A doctrine of war: what Karma should and shouldn't have done.

[Locke]

[quote name='ktarthan' timestamp='1296454324' post='2612523']
(By the way, Doomhouse isn't a bloc.)
[/quote]
That's like saying Orrple [i]was[/i] a bloc. You can call it that, but no one else is going to care.

[Rocky Horror]

[quote name='Dochartaigh' timestamp='1296426292' post='2611592']
seriously, that is the best you got. hence why i said DH was 1V.... so how does my analogy falter simply because MK is not in PB?[/quote]All this equating blocs you guys are doing, the essential message is that MK=old NPO. MK aren't in The New Q, but are in The New 1V...making them...GGA?

[Haflinger]

[quote name='Rocky Horror' timestamp='1296469882' post='2612815']
All this equating blocs you guys are doing, the essential message is that MK=old NPO. MK aren't in The New Q, but are in The New 1V...making them...GGA?
[/quote]
MK are the main non-Pandora's Box alliance in the new 1V.

So that would make them NpO.

[HellAngel]

[quote name='Haflinger' timestamp='1296454022' post='2612508']
Indeed. At the time I suggested that Karma was going to replace the injustices that Continuum produced, as it failed to address the root cause of the problems.
[/quote]

The root cause of injustice is twofold... either the acting parties are stupid idiots or they are bored... good luck fighting that


I kinda dont care anymore. It made the game interesting again, so im fine. I just hoped the NPO/NpO side of things would have banded together more clearly. They could have indeed put up a good fight. Now it's just a prolonged beatdown over months.

[Comrade Craig]

[quote name='Schattenmann' timestamp='1296450680' post='2612148']
Thank you MK for saving the game! What would all us multi-polar spheres have done if you hadn't come in and cut us in half again!


If you're so bored, quit, or tell your dumbass friends to stop signing so many treaties with each other. If I got a nickel for every time Azaghul trumpeted to the heavens MK's treaty-cut, I would have a nickel palace.

Is anyone else getting just really sick of the self-contradiction that is MK's recent philosophy? I know I am. What does it matter how many treaties you canceled if you go make 2 more overlapping blocs? I am tired of hearing about how stagnant things are when you're in the middle of the stagnation. Oh yes how revolutionary, three overlapping blocs [i]b-b-b-but we canceled some outlier treaties[/i]. Multi-polar world, yeah. AZTEC and Duckroll are deffo clearly defined poles. Dh, PB, and C&G are like totally distinct, man.

The complaining about whiteknighting while you paint yourself as the glorious savior of the game is just hilarious.
[/quote]

Your perpetual contrarianism is pretty tiring, too, Schatt. I appreciate your witty commentary, and often find myself agreeing with you... But honestly, you're not exactly immune to the accusation of being a one-trick pony, either.

-Craig

[Rocky Horror]

[quote name='Haflinger' timestamp='1296475577' post='2612879']
MK are the main non-Pandora's Box alliance in the new 1V.

So that would make them NpO.
[/quote]I could list the ways in which NpO were differently connected, but I don't think it would make much sense to such a vast irrelevance as Invicta. In any case, if MK are not NPO in this allegory, its assumptions are weak.

[AnCapistan]

The amount of double standards and historical revisionism in the OP is amazing.

[Rocky Horror]

[quote name='Mr Damsky' timestamp='1296578009' post='2614742']
The amount of double standards and historical revisionism in the OP is amazing.
[/quote]It depends if you actually read the post he linked to, or whether you just assume he held the same position as Tygaland in 2009. I guess it's easier to do the latter~

[TECUMSEH]

[quote]I kinda dont care anymore. It made the game interesting again, so im fine. I just hoped the NPO/NpO side of things would have banded together more clearly. They could have indeed put up a good fight. Now it's just a prolonged beatdown over months. [/quote]

It was always going to be exactly what it is. A beatdown.

And so the Powers-That-Be will eliminate virtually all opposition. And that somehow makes the game more interesting.

[HellAngel]

When you look at history you will find that the powers-that-be usually devour themselves when the enemies are gone. Also, it gives you guys an enemy to fight against. Do you know how satisfying it was to see NPO go down in Karma war? They ruled the planet for ages (and by the way, were much more "evil" than the powers today).

[TECUMSEH]

Yeah, I'm not exactly a newbie, though I doubt I've been around as long as you. Eventually, if there is a game left, they powers-that-be may turn on one another. But there's still "enemies" out there to strife. They clearly have no way to stop any such incoming war based on the precedent set this go-around. And it will continue on. Any split will be years in the making. But it won't involve any of the alliances opposite the powers-that-be now. This is a war of eradication. EDIT [That's my opinion] EDIT [Joined May 2007]

Edited February 1, 2011 by TECUMSEH

[Commisar Gaunt]

After having to read Schatt and the rest of the NPO bootlickers posting their insane ramblings, it makes me wish NPO was disbanded back in Karma.

[AnCapistan]

[quote name='Rocky Horror' timestamp='1296580953' post='2614785']
It depends if you actually read the post he linked to, or whether you just assume he held the same position as Tygaland in 2009. I guess it's easier to do the latter~
[/quote]

I did read the post and that's not what I was talking about.

While I could nitpick at the topic all day this is what I was mainly looking at:
[quote]
We chose to make the game interesting again. In the past months, MK chose to reshape our treaties in a way that helped make a major war possible. And when our enemies did everything they could to avoid a war, we, Doomhouse collectively, and one could also say VE, refused to let them. We helped put an end to the stagnation. We refused to comply with the moralistic and pacifistic gridlock that was smothering this game. We started to perfect Karma. We made war.[/quote]

It's absolutely hilarious to see MK portray themselves as tough guys. I guess we've all forgotten about the NEW war. I didn't see MK crying about PB bailing out on their obligations to NEW, in fact in a few places I saw them endorse it.

My point is, MK only supports wars that will leave them politically intact.

[Sardonic]

[quote name='Haflinger' timestamp='1296454022' post='2612508']
Attacking protected nations.
[/quote]
Excuse me, we haven't done that for months, and when we did do it, it was accidental, and we paid reparations for it when asked.

[zzzptm]

[quote name='Azaghul' timestamp='1296069832' post='2603057']
[u]What was wrong with the world before Karma[/u]

There were several main problems with the war before Karma. NPO was a decent top alliance in some ways, in that it kept the game interesting. In other ways it imposed stagnation as a matter of policy, making the game boring. There were several different aspects to this.

EZI is one, and one of the most egregious. The purpose of it was to literally keep players who opposed NPO and friends from playing. The fact that it doesn't exist in any form and and the community wouldn't tolerate it today (when anyone "threatens" it today it is almost always as a joke) is a testament to one very clear and obvious improvement from that era.

Another one was the intentional unipolarity of that era. Q was a game breaker, it intentionally was a conglomerate of all the major blocks in the game. A way for NPO to have a solid power-structure over almost everyone in CN. This was corrected and is no longer true today. No block has anything close to the comparative power that Q held. Q was designed as a hegemonic instrument. No one has tried to set up a comparable block since then.

A third was starting wars based on flimsy CBs against much, much smaller opponents. This on occasion is fine, but we need major wars between substantial coalitions as well.

Fourth was the intentional suppression of freedom of speech, often coupled with EZI.

A fifth was harsh terms designed to destroy communities and forced disbandments. Terms are a lot lighter now. Even though major reps are nothing like the terms of the past, I personally hope to not see them this war because they create too much of a gap between wars.

[u]What's wrong now[/u]

It seems like everything is a constant PR war. Moralist trumpeting is everywhere. Few are willing to be seen as the "aggressor". Almost everyone professes to want war, but only a defensive war which they face no risk by fighting. It's gotten to the point where major wars are almost impossible to instigate. Bipolar was generally a fluke in how it went down and expanded.

In the last couple of attempts to instigate one, the side at a disadvantage has intentionally contained it. NSO "asked" its allies not to enter in the 6 million dollar war. Legion [i]still[/i] hasn't entered this war despite two of it's MDoAP partners being attacked. Few are willing to start or enter a war at a disadvantage.

Another problem, and yes I know my alliance is responsible for this in the last war, is very large reps figures that increase the recover time after a war and keep alliances out of play. When reps take 6-9 months to pay, that is going to keep those alliances from doing anything during that time, and generally keep people from moving on until after that.

All these factors combine to make a major war almost impossible. And it has made this game quite boring, as few are willing to do much at all.


[/quote]
Getting rid of EZI was a good thing. It's gone and we need to make sure we don't tolerate that sort of intolerance in the future.

PB/DH/CnG/SF, however, is an informal Q. It's an accidental Q. It's an unintended Q. Yet, there it is.

Flimsy CBs against smaller opponents? We're seeing that today, whether the opponent is 16 million NS or 10 million NS, those guys are still being torn apart. The current war quickly turned into a curbstomp. In a curbstomp, about all the victim has left to cling to is moralism, to justify taking a beating.

Given the humorless trolling from most of Doomhouse (with a few happy exceptions in GOONS that know how to troll with a wry wit), we've got what amounts to an intentional suppression of freedom of speech. The implication is constantly that words unpleasant to the ears of the leaders of the "informal Q" will result in violent repercussions. MK's trolling is particularly reminiscent of NPO's shout-downs of contrary opinions. Seriously, for an alliance taking pains to prove that it's not some derivative of NPO, MK is showing itself to be derivative of NPO. I'm happy that MK doesn't feel the need to hunt down people across nation creations. I'm not happy that MK preserves some of the practices you say were what was wrong before Karma.

Which leads to destruction of communities. There's a community here, as well, and the humorless jackbooted high-horse MK posts are doing a great deal to wreck community spirit here. I try to get some good-natured joking around with Sparta - which responded wonderfully, so thank you, Sparta! - and MK's people had to come into the thread like any sort of kidding around was forbidden and detrimental to their plan to Save the World with a Sacred War. You want community? Then get MK to let people kid around when they're at war.

On to what's wrong now...

Of course nobody wants to be the aggressor. Nobody wants to back up the aggressor, leading to said aggressor getting curbstomped. (See WAR, BIPOLAR)

The side at a disadvantage hoping to contain things is a carry-over from the Q-dominated past. Remember? Nobody wants to drag their allies into a big ol' curbstomp. Just ask iFOK and GOONS about NEW.

Rolling NPO didn't change the game. It just served to give us all a salient lesson in power politics: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Look at the MK responses to criticism in this thread as proof. Most of them are of the "mindless hail" variety, even though this is supposed to be an OOC forum where there shouldn't be any sort of grandstanding for ingame political purposes... and I recall another complaint of the Bad Old Days was the blurring of the IC/OOC line. So what is it with nations at the top of the food chain and the blurring of that line? Do you do it because you can or because the intoxication of power causes you to disrespect the lines you wanted clearly demarcated when you were not in power?

[HellAngel]

[quote name='TECUMSEH' timestamp='1296603572' post='2615214']
Yeah, I'm not exactly a newbie, though I doubt I've been around as long as you. Eventually, if there is a game left, they powers-that-be may turn on one another. But there's still "enemies" out there to strife. They clearly have no way to stop any such incoming war based on the precedent set this go-around. And it will continue on. Any split will be years in the making. But it won't involve any of the alliances opposite the powers-that-be now. This is a war of eradication. EDIT [That's my opinion] EDIT [Joined May 2007]
[/quote]

I have heard this many times now and i guess it's a matter of opinion. I cant really say anything to prove that it's not a war of eradication. It's just my gut feeling from what i hear people saying and what they say when talking to me. The only vibe of eradication i get is from FAN regarding NPO... and thats kinda understandable.

Also, it's a pretty wild assumption to say none of the alliances that oppose the powers-that-be today will be part of their destruction. Of course it will take some time, but thats how the game is... NPO ruled the planet for two and a half years and now it's almost two years since Karma...

[zzzptm]

In a follow-up to my post above, in the thread in which I present Sparta with a level nine plane badge for shaping up their war machine, a member of the Accidental Q coalition saw fit to imply that that bit of fun would increase the reps my alliance would pay in a future peace deal with Sparta.

That implies that Sparta is not itself at liberty to make its own terms. That, in turn, implies the coalition may be more formal than previously thought.

That also implies that free speech is viewed as a weapon against this now more formal coalition. And that, in turn, implies that the coalition is of the mind to destroy community and free speech rather than lose its grip on power.

I don't want this to be taken as propaganda, but as an examination of the validity of the OP in its assessment of the state of affairs ingame. I don't think it matters who is at the top. Whoever is at the top will behave in an authoritarian manner, where might makes right. Yes, if NPO returns to the top, it'll go back to its old ways because those ways belong to any group of alliances capable of dictating the momentum and direction of the game. If Cult of Justitia built up a network of alliances to take down the Accidental Q, that group would then embark upon the same path of Q because it would be capable of calling all the shots.

If MK or some other alliance in Accidental Q really wants to "save the game", it needs to start a violent rift within their structure. During this war would be perfect. Of course, strategically, that means a lot more violence with a lot more chance of a white peace all 'round. But it would also mean the game would no longer have a monolithic power, accidental or otherwise. I know everyone is friends of friends in that group and that such an attack would be reprehensible and so on and so on, which is just another way of saying that you've got a Q and you're all quite comfortable sitting on that big ol' toilet seat.

[TECUMSEH]

[quote]I have heard this many times now and i guess it's a matter of opinion. I cant really say anything to prove that it's not a war of eradication. It's just my gut feeling from what i hear people saying and what they say when talking to me. The only vibe of eradication i get is from FAN regarding NPO... and thats kinda understandable.

Also, it's a pretty wild assumption to say none of the alliances that oppose the powers-that-be today will be part of their destruction. Of course it will take some time, but thats how the game is... NPO ruled the planet for two and a half years and now it's almost two years since Karma... [/quote]

With regard to eradication, I guess I should include and/or "crippling defeat". Obviously, they can't force Polar or Pacifica to disband, but they can, for all intents and purposes, make them non-factors for a prolonged period of time.

With regard to your second point, I agree. There are a number of alliances who are doing their duty via treaty on the Curbstompee Side. I would never suggest RIA or RoK or several others wouldn't be involved squarely in whatever the next major conflict is. I do think that the genuine, dyed-in-the-wool Curbstompees -- Polaris/UPN/USN/STA, etc and Pacifica/Legion/Invicta, etc, are going to find it difficult to be relevant in 6 months or even 12 months time.

Now, if the comeuppance is served, if ever, more than a year from now, maybe they get involved. But that would mean another stultifying 12 months of the Powers-That-Be running the game with an occasional curbstomp (pushing their reign to over 2.5 years). I'm not sure what will be left of the game after that.

Anyway, that's my take. I sincerely hope, for the game's sake, that Powers-The-Be eventually split, but I'm not holding my breath.

[HellAngel]

I can understand your dissatisfaction with the game. Believe me, i've been there. After Bipolar i wanted to quit it all, but look at TOP... not even a year and we're back in the game. And really EVERYONE hated us (many still do).

[TECUMSEH]

Sure. And to be clear, dissatisfied or not, that's the game. I can appreciate that. The side I'm on has, for the time being, lost in a huge way.

I will, however, continue to take issue with anyone that argues that this makes the game "more interesting." Killing off all significant opposition rarely does that.

Anyway, pleasure conversing. Best of luck in the future with whatever course TOP elects to take.

[Kzoppistan]

A reasonable piece by the OP. Though I hasten to add that, stylistic qualities aside, no faction is really different from the other once the metamorphosis caused by being the dominate force takes place. Every man eventually bends to the need of machiavellian-esque planning coupled with brute force tyranny in order to hold their stranglehold of dominance. It is inevitable.

The strike at NPO is only a diversion, indicative of that mindset already taking hold, that will probably be the catalyst to a larger long term struggle.

The question isn't, [i]will I remain at the top?[/i], or even [i]for how long?, [/i]but rather [i]who amongst my allies will cause my inescapable downfall?[/i]

Edited February 2, 2011 by Kzoppistan

[AnCapistan]

[quote name='zzzptm' timestamp='1296627093' post='2615759']
Given the humorless trolling from most of Doomhouse (with a few happy exceptions in GOONS that know how to troll with a wry wit), we've got what amounts to an intentional suppression of freedom of speech. The implication is constantly that words unpleasant to the ears of the leaders of the "informal Q" will result in violent repercussions. MK's trolling is particularly reminiscent of NPO's shout-downs of contrary opinions. Seriously, for an alliance taking pains to prove that it's not some derivative of NPO, MK is showing itself to be derivative of NPO. I'm happy that MK doesn't feel the need to hunt down people across nation creations. I'm not happy that MK preserves some of the practices you say were what was wrong before Karma.
[/quote]

Let's not forget that part of the reason that MK and allies/FAN went to war was that they didn't say nice things about them.

[Rocky Horror]

[quote name='Mr Damsky' timestamp='1296606301' post='2615267']
I did read the post and that's not what I was talking about.

While I could nitpick at the topic all day this is what I was mainly looking at:


It's absolutely hilarious to see MK portray themselves as tough guys. I guess we've all forgotten about the NEW war. I didn't see MK crying about PB bailing out on their obligations to NEW, in fact in a few places I saw them endorse it.

My point is, MK only supports wars that will leave them politically intact.
[/quote]MK had little to do with NEW, being as we are 2 degrees of separation from them. MK are pretty tough, you know. Ask anyone who has fought us, no one will claim to have had an easy fight. In any case, it doesn't make us [i]hypocritical[/i] because that's not what the word !@#$@#$ means.

Anyway, entering wars you know you have no chance of changing, for no reason, and whining when you lose is [i]so damn easy[/i], even easier than winning (I know, I've been around). You're in no position to accuse anyone of "talking tough".

[AnCapistan]

[quote name='Rocky Horror' timestamp='1296667743' post='2616309']
You're in no position to accuse anyone of "talking tough".
[/quote]

And why is that buddy? I have more moxie than your entire alliance combined.

[Rocky Horror]

[quote name='Mr Damsky' timestamp='1296705422' post='2616955']And why is that buddy?[/quote]"...entering wars you know you have no chance of changing, for no reason, and whining when you lose is [i]so damn easy[/i], even easier than winning (I know, I've been around)."