder-to-shoulder with endless hail spams when NPO stepped on people's toes. Off-course, they all say the light before Karma .

This discussion is tired and pointless. You will always believe that the game is all about who gets to kick who and that some bigger, stronger, bad guy came and stole your lunch money. What does that tell me? That we'd better hope you don't get power back any time soon.

Still looking in rear view mirror? some people have such a slave mentality that they NEED to believe that they are going to be tricked by some superior force. but good try with generalization, like most of your post.

Edited November 13, 2009 by shahenshah

[Il Impero Romano]

It is funny how the Hegemony folk think that there must have been some vast plot and planning over a long period, and come up with these grand conspiracy theories that just aren't true. I'm surprised that Grub believes it though, as he's never really been into that sort of scheming so I wouldn't expect him to project that onto us.

Now this is beginning to come into the realms of what actually happened. As I've said many times, the first time a large subset of Karma came together and started to seriously discuss defensive plans was when it looked like VE might be attacked in late March, just after cancelling their treaties with the Hegemony. That was two to three weeks before Karma if I remember right, and those connections were reactivated when the OV drama was first aired. We had three days to get everyone together while the 'negotiations' dragged on, which is why things looked reasonably well planned in the end – although NPO declaring on day 1 was unexpected even then.

No.

Also, an obligatory Moral Police flag can be imagined flying from this post for your benefit.

It is plausible if you're used to long term plotting and the sort of 'ends justify the means' politics that the Hegemony embodied, yes. It's not true, though – in fact the prevalence of dirty politics was one of the reasons we wanted to be out of that group. We joined Continuum because we were persuaded by some of our close allies that it was to be a new type of bloc, that it wouldn't be 'WUT 2.0' or aggressive. Of course, we can see now looking back that it was WUT 2.0 and it did several aggressive actions, which we were unhappy with right from the start (VietFAN 2 and GPA in particular). The actions of some Continuum members in the BLEU war (declaring on Hyperion with a terrible CB without consulting us, and completely destroying the likely popular support for our NpO war, then the peace terms issues) were another mark on that tally stick and our membership had just had enough – although it is probably true that not having the threat of Polar made us more free to make that decision, it's definitely untrue to say it was a calculated move.

I think you can see from the fact that another major alliance (FOK) left soon afterwards for similar reasons, and the fracturing at the start of Karma, that Continuum had just expended its political capital with the more moderate members by the end of 2008, and that our leaving was a symptom not a cause.

I continue to fail to understand why people made (and still do in retrospectives like yours here) such a big deal of our Codex. It's simply a statement of our values and how we will behave, it's how we behaved before we published it (with the exception of a hardening of the rules on reps after our experience with Polar) and it isn't a statement about anyone else's actions. If people were really surprised by our views on reps, aggressive wars and the other things in there then they hadn't been paying attention to us previously.

Vox would have run that campaign regardless, and the same people would have agreed with it regardless. Don't forget that Vox was running that campaign against Continuum and Citadel while we were still members of both, we (Citadel) had our boards spied on and at no stage was Vox a friend of Citadel or Grämlins. Our moral position didn't really have much impact on that, particularly as we weren't actively recruiting so we didn't become a 'moral powerhouse' with serious military implications as a result of Vox's campaigning.

And no, we didn't care if us disagreeing with a position 'undermined' the people who were doing the thing we disagreed with. We never have. If having an alliance disagree with you is such a large problem then that's a problem with you, not us. We disagreed with those actions while in Continuum (just ask TOP), we disagreed with them afterwards and that was one big factor in leaving (why stay in a bloc with alliances you disagree with a lot?).

Once again you're inventing a plausible but incorrect hypothesis to explain why people and alliances turned against Hegemony. (It's not accurate to say 'anti-Continuum', since Sparta, TOP and MHA together made up something like a half of Continuum's strength at that point.) The truth is much simpler, its actions turned people against it, and the way it treated the leadership of some member alliances turned those alliances against it. We did nothing that caused the splits to happen, we merely reflected them and were more publicly open about our views on global affairs (as we often are).

If I were you I wouldn't even bother. Truth, facts, and logic have no place here. It is easier on ones ego to assume that there was a grand scheme behind their downfall than it is to accept that they were entirely the ones who facilitated their own unseating...accepting the truth would involve far to much personal responsibility.

If anyone was planing war in advance, it was the hegemony (hi IRON).

Edited November 13, 2009 by Il Impero Romano