The Dolomus Files

[Londo Mollari]

[quote name='Ardus' date='21 June 2010 - 11:26 AM' timestamp='1277137543' post='2345286']
Assuming an attitude of alliance self-interest is not incompatible with being noble and loyal. One can argue that short-term sacrifice leads to long-term prosperity. One can also argue the contraposition, that short-term opportunism can lead to long-term decline. One has to weigh the near and far term costs and benefits of their options when charting a course. In the end every possible course of action was pursued by the myriad groups in and around the Continuum until a positive result occurred: Karma.
[/quote]

But we didn't weigh the costs. And three C&G alliances ceased to exist as a direct result of the noCB war, dying lingering deaths after the beating was over. Their leaders chose to sacrifice their young alliances' very existence to fight the Enemy and try to bring about a better world... and if not to bring about a better world, then at least to not let their allies die alone. There was no calculation of future gains and losses on Athens' part, or anyone's part that I know. And it was precisely because of the fact that we abandoned calculations, that we abandoned realpolitik, that we were able to change the rules. NPO continued to play realpolitik. C&G started playing a different game, and I believe that helped get other alliances to start thinking seriously about entering a war with a goal other than increasing their own power - although boredom, dissatisfaction with NPO's world leadership, and a lot of other things undoubtedly played contributing roles. When enough people started thinking this way, NPO's hegemony was doomed.

[Cornelius]

I think anyone who knows me knows that I rejected realpolitik out of hand from when I stepped onto the Cyberverse political scene, approaching four years ago now. I stood up for what I believed to be right. That said, with regards to events preceding the WotC, I don't see myself taking that different of a route. I was among the first to call for the dissolution of the treaty with the NpO when they hit FIST and Sponge refused to see any wrong in declaring on our ally like that with barely any notice, with us still in talks with his diplomat as the DoW dropped. I do think I'd have handled the CZ incident differently, but Sponge still clearly held our cancelling the treaty against us. As far as we were concerned any possibility of siding with BLEU ended when they hit our ally as they did, not afterward with the Ardus-Sponge logs. In fact those logs led to us preparing to be attacked by Polaris. And despite any pre-arrangement to hit MK (which I doubt I'd have agreed to, I'd simply insist on honoring our treaties), the way the treaties fell anyway we would've hit them. And Ardus still did take an idealistic stand when GGA wanted us to hit with them on the initial DoW. He turned them down and pointed to our freshly minted ZIPP, and said we'd honor our treaties but we weren't going in on that CB. My reasoning for war against MK would've been rather simple, MK had attacked our friends and former Viridians in OR, which was protected by a MADP partner (TORN), and another MADP partner (NPO) had requested our assistance.

[Voytek]

[quote name='Doitzel' date='22 June 2010 - 01:35 AM' timestamp='1277134517' post='2345228']I have no delusions that without the numbers and strength of the alliances that eventually came against NPO they could never have been dethroned.[/quote]

So you're saying you need lots of nations to win a war against an opponent which itself has lots of nations? That's some serious food for thought...

[Chief Savage Man]

As with most things, realpolitik and idealism need to be balanced to be effective. Too much idealism makes you an idiot, too much realpolitik makes you [s]NPO[/s] a scumbag. I don't know enough about the history of the events detailed in this thread (noCB war) to judge your actions in particular. I wasn't around. More often than not, the ends do justify the means. However, when the ends don't justify the means, it is usually because the means used would have caused a whole new set of ends that creates a whole new set of problems.

[Doitzel]

[quote name='Voytek' date='21 June 2010 - 02:08 PM' timestamp='1277143678' post='2345448']
... you need lots of nations to win a war against an opponent which ... has ... food ...
[/quote]
Hey look, I can pick out segments of a broader whole and make you look obtuse, too! Then again, I don't need to do that to get in [i]my[/i] zingers.

[Goldie]

[quote name='Londo Mollari' date='21 June 2010 - 12:00 PM' timestamp='1277135991' post='2345257']
Had it not been for an alliance called Sparta seeing something special in what a small and broken alliance called Athens had just done, and choosing to ally us and abandon realpolitik themselves...

Then the world would have never changed.
[/quote]

I agree with most of your post but this seems very out of place. I think if the event you listed never happened that nothing really would have changed from what happened.

[New Frontier]

Also, I'll remember what you said about Viridicide paying all your debts, both before and after it occurred, next time you criticize anyone who has lost a major war.

[Haflinger]

[quote name='flak attack' date='21 June 2010 - 10:01 AM' timestamp='1277128846' post='2345157']
He's still correct. The planning didn't take place in VE. The planners later moved there. I helped with MK's defense during this last war. If I move to NPO, it doesn't suddenly mean that part of MK's defense was planned in NPO.
[/quote]
Yes, it would if MK merged into NPO.

When you merge into another alliance, you bring your alliance's history with you. If GGA merged with, say, Echelon, it wouldn't make the whole Green Civil War go away.

[White Chocolate]

Thank you, Ardus, for starting the discussion. Very brave.

Read the entire thread mentioned by Il Impero Romano, plus a couple links in the responses. Also read the wiki article on LoFN. Interesting history.

[quote name='Il Impero Romano' date='21 June 2010 - 11:01 AM' timestamp='1277136042' post='2345258']
So yea, those of you still on that train over LoFN, get off it
[/quote]

The only group I saw noted as having been treated unjustly in the thread (besides VE) was AHEAD and a vague reference to "those involved in the LoFN incident" which I assume means some other alliance(s)? LoFN itself was not mentioned in the OP. Thus, imo, to say "get over it" to anyone who wasn't in AHEAD at the time is, at best, not very diplomatic.

[quote name='Il Impero Romano' date='21 June 2010 - 11:01 AM' timestamp='1277136042' post='2345258']
also note that Walford is currently residing in a protectorate of Virdia.
[/quote]

As much as I the founders of Basketball Ninjas, if an entity (be it an individual, one particular alliance or a group of alliances regardless of how they are tied by treaty) totally destroyed BN in some fashion, and then 3 years later someone pointed out that the founder is currently residing in a protectorate of theirs, it would have 0 value as far as I would be concerned. I'm not even sure why you mentioned it.

Edited June 21, 2010 by White Chocolate

[Bergerland]

[quote name='Haflinger' date='21 June 2010 - 04:50 PM' timestamp='1277153411' post='2345613']
Yes, it would if MK merged into NPO.

When you merge into another alliance, you bring your alliance's history with you. If GGA merged with, say, Echelon, it wouldn't make the whole Green Civil War go away.
[/quote]

No the Green Civil War would not have gone away, but it also wouldn't mean the Viridicide was planned or executed by Echelon. It would have been planned and executed by the, hypothetically, defunct GGA.

[Neo Uruk]

[quote name='Haflinger' date='21 June 2010 - 03:50 PM' timestamp='1277153411' post='2345613']
Yes, it would if MK merged into NPO.

When you merge into another alliance, you bring your alliance's history with you. If GGA merged with, say, Echelon, it wouldn't make the whole Green Civil War go away.
[/quote]
Of course the war wouldn't go away in history. That has nothing to do with the other alliance, though.

[Il Impero Romano]

[quote name='White Chocolate' date='21 June 2010 - 10:06 PM' timestamp='1277154354' post='2345627']

The only group I saw noted as having been treated unjustly in the thread (besides VE) was AHEAD and a vague reference to "those involved in the LoFN incident" which I assume means some other alliance(s)? LoFN itself was not mentioned in the OP. Thus, imo, to say "get over it" to anyone who wasn't in AHEAD at the time is, at best, not very diplomatic. [/quote]

The "get off it" part was not directed towards those harmed by the incident in any way, but rather those 3rd parties in this thread who were not involved and are citing it as something we still support despite the existence of the thread I linked before. Those who were hurt by it still have our apologies, we were duped. Also, the reason the other alliances harmed by Grey's log faking were not mentioned by name is because I simply did not know them (I was not in VE at the time the whole LoFN thing happened). If I did, they would have been.

Sorry for the confusion.

[Ardus]

[quote name='Londo Mollari' date='21 June 2010 - 02:02 PM' timestamp='1277143302' post='2345439']
But we didn't weigh the costs. And three C&G alliances ceased to exist as a direct result of the noCB war, dying lingering deaths after the beating was over. Their leaders chose to sacrifice their young alliances' very existence to fight the Enemy and try to bring about a better world... and if not to bring about a better world, then at least to not let their allies die alone. There was no calculation of future gains and losses on Athens' part, or anyone's part that I know. And it was precisely because of the fact that we abandoned calculations, that we abandoned realpolitik, that we were able to change the rules. NPO continued to play realpolitik. C&G started playing a different game, and I believe that helped get other alliances to start thinking seriously about entering a war with a goal other than increasing their own power - although boredom, dissatisfaction with NPO's world leadership, and a lot of other things undoubtedly played contributing roles. When enough people started thinking this way, NPO's hegemony was doomed.
[/quote]
My point is that a reapolitik approach to your situation would have resulted in a path similar, if not identical, to that pursued by the CnG alliances. You were all but diplomatically isolated with less than zero room for any sort of maneuvering. So your choice was between getting blown to hell alone in a little bit or getting blown to hell together then and there. I love CnG to bits, and the "Friends Before Infra" campaign is legendary, but I have difficulty agreeing to your argument. So you didn't weigh pros and cons--in this particular instance there weren't any to weigh.

[Ardus]

[quote name='Bergerland' date='21 June 2010 - 05:12 PM' timestamp='1277154739' post='2345633']
No the Green Civil War would not have gone away, but it also wouldn't mean the Viridicide was planned or executed by Echelon. It would have been planned and executed by the, hypothetically, defunct GGA.
[/quote]
Yeah, I don't think I'd hold Echelon responsible for a war that took place before it existed if GGA merged with 'em. I wouldn't hold any alliance responsible for the doings of groups that merged into them, formally or informally. In an acquisition of that sort the members of the dissolving alliance are concluding the history of their group in order to assume and agree to the tenets of their new home, not the other way around.

[Rebel Virginia]

[quote name='Il Impero Romano' date='21 June 2010 - 05:21 PM' timestamp='1277155271' post='2345643']
The "get off it" part was not directed towards those harmed by the incident in any way, but rather those 3rd parties in this thread who were not involved and are citing it as something we still support despite the existence of the thread I linked before. Those who were hurt by it still have our apologies, we were duped. Also, the reason the other alliances harmed by Grey's log faking were not mentioned by name is because I simply did not know them (I was not in VE at the time the whole LoFN thing happened). If I did, they would have been.

Sorry for the confusion.
[/quote]
[color="#0000FF"]Actually I was more annoyed towards your indifference in acknowledging any wrong doing on your part and trying to shift all the blame towards Ephriam Grey, or ArGo, or GOD. VE is a major participant in that affair, and more so than the NPO or others you tried to put some blame on.

As for your third party comment, that really is quite arrogant. Everyone is a a third party most of the time, you alliance especially more than others, yet you seem happy to voice your opinion about past and present matters. If I recall correctly VE members were upset about the recruiting incident the NSO had, yet VE was not directly involved. If your claim for being directly involved is that GPA is green then that is quite a spin. Of course this is not about that, and I will not make it that. I am simply saying that VE has long been a loud and happy participant in the peanut gallery, so don't you dare try to label me as a "third party" like it is a bad thing, or as it somehow diminishes the value of what I have to say. I have every right to criticize your alliance and the false virtues upon which it stands.[/color]

[Il Impero Romano]

[quote name='Rebel Virginia' date='21 June 2010 - 10:53 PM' timestamp='1277157209' post='2345682']
[color="#0000FF"]Actually I was more annoyed towards your indifference in acknowledging any wrong doing on your part and trying to shift all the blame towards Ephriam Grey, or ArGo, or GOD. VE is a major participant in that affair, and more so than the NPO or others you tried to put some blame on.

As for your third party comment, that really is quite arrogant. Everyone is a a third party most of the time, you alliance especially more than others, yet you seem happy to voice your opinion about past and present matters. If I recall correctly VE members were upset about the recruiting incident the NSO had, yet VE was not directly involved. If your claim for being directly involved is that GPA is green then that is quite a spin. Of course this is not about that, and I will not make it that. I am simply saying that VE has long been a loud and happy participant in the peanut gallery, so don't you dare try to label me as a "third party" like it is a bad thing, or as it somehow diminishes the value of what I have to say. I have every right to criticize your alliance and the false virtues upon which it stands.[/color]
[/quote]

I have no idea what your talking about.

The recruiting incident did involve us, as GOP is a UJA protectorate, plus it was settled nicely.

I'm obviously not trying to shift blame, as the thread from [i]a year and a half ago contained an apology[/i] to those alliances involved. If I did not think we did anything wrong, I would not have apologized.

Edited June 21, 2010 by Il Impero Romano

[James Wilson]

[quote name='Haflinger' date='21 June 2010 - 04:50 PM' timestamp='1277153411' post='2345613']
Yes, it would if MK merged into NPO.

When you merge into another alliance, you bring your alliance's history with you. If GGA merged with, say, Echelon, it wouldn't make the whole Green Civil War go away.
[/quote]
What? No it doesn't. That is a ridiculous statement.

If GGA merged with Echelon, the GGA would no longer exist, but that does not mean that the newly created alliance was the destroyer of the first VE. Some of the members may have had a part in it, but that doesn't mean you can roll that alliance for something that it did not do.

[Haflinger]

Wait, so you guys all feel that if - say - GGA and TSO had a merger, the new alliance would be absolutely blameless and innocent?

I chuckle in your general direction.

[ktarthan]

[quote name='Haflinger' date='21 June 2010 - 04:34 PM' timestamp='1277163223' post='2345803']
Wait, so you guys all feel that if - say - GGA and TSO had a merger, the new alliance would be absolutely blameless and innocent?

I chuckle in your general direction.
[/quote]
I would remember the deeds of the individuals, not the alliance. It's the same concept that allows GOONS (although we [i]do[/i] have a new acronym) to exist.

[HalfEmpty]

[quote name='Londo Mollari' date='21 June 2010 - 02:02 PM' timestamp='1277143302' post='2345439']
But we didn't weigh the costs. And three C&G alliances ceased to exist as a direct result of the noCB war, dying lingering deaths after the beating was over. Their leaders chose to sacrifice their young alliances' very existence to fight the Enemy and try to bring about a better world... and if not to bring about a better world, then at least to not let their allies die alone. [b]There was no calculation of future gains and losses on Athens' part, or anyone's part that I know. And it was precisely because of the fact that we abandoned calculations, that we abandoned realpolitik,[/b] that we were able to change the rules. NPO continued to play realpolitik. C&G started playing a different game, and I believe that helped get other alliances to start thinking seriously about entering a war with a goal other than increasing their own power - although boredom, dissatisfaction with NPO's world leadership, and a lot of other things undoubtedly played contributing roles. When enough people started thinking this way, NPO's hegemony was doomed.
[/quote]

Admin is surely love a good Spinner, he has allowed so many to exist.
Next up, how much tech was it? Why it was 99 and 44/100%

[Neo Uruk]

[quote name='Haflinger' date='21 June 2010 - 06:34 PM' timestamp='1277163223' post='2345803']
Wait, so you guys all feel that if - say - GGA and TSO had a merger, the new alliance would be absolutely blameless and innocent?

I chuckle in your general direction.
[/quote]
Pretty much. I would place blame upon the individual nations, not the alliance.

Chuckle away.

[James Wilson]

[quote name='Haflinger' date='21 June 2010 - 07:34 PM' timestamp='1277163223' post='2345803']
Wait, so you guys all feel that if - say - GGA and TSO had a merger, the new alliance would be absolutely blameless and innocent?

I chuckle in your general direction.
[/quote]
Its not the alliance, its the members like has been said so many times. If Invicta merged with Valhalla and months later someone wanted to roll said alliance because of something Valhalla did back when it was Valhalla...they can roll that new alliance that did nothing wrong?

[ChairmanHal]

[quote name='Londo Mollari' date='21 June 2010 - 12:00 PM' timestamp='1277135991' post='2345257']
CnG wouldn't exist today had I and a few others taken this attitude. And NPO would probably still be in power if no one had broken from playing the realpolitik game, as we did.[/quote]

Then with all due respect, you don't understand realpolitik. Behind the scenes you had a growing coalition of alliances, some of whom had never worked together before, who had but a single goal in mind--taking NPO down a few notches. Even before C&G was added, I knew that there would be sufficient force present to do the job. I also reckoned that it would be a very long, very bloody fight. The more traction the movement got, the more that people who thought there was an opportunity to do something that the "consensus" said was impossible to do (minus Sponge of course...), and it could be done more easily than ever: the Continuum was splintered, One Vision not what it once was, and with the OoO gone and NpO unlikely to intervene as was likely in times past. NPO was as exposed as it ever had been since 2006.

The Realpolitik view was that participating in the Karma coalition was simply the smart move. Subsequent events bore that out.

[quote]NPO was much better at that game than anyone else, and the rules had to be changed in a fundamental way for Karma to even happen. Had it not been for the example of C&G disregarding the established rules of politics, with every alliance in it willing to be hit until disbandment just to claw at the Enemy on the way down and [b]not let our friends die alone[/b]...
[/quote]

NPO wasn't what it once was...neither was GGA, Echelon, and a host of other alliances and those watching closely knew it. Oh by the way, SuperFriends had decided back in December that they would fight and win...or die, long before C&G got involved. Indeed at Ragnarok we were puzzled why we weren't already at war in December and sat on alert expecting to be hit for much of the month. When it didn't happen...I sensed weakness. As I later found out, the Continuum was hopelessly split on the issue. Weakened they were indeed.

This by no means belittles C&G's contribution to the war effort. They made a hard fight very much less of one.

[quote]Had it not been for the sacrifices and spying of the leaders of Vox Populi, which helped break up the Continuum by kicking the natural paranoia of its signatories into high gear... [/quote]

Vox Populi was the joker in the deck pretty much up until the Bastion Incident, then a sort of rapprochement took place. Credit where credit is due however, Schatt's "Pacifica Updates" humanized NPO and were the result of a number of people pulling covert ops at great sacrifice to themselves, as many of them were subsequently caught.

[quote]Had it not been for FAN, stubbornly refusing to die or beg NPO to be allowed to live... Had it not been for an alliance called Sparta seeing something special in what a small and broken alliance called Athens had just done, and choosing to ally us and abandon realpolitik themselves...[/quote]

FAN had become a ghost to scare and delight your alliance trainees. I always hoped they would get peace one day, but honestly thought that they would slowly vaporize in Peace Mode long before it happened. GOONS after all had managed to get a number of people into the safety of PM before the war ended, but they died out, unable to save themselves.

As for Athens...if you were doing an objective analysis, there was always a core there that wanted to continue on. Sparta didn't really take as much of a chance on you as you are thinking.

[quote]Then the world would have never changed.[/quote]

The world had already changed before there was such a thing as a "Karma Coalition", the question was whether other alliances were willing to change with it. Whether you want to believe it or not, alliances on both sides of the war were changed by it, some for the good, some for the bad.

I like to think that Valhalla found some measure of redemption in that war, and myself along with it.

[Rebel Virginia]

[quote name='Il Impero Romano' date='21 June 2010 - 06:55 PM' timestamp='1277160924' post='2345753']
I have no idea what your talking about.

The recruiting incident did involve us, as GOP is a UJA protectorate, plus it was settled nicely.

I'm obviously not trying to shift blame, as the thread from [i]a year and a half ago contained an apology[/i] to those alliances involved. If I did not think we did anything wrong, I would not have apologized.
[/quote]
[color="#0000FF"]You seemed to have missed my point. You claimed that third parties had no right no comment on events. I disagree, and saw fit to point out that VE had done so in the past. Perhaps I should have picked a better example, but the point remains valid. You cannot condemn me for holding opinions on the actions of the VE's past.

As for the LoFN affair, Ardus has made clear that the VE does not accept it did wrong, nor does it regret what it did. It is that kind of indifference that I cannot tolerate.[/color]

[Cornelius]

Actually as you can see, we acknowledged our mistake in the thread Impero linked to. We were wrong to support Andromeda there, we never imagined that Gray would do that. Of course we regret doing it, had we known the logs were doctored we would have done anything we could to stop it.