Europeian Broadcasting: Senate Interest Decline + Graphs!

[Anime Daisuki]

Well to be fair EW refuses to CTE

How dare he!

Well he provides us with a lot of entertainment everytime he makes a post.

[Whiskum]

I don't feel like arguing semantics. I don't buy the distinction between raider groups and imperialist groups. So if it makes it easier, just pretend that when I call the UIAF raider, I really mean imperialist.


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This is not semantics.

We are talking about absolutely fundamental differences in the purpose, membership composition, organisational structure, and range of activities (including in the military sphere, given the numerous defences I have just highlighted by the UIAF and its component militaries) between these regions.

Only an idealistic obsessive, who is determined to use raider as a term of classification/abuse for anyone who does not conform to their own world view on these issues in military gameplay, would ignore all these differences merely because independent regions do not treat raiding as if it is inherently wrong.

By contrast, for our regions, raiding and defending merely constitute an instrument of foreign policy rather than a premier point of self-definition.

[Glen-Rhodes]

What I meant was: if they perform a military action that preserves the existing and legitimate Delegacy of a region, telling us that's "not defending" and then following by saying "see they never defend" is rather silly.

I don't think anybody is so unaware in this game that they don't realize imperialists raid much much more than they defend. Being pedantic isn't useful. Defenders oppose raiders and imperialists for an obvious reason. Raiders and imperialists oppose defenders for that same reason.


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[Anumia]

Imperialists do raid more than they defend; on that we agree. However, you said they won't defend, when clearly they do - at times when it suits them, in a nutshell - but you redefined their defences as not-defences...

[Karland]

Who's the first Joint Commander going to be?

[Cormacville]

I don't have much time to post today, but as a general note the treaty hasn't been ratified yet -- though I do support it and I hope both regions' legislatures will ratify it.

In regard to Karland's question, if the treaty is ratified the Joint Commander will be a joint appointment of the Pharaoh of Osiris and King of Balder, confirmed by both regions' legislatures. As far as I know, and I was involved in the treaty negotiations, no Joint Commander has definitively been decided upon yet. It should be noted, however, that Severisen is currently Marshal General of the Sekhmet Legion of Osiris and War Minister of Balder, already effectively in command of both forces.

[Unibot III]

By contrast, for our regions, raiding and defending merely constitute an instrument of foreign policy rather than a premier point of self-definition.

Your self definition is imperialism. The core of imperialism is self-aggrandizement. The monster who keeps eating till nothing remains. No institution unharvested, no opportunity left unpursued. The unsatisfied belly of self-defined "interests" that corrupts all that it touches and leaves one searching for more and more.

You see invaders and defenders as irrational: the invader, a lunatic who seeks chaos for chaos's sake, the defender, a madman tilting at windmills. The thing you fear the most is that one day you may realize just how irrational your unsatisfied greed is - how much your rationality is actually just self-corrupted ideology.

Your independence isn't a self-liberation, it's tying yourself to pursuing interests you don't need and denying yourself compassion and better judgement. It's rampant consumerism of power and privilege beyond that which is desirable. That is the imperialist's darkest secret and it buries them all eventually.

Contrary to the triumphalism of imperialists (who would have you think they are the only "rational" people on Earth), we all pursue what we believe is in our interests. But some of us, namely imperialists, see quite a bit more as necessary for a satisfying existence.

[The Lonely Hearts Club Band]

Severisen is currently Marshal General of the Sekhmet Legion of Osiris and War Minister of Balder, already effectively in command of both forces.

We at the Lonely Hearts Club Band would like to congratulate our member, Severisen, on achieving such a high position.

We are certain that he will continue to serve in a capacity in both Balder and Osiris that befits his allegiance as a proud member of the Band.

[SFBA Campinia]

I don't feel like arguing semantics. I don't buy the distinction between raider groups and imperialist groups. So if it makes it easier, just pretend that when I call the UIAF raider, I really mean imperialist.


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This is not semantics.

We are talking about absolutely fundamental differences in the purpose, membership composition, organisational structure, and range of activities (including in the military sphere, given the numerous defences I have just highlighted by the UIAF and its component militaries) between these regions.

Only an idealistic obsessive, who is determined to use raider as a term of classification/abuse for anyone who does not conform to their own world view on these issues in military gameplay, would ignore all these differences merely because independent regions do not treat raiding as if it is inherently wrong.

By contrast, for our regions, raiding and defending merely constitute an instrument of foreign policy rather than a premier point of self-definition.

NUMEROUS defences? Now I will admit UIAF regions have done some defences, but that's stretching the truth quite a bit! If there are 5 exemplaar in the last two years it'll be a lot!

[Cormacville]

NUMEROUS defences? Now I will admit UIAF regions have done some defences, but that's stretching the truth quite a bit! If there are 5 exemplaar in the last two years it'll be a lot!

Assuming we're counting liberations as defensive operations here too, here are the ones I can name off the top of my head...

1. The United Kingdom of Britain
2. The South Pacific
3. Osiris (x3-4, at least)
4. Anzia

UIAF defensive operations may be less numerous than those of power thirsty opportunists masquerading as bleeding heart ideologues, and they may be based on defined relationships such as treaty alliances, but the UIAF does conduct defensive operations and those operations are usually conducted in regions with actual communities and actual significance to the game instead of the dead, tiny regions you folks champion so vocally, increasingly from your armchairs.

To bring this back around to the topic at hand, the ISRA is to be an imperialist military, as the treaty text makes clear. This does in fact mean it won't necessarily be exclusively raiding, much as the UIAF doesn't exclusively raid, though the two organizations involve different regions and will obviously have somewhat different goals.

[Whiskum]

By contrast, for our regions, raiding and defending merely constitute an instrument of foreign policy rather than a premier point of self-definition.

Your self definition is imperialism. The core of imperialism is self-aggrandizement. The monster who keeps eating till nothing remains. No institution unharvested, no opportunity left unpursued. The unsatisfied belly of self-defined "interests" that corrupts all that it touches and leaves one searching for more and more.

You see invaders and defenders as irrational: the invader, a lunatic who seeks chaos for chaos's sake, the defender, a madman tilting at windmills. The thing you fear the most is that one day you may realize just how irrational your unsatisfied greed is - how much your rationality is actually just self-corrupted ideology.

Your independence isn't a self-liberation, it's tying yourself to pursuing interests you don't need and denying yourself compassion and better judgement. It's rampant consumerism of power and privilege beyond that which is desirable. That is the imperialist's darkest secret and it buries them all eventually.

Contrary to the triumphalism of imperialists (who would have you think they are the only "rational" people on Earth), we all pursue what we believe is in our interests. But some of us, namely imperialists, see quite a bit more as necessary for a satisfying existence.

We make no apologies for being frank in our bid to further the interests of our regions, and in doing so free of unsound and often hypocritical ideals.

Apparently you think imperialists, by engaging in military gameplay with actual foreign policy objectives rather than out of such false morals or for fun, are afflicted by unrestrained greed. In fact we are merely approaching the game from a political standpoint without unnecessary and idealistic constraints.

Raiders are not 'lunatics who seek chaos for chaos's sake'. They are people who find military gameplay satisfying in itself. Imperialist regions are just not about that. That does not mean that imperialists think raiders are lunatics. It means that imperialists and raiders simply have different motivations.

As for your amateur psychology about the 'darkest secret' of imperialists, that actually shows a lot more about your own self-righteous and meaningless presumptions than it does about the fate of imperialists. I have certainly never known an imperialist who has been 'buried' by their 'rampant consumerism'.

The real self-aggrandisement is that of defenders who set themselves on a pedestal based on the observance of the supposed principle in refusing to focus first and foremost on the interests of your own region as a political unit, not the success attained by imperialists through actual gameplay achievements.

The other point to make is that you do not have to be imperialist to be independent of a focus on military gameplay which sees everyone and anyone categorised as raider or defender even when those categories are, on any wholesome analysis of the regions concerned, unable to reflect their diversity.

NUMEROUS defences? Now I will admit UIAF regions have done some defences, but that's stretching the truth quite a bit! If there are 5 exemplaar in the last two years it'll be a lot!

You say 'If there are 5 exemplaar in the last two years it'll be a lot'.

Let us find five examples of defensive operations then.

In chronological order, I submit The United Kingdom of Britain, Greater Wetlands, The South Pacific, Osiris (multiple times), Anzia.

All of them in the last two years.

Some of these defences, such as in TUKB or the Osiris operation, have been just as significant as our occupations as part of our military activity.

Now, we do invade more regularly, quite simply because a political region uninterested in military gameplay in its own terms will find it far more practical and beneficial to raid, as that is quite simply easier to plan and determine according to our own purposes - it is not a matter of balancing them for PR.

[Red Skull Prime]

Balder? What on earth is a Balder?

[Darwinish Brentsylvania]

Are they Raider or Defender?

They don't do either. they're Araider and Adefender

You mean raidfender?

[Darwinish Brentsylvania]

Balder? What on earth is a Balder?

It's, from what I've heard, a Norse god that died to some other Norse god. Then they used the name of that god to become one of the sinker regions of NS.

[Red Skull Prime]

Balder? What on earth is a Balder?

It's, from what I've heard, a Norse god that died to some other Norse god. Then they used the name of that god to become one of the sinker regions of NS.

That can't be right. It seems like I would have heard about a game-created region named after a hair loss condition.

[Wintermoot]

Maybe I'm missing something, but if this military is to be imperialist like the UIAF, and both Osiris and Balder have good relations with the current UIAF regions...why don't they just join the UIAF instead of creating a second military? I can't imagine the two forces being anything but cooperative with each other anyways.

[Glen-Rhodes]

Imperialists do raid more than they defend; on that we agree. However, you said they won't defend, when clearly they do - at times when it suits them, in a nutshell - but you redefined their defences as not-defences...

I don't think anybody has said that. I do think it's useless to define defense as merely supporting a "native" delegate. People consider defense as a whole attitude and ethics, not merely the singular act of defending. Imperialist do not defend in any meaningful sense of the word. That's why them engaging in the act of defending a delegate is an exception and not a rule. That's why people associate imperialists with raiders and not defenders.


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[Anumia]

Imperialists do raid more than they defend; on that we agree. However, you said they won't defend, when clearly they do - at times when it suits them, in a nutshell - but you redefined their defences as not-defences...

I don't think anybody has said that.

You said it, earlier in this thread.

I do think it's useless to define defense as merely supporting a "native" delegate. People consider defense as a whole attitude and ethics, not merely the singular act of defending.

Some people consider it thusly. Even amongst self-identifying defenders, however, there are strong differences on what defenderism really is. Consider Punk Daddy's new defender organisation - they don't do it for an overarching moral reason, and they don't do it for all founderless regions. They do it for their own members for practical reasons, and for fun.

[Whiskum]

Imperialists do raid more than they defend; on that we agree. However, you said they won't defend, when clearly they do - at times when it suits them, in a nutshell - but you redefined their defences as not-defences...

I don't think anybody has said that. I do think it's useless to define defense as merely supporting a "native" delegate. People consider defense as a whole attitude and ethics, not merely the singular act of defending. Imperialist do not defend in any meaningful sense of the word. That's why them engaging in the act of defending a delegate is an exception and not a rule. That's why people associate imperialists with raiders and not defenders.


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If defending is to be separated from the act of supporting a "native" delegate, then raiding should be similarly separated from overthrowing one.

Raider regions like LWU and TBR have 'a whole attitude' and approach (as opposed to defender 'ethics') which imperialists do not share either.

Raider is not just some term to be employed as a way of categorising anyone who deviates from (some) defenders' perceptions of ethics - it is a tradition.

Imperialists are not part of the raider tradition, in the same way that they are not part of the defender tradition.

[Mallorea and Riva]

I don't think anybody has said that. I do think it's useless to define defense as merely supporting a "native" delegate. People consider defense as a whole attitude and ethics, not merely the singular act of defending. Imperialist do not defend in any meaningful sense of the word. That's why them engaging in the act of defending a delegate is an exception and not a rule. That's why people associate imperialists with raiders and not defenders.


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If defending is to be separated from the act of supporting a "native" delegate, then raiding should be similarly separated from overthrowing one.

Raider regions like LWU and TBR have 'a whole attitude' and approach (as opposed to defender 'ethics') which imperialists do not share either.

Raider is not just some term to be employed as a way of categorising anyone who deviates from (some) defenders' perceptions of ethics - it is a tradition.

Imperialists are not part of the raider tradition, in the same way that they are not part of the defender tradition.

Onder has been making this point clear for years, yet it always seems to come up from time to time.

[Glen-Rhodes]

Whiskum, I agree with that. But I don't really buy the distinction between raider motivations and imperialist motivations. I think you guys all see the game rather the same.

Anumia, I didn't say "the UIAF won't defend." I said they weren't defenders and don't defend.


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[Darwinish Brentsylvania]

It's, from what I've heard, a Norse god that died to some other Norse god. Then they used the name of that god to become one of the sinker regions of NS.

That can't be right. It seems like I would have heard about a game-created region named after a hair loss condition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldr

[Anumia]

My apologies; I have just now seen that a post I thought was by you, was in fact posted by Unibot. Sometimes he sneaks in and doesn't post a giant empty essay, so he blends in with people better. It's like Altair walking in the middle of four other people

[Unibot III]

Apparently you think imperialists, by engaging in military gameplay with actual foreign policy objectives rather than out of such false morals or for fun, are afflicted by unrestrained greed. In fact we are merely approaching the game from a political standpoint without unnecessary and idealistic constraints.

You pursue the game with the hope of attaining more power and influence. Political aggrandizement. The failure in your philosophy is to see the object of your interest as "purely objective" when they are simply defined by your own materialism -- your own ideological background.

You are constrained even more than the defender.

The defender does not see a path towards idealism as a constraint of their gains, because they have no desire to make those gains. The defender is free and autonomous with different priorities. Whereas you are beholden to opportunities that present themselves to amass more and more...

They are people who find military gameplay satisfying in itself. Imperialist regions are just not about that. That does not mean that imperialists think raiders are lunatics. It means that imperialists and raiders simply have different motivations.

Your kind words are only a product of your political relationship with them. If we were to follow your theory to its "ideal" - you would not be any more pleasant in regards to those who engage military gameplay for the intrinsic satisfaction anymore than those who engage in military gameplay to fit a normative ideal. The imperialist ought to condemn both as betraying their "interests" in favour of their whims or their principles, but the imperialist is not afraid to lie when it suits them.

The real self-aggrandisement is that of defenders who set themselves on a pedestal based on the observance of the supposed principle in refusing to focus first and foremost on the interests of your own region as a political unit, not the success attained by imperialists through actual gameplay achievements.

Every region focuses on its "interests", it's how those interests are defined that is telling. It's an "independent" discursive programme that rewrites the core of the region with a materialist nature.

The other point to make is that you do not have to be imperialist to be independent of a focus on military gameplay which sees everyone and anyone categorised as raider or defender even when those categories are, on any wholesome analysis of the regions concerned, unable to reflect their diversity.

There is greater diversity between invaders and defenders than there is between independents. Independentism has more strictly defined itself as an "interest-based" pursuit which implies certain interests over other interests. Independentism does not reflect a region's diversity, it reflects a growing movement to spread an ideology for the sake of political control. Imperialism. The two are interconnected. Independentism at the interregional level is simply a political tool for Imperialism.

The differences between the motivations of defenders and invaders are many, the differences between "independents" are few and far between. Independents are contained towards a pre-package set of beliefs - a brochure which tells them what to think and what to do. The categories of "defender" and "invader" however are open to people of different motivations and incredibly inclusive.

[Anumia]

^ See, this is a clearly-demarcated Unibot post.