Will your opinion of Pacifica or Polaris change after this war?

[Maelstrom Vortex]

The opinions of our enemy will not change. They think themselves flawless. Their sanctimony in holding to our past sins as a reason to destroy us when their current sins are a reason to destroy them is naught but hypocrisy. They have no integrity. Their willingness to stab people in the back without a just cause for concern demonstrates this. Their willful ignorance of facts demonstrates this. Do not waste your breath on such garbage Pacificans.

Allow them to say what they will say and be the creators of their own demise. The more their true colors are born, the more the world shall rise to fight them. They are evil. They will fall.

Edited February 14, 2011 by Maelstrom Vortex

[Farnsworth]

I am now more sympathetic towards NPO. They do not deserve the current war. It follows then that I also feel differently towards the hypocrites waging the current aggressive wars.

[Maelstrom Vortex]

Unfortunately sympathy doesn't normally change the outcome of conflict in any significant fashion, but it is appreciated none-the-less.

[Varianz]

[quote name='Midkn1ght' timestamp='1297628048' post='2631363']
Go read your embassy. I'll summarize what I said when that exact same argument was made in there. Your friends had to be shamed into fighting for you in karma, they were going to leave you out to die until it was rather obvious they were going to be rolled regardless on if they came in or not. Your "friends" are only your friends because no one else really gives a crap about them. Don't mistake dependency for loyalty. TPF is the only alliance I'd give credit for, for being a true friend, and an ally you'd never want to loose. The rest *shrug* if you love them you love them. All that really matters I guess. But after your surrender and terms are up this go around, don't MDP NSO as your first act and then talk about how you're trying to be neutral and left alone and wonder why no one believes you and thinks you're just biding your time for a strike back.
[/quote]
Just a point: we fought on the opposite side of NPO in Karma, and had not ies to them at the time. Don't lump us in with the Coalition of Cowards, if that's what you were doing (if not I apologize, I misread).

Edited February 14, 2011 by Varianz

[Qazzian]

[quote name='Midkn1ght' timestamp='1297628048' post='2631363']
Go read your embassy. I'll summarize what I said when that exact same argument was made in there. Your friends had to be shamed into fighting for you in karma, they were going to leave you out to die until it was rather obvious they were going to be rolled regardless on if they came in or not. Your "friends" are only your friends because no one else really gives a crap about them. Don't mistake dependency for loyalty. TPF is the only alliance I'd give credit for, for being a true friend, and an ally you'd never want to loose. The rest *shrug* if you love them you love them. All that really matters I guess. But after your surrender and terms are up this go around, don't MDP NSO as your first act and then talk about how you're trying to be neutral and left alone and wonder why no one believes you and thinks you're just biding your time for a strike back.
[/quote]


Hold the phone. Let me read that again.

[quote]The rest *shrug* if you love them you love them. All that really matters I guess. But after your surrender and terms are up this go around, don't MDP NSO as your first act and then talk about how you're trying to be neutral and left alone and wonder why no one believes you and thinks you're just biding your time for a strike back.[/Quote]

wait...

[quote]But after your surrender and terms are up this go around[/quote]

You really expect that we're going to surrender and beg for terms when we were attacked outright in an unprovoked act of hostility? Had we made the first move, then maybe that line wouldn't sound as absolutely ridiculous as it is, but do you honestly think we're going to let DoomHouse attack us AND pay them for their time? If they want their pound of flesh, fine. That's pretty much a guarantee. It's already happening. But to expect us to pay them off so they can put us at an even greater disadvantage, given that they've already proven they have no interest in allowing us to exist because we "may become a threat", is ridiculous.

[Midkn1ght]

Branimir, I can see your point about alliances with you being outcasts mostly because they are with you, that is fairly valid, I'll concede that. The rest we'll just have to differ on our opinions.

[quote name='Varianz' timestamp='1297673391' post='2632732']
Just a point: we fought on the opposite side of NPO in Karma, and had not ies to them at the time. Don't lump us in with the Coalition of Cowards, if that's what you were doing (if not I apologize, I misread).
[/quote]

No, I was not lumping you in, and I aplogize if it came out that way. My point with mentioning NSO was, at that time, they were really big on the, "we're going to do what we want, because that's how you should play, and if you don't like it, BRING IT" mentality, which I have zero problem with, and I respect. NPO allying with you right out of the gate undermined them trying to play the whole "we're gonna stay out of everything" argument, that's all I was saying. You can't stay out of the politics if you link up with a alliance like yours.

[quote name='Qazzian' timestamp='1297697247' post='2632981']
You really expect that we're going to surrender and beg for terms when we were attacked outright in an unprovoked act of hostility?
[/quote]

Expect it? No. If I were in your position I wouldn't either. I just don't think you'll be given a choice in the matter, remember you all did the whole "we'll never surrender" thing during Karma too, only to eventually accept the highest reps the game has seen because I guess your leaders were trying to save your members and eventually rebuild instead of being in a FAN situation. I don't think it'll be an easy pill to swallow, but I think eventually you will if you ever want to be left alone again. I hope NPO after this war does take measures to break everyone's perceptions of what they are, but I think they're too stubborn to ever change.

Edited February 14, 2011 by Midkn1ght

[Bob Janova]

[quote]You really expect that we're going to surrender and beg for terms when we were attacked outright in an unprovoked act of hostility?[/quote]
Yes. You're going to lose, so you're going to surrender. That's how war works. The terms won't necessarily involve a 'pay-off', though I imagine they probably will unless you want to get beaten down so far that you're fighting a FAN-style resistance.

[Qazzian]

[quote name='Midkn1ght' timestamp='1297703723' post='2633049']
Expect it? No. If I were in your position I wouldn't either. I just don't think you'll be given a choice in the matter, remember you all did the whole "we'll never surrender" thing during Karma too, only to eventually accept the highest reps the game has seen because I guess your leaders were trying to save your members and eventually rebuild instead of being in a FAN situation. I don't think it'll be an easy pill to swallow, but I think eventually you will if you ever want to be left alone again. [u]I hope NPO after this war does take measures to break everyone's perceptions of what they are, but I think they're too stubborn to ever change.[/u]
[/quote]

To take a small sidebar here, what do you suggest we do to show that we're trying to break perceptions? We took part in no wars aside from paying reps to GOD during the last big war (call it what you want). Did we sign treaties with old friends? Yes. It would be stupid to come out of terms and not have people ready incase we were hit. To be honest, I'm surprised what we're seeing now didn't happen as soon as terms were up. If your main point of contention is that we resigned with alliances we had signed with before, I can only say "well duh". Alliances that took a lead on the Karma side would want nothing to do with us, and sucking up to them wouldn't be seen as "changing", it would just be labeled "trying to get back into the power structure" and everyone would still accuse us of being the same old NPO.

Paying "the highest reps the game has ever seen", as you and many others have put it, didn't change people's perceptions. Admitting defeat, permanently changing our foreign policy towards alliances on Red, and sitting through terms even while our friends were hammered in wars didn't change people's perceptions. What makes you think that those who decided we may become a threat are going to have their perceptions changed by doing it all again?

[Mogar]

I dont think people realize how difficult it was for Pacifica to stand by while TPF got attacked, [i]twice[/i]. TPF is NPO's closest ally, and if I know Pacificans at all, it was hard for them to sit on the sidelines while their best friend was getting beaten up.

[TypoNinja]

[quote name='Qazzian' timestamp='1297711070' post='2633152']
Paying "the highest reps the game has ever seen", as you and many others have put it, didn't change people's perceptions. Admitting defeat, permanently changing our foreign policy towards alliances on Red, and sitting through terms even while our friends were hammered in wars didn't change people's perceptions. What makes you think that those who decided we may become a threat are going to have their perceptions changed by doing it all again?
[/quote]

The problem is you don't get credit for any of those actions, because you didn't do them until somebody [i]forced[/i] you to do it. You made those FA changes 6 months too late. Of course you changed your red policy, you know we'd roll you again if you tried to maintain ownership over a team. Of course you sat out wars while in terms, those terms required your disarmament. Trying to join would have been suicide since you had all of 30 nukes across the entire alliance.

Moves made because you had no choice but to do so that are contrary to the popular imagine of Pacifica aren't going to get you credit for them. This is the inherent unfairness in your position. You no longer have the ability to act like you used to, so you can't choose to act differently from that, you already are because you were forced to.

[Qazzian]

I still have yet to see a single thing suggested that could have been done. As already pointed out, signing treaties with former lead-Karma alliances would be seen as us just trying to claw our way back to the top with politics by attaching to the power structure. During Karma, NSO was on the other side, and we made friends with them. After terms were up, HUGE FA improvements were made with FAN. IIRC, one of their leadership made it quite clear that very few people would actually understand how much work was done behind the scenes mending those fences to the point where both alliances had embassies for the other, and civil discussion was achieved.

So tell me: What could we reasonably have done? I know text doesn't carry tone very well, but I'm being very sincere here. I want to know.

[Penguin]

[quote name='Bob Janova' timestamp='1297709181' post='2633122']
Yes. You're going to lose, so you're going to surrender. That's how war works. The terms won't necessarily involve a 'pay-off', though I imagine they probably will unless you want to get beaten down so far that you're fighting a FAN-style resistance.
[/quote]
As far as pay-outs go, "that's how it works" is a poor argument. I remember you signing something to oppose that once upon a time, and I'd be a little shocked to see you go with the flow now. Once an alliance realizes that they are the permanent target of the powers that be, they cease to think in the narrow frame between the declaration and the surrender. You have given NPO little reason to think they will stop being the enemy if they pay you off with exorbitant reparations, so I don't think you'll get any. It's presumably the same logic that kept FAN from accepting reps the second time around too.

Edited February 14, 2011 by Penguin

[Lord Strider]

[quote name='Qazzian' timestamp='1297712079' post='2633171']
I still have yet to see a single thing suggested that could have been done. As already pointed out, signing treaties with former lead-Karma alliances would be seen as us just trying to claw our way back to the top with politics by attaching to the power structure. During Karma, NSO was on the other side, and we made friends with them. After terms were up, HUGE FA improvements were made with FAN. IIRC, one of their leadership made it quite clear that very few people would actually understand how much work was done behind the scenes mending those fences to the point where both alliances had embassies for the other, and civil discussion was achieved.

So tell me: What could we reasonably have done? I know text doesn't carry tone very well, but I'm being very sincere here. I want to know.
[/quote]


I know you already pointed it out, but that is what needed to be done. Becoming friends with the alliance that beat you up in those wars would have put you out of the light and taken away that line which NPO so happily drew by allying with the same side that got them beat. Now you don't have to go out and start signing treaties right off the bat, there at least needed to be good dialog going. Instead you guys told TOP and VE to get lost, mocked them and ran them off. There was no real effort to make anyone on the opposite side like you. Sitting on your hands and not doing anything doesn't take you out of being a bad guy, hard line changes and action does.

[Qazzian]

I'm going to assume with VE you mean sethb coming to our forums, and the not-so-warm welcome he received. We were still pretty raw about what happened, and I will admit that we really missed a chance to mend fences there.

However, I have no idea what you mean with TOP. I went back to the embassy to see if there's something I missed, and I honestly can't find things about us "running them off". There's commiserating about being under reps, there's some "I may not like you, but I respect you" from a couple of people on both sides, but aside from that I'm perplexed to say the least.

As for the "no real effort" part, I'll direct you to my comments about FAN/NPO relations moving to "civil discourse on both embassies" as a sign that effort was put in. I'm not privy to everything that went on with diplomatic relations and bridge building between alliances that didn't result in a treaty, so I can't speak to much else beside that. I would say, however, that given the history between the two alliances, that's a pretty huge step.

[Midkn1ght]

[quote name='Qazzian' timestamp='1297711070' post='2633152']
To take a small sidebar here, what do you suggest we do to show that we're trying to break perceptions? We took part in no wars aside from paying reps to GOD during the last big war (call it what you want). Did we sign treaties with old friends? Yes. It would be stupid to come out of terms and not have people ready incase we were hit. To be honest, I'm surprised what we're seeing now didn't happen as soon as terms were up. If your main point of contention is that we resigned with alliances we had signed with before, I can only say "well duh". Alliances that took a lead on the Karma side would want nothing to do with us, and sucking up to them wouldn't be seen as "changing", it would just be labeled "trying to get back into the power structure" and everyone would still accuse us of being the same old NPO.

Paying "the highest reps the game has ever seen", as you and many others have put it, didn't change people's perceptions. Admitting defeat, permanently changing our foreign policy towards alliances on Red, and sitting through terms even while our friends were hammered in wars didn't change people's perceptions. What makes you think that those who decided we may become a threat are going to have their perceptions changed by doing it all again?
[/quote]

If you can Qazzian, come to your embassy on our forums and read there. There's many thousands of words of advice, and up until the war distracted your government, we were having some good discussions and burying a lot of our hatchet's I'd say. NPO made more strides in that single thread, that having all your active members here saying every chance they got, "but we changed!" Hell I was actively cheerleading you all saying how much you deserved a chance just as much as anyone else. We poked the wound from Karma, sure, by demanding our reps be paid after being told, "Hey keep slots open, it's coming this week, I promise" like 5 times. So yeah, we said screw it, pay now while we're beating your friends up as a smack back. We talked about that already, you can read it if you join, but we both understand what happened, you had a ton of stuff to organize with many members, and it turned into a cluster. We didn't know about the disorganization, and figured it was just a giant "forget you, you'll get it when we send it"

[quote]It would be stupid to come out of terms and not have people ready incase we were hit. [/quote]

Summarizing some of what I said in there, if NPO came out of terms and declared itself neutral, like GPA neutral, not "resign with a bunch of folks the people in power loathe and just stay out of wars" neutral, touching you would of been political suicide. You all hitting GPA, imho, is what lead to folks starting to plot on you and saying you'd went overboard. Doing what you did just out of terms, resigning so fast with the people you did, sent a message of nothing having changed. I honestly think if not for Bipolar, you'd been nailed way sooner, so your paranoia was correct, but the way you set about protecting yourself just guaranteed the hit as soon as folks who wanted to hit you were recovered, or the first chance for global war to distract folks who might be inclined to help you without a treaty hit.

[quote]permanently changing our foreign policy towards alliances on Red[/quote]

See, this isn't something that should be touted as an achievement, but you all keep doing it. You stopped holding an entire color as your own, you let others play in your sandbox and come and trade with you, which pretty much just helped you anyway. You did something that I don't think anyone really thought you had a right to do in the first place, but no one could stop you, because anyone who spoke against you about anything got taken out. You don't get a credit for not drastically abusing your power, you're not supposed to in the first place.

[quote name='Mogar' timestamp='1297711282' post='2633154']
I dont think people realize how difficult it was for Pacifica to stand by while TPF got attacked, [i]twice[/i]. TPF is NPO's closest ally, and if I know Pacificans at all, it was hard for them to sit on the sidelines while their best friend was getting beaten up.
[/quote]

How hard was it for them to watch NSO have war brought to it multiple times?

[quote]As already pointed out, signing treaties with former lead-Karma alliances would be seen as us just trying to claw our way back to the top with politics by attaching to the power structure[/quote]

It's not a bad move, it's a smart one actually, but I don't think that would of been your best move. I still think you should of stayed neutral, got your house in order, trained your guys up more militarily, stocked up on wonders, WHILE working your FA to the max on anyone who would have spoken to you. Take the year doing that, maybe more, and then come out, unveil a new Pacifica who folks aren't terrified of anymore, and forge yourself a new path. It would have been no different then you sitting out some of these wars where your friends were getting rocked because they asked you to. You would have been in a much stronger position in every way possible. You didn't have to sign anything you didn't want to, I'd never suggest you sign up with someone you don't like to be secure. I'm just saying it didn't even appear you were trying in many cases. In our case though, you sent over a relative FA newbie to us, who was pretty blunt and honest about anything we asked, no beating around the bush, no diplo-speak, and suddenly after a week or two of extensive talking with him (o/ Angelrick) your emperor and some other of your upper members showed up, and we had a few harsh moments here and there, but most of it was extremely positive, and more or less wiped your slate with many of our members. That's something Karma didn't do, especially since after the war you still had more NS in just peace moders alone then most alliances had in total, so folks didn't feel like you got punished enough. Yet maybe 3-4 hours of actual talking with some effort cleaned most of the bad air.

But sadly, in here, almost anytime any advice has been attempted to be given to you all, this is heard
[quote]No, we will not change our friends. Not after they again charge the gates of hell to protect us. No, we will not try to make friends with those that attacked us here, the haters, the hypocrites, the liars. We will not growl, bend or pretend anything. We were content to live and let live but the same courtesy was not given to us. ~ You don't know what you're talking about. ~Pacificans don't do that, etc, etc, etc[/quote]

No change, no new friends, but we'll stay by ourselves, and since we haven't changed at all, and aren't demonstrating willingness to change, you all can trust us that we'll not be a threat to you again! No. No. No. That's all most of your members really say in public... well except for anytime you are brought up in a negative light, then you bring out the "we've changed!" and the victim card nonstop. You can't have it both ways. Either you haven't, and aren't going to change anything, or you are willing to work at it. You can't point to stuff like saying you're not holding a color hostage, or you're not rolling alliances anymore, because you'd be hit if you tried to, you not doing those things anymore doesn't mean anything, because you're not capable of doing it in the first place anymore.


[quote name='Qazzian' timestamp='1297716316' post='2633271']
I'm going to assume with VE you mean sethb coming to our forums, and the not-so-warm welcome he received. We were still pretty raw about what happened, and I will admit that we really missed a chance to mend fences there.[/quote]

Yes you did miss a huge chance to mend fences, but at the same token... VE, I <3 but that was a monumental slap in the face to send him.

[WorldConqueror]

[quote name='Midkn1ght' timestamp='1297718322' post='2633324']
Summarizing some of what I said in there, if NPO came out of terms and declared itself neutral, like GPA neutral, not "resign with a bunch of folks the people in power loathe and just stay out of wars" neutral, touching you would of been political suicide.
[/quote]
I have trouble taking you seriously if that is your advice.

[Qazzian]

[quote name='Midkn1ght' timestamp='1297718322' post='2633324']
If you can Qazzian, come to your embassy on our forums and read there. There's many thousands of words of advice, and up until the war distracted your government, we were having some good discussions and burying a lot of our hatchet's I'd say. NPO made more strides in that single thread, that having all your active members here saying every chance they got, "but we changed!" Hell I was actively cheerleading you all saying how much you deserved a chance just as much as anyone else. We poked the wound from Karma, sure, by demanding our reps be paid after being told, "Hey keep slots open, it's coming this week, I promise" like 5 times. So yeah, we said screw it, pay now while we're beating your friends up as a smack back. We talked about that already, you can read it if you join, but we both understand what happened, you had a ton of stuff to organize with many members, and it turned into a cluster. We didn't know about the disorganization, and figured it was just a giant "forget you, you'll get it when we send it"



Summarizing some of what I said in there, if NPO came out of terms and declared itself neutral, like GPA neutral, not "resign with a bunch of folks the people in power loathe and just stay out of wars" neutral, touching you would of been political suicide. You all hitting GPA, imho, is what lead to folks starting to plot on you and saying you'd went overboard. Doing what you did just out of terms, resigning so fast with the people you did, sent a message of nothing having changed. I honestly think if not for Bipolar, you'd been nailed way sooner, so your paranoia was correct, but the way you set about protecting yourself just guaranteed the hit as soon as folks who wanted to hit you were recovered, or the first chance for global war to distract folks who might be inclined to help you without a treaty hit.[/quote]

Many people said that for them, Karma was not the retribution they were looking for (you yourself actually say it further down). I'm very skeptical that declaring GPA-style neutrality would have given us much protection from those who demanded more blood for our past, political suicide or not. There's many who would have thought that attacking an uninvolved party to drag them into a war for no reason other than "they may be a threat at some point" would be political suicide (many decided that NPO's past actions akin to that were political suicide anyways).


[quote name='Midkn1ght' timestamp='1297718322' post='2633324']
See, this isn't something that should be touted as an achievement, but you all keep doing it. You stopped holding an entire color as your own, you let others play in your sandbox and come and trade with you, which pretty much just helped you anyway. You did something that I don't think anyone really thought you had a right to do in the first place, but no one could stop you, because anyone who spoke against you about anything got taken out. You don't get a credit for not drastically abusing your power, you're not supposed to in the first place.[/quote]

It's something that became quite apparent that the world REALLY had a problem with (to the point a war was partially fought over it rather than OWF snipping), and we agreed. Did we have to by terms? Yes. Could we have rejected the terms and kept fighting? Yes. Will arguing about the merits of it actually solve anything? No. We think it's a positive change, you (plural, not singular) don't. We'll call it a difference of opinion. I know from the inside that we don't bemoan our working with other Red alliances, it's something that everyone seems to have gotten on board with. That may not show to the outside, and perhaps that's part of the problem: You cannot see what's changed within the NPO in terms of things like this.


[quote name='Midkn1ght' timestamp='1297718322' post='2633324']
How hard was it for them to watch NSO have war brought to it multiple times?
[/quote]

Also pretty hard.

[quote name='Midkn1ght' timestamp='1297718322' post='2633324']
It's not a bad move, it's a smart one actually, but I don't think that would of been your best move. I still think you should of stayed neutral, got your house in order, trained your guys up more militarily, stocked up on wonders, WHILE working your FA to the max on anyone who would have spoken to you. Take the year doing that, maybe more, and then come out, unveil a new Pacifica who folks aren't terrified of anymore, and forge yourself a new path. It would have been no different then you sitting out some of these wars where your friends were getting rocked because they asked you to. You would have been in a much stronger position in every way possible. You didn't have to sign anything you didn't want to, I'd never suggest you sign up with someone you don't like to be secure. I'm just saying it didn't even appear you were trying in many cases. In our case though, you sent over a relative FA newbie to us, who was pretty blunt and honest about anything we asked, no beating around the bush, no diplo-speak, and suddenly after a week or two of extensive talking with him (o/ Angelrick) your emperor and some other of your upper members showed up, and we had a few harsh moments here and there, but most of it was extremely positive, and more or less wiped your slate with many of our members. That's something Karma didn't do, especially since after the war you still had more NS in just peace moders alone then most alliances had in total, so folks didn't feel like you got punished enough. Yet maybe 3-4 hours of actual talking with some effort cleaned most of the bad air.
[/quote]

I'm still not convinced that us going to the members of CnG or SF would be seen as anything other than a pathetic attempt to stay safe until we regained our strength. Maybe it would have, but that's nothing something we'll ever know. I know Angelrick (deserves the o/ imo), but I also know that there was a big influx of 'FA newbies' to other alliances (myself included) to try to improve our image where we could. Again, I think that's one of those 'changes on the inside that aren't very apparently to the rest of Bob'. We realized that there was a big uphill battle on the words front, and went for it.

[quote name='Midkn1ght' timestamp='1297718322' post='2633324']
But sadly, in here, almost anytime any advice has been attempted to be given to you all, this is heard


No change, no new friends, but we'll stay by ourselves, and since we haven't changed at all, and aren't demonstrating willingness to change, you all can trust us that we'll not be a threat to you again! No. No. No. That's all most of your members really say in public... well except for anytime you are brought up in a negative light, then you bring out the "we've changed!" and the victim card nonstop. You can't have it both ways. Either you haven't, and aren't going to change anything, or you are willing to work at it. You can't point to stuff like saying you're not holding a color hostage, or you're not rolling alliances anymore, because you'd be hit if you tried to, you not doing those things anymore doesn't mean anything, because you're not capable of doing it in the first place anymore.[/Quote]

I wasn't there on your forums where this was discussed, so I won't pretend I can speak to this at all.



[quote name='Midkn1ght' timestamp='1297718322' post='2633324']
Yes you did miss a huge chance to mend fences, but at the same token... VE, I <3 but that was a monumental slap in the face to send him.
[/quote]

It's been discussed many times, but that's how we perceived it. A slap in the face. Later it was found out what his role was that basically required him to be there. If I could apologize for everyone, I would. I can't.

On a personal note, I'm enjoying this discussion about things, rather than angry arguing. Thank you.

[Doitzel]

[quote name='Bob Janova' timestamp='1297709181' post='2633122']
Yes. You're going to lose, so you're going to surrender. That's how war works. The terms won't necessarily involve a 'pay-off', though I imagine they probably will unless you want to get beaten down so far that you're fighting a FAN-style resistance.
[/quote]
This is not the world we struggled for.

*Sigh* I detest NPO as much as the next guy, but now I'm getting angry.

[Kindom of Goon]

[quote name='Bob Janova' timestamp='1297709181' post='2633122']
The terms won't necessarily involve a 'pay-off', though I imagine they probably will unless you want to get beaten down so far that you're fighting a FAN-style resistance.
[/quote]

Would you support that?

[silentkiller]

[quote name='Bob Janova' timestamp='1297709181' post='2633122']
Yes. You're going to lose, so you're going to surrender. That's how war works. The terms won't necessarily involve a 'pay-off', though I imagine they probably will unless you want to get beaten down so far that you're fighting a FAN-style resistance.
[/quote]

Anything that helps me get casualties is good in my book!

[WorldConqueror]

[quote name='silentkiller' timestamp='1297722826' post='2633455']
Anything that helps me get casualties is good in my book!
[/quote]
I'm going to bribe Gandroff to order you into PM for the rest of the war so I can catch up.

[silentkiller]

[quote name='WorldConqueror' timestamp='1297723496' post='2633472']
I'm going to bribe Gandroff to order you into PM for the rest of the war so I can catch up.
[/quote]

You better not come out of peace mode. Seriously.

[WorldConqueror]

[quote name='silentkiller' timestamp='1297725426' post='2633535']
You better not come out of peace mode. Seriously.
[/quote]
But then I'd never catch up! Don't try and play your mind tricks on me. D:

[Rush Sykes]

At the end of the day, I find this entire discussion to be... interesting.

With NPO, I want to like them. Really, I do. And on a personal level, I do. Alot in fact. The burning question though, that needs to be answered from them, is do they REALLY realize the utterly crappy way they treated everyone, sincerely, or do they merely acknowledge it because it seems that in the present political climate, they have to. Do they really mean they would not treat people that way again? Or do they only say that as an assurance, because they can no longer get away with it. I dont know HOW they go about answering it, I wish I had a suggestion there, and I suppose, in the end, that only time will tell.

For Polaris though, its ALMOST the opposite. I really thought, they had learned something about how you should treat others. I was probably as wrong as I could ever be about someone. How do they even have any allies? Muscle flexing is their entire FA approach. There are certain levels of diplomatic courtesy that ALL alliances should receive, regardless of station or place in the political scheme. Polaris, quite simply, does not care. Since the noCB war, time is littered with examples of Polaris' inability to give common courtesy, even to those who fought alongside them. They show, time and time again, that needlessly stroking their collective ego means more to them than their allies do. Sadly, most of their allies, will continue mindlessly remaining tied to them, until continued examples of Polar arrogance bring the world together to smite them again. I want to believe people are capable of change. With these guys, I grow more and more convinced, that I am wrong.

[TypoNinja]

[quote name='Qazzian' timestamp='1297716316' post='2633271']
I'm going to assume with VE you mean sethb coming to our forums, and the not-so-warm welcome he received. We were still pretty raw about what happened, and I will admit that we really missed a chance to mend fences there.
[/quote]

No no, it was a warm welcome. Hot even. Roasting.

Seriously though, I had considered not replying to this but it is related since its pretty much the defining moment of our Diplomatic interactions post karma.

The problem stemmed from our disparate views of the war. To VE Karma was nearly a year gone by that time, and most of us viewed it as a settling of debts. We may not like you, but no more grudge either. A (relatively) clean slate.

Seth was the Deputy Secretary of State by then, nearly a year had passed, its his [i]job[/i] to do things like insure our embassies have things like up to date government and treaty lists. Why shouldn't he go?

To the NPO however they had been paying reps for that last year so Karma was still very fresh in their memories. Forgetting that disconnect was an error, but it showed us something important as well. It showed us how your alliance felt instead of what your leaders were saying.

For many months (4 or 5 I believe) we'd had fairly positive talks with NPO on our boards, so heading over to theirs we had expected a continuation of the same. The reaction to Seth's appearance (and I say appearance because he literally did not say a word. He arrived and posted the standard diplo-spam everybody has, charter, gov, treaty list, ect.) showed us that the flowery words their diplomats were giving us were far far removed from how NPO really thought of us. The level of rage unleashed by NPO in that embassy was jaw dropping.

I came extremely close to simply ordering our embassy closed at that point, because it wasn't just members involved, your government took part, and it was kicked off by the Emperor of all people.

And this is how it relates to the topic at hand. You managed to convince all of VE in one instant of rage that the NPO after Karma was no different at all from the NPO before Karma. And I dare say the idea spread from there. NPO itself has declared war in the past for less than what was unleashed at our government in that thread. Going from what we saw from you on our boards to what we saw on your boards erased in hours what good will you had built up over months on ours.

You claim change, but just often enough do something to make everyone remember who you used to be when you had the power, and restart all the speculation about if you have changed or not. You are trying to keep your heads down while also being center stage, everything you do is up for scrutiny and it only takes one slip to cancel out ten steps forward. Taking every opportunity on the OWF (and in channels) to show us how much you have in common with NPO before Karma just gets everyone thinking that there has been no change at all. Its a problem VE has had with NPO all through our history, you say all the right things but every so often you do something completely at odds with what you are saying. It is this double sided nature that is biting you in the ass in terms of reformation in the public opinion.