It's true that I underestimated the diplomatic hit that the Forge gave me. Telling Ermor to back off of your corpse may also have been a bad move diplomatically
, although I'm not sure why it would've pissed off Pythium and Man.
I was a bit surprised when people offered to help me fight you - I'd expected to have to go toe-to-toe, but when Shmonk announced that he was going to attack me *instead*, that came as a major surprise.