Space Empires 101 - Galactic Council

[TerranC]

We of the Wendigo are saddened to hear of the news of late, news of shattered alliances and news of newlymade threats of war, but we must say that we are not surprised, and have been expecting such a cataclysm, seeing how the childish yet dangerous colonial ambitions of the Citizen Federation and the desperate need to be vindicated for innumerable losses of the Cyber Collective coupled with naivete of the RCC and their hopes of a galactic order with them being at its forefront, and their happy-go-lucky allies of once grand, once proud Thermolia, add the ambitions of the smaller races were bound to collide.

We of the Wendigo had hoped that our disengagement from the council with our ill-found gains and whatnot would actually save it from such a fate, and had hoped that other smaller races would also disengage, creating a non-aligned movement; but after returning from a deep slumber, we see that we could have been the catalyst for this pandemonium. Nevertheless, we shall stick by our decision made in the yesterwake, albeit with a slight change; we now renounce our former territorial revendications and consider all our previous attempts at brinksmanship void. I, on behalf of my pride, would also express my sincerest apologies to the RCC and particularily to His Majesty King Bio, for the covert actions undertaken against your empire by the awakened, who were supposed safeguard the Voyagers of the Dreams, instead of trying to carve out a small piece of the galaxy for themselves.

As a show of my regrets, we shall give your empire some of Electrum's ships garnered in the surrender, as much as we can spare, as soon as we get the chance.

But as all things turn in our little corner of the universe, we wish to reestablish our diplomatic links at their zenith before this sorrowful try at treason came to pass.

We shall await your responce.

And as for you dear marshall; it is true, I shall forfeit; my actions were of cowardice, one could say. But they were more of concern for the well being of my people, as you would have done, you also must concede to that. My people would have fought to the death, as I have repeatedly said, if that is what needs to be done; but a valiant warrior is valiant when he fights a fair battle and wins; only fools expect to fight against insurmountable odds and expect to survive.

I hope my answer finds itself well within you, but before I end with my volition of words, I have this to say; I would watch my vocabulary wisely, lest you find yourself a mockery of the galaxy.

And as for you, my dear admiral, the pride shall very much enjoying releasing your pitiful souls unto the unknown. I look forward to meeting your hunters, for they are now the hunted.

OoC: I'm back after three weeks of inactivity... sorry it took so long; there were some issues concerning my cable internet service, so I had to switch to sympatico, a DSL service, which took almost one week of waiting. Boy, it's good to be back into all this roleplaying I tell you.

[Wardad]

A prelude to war, after Alarik (RCC) sugested he would gift his systems to Thermodyne.:

Alarik,

This gives me serious heartburn.
I rescued both of you from a war Thermolia started.
I recieved nothing for it. You recieved all of Dei-Os territory.

Give Thermolia your native systems.
Give Cyber, Eysk, and Trooper the Dei-O systems.

I will not tolerate Thermolia recieving such resources.
Not after this message from them:
Message from the Thermolian Expanse:
"We offer this gift with the hope that you will bend over and grab them ankles."

------------------

RCC rushed the gifting of systems, causing a rush to war on the Cybers part. The Cybers stand by the statement "I will not tolerate Thermolia recieving such resources." as a declaration of a war condition.

[Thermodyne]

IC: “Thermolia fails to see any reason for war in your statement except for the greed of your government. At the time you were making your demands, Thermolia had no war bootie to offer to anyone. And we had only just become aware of the merger; there were no talks on this point. The offer was made as a take it of leave it proposition. Your attacks, and the transfer of assets, took place on the same cycle. So we feel that it is safe to say that you have mis-spoken and that your facts are not in order. Or, that you are disrespecting the gathered members of this council by trying to pass this lie off as truth.

As to the offer of a gift, this is true. Thermolia made a substantial gift of resources to your people. We did this without being asked and in return we were attacked. We even included the act of respect in the wording of the gift. We have observed your citizens making this act of respect many times. When high officials pass by, your people drop their lower garments and bend over, offering their bare hind quarters in respect. We thought that you would be pleased.

We Thermolian’s see through your fabrications. We see you for what you really are. And we now take this opportunity to again warn the free peoples of the galaxy that your only goal is total domination. Your weak justification for this war does not begin to hide your true ambitions.”

With that said, the Thermolian Ambassador stepped back and spit on the floor, and made one Last comment to the distinguished gentleman gathered. “We Thermolians are eternal. It matters not what happens in this life, for there will be another. While we are this day in a fight that we can not at this time win, we will not back down. What ever happens, Thermolian honor will remain untarnished. But you sir, you and your Overmind, have demonstrated that you have no honor. You have shown all gathered here in this place, that honor is not something with which you are acquainted.” With that said, the Thermolian turned, made the customary Cyber display of respect (also known as the moon), then turned and gave the Thermolian sign for disrespect, then left the room.

[ July 23, 2004, 12:04: Message edited by: Thermodyne ]

[Wardad]

blah blah blah....
u talk too much

[Chris Blagdon]

Greetings apologies for being ... err .. late. The Artarian diplomatic core have been observing these discussions for some time. Owing to the length of time it takes to traverse the Galaxy in our woefully outdated ships I'm afraid our ambassador has only just arrived.

King Maximal ll sends everyone his best wishes. And also let it be known that he has dispatched a fleet to Thermolian territory to act as a potential peace keeping force. I know, I know the wars just started. But it will take them such a long time to get there one side or another will be sueing for peace by then.
I ask that all empires allow this fleet free passage.

Dont worry about us being unable to contact our fleet we have just installed a marvellous new device that we're calling a telephone. We also proudly announce that we are researching into a brand new device called a radiophone. Which will cancel the need for spooling all that cable out behind the ships.
We will be taking orders for both these exciting new technologies at our council embassy.
Yours truly Ambassaor Tosh.

[Wardad]

OOC:
This whole Empire Gift affair is an example of poor playmanship.

Some hosts say that surrender should go to the empire that does the most damage. Other hosts don't allow surrender and require turning the empire over to the AI. Still there are others that allow surrender. It is a matter of the house rules, and this game had no surrender rules.

BUT... The wholesale gifting of a major and playable empire is simply over the top. Especially when a large part of that empire was taken in surrender, due to a coalition action.
And especially when the gift giver is the host, and tired of the game.
Why could he not do the normal thing, turn it over to the AI and find a replacement player?


IC:
The Thermolian Empire will be punished for accepting the gift. RCC will be punished by having their former empire torn apart.
Standby and continue in peace.
Join the effort and share the spoils.

[AMF]

Do we really want to get into this again? I'm gonna try and limit my comments right now since I'm in a foul mood and might say something I'd regret. Suffice it to say that I stand by my reasoning, which, by the way, I stated clearly, multiple times, and publicly. Your continued accusations run the chance of spoiling the game overall and have other overtones as well.

Perhaps I made the wrong choice. I already apologized. But I made the choice based on the idea that I did not want to upset the geopolitical/strategic or roleplaying aspects of the game by my leaving. Merging the number two empire with the Last (or nearly Last) place empire who was an ally from the earliest turns of the game and was interspersed with mine seemed a clear way to do it. The result was an unchanged geopolitical situation that was in tune with historical and roleplaying considerations.

The decision to "upset the game" was not made by me, but, instead, by those powers who apparently immediately attacked what my former empire. Oh, and did I mention that those powers are the ost powerful in the game (numbers one and three and on down, IIRC). No problem with such an attack, but to then go on and complain that the entire situation was "unfair" seems more than a bit like sour grapes, no?

Frankly, I was not "tired" of the game, I quite enjoyed the 101 game. As I mentioned many times I NEEDED to quit. Over the past month I have gotten out of 4 of my ten games for the exact same reasons.

Ok, just to go on, cause I'm getting worked up here, since you brought up the host bit, I was not the original host of the game. If you'll remember, the game had effectively died when the former host up and bailed. I took over the reins to keep it going. I have NO idea why the fact that I am host of the game matters one whit for this issue, but you brought it up.

More: you didn;t seem to have a problem with the Dei-O surrendering to the RCC earlier? So, the discussion of "surrender shouldn't be allowed anyways" is a bit disengenous.

The heck with it, I'll keep going, why stop now?

You further intimated that I ceded the RCC to Thermolia becuase perhaps I knew him in real life. At the time I was too p*ssed off to really respond but I can do so now. I do NOT know this thermolian character. I have NEVER cheated in a game (which is what you're implying) - EVER - and the intimation that I have is, frankly, reprehensible. Of course, I have no way of proving that, but neither do I feel a need to (I've already laid out my reasoning for what I did many times, and I stand by it - while admitting that I might have done it better)

In fact, let me apologize again for the manner in which I made the decision and the way in which I implemented it. Clearly I could have done those parts better. But, neither will I repudiate what I did becuase I think it was in keeping with the strategic, geogrpahical, historical, and roleplaying aspects of the game. I did not want to quit the game, and in retrospect, I should have let the AI or another player take it over. Had I done so, I'm pretty convinced that RCC would have still been attacked by Cyber et al, but whatever.

So, go ahead and yell "poor playmanship" if you feel you must, but I think it's pretty clearly sour grapes and not based on an objective assessment of my reasoning. Yes, I should have let the AI take over and for that I apologize. But just the same, I am pretty insulted by the accusation.

Toodle-oo.

EDIT: I should probabably have posted that in a private message, my apologies for cluttering up the forum for everyone else. BUT, I wanted to giver everyone the option to spout off about my actions if they felt like it. If I well and truly did p*ss everyone off, I'd prefer to hear about it not so I can avoid it in the future.

Originally posted by Wardad:
OOC:
This whole Empire Gift affair is an example of poor playmanship.

Some hosts say that surrender should go to the empire that does the most damage. Other hosts don't allow surrender and require turning the empire over to the AI. Still there are others that allow surrender. It is a matter of the house rules, and this game had no surrender rules.

BUT... The wholesale gifting of a major and playable empire is simply over the top. Especially when a large part of that empire was taken in surrender, due to a coalition action.
And especially when the gift giver is the host, and tired of the game.
Why could he not do the normal thing, turn it over to the AI and find a replacement player?


IC:
The Thermolian Empire will be punished for accepting the gift. RCC will be punished by having their former empire torn apart.
Standby and continue in peace.
Join the effort and share the spoils.

[ July 27, 2004, 17:50: Message edited by: alarikf ]