An Announcement from Zero Hour

[astronaut jones]

It had ended before that point, something no one is now arguing.

But it was still something that TPF did not disclose, and I do believe that for the safety and security of the alliances fighting against TPF, it would have been in TPF's best interests to have disclosed any and all plans, secret or not, that might one day compromise their security or at least their alliance integrity.

TPF was disingenuous in their peace talks, and in their surrender, at the very least, for not fully disclosing all the cookie jars they had their hands in.

edited for spelling.

Edited December 29, 2009 by astronaut jones

[EViL0nE]

I'm going to hate myself in the morning for getting drawn into this thread, but someone has to do it.

I would just like some e-lawyers to clarify some things so that in future situations, everyone has clear understanding of the acceptable actions of alliances here on Bob.

If a treaty partner is involved in a war that your treaty covers (whether MDP or MADP) is it necessary for the alliances brought in through treaty to post any DoW's?

Is a treaty partner that is brought into a war through treaty allowed to attack any treaty partner of the "other side" that fits the situation? For example, Let's say RIA issues a DoW against NSO. Can we in Fark activate our optional agression pact and then start fighting RoK without any announcements being made? After all, NSO would be the "defender" which means NpO is in a defensive war against RIA by contract, and RoK, by contract, is now in a defensive war against RIA.

If yes to the above, how many levels into the treaty web are you allowed to traverse before a DoW is required to be considered at war with an alliance? In the above scenario, can Fark declare on Fark? (Don't tempt us, we'll do it!)

Seriously, I'm not going to discuss the merits (or lack thereof) of this particular conflict. I've been promised there are enough people willing to do that already. HOWEVER, I would like to understand what the new rules of engagement are here on Bob.

Edited December 29, 2009 by EViL0nE

[ChairmanHal]

I see nothing here that would constitute a valid CB for the current conflict, no matter how you want to spin it. What I do see in detail however is a stupid op that should never have went forward. Congrats to Athens and your triple agents I guess?

Pathetic.

Edited December 29, 2009 by ChairmanHal

[Tulafaras]

You know, one thing that still surprises me is how many people post here who either have no clue what they are talking about or are absurd trolls....

One of the major aspects of this CB is that TPF did NOTHING at all to come clean/stop this plan even if it obviously was irrelevant (Athens was out of the Karma war for nearly 3 weeks before this plan was halted in case you forgot). So how exactly are their actions the same as ZH's who stopped all activities and later came clean?

If TPF had stopped this at any point during the peace negotiations (or even while they were under terms) and came clean nothing would have come of this. But they did not, they showed no remorse (in fact they are still convinced that their actions were valid) so obviously they are being treated differently.

Can we now finally stop those idiotic calls to get ZH rolled as well, the situations aren't in any way comparable.

I tried to explain this in the Athens thread, but since it seems we are going in circles i'll repeat myself:

If spying is accepted during wartime then shortterm actions to gain intel might be acceptable (and frankly that point isn't that clear cut either) but this plan as shown in the logs was never intended to be a shortterm plan to gain an advantadge in the current war. It was a preparation for a future war, which quite clearly highlights the rather underhanded behaviour from TPF in this entire mess.

[Hyperbad]

Well, the more I think of it, the less I see it as being an act of war and the more it becomes an act of cowardice, if he wanted to help his allies during a war that seemed eternal (they weren't fighting Athens), you dont go behind the scenes and actively try and destroy an alliance... this is the lowest form of attack possible, and just planning it and mhawk's inability to come clean before any of this was uncovered without his "help" proves he had no intention of even work things out... now TPF burns as it should

That's a way to interpret it. Myself, I see it as a recognition of ones limits. TPF couldn't take on all of those hitting the NPO + their allies with how people view their treaties. Thus such a plan as this can be an effective counter when outnumbered to such an extreme. You're committing a minimum of forces to an act with potential for maximum effect.

[ChairmanHal]

But it was still something that TPF did not disclose, and I do believe that for the safety and security of the alliances fighting against TPF, it would have been in TPF's best interests to have disclosed any and all plans, secret or not, that might one day compromise their security or at least their alliance integrity.

TPF was disingenuous in their peace talks, and in their surrender, at the very least, for not fully disclosing all the cookie jars they had their hands in.

edited for spelling.

"

So OBM, I know that you want this thing ended and we certainly do. Anything to add?"

"Well there was this one thing...a covert op, but it was stupid and we ended it. So, no, nothing to add."

"Fine, we'll post the surrender up on the forums."

I'm sure that would have prevented the ongoing war...riiiiiiiiiiight.

[juslen]

The plan was shared between TPF and ZH leadership. What applies to one applies to the other.

But yes, it is a valid CB. The point is though that they were already in 'B' (war) at the point where they were committing it. Vox spied on Citadel, but we didn't go back and roll them for it after Continuum gave them peace, even though it was a clear CB, because the acts of war were done as part of an ongoing war.

So you can say that Citadel made their decision and Athens is now making its own entirely different one. A CB does not go by any written law.. its up to the alliances to determine if the war is justified and the rest of Planet Bob to agree or disagree. In the end.. alliances follow their sword or they take a publicly disagreeable or neutral position.

On top of that.. when the peace talks were happening.. TPF should have disclosed their actions since this was not any common tactic during past wars.. perhaps not unique but far from standard or expected. You could argue that the war never ended.. Athens and its allies have every right to determine if justice has been served.

And it goes the other way around. Those who feel TPF was justified in their actions or that they are not a valid CB can follow their gut feeling and defend or negotiate on behalf of their allies.

Its never too late to get the ball rolling for diplomacy even if it seems impossible or perhaps futile

edit: still cant spell

Edited December 29, 2009 by juslen

[James Saams]

Next time they should plan against the people they're actually at war with.

Next time you should declare against the people who actually did something to you

Planning =/= doing

[OneBallMan]

But it was still something that TPF did not disclose, and I do believe that for the safety and security of the alliances fighting against TPF, it would have been in TPF's best interests to have disclosed any and all plans, secret or not, that might one day compromise their security or at least their alliance integrity.

TPF was disingenuous in their peace talks, and in their surrender, at the very least, for not fully disclosing all the cookie jars they had their hands in.

edited for spelling.

You are obviously right. We have also been plotting against you the whole time. You are full of crap on this one. Did we need to also send them each of our military orders that we had out during the Karma War? Should we send them our planned target lists? Our lists for which alliance we were going to hit in which contingency? Did we also need to send out notices of all the times we ordered an alliance member to go to peace mode? Those were egregious threats to the safety of all alliances on the Karma side. Your argument dies with our unconditional surrender, something we adhered to both the letter and spirit of. Someone prove that we committed, willfully or by ommission a specific aggressive act after our surrender and I'll buy your horse hockey.

Per our surrender document, we surrendered to the forces of Karma.

[Tulafaras]

Yes Hal i am pretty sure it would have. Do you honestly think Athens would have started a new war (since the Karma war was well and truly over for every alliance by the time Mhawk stopped being stubborn) over something like this at that point? They might have removed the protectorate from ZH, but coming clean about some !@#$ you have done is usually the first step to avoid harsh punishment.

[astronaut jones]

"

I'm sure that would have prevented the ongoing war...riiiiiiiiiiight.

Coming clean about past/current/possible future transgressions (those that may have taken place had ZH gone through with the original plans as set forth by all parties) would have resulted in this war not taking place, yes. That is exactly right, and you can roll your eyes all you want, that's not going to detract from the truth.

I've stated all along that I do believe that ZH should be punished for their roll here, they've been granted clemency for whatever reason, and I don't think it's fair, but they did eventually come clean. That is something TPF should have done a long time ago, and not doing so means we're all where we are now, which is possibly on the verge of another decent sized war.

[Tulafaras]

You are obviously right. We have also been plotting against you the whole time. You are full of crap on this one. Did we need to also send them each of our military orders that we had out during the Karma War? Should we send them our planned target lists? Our lists for which alliance we were going to hit in which contingency? Did we also need to send out notices of all the times we ordered an alliance member to go to peace mode? Those were egregious threats to the safety of all alliances on the Karma side. Your argument dies with our unconditional surrender, something we adhered to both the letter and spirit of. Someone prove that we committed, willfully or by ommission a specific aggressive act after our surrender and I'll buy your horse hockey.

Per our surrender document, we surrendered to the forces of Karma.

That would probably have been the point where you should have told ZH to abort then. Instead you did nothing which makes your entire post a pile of drivel.

Frankly the fact alone that you are trying to defend a so far unique act of sabotage and treason (as in they would have joined athens to betray them) as a normal war tactic makes me seriously doubt your intelligence.

[astronaut jones]

You are obviously right. We have also been plotting against you the whole time. You are full of crap on this one. Did we need to also send them each of our military orders that we had out during the Karma War? Should we send them our planned target lists? Our lists for which alliance we were going to hit in which contingency? Did we also need to send out notices of all the times we ordered an alliance member to go to peace mode? Those were egregious threats to the safety of all alliances on the Karma side. Your argument dies with our unconditional surrender, something we adhered to both the letter and spirit of. Someone prove that we committed, willfully or by ommission a specific aggressive act after our surrender and I'll buy your horse hockey.

Per our surrender document, we surrendered to the forces of Karma.

And I am saying that your surrender was slightly disingenuous for you not coming clean about operations that could have resulted in another alliance's integrity being compromised. You SHOULD have come clean, you did not, and I believe that is the issue at hand here.

[Sephiroth]

It was critical that the details be limited to only the most trustworthy of people.

Which seems near impossible these days, but was spy operation put to an end after TPF peaced out in the Karma War or did they try continuing it after?

Seems silly to restart a war they already took their deserved beating in because they tried fighting back during the war however they could, although I don't know all the details on this.

Edited December 29, 2009 by Methrage

[ChairmanHal]

You know, one thing that still surprises me is how many people post here who either have no clue what they are talking about or are absurd trolls....

One of the major aspects of this CB is that TPF did NOTHING at all to come clean/stop this plan even if it obviously was irrelevant (Athens was out of the Karma war for nearly 3 weeks before this plan was halted in case you forgot). So how exactly are their actions the same as ZH's who stopped all activities and later came clean?

If TPF had stopped this at any point during the peace negotiations (or even while they were under terms) and came clean nothing would have come of this. But they did not, they showed no remorse (in fact they are still convinced that their actions were valid) so obviously they are being treated differently.

Can we now finally stop those idiotic calls to get ZH rolled as well, the situations aren't in any way comparable.

I tried to explain this in the Athens thread, but since it seems we are going in circles i'll repeat myself:

If spying is accepted during wartime then shortterm actions to gain intel might be acceptable (and frankly that point isn't that clear cut either) but this plan as shown in the logs was never intended to be a shortterm plan to gain an advantadge in the current war. It was a preparation for a future war, which quite clearly highlights the rather underhanded behaviour from TPF in this entire mess.

My answer to you would be the same as it was to Astronaut Jones. I do not believe that "coming clean" then would prevent what is going on now. And exactly what would they have come clean about anyway? An op that no longer existed?

We can all agree it wasn't a bright move 6 months ago (even if some in TPF might think otherwise), and while we can get distracted by what should or should not happen to ZH, the question that many, many people keep asking is this: do you declare war now over it? The answer we coming back to is "no".

[Trigger]

I see the bad analogy society is in this thread as well. The appropriate analogy is 'does a burglar not get punished if he is caught planning a burglary, but never actually commits it'. I hope you can work out the answer to that.

Actually a more appropriate analogy would be "does a burglar not get punished if he breaks into your house but doesn't steal anything?" Breaking and entering is still a crime.

[OneBallMan]

That would probably have been the point where you should have told ZH to abort then. Instead you did nothing which makes your entire post a pile of drivel.

Frankly the fact alone that you are trying to defend a so far unique act of sabotage and treason (as in they would have joined athens to betray them) as a normal war tactic makes me seriously doubt your intelligence.

Your total understanding of timelines and log reading (hint there are these things called timestamps), or the lack thereof, along with your resorting to name calling go hand in hand.

It was called off. You sir, need some graph paper and a Gantt chart. I can draw a picture with stick people and short words if you need.

[Hyperbad]

Actually a more appropriate analogy would be "does a burglar not get punished if he breaks into your house but doesn't steal anything?" Breaking and entering is still a crime.

That would only be proper if the burglar (ZH) got into the house (Athens) which clearly did not happen. In fact they still have yet to merge. Also the analogy is inaccurate because a burglar is there without permission however the point of the operation was to gain Athen's trust.

Edited December 29, 2009 by Hyperbad

[bbrownso]

That would probably have been the point where you should have told ZH to abort then. Instead you did nothing which makes your entire post a pile of drivel.

Frankly the fact alone that you are trying to defend a so far unique act of sabotage and treason (as in they would have joined athens to betray them) as a normal war tactic makes me seriously doubt your intelligence.

It would have been redundant to end an operation that was already dead/kaput/finished/ended. Why bother making it clear that nothing further was to happen when nothing further was going to happen?

[Bob Janova]

TPF was disingenuous in their peace talks, and in their surrender, at the very least, for not fully disclosing all the cookie jars they had their hands in.

As detailed in this thread, they did not have their hand in that jar at the time of the peace accord.

On top of that.. when the peace talks were happening.. TPF should have disclosed their actions since this was not any common tactic during past wars.. perhaps not unique but far from standard or expected

See above. The plan was over by the time the basic terms were agreed to. There is no reason why an alliance should have to disclose everything about how it fought a war at the end of it, and it was not an ongoing programme.

If a treaty partner is involved in a war that your treaty covers (whether MDP or MADP) is it necessary for the alliances brought in through treaty to post any DoW's?

Is a treaty partner that is brought into a war through treaty allowed to attack any treaty partner of the "other side" that fits the situation? For example, Let's say RIA issues a DoW against NSO. Can we in Fark activate our optional agression pact and then start fighting RoK without any announcements being made? After all, NSO would be the "defender" which means NpO is in a defensive war against RIA by contract, and RoK, by contract, is now in a defensive war against RIA.

Formal DoWs on these boards are more of a courtesy than a necessity at any time. For example, NPO and TORN actually 'declared war' some time after the war began in Karma. Unfortunately there is no agreed universal law that covers your questions, but the precedent is that any alliance with an MDP with the original defender may enter the war in a defensive capacity against any attacker, and any alliance entering in another fashion is entering aggressively (and therefore the MDP partners of their target may respond as above). However, alliances entering in this way do not cause their MDPs to chain.

In the above case, NSO are in a defensive war, and Frostbite alliances may enter in a defensive capacity. However the treaties of NpO do not chain in defence, so RoK would not be at war with RIA. Fark could of course enter with or without an optional offence clause but if you did so it would be aggressive and would put you in a de facto war with NpO and STA as well.

In a global war things get rather confused. In Karma, NPO, TPF and TORN were clearly aggressive, OV was defensive and VE, Vanguard and GOD were in a defensive capacity. You can then argue for weeks about whether the Hegemony second wave are aggressive and whether alliances like Superfriends or C&G were in a defensive capacity. However, for the purposes of this thread, as NPO and TPF were both initial aggressors, and furthermore MADP partners, any alliance on those two fronts was de facto at war with the other alliance as well.

Edit:

That would probably have been the point where you should have told ZH to abort then

The programme was already terminated by that point, so your point doesn't really make any sense.

Actually a more appropriate analogy would be "does a burglar not get punished if he breaks into your house but doesn't steal anything?"

No it wouldn't. No-one from ZH got inside Athens. The 'burglar' by the way is ZH, an alliance that Athens finds so objectionable that it's still protecting it.

Edited December 29, 2009 by Bob Janova

[The Big Bad]

Actually a more appropriate analogy would be "does a burglar not get punished if he breaks into your house but doesn't steal anything?" Breaking and entering is still a crime.

You mean if a buglar talks about breaking into your house. ZH has made it clear they never did anything for TPF not did TPF ask anything from them as not only were they not talking to each other, they hated each other.

[Ogaden]

Zero Hour, what did you hope to gain from this exactly?

You still spied, only now your allies hate you.

Edited December 29, 2009 by James Dahl

[Tulafaras]

It seems that we will not agree on that point. Frankly i agree with this CB, in part because i dislike this entire plot a lot and in part because TPF was obviously not interested in letting the past be done after the karma war (otherwise they would not have hatched such an underhanded plot once they had been offered peace).

Let me repeat my key point: In my opinion this plot had nothing to do with the karma war. They were not engaged with Athens and Athens itself had been at peace while this was still going on (otherwise they would have stopped it and aimed ZH at Poison Clan instead, an alliance they actually were engaged with).

If they had done something like that, i would still consider this a stupid plan, but their argument that it was war and they did what they had to would be acceptable.

Since they did nothing except let it run, it shows to me that they were still accepting further hostile actions against Athens making their entire defensive argument moot.

[James Saams]

Actually a more appropriate analogy would be "does a burglar not get punished if he breaks into your house but doesn't steal anything?" Breaking and entering is still a crime.

Using your analogy, they planned to break in. Again, not the same as breaking in. Planning to do something is not a crime. Neither is walking up to said house but not breaking in. Your logic my dear sir, is flawed.

[OneBallMan]

And I am saying that your surrender was slightly disingenuous for you not coming clean about operations that could have resulted in another alliance's integrity being compromised. You SHOULD have come clean, you did not, and I believe that is the issue at hand here.

Well, two pertinent facts that I know you've conveniently forgotten, well b/c I know you and I know you are playing dumb on this one. First, I conducted the peace negotiations for the most part, and I know you know that I had zilcho knowledge of this op. In fact, it doth appear that the only person who did in TPF, was in fact not available [OOC] or on his regular continent[/OOC]. Second, the op was terminated in a cesspool of OOC stuff.