If it's only a game, then people shouldn't send sieges over disputes. (I guess nothing outside a city is supposed to matter, including things that directly affect the cities themselves.)
If it's only a game, then people shouldn't care about getting sieged. (I guess the effort building a city isn't supposed to matter.)
Wait, what? Yes, and even further:
If it's only a game, then people shouldn't hold back from playing (within the game) to win.
If it's only a game, then there's no such thing as wrong (morally or otherwise) outside of actual rule violations.
Conclusion:
"It's only a game" is a nonsensical metric akin to "how many angels on a pinhead." And whatever that statement is supposed to mean, Illyriad is clearly not "only a game" anyway.
So maybe we should restrict our reasoning to logical statements that don't defy reason itself. Statements like:
What kind of game is it? A game with cities and armies and siege engines. A game with things we own (cities), and things we control (anything else), and reasons to control them, and not enough of anything to go around, and alliances, and ranking systems, and a half-dozen other subsystems that all revolve around the production and improved effectiveness of armies. I'm going to go out on a limb and summarize that as "a competitive war game."
What kind of alliance is Harmless? A military alliance.
What kind of alliance is Invictus? A military alliance.
What are we here for? To play the game.
What game? The one with cities and siege engines.
And finally:
If disputes are not reason enough to employ siege engines, what is?If a military alliance is not a valid target for military aggression, what is?
So, while I respect SunStorm's stance on our war, his position is clearly contrary to not only Harmless's position in this war but our very core tenets in general, and I cannot respect how he has acted upon that position. So, as he now parts ways with us in spirit if not person, I feel the need to clarify a few points related to that departure:
- KillerPoodle's public post was not a direct response to SunStorm's requests, but a matter of laying out our perspective in the very same fashion as we have done in any previous conflict. (As it turns out, SS was led to believe this was a result of his request, which was an innocent miscommunication on our part.) We considered forgoing such, but in the end were compelled to make a stand for the sake of some newer allies who were unaccustomed to and upset by the vitriol and blind malice that regularly flies at the #1 alliance and anyone connected to it. I personally found it very confusing that in your messages to us, Sunstorm, you placed far greater emphasis on the publication of honorable intent and justification then the actual possession of honorable intent and justification. That's not upholding honor, it's just protecting your image. And speaking for the Directors, we have better things to do than parade ourselves for Illy's political pundits. Even now I speak for the sake of our allies and own members.
- I wasn't one of the people prone to calling Consone "Soup" so I cannot comment on how closely related the halt on that may be, but for the record I have no problem with it. It's not exactly offensive, now is it? I say worse things to my friends, and they laugh. And do you know just how many thousand variations and associations my fellow directors can find for a player named Mule? My enemies do it too, and with entirely different intent, but you won't find that anywhere in our list of even minor grievances. I'm too old for such petty drama. Nevertheless, while SunStorm doesn't have as much unilateral influence as he seems to think, it is likely that people stopped out of consideration for his sensibilities. I don't think anyone else cared, and certainly haven't had any indication that they do, whether "they" are within our alliance or within Consone or elsewhere.
- SunStorm, I cannot help but question the logic behind your sense of honor that you would avoid bringing up your misgivings in our forums so as not to undermine our leadership, but instead voice them to our enemies prior to any due diligence in research, and now in public even after having been given factual justification which you in part simply discarded. I cringe to make this accusation, but it sounds like the real issue was the size of your audience...especially since your last response to a Director had indicated you were satisfied with our justification and methods after hearing more of the story. There's a serious disconnect here; a major inconsistency in how you apply whatever concepts of honor you're holding which doesn't seem overly influenced by the facts or the fallout from your actions. By being loyal to everyone, you have been loyal to no one. And while what you've said here on this forum isn't so bad really, I am personally saddened by the negative and hurtful assumptions you shared with our opponents about us before you even knew what was going on. We as a whole alliance deserved more courtesy than that at least, and since you didn't even feel the need to redact anything (to them or in your later reports to us) I can only assume you remain completely oblivious to the disservice you rendered to us.
- Furthermore, the entire lynchpin of your complaint now is based on the assumption that the sieged towns were not involved in the original conflict when in fact they were. So it wasn't proven to your satisfaction...RHY isn't a big alliance like us, and they're not accustomed to the rigors of good record keeping and such. But it's hard to say if this ever really mattered to you, since your messages of disapproval just assume RHY were at fault and predate even the attempt to get the facts from us or anyone else actually involved. Frankly, it shouldn't matter, when the straw that breaks the camel's back actually has such a marginal role in breaking the camel's back.
- Our members are encouraged to have their own opinions and share them. We don't owe the public a bent rusty nail, but it is to our members that we are responsible. I didn't take point responding to your concerns, but if I did, I would have expressly asked you to bring it up in the alliance forums where all can contribute to the conversation. If you really wanted to affect the course of things, there you would have had a chance by swaying the opinions of your fellow members. And perhaps if you had been as well-versed in the contents of our own forums and experiences of our members as you seem to be in what slander gets thrown at us here, you'd not have had to wonder why this was as much our conflict as RHY's. There were certainly plenty of threads by your fellow members outlining the issues they were having with players in multiple Consone alliances, and the wholly unsatisfactory resolutions they got. Then there was also my post which expanded that view by sharing a fairly thorough background on our position as leaders of the alliance. I'm not sure what more invitation you could have needed to voice your opinion in response.
In summation, I believe you are trying to act according to your conscience, but your proclivity for the limelight of a stage clouds your view, and I'm personally very disappointed. You didn't know about our close relationship with RHY, so you felt free to presumptuously assign blame to them, satisfying your thirst for an honorable position that gets to perform some theatrical moral objection. Now because you didn't assess them fairly, you're forced to asses us in connection to them, and can't match up the new result with the old. There's a reason for that: either you're wrong about us and them now, or you've been wrong about us all along before. Either way, for many reasons we'd outlined for you and all members (mostly for the sake of newer ones and limited-access initiates with less knowledge of the already visible background), this war is every bit as much ours as RHY's.
The position you're taking is one that finds fault with the blasting cap in this explosion while ignoring all the actual payload. Maybe you need to review who we are as an alliance. Keeping the powder wet is simply not our priority. Quite the opposite, burning it off before it's too big to contain is. When you read this you'll see we haven't dropped you from the alliance, but perhaps it is time you considered finding a home more in line with your priorities. It makes no sense for you to remain with us if, independently from any facts related to the cause or appropriateness, you outright object to the act of war itself. We are warriors. However honorable we try to keep our causes, and however deserving and challenging we want our opponents to be, ultimately this is what we do.
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This is where I stand (H/C war)
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KillerPoodle wrote:
