An announcement from the Mostly Harmless Alliance, FOK, and FARK

[kulomascovia]

Great news! Hopefully, you guys will take rebuild quickly (and NADC can enter the sanction race once again!)

[SonOfHoward]

Gold metals for everyone!

[PrideAssassin]

NADC, MCXA, Echelon; Thanks for fighting the good fight!
Rebuild swiftly friends.

[nutkase]

It was a good fight MCXA, NADC and Echelon.

Was a bit disappointed with the way some nations under MCXA tried to portray our leaders as, but overall they fought well and hard

Edited February 20, 2010 by nutkase

[scytale]

When the propaganda messages started coming in I did not take offense. For me, the messages were more of an indication of the desperation of the alliance and that they were just days away from being completely depleted. I am glad they accepted peace after their war machines no longer could effectively fight.

MHAil to NADC, MCXA, and Echelon. Also an MHAil to IRON for supporting their exit from war.

[jerdge]

[quote name='Ivan Moldavi' date='20 February 2010' timestamp='1266628410' post='2192736']What are these civil rights that you speak of? The Cyberverse has no use for these sorts of things.[/quote]
Civil rights are about the people being in general physically safe from the government (i.e. the government can't abuse you). While criminals can still be fought with violence if necessary, there's a fair judiciary system that protects everybody from abuses. In a nation that guarantees civil rights there's no discrimination of minorities and everybody is equally free to exercise his/her freedom as long as s/he doesn't harm that of his/her neighbours.
Gaela, for example, doesn't trade with foreign nations that treat their citizens poorly. We allow freedom of speech, we accept immigrants, the usage of drugs is not illegal (although it's officially frowned upon), etc etc. We're a democracy (just got out of anarchy, by the way).


[quote name='TypoNinja' date='20 February 2010' post='2192871']At the risk of sounding pedantic, don't we already do this as a matter of course? Subordinating our nations to the alliance, even expecting the embracing of individual destruction in the name of the alliance when we go to war?

Further some groups even choose to subordinate their alliance to a bloc, again putting aside selfish goals for a common cause.[/quote]
That every alliance would be "fascist" is obviously false. The MHA is democratic and every member has the right to participate to our political life with equal access. Our rights are protected by the law and the members that allegedly broke it have the right to be judged by a fair Court.
I fight for the MHA because I love the community and the structure, because we are a true democracy, full of civil people, because in there I feel [i]at home[/i]. I could go to ZI for the MHA because I love her, [i]not[/i] because of some twisted ideology.
Again, in the Constitution of AHEAD we clearly wrote that [i]the members were sovereign over the alliance[/i]: that sentence wasn't there "by chance".
There are multiple examples of alliances that are non-fascist at all: just go out, study their cultures, read their charters.


[size=1][color=grey][b][ooc][/b][/color][/size]

[quote name='Ivan Moldavi' date='20 February 2010' timestamp='1266628410' post='2192736']OOC: You are taking an out of character definition and applying it to ingame situations. From an IC standpoint anyone can be a fascist and they shouldn't have to worry about you and the other OOC line blurrers effecting their choice of gameplay in that regard. For example, from an IC standpoint I am a fascist. I believe myself superior to all others and I believe the Sith as a race to be superior on top of that. So?[/quote]
My previous post was entirely [i]In Character[/i] thus I'm not blurring any line.
According to their detractors Pacifica has been guilty of most of the things I was mentioning... You're also saying that you're fascist, IC, what else do I need to add?

Kajdav, finally, I don't see why (some types of) communism can't have much or almost everything in common with fascism. But that topic would have little to do with what the MCXA or some of their members would have said of the MHA Triumvirs, thus I won't digress on it here.
[size=1][color=grey][b][/ooc][/b][/color][/size]

[Kochers]

I think this thread needs more hailingz

o/NADC
o/Echelon
o/MCXA

o/MHA
o/FOK
o/Fark

[SonOfHoward]

Nations are able to vote with their feet. That debunks the fascist theory.

Edit: providing they follow the charter. Read the charter peeps!

Edited February 20, 2010 by SonOfHoward

[TypoNinja]

[quote name='SonOfHoward' date='20 February 2010 - 02:45 PM' timestamp='1266695153' post='2193999']
Nations are able to vote with their feet. That debunks the fascist theory.
[/quote]

Speaking of which, get yer $@! back here

[Ivan Moldavi]

[quote name='jerdge' date='20 February 2010 - 12:16 PM' timestamp='1266686213' post='2193764']
Civil rights are about the people being in general physically safe from the government (i.e. the government can't abuse you). While criminals can still be fought with violence if necessary, there's a fair judiciary system that protects everybody from abuses. In a nation that guarantees civil rights there's no discrimination of minorities and everybody is equally free to exercise his/her freedom as long as s/he doesn't harm that of his/her neighbours.
Gaela, for example, doesn't trade with foreign nations that treat their citizens poorly. We allow freedom of speech, we accept immigrants, the usage of drugs is not illegal (although it's officially frowned upon), etc etc. We're a democracy (just got out of anarchy, by the way).
[/quote]

I submit that Pierconium abuses civil rights and that I have violated "international law" in regards to same. Feel free to take me to the world court.

[ooc]See? That doesn't work. Your argument can't work in CN from an IC standpoint. You are arguing an OOC concept and attempting to apply it into an IC setting for which it does not fit because the constructs necessary to enforce it or make it part of the IC experience are not available.[/ooc]

[Mussolandia]

[quote name='Lord Brendan' date='20 February 2010 - 12:19 AM' timestamp='1266625190' post='2192684']
Whether humorous or not, if you sign off on the terms you'd better be prepared to follow them. "Joke terms" can be enforced like any other.

I'm not too familiar about the IRON situation but if IRON failed to complete the beer reviews that they agreed to do as per their surrender terms, Fark would have been well within their rights to threaten and ultimately resort to a resumption of war.
[/quote]

Joke terms are everything but. They are designed to humiliate the defeated opponent. Reparations are at least more honest and effective. "Joke terms" are counterproductive. The day someone does decide to enforce them, it will pretty hard for them to sustain the facade that it's just a joke. Instead of resuming a war over the credible threat of an opponent rearming or enlisting help from allies, their rallying point will be a stupid story or a beer. Good luck defending that before the peanut gallery.

OOC: Per moderation review, they operate on a level similar to an apology.

[Ivan Moldavi]

I am just glad that I will never have to worry about such things.

[Lord Brendan]

[quote name='Mussolandia' date='21 February 2010 - 10:27 PM' timestamp='1266809249' post='2195908']
Joke terms are everything but. They are designed to humiliate the defeated opponent. Reparations are at least more honest and effective. "Joke terms" are counterproductive. The day someone does decide to enforce them, it will pretty hard for them to sustain the facade that it's just a joke. Instead of resuming a war over the credible threat of an opponent rearming or enlisting help from allies, their rallying point will be a stupid story or a beer. Good luck defending that before the peanut gallery.
[/quote]

They are only humiliating if the defeated alliance chooses to make them such. Take UCN's surrender for example. They could have dragged their feet on making the required image or done some last minute piece of junk. They didn't: they took the "joke terms" in good spirits and produced an awesome graphic, and I for one think much better of them for it. Compare that to IRON acting like a spoiled child about their beer review terms and just making themselves look ridiculous.

Obviously this only applies within a certain limit of reason. Requiring an alliance to move to the purple sphere or change their name to something ridiculous, etc goes beyond what I would consider good "joke terms".

Edited February 22, 2010 by Lord Brendan

[Mussolandia]

If they served no practical purpose, they wouldn't insist on them. The practical purpose is a politically correct form of humiliation. For some reason some alliances believe having your enemy admit defeat means they won (I'm thinking Great War One). Like I said, they are a bad idea because there's usually alliances that don't take attempts to humiliate them well, particularly when the behavior of the victor has been poor throughout the conflict. It is only natural that the uninvolved will slowly sympathize with the weaker party, particularly in a hypothetical situation like the one we're discussing.

EDIT: Appeasing the victors is not really the point of honoring surrender terms. The point is demonstrating maturity and reliability to third parties so they are in a better position to resist you in the future. That you think better of UCN doesn't interest them in the least.

Edited February 22, 2010 by Mussolandia

[Lord Brendan]

[quote name='Mussolandia' date='21 February 2010 - 11:11 PM' timestamp='1266811882' post='2196097']
EDIT: Appeasing the victors is not really the point of honoring surrender terms. The point is demonstrating maturity and reliability to third parties so they are in a better position to resist you in the future. That you think better of UCN doesn't interest them in the least.
[/quote]

Am I not a third party?

I would say that appeasing the victors is [i]exactly[/i] the point of honoring surrender terms.

[Arcturus Jefferson]

[quote name='Mussolandia' date='21 February 2010 - 10:27 PM' timestamp='1266809249' post='2195908']
Joke terms are everything but. They are designed to humiliate the defeated opponent. Reparations are at least more honest and effective. "Joke terms" are counterproductive. The day someone does decide to enforce them, it will pretty hard for them to sustain the facade that it's just a joke. Instead of resuming a war over the credible threat of an opponent rearming or enlisting help from allies, their rallying point will be a stupid story or a beer. Good luck defending that before the peanut gallery.

OOC: Per moderation review, they operate on a level similar to an apology.
[/quote]
A beer review isn't a joke term.

[Corinan]

[quote name='Arcturus Jefferson' date='22 February 2010 - 12:26 AM' timestamp='1266816385' post='2196391']
A beer review isn't a joke term.
[/quote]

Of course it is.