Dark Empire Writ of Notice-War Declaration ~NC~

Sir Bradly wrote: Dark has asked if we are interested in Peace.  Since DARK declared war on ~NC~ and there are currently over 30 attacks and sieges on the way to ~NC~ cities, we are inclined to wait and see the nature of these attacks.  If they turn out to be harmless feints or inconsequential minor attacks we will be interested in offering peace terms.  However if they are sieges or full attacks at us we will be hesitant to offer such terms.

We offer peace based upon Night Crusaders offering of such to STEEL. Our objective was accomplished and we see no need for our troops to remain in the field. However based upon the above we understand Night Crusaders position and will remain in a state of war with them until such time as their concerns are resolved.

DARK also has an inbound attack but will not need the resolution of that attack to delay any peace discussions.

This is subject to change the moment either alliance launches a major offensive operation. I would expect at that time the gloves will come off for both parties. Our goal is to avoid that and in that spirit DARK will not be launching any new offensive attacks of any type.

We trust that NC will think the same concerning this issue. If there is any disagreement with my response Sir bradley, then please feel free to contact me or sisren via IGM and we can discuss in more detail.

The Duke wrote: Alright I have followed this from the start. Let me share what myself and many others veiw on this is. A) NC launches Diplos at Gim, waits for him to catch them(took a long time) Have to agree. My understanding is that STEEL never did identify the origin of the diplo attacks. NC finally came clean about it themselves. B) NC announces their intent to destroy gim for a personal dislike. - This is exceptionally bad PR but NC wasnt and isnt trying to make any friends- They later listed the reasons they disliked Gim after being hit by the illy police. Bad PR is exactly that it garners bad publicity. If people speak up about it because the initial reasoning was faulty then that falls on NC not the "Illy police" as you call them. Like you said NC was not interested in making friends so why is this a surprise to anyone that people in the community would object to their actions. C) Gim sends care packages in an attempt to do 2 things- 1)Garner public support and 2)Avoid confrontation. When NC kept on with their attacks after receiving Caravans the public distaste for the war was even higher. Our exact point, thank you for making it clear. STEEL wished to avoid confrontation in spite of having already suffered attacks. Whatever motive you think they had the fact is they tried to avoid confrontation. D) War is officially declared after approx a week of hostile acts. Mana joins in the mess to help Gim. Some various Crows send aid to Gim in his defense. Dark Joins in to complete the pileup.  DARK had been involved with reinforcing STEEL from the start of the conflict or very soon thereafter. We did not join in to pile up on anyone, we joined to seek an end to the hostilities against STEEL. Since you are not party to DARK'S internal deliberations your statement "DARK joins in to complete the pileup" is not based on fact and a fallacy. E) Dark Claims they have a vested interest in this because Steel is a trade Partner.  We do not claim this at all. We state it as a fact. Now that the main facts are in here, let me bring up the faults,  A)I think the silent war was a part of strategy. NC knew they would eventually get caught and were ready to suffer the consequences. NC could see very clearly Gim had over 10 confeds and many members. Idc who you are or what your pop is- 11 members Vs. 10 alliances would be hard for anyone to overcome. If they were ready to suffer the consequences then why are you here defending them? As far as the numbers game, hogwash! STEEL has very few if any members capable of launching an effective military campaign. NC knew this from the get go as a matter of fact that was one of their stated goals to prove how weak STEEL and its confederations are to all of Illy. No one asked them to prove this to us, it was not important for the community to know. As far as to why STEEL's confeds are not rendering aid? Good question, I will not presume to speak for those alliances. B) Not one time have NC tried to garner the mob, they have stuck to the facts and stated things that may seem controversial. Some players are better at speaking and being diplomatic than others. I know from personal experience leading an alliance- if one member states something (in this case that NC was going to war for their personal distaste for Gim) that isnt necessarily the alliances as a wholes opinion. I will agree with you on this point. C) I beleive this was an attempt to gain public favor and nothing more. Once Gim seen NC was going to go on with the attacks he knew he could gain more support by such tactics. Sounds like good strategy. If the only way he has to fight back is through garnering public condemnation against his attackers then why not? D) The part of this i find most striking is that none of Gims confeds stepped in to say they were helping. NC withdrew all their confeds to keep them out of it but STEEL were going to major alliances asking for support. When STEEL confeds were called to help and all they heard was echoes, Mana stepped in. I think its worth mentioning that a confed with some of the Steel allies arent worth holding and some alliance leaderships should take note of that and maybe rethink having allies who use you for support but dont offer the same. This is an internal STEEL issue that Gim, at some point will have to address with his confeds. I do not disagree with what you say here but speaking on it would be nothing but conjecture as I am not privy to STEEL's diplomatic negotiations with there confeds. E) This is the most outlandish crap Ive read so far- I trade with Sir B but you dont see me running to join in a war effort. Dark was bored and wanted a reason to use their armies. It had been 6 months since the last tourney and their troops needed to stretch their legs. Thats really all this was. The public opinion aka the mob- supported Gim. NC has no good PR people and so Dark seen an opportunity to crash some cities. The feeble attempt at "we are trade partners" is lame and is no reason to involve yourself in a conflict. We are bored? We want to crash some cities? Who told you that? The fact of the matter is we held off for weeks before officially declaring war. we engaged in defensive oriented actions and even after declaring war we have purposefully held off a large scale offensive campaign. We are hoping for the two parties to come to some type of agreement to end hostilities. When that happens DARK's intention is to revert our status to neutral with NC and recall our troops. So again facts are what I operate with and how I lead my alliance. Opinions not based on known facts serve no one well in the end.

Daufer wrote: ULYSSEUS wrote: We are not waging war against NC because we do not like them or because we dislike any particular player within NC alliance. They are waging war against steel because they do not like Gim. We do not like their actions, they do not like Gim. We war because of their actions, they war because they do not like Gim. As far as hypocrisy well "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".   If they don't like Gim, presumably it is because of his actions.  His name isn't that offensive.  The fact that they didn't lay out the reasons they dislike him at the start and that you choose not to believe their reasons once they did enumerate them isn't all that relevant, is it?

BlindScribe wrote: For the record, I absolutely agree with you!  It IS perfectly obvious that it's exactly what you said. A clarification as to why they do not like/were annoyed with Gim. It's just that....that specifically ISN"T a clarification on a Causa Belli.

ULYSSEUS wrote: We are not waging war against NC because we do not like them or because we dislike any particular player within NC alliance. They are waging war against steel because they do not like Gim. We do not like their actions, they do not like Gim. We war because of their actions, they war because they do not like Gim. As far as hypocrisy well "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".