NS History: You've Got Questions, We've Got Answers!

[Eluvatar]

Coming back to this, sorry.

Lazarus had 6821 nations at the time it became over capacity - that's less than half of the largest region in the world, currently, which contains 16032 nations, and is in fact far smaller than 5 other regions, all of which are GCR's (#5 is TRR with 13489 nations and #6 is the West Pacific with 6642 nations, a big jump). As such, I assume that these technical issues have been remedied somewhat permanently - does anyone know when these presumed changes were made?

Not an admin, but I believe the significant server upgrade in 2013 probably reduced any such issues. After the 2013 upgrade, game performance was much better than before.

No, the relevant change was the census overhaul and the associated loss and replacement of residency order. Prior to this change, regions had a list of nations saved as part of the region itself, but now regions are associated with nations through (drum roll) a database. Before, having 7000 nations in a region meant a region would have about 100 kilobytes of data recording those nations, which didn't work very well with how the region is saved. For example, whenever a single nation joined or left this region, all 100 kilobytes would have to be saved again. And uh, the way things worked, things could easily go wrong. Now, the association is stored in a database where these associations are each separate records. A nation moving means one relatively small record has to be updated, not the entire region. Things can still go wrong, but without affecting an entire region.

We still have a similar potential problem with embassies (and embassy history), which is how the black riders became a Zero region. Large region histories may lead poor performance and/or instability. But it takes a lot to get there.

[Kanaia]

Oh k. That honestly sounds cruel, not funny.

It was cruel. Everybody including the mods reamed [violet] and Max several new assholes for springing that one on everybody. (...)

So we're still maintaining the fiction that Max and [violet] aren't the same person?

[Unibot III]

The Black Riders come into mind. They are a large part of how the R/D scene in its current form came to be.

From the looks of it, they told the defenders to "git gud" when it turned out they were cheating to get ahead. It didn't take long before they got dissolved.

In the early days, the ADN could probably do with a shout-out as well.

It’s hard to say what the biggest military organization was in part it depends on what you’re measuring. Your ‘updater capacity’ is what I’m most interested, total reserves come in handy if you’re an invader bunch they’re not much use to defenders on a day to day basis.

Operation Puppetmaster gives us an example of golden era defending at the height of its powers. ADN, 10KI, and NPA (with a few smaller crews), fielded a total of 121 updaters (180 registered.)
But it’s hard to say without further research what each individual organization was bringing to the table in terms of troops. There was never that level of cooperation between 10KI and UDL, for instance. I don’t recall UDL and 10KI working together on a liberation in three years (raiders bailed the moment they learned we had reached an agreement to liberate Capitalist Paradise.) I’m sure 10KI and UDL combined could have fielded 70-80 easy — with additional resources from a independent source, 121 doesn’t seem so alien.

I know that UDL could field 40 updaters without assistance. And I always kept the membership rolls above 200. We never had an excuse to go tilt in terms of updaters (the Balder mission occurred when UDL was a much smaller operationally.)

My guess is ADN is the largest known military organization in terms of updaters and pilers, but that the focus on extraordinary collaborations (Puppetmaster) and pileoffs tends to distort the overall picture of how large ADN was on a routine basis.

[6ixDaze]

But anyway, another question (i can do this aaaall day >=), what was the largest defunct military organization in NS?

The ADN (Alliance Defence Network) and I don't think it's even particularly close. DEN is up there though.

[Mallorea and Riva]

(raiders bailed the moment they learned we had reached an agreement to liberate Capitalist Paradise.)

This was awhile ago, but I'm not remembering this as being what happened. IIRC we passworded the region, did some native booting, and then vacated as we normally do - when we feel like it. Jakker/COE can correct me if they remember differently, but if we did leave just prior to joint UDL/10KI then that was a coincidence.

[Eluvatar]

Operation Puppetmaster gives us an example of golden era defending at the height of its powers. ADN, 10KI, and NPA (with a few smaller crews), fielded a total of 121 updaters (180 registered.)

I don't think the puppetmaster participants would generally be considered to have been updaters. They weren't expected to move and endorse at update, but to join the UN within a few hours of update, and switch to another prepared puppet if ejected.

Also, I'd have phrased that as "NPA, other ADN and ALL forces, and TITO".

[Bormiar]

Operation Puppetmaster gives us an example of golden era defending at the height of its powers. ADN, 10KI, and NPA (with a few smaller crews), fielded a total of 121 updaters (180 registered.)

I don't think the puppetmaster participants would generally be considered to have been updaters. They weren't expected to move and endorse at update, but to join the UN within a few hours of update, and switch to another prepared puppet if ejected.

Also, I'd have phrased that as "NPA, other ADN and ALL forces, and TITO".

Would the NPA not count as ADN/ALL?

[Jakker]

(raiders bailed the moment they learned we had reached an agreement to liberate Capitalist Paradise.)

This was awhile ago, but I'm not remembering this as being what happened. IIRC we passworded the region, did some native booting, and then vacated as we normally do - when we feel like it. Jakker/COE can correct me if they remember differently, but if we did leave just prior to joint UDL/10KI then that was a coincidence.

You are right, Mall. Defenders were terrible at liberating back then and we were solid at stopping attempts. No correlation to us leaving.

[Unibot III]

(raiders bailed the moment they learned we had reached an agreement to liberate Capitalist Paradise.)

This was awhile ago, but I'm not remembering this as being what happened. IIRC we passworded the region, did some native booting, and then vacated as we normally do - when we feel like it. Jakker/COE can correct me if they remember differently, but if we did leave just prior to joint UDL/10KI then that was a coincidence.

Jakker always maintained it was coincidental. I doubt it very much, we knew TBH had intel in UDL obviously.

The invasion was abandoned the night that the 80+ troop operation was set to go ahead.

Elu: This is true. But only reinforces my point that the focus on some of the biggest missions that ADN lead can warp our perception of what its conventional updater capacity was. Because most of the big missions that are recorded involved historic defender cooperation and unique pile-offs.

Bormiar: It’s like how we would distinguish RRA & LLA from the FRA Rangers. NPA were their own significant army alongside the ADN ranks.

[Jakker]

Jakker always maintained it was coincidental. I doubt it very much, we knew TBH had intel in UDL obviously.

The invasion was abandoned the night that the 80+ troop operation was set to go ahead.

If TBH did have intel in UDL, our knowledge of UDL's poor liberation skills would have only be enhanced. And by 80+ troops, you must mean 5 who would have moved in before update and been banned, 30 who would have moved in late after update, and 40+ who would have not shown up. Bad triggering and subpar update skills a successful liberation does not make. We never had anything to fear.

[Unibot III]

Jakker always maintained it was coincidental. I doubt it very much, we knew TBH had intel in UDL obviously.

The invasion was abandoned the night that the 80+ troop operation was set to go ahead.

If TBH did have intel in UDL, our knowledge of UDL's poor liberation skills would have only be enhanced. And by 80+ troops, you must mean 5 who would have moved in before update and been banned, 30 who would have moved in late after update, and 40+ who would have not shown up. Bad triggering and subpar update skills a successful liberation does not make. We never had anything to fear.

You say you had nothing to fear, which is hardly consistent with the mountains of pilers that supported you for the vast majority of your invader career — including in Capitalist Paradise.

The moment you knew you did not have the numbers to stop us, you left. You weren’t going to risk getting the boot again by the UDL.

[Jakker]

If TBH did have intel in UDL, our knowledge of UDL's poor liberation skills would have only be enhanced. And by 80+ troops, you must mean 5 who would have moved in before update and been banned, 30 who would have moved in late after update, and 40+ who would have not shown up. Bad triggering and subpar update skills a successful liberation does not make. We never had anything to fear.

You say you had nothing to fear, which is hardly consistent with the mountains of pilers that supported you for the vast majority of your invader career — including in Capitalist Paradise.

The moment you knew you did not have the numbers to stop us, you left. You weren’t going to risk getting the boot again by the UDL.

To be fair, you complained about the number of support on raider leads for every raid. This even included multiple raids when we actively removed pilers just to prove a point. You are welcomed to rewrite the past all you want. In the end, it doesn't change who came out on top nearly every time.

[Unibot III]

You say you had nothing to fear, which is hardly consistent with the mountains of pilers that supported you for the vast majority of your invader career — including in Capitalist Paradise.

The moment you knew you did not have the numbers to stop us, you left. You weren’t going to risk getting the boot again by the UDL.

To be fair, you complained about the number of support on raider leads for every raid. This even included multiple raids when we actively removed pilers just to prove a point. You are welcomed to rewrite the past all you want. In the end, it doesn't change who came out on top nearly every time.

I’m not rewriting history, UDL beat you every time you didn’t resort to piling. You learned quick enough that without a 50+ margin, you wouldn’t be able to hold a region. I can’t think of a louder, prouder proponent of piling — you throughly relied on it to burnish your record and justify your bravado.

We don’t need to theorize, TBR often ran invasions with minimal piling because their point-men were faster and more competent than TBH. UDL dislodged TBR thrice in a month at one point against some of the most respected (and despised) banjecters in the business. One of the tactics we learned to adopt was to swamp the net — intentionally longer move-time windows, bigger troop sizes. The best banjectors would get tied up trying to eject bluff accounts. UDL got results.

[Jakker]

To be fair, you complained about the number of support on raider leads for every raid. This even included multiple raids when we actively removed pilers just to prove a point. You are welcomed to rewrite the past all you want. In the end, it doesn't change who came out on top nearly every time.

I’m not rewriting history, UDL beat you every time you didn’t resort to piling. You learned quick enough that without a 50+ margin, you wouldn’t be able to hold a region. I can’t think of a louder, prouder proponent of piling — you throughly relied on it to burnish your record and justify your bravado.

We don’t need to theorize, TBR often ran invasions with minimal piling because their point-men were faster and more competent than TBH. UDL dislodged TBR thrice in a month at one point against some of the most respected (and despised) banjecters in the business. One of the tactics we learned to adopt was to swamp the net — intentionally longer move-time windows, bigger troop sizes. The best banjectors would get tied up trying to eject bluff accounts. UDL got results.

Thank you for thinking of me so highly. I have never had issues with piling and see no reason why raiders shouldn't turn occupations into parties. They are just more fun with more friends. You also tend to regard any gap more than like 15 to be insurmountable and worthy of complaining.

You are just continuing to reaffirm that you are rewriting history. 50+ margins were rare, if they were to happen with TBH-led raids. And there were multiple raids in which we actively kept the gaps reasonable intentionally and vocally to give you all a shot. I mean there were multiple times when your update teams were late and missed even when the raider point forgot to be on. Feel free to ask other defenders. They will tell you that back then (and just to be clear, I specifically am referring to 2011-2013), UDL, or I guess rather the bot you all relied on, was terrible at triggering.

The only thing you can boost about without much contention is the fact that you were able to get solid numbers for updates back then. But many of those that you recruited were undisciplined and leadership didn't do well to actually prepare them for liberations. Today, defenders do even better on all fronts. To try and argue that UDL back then "got results" when it came to liberations against TBH is pretty laughable. My time is too valuable to look up the various threads to prove my point against you, so you're welcomed to do so. At the end of the day, if you want to rewrite history to make yourself look better, go for it. I get it. You don't really have anything to boost about since that period. Feel free to cling onto your past and twist the facts for your benefit.

[Daytime to Night]

Its pretty well documented that UDL had plenty of enthusiasm but was severely lacking in terms of training. It is easy to complain about piling when you burn all your bridges with the largest defender region in the game (at the time) and spend half your time attacking their founder in public spaces.

RLA and ADN could put aside their differences to focus on operations, FRA and E-Army still did a huge number of operations together in 2008 when politically they were at each others throats, modern day defenders and independents manage to cooperate effectively despite a broad mix of personalities and viewpoints. The schism that UDL created with TITO was unprecedented and unsurpassed. It was a failure of leadership and it significantly hindered defenders. The blame for which Unibot will always try to shift elsewhere.

[The Notorious Mad Jack]

Its pretty well documented that UDL had plenty of enthusiasm but was severely lacking in terms of training. It is easy to complain about piling when you burn all your bridges with the largest defender region in the game (at the time) and spend half your time attacking their founder in public spaces.

RLA and ADN could put aside their differences to focus on operations, FRA and E-Army still did a huge number of operations together in 2008 when politically they were at each others throats, modern day defenders and independents manage to cooperate effectively despite a broad mix of personalities and viewpoints. The schism that UDL created with TITO was unprecedented and unsurpassed. It was a failure of leadership and it significantly hindered defenders. The blame for which Unibot will always try to shift elsewhere.

Let's not pretend that the schism was solely one of the UDL's creation. TITO spent plenty of time badmouthing the UDL to anyone who would listen.

[Dominioan]

Its pretty well documented that UDL had plenty of enthusiasm but was severely lacking in terms of training. It is easy to complain about piling when you burn all your bridges with the largest defender region in the game (at the time) and spend half your time attacking their founder in public spaces.

RLA and ADN could put aside their differences to focus on operations, FRA and E-Army still did a huge number of operations together in 2008 when politically they were at each others throats, modern day defenders and independents manage to cooperate effectively despite a broad mix of personalities and viewpoints. The schism that UDL created with TITO was unprecedented and unsurpassed. It was a failure of leadership and it significantly hindered defenders. The blame for which Unibot will always try to shift elsewhere.

Wait what schism?

[Ananke II]

It’s hard to say what the biggest military organization was in part it depends on what you’re measuring. Your ‘updater capacity’ is what I’m most interested, total reserves come in handy if you’re an invader bunch they’re not much use to defenders on a day to day basis.

I don't remember us really keeping count of how many updaters each org had back in 2004-2005, when ADN was really active. We had enough people to do the job, and since the update ran longer and many invasions started hours before update, people could still participate in defenses without being online during update. Invasions spotted before update were often covered by a single org, while those spotted during tended to be collaborations.

For updater capacity back then your best bet might be too look at some of the Pacific liberation attempts or defenses of feeder regions (TNP, TSP, TWP).

Operation Puppetmaster gives us an example of golden era defending at the height of its powers. ADN, 10KI, and NPA (with a few smaller crews), fielded a total of 121 updaters (180 registered.)

They weren't updaters though. People started transferring UN membership to their puppet days before the liberation. Puppetmaster succeeded 1) because we didn't need everyone to be online at update and 2) because only Ballotonia knew the name of the lead nation and the date/time for the liberation. From a quick look though my notes TNP, 10ki and ADN contributed most people. From ALL Belgium, Nederland, The Meritocracy and Utopia had participants as well. I'm sure we could've gotten more participants if we'd had more time and been less paranoid. There were some defender and neutral leaning regions who would've participated in a normal liberation attempt, but weren't keen on a new approach. I remember spending quite some time stopping several liberation attempts, since they wouldn't have worked. Didn't win me a lot of friends at the time. Pope Hope and Grub trusted us enough to participate without getting the full details of the plan though.

Also, I'd have phrased that as "NPA, other ADN and ALL forces, and TITO".

Most of the TNP people participating weren't in NPA. Many of them were newer and older TNP members, who only got involved in the forum community and gameplay after the coup. The Puppetmaster liberation was organized by GLA, but due to gameplay politics at the time it was deemed more expedient to run it though ALL.

[Eluvatar]

Also, I'd have phrased that as "NPA, other ADN and ALL forces, and TITO".

Would the NPA not count as ADN/ALL?

Precisely my point, TNP was a member of both ADN and ALL.

Operation Puppetmaster gives us an example of golden era defending at the height of its powers. ADN, 10KI, and NPA (with a few smaller crews), fielded a total of 121 updaters (180 registered.)

They weren't updaters though. People started transferring UN membership to their puppet days before the liberation. Puppetmaster succeeded 1) because we didn't need everyone to be online at update and 2) because only Ballotonia knew the name of the lead nation and the date/time for the liberation. From a quick look though my notes TNP, 10ki and ADN contributed most people. From ALL Belgium, Nederland, The Meritocracy and Utopia had participants as well. I'm sure we could've gotten more participants if we'd had more time and been less paranoid. There were some defender and neutral leaning regions who would've participated in a normal liberation attempt, but weren't keen on a new approach. I remember spending quite some time stopping several liberation attempts, since they wouldn't have worked. Didn't win me a lot of friends at the time. Pope Hope and Grub trusted us enough to participate without getting the full details of the plan though.

Thank you for those details!

Also, I'd have phrased that as "NPA, other ADN and ALL forces, and TITO".

Most of the TNP people participating weren't in NPA. Many of them were newer and older TNP members, who only got involved in the forum community and gameplay after the coup. The Puppetmaster liberation was organized by GLA, but due to gameplay politics at the time it was deemed more expedient to run it though ALL.

Intriguing. Who was GLA again, and what connection did they have to TNP or the Pacific?

[Wabbitslayah]

Its pretty well documented that UDL had plenty of enthusiasm but was severely lacking in terms of training. It is easy to complain about piling when you burn all your bridges with the largest defender region in the game (at the time) and spend half your time attacking their founder in public spaces.

RLA and ADN could put aside their differences to focus on operations, FRA and E-Army still did a huge number of operations together in 2008 when politically they were at each others throats, modern day defenders and independents manage to cooperate effectively despite a broad mix of personalities and viewpoints. The schism that UDL created with TITO was unprecedented and unsurpassed. It was a failure of leadership and it significantly hindered defenders. The blame for which Unibot will always try to shift elsewhere.

Let's not pretend that the schism was solely one of the UDL's creation. TITO spent plenty of time badmouthing the UDL to anyone who would listen.

Except at the same time, TITO had issues with us at moments (FRA) and yet we still were able to work with TITO. While my memory is hazy, I was also in the UDL and saw conversations from TITO that were dealing with other defenders.

I don't want to criticize the UDL here, since I don't have logs to source things, but what I do remember is that the UDL triggered TITO often. While FRA had some issues with TITO then, it was not to the level of not working together.

[Unibot III]

Its pretty well documented that UDL had plenty of enthusiasm but was severely lacking in terms of training. It is easy to complain about piling when you burn all your bridges with the largest defender region in the game (at the time) and spend half your time attacking their founder in public spaces.

RLA and ADN could put aside their differences to focus on operations, FRA and E-Army still did a huge number of operations together in 2008 when politically they were at each others throats, modern day defenders and independents manage to cooperate effectively despite a broad mix of personalities and viewpoints. The schism that UDL created with TITO was unprecedented and unsurpassed. It was a failure of leadership and it significantly hindered defenders. The blame for which Unibot will always try to shift elsewhere.

UDL was an extremely large and diverse coalition of players. At its core was a collection of some of the most experienced, well trained, and knowledgeable players in military and political gameplay. Our “alumni” reads like a who’s who’s of about 2/3 of an entire generation of NS Gameplay leaders. It didn’t happen overnight, it was a result of inclusive leadership and management, pro-active recruitment, and strong group dynamics. Yes, if we were conducting a large scale liberation, there were going to be ‘periphery’ members with limited/expedited training who were dragged in last minute — but they weren’t representative of our organization at a routine operational level. Inexperience is a *necessary* organizational challenge of running a big operation that stretches your organization’s resources to its limits.

As for TITO-UDL relations, I’ve replayed the conflict in my head a million times over the years and wondered whether someone else may have been able to build a more productive relationship with TITO. It’s true that much of the high level negotiations that went on were between me and Grub directly (at his request), and my impression of him to this day remains that he was very stubborn, paranoid, ultra-conservative, and engaging in bad faith diplomacy. I had a good working relationship (and deeply respected) some long-standing TITO Knights, but I could never really see Grub as anything more than a strongman and a bully. I think these discussions tend to overlook the fact that the disagreement wasn’t just over cooperation but a change of policy altogether in TITO military strategy. Around ~2012 (the toxic R/D conference likely escalated everything), TITO changed its internal policy to no longer defend against either tags or liberate occupations that began as a tag raid — when I pressed TITO on the issue, it was communicated to me that TITO preferred to focus on catching/facilitating refounds because pile raids were useful since they trapped invader resources and tied them up — I disagreed because invasions didn’t require many resources.

I think the ADN/RLA comparisons are unfair. Neither had to worry about the other dropping key shared operational objectives from their mandate (I.e., liberations). And ADN and RLA also spied on each other and attacked one another in ways I would have never authorized as UDL Chief. Also, after TITO changed its policies, TITO did not work with FRA to liberate any major region either — even if their relationship was more friendly. Positive relations did not result in TITO cooperating in liberations — it was *their commander’s policy* that pile raids should be allowed to continue. Cooperations on liberations essentially did not occur with TITO until the leadership that endorsed these internal policies departed from TITO.

[Evil Wolf]

I'm just going to straight repost what I wrote in 2011 during LWU's raid on Anarchy.

Anarchy is a great example of Defender disunity, in this case UDL was the one who spotted the raid through luck and guess work but realized that they weren't immediately sure if this was an actual invasion or a native change in power. They contacted TITO because they realized they might not have the troops to hold the region effectively, especially if the suspected invader had influence on his puppet. TITO, for their part, then proceeded to ignore everything their UDL "allies" tried to suggest and plan with them. They took over the operation from the UDL basically by force and then told them to stay out of Anarchy because it was "their operation now". As a result, UDL lost all interest in Anarchy, allowing the region to fall even though they knew the suspected invader pointman was endosurfing and had re-entered the region with all the endorsements he had when he was first banned by TITO three days before.

In this case, TITO's refusal to operate by even the most basic concepts of what one could call "defender unity" resulted in the fall of Anarchy to Lone Wolves United, who then called in enough raiders to comfortably hold the region against anything just one defender group could throw at them. Oh, and if there is a liberation attempt it will just be one group at a time, I can just about guarantee that. If they united against us, maybe they could take the region, but as it stands now? Not a chance.

In that case, at least, TITO took UDL information, acted on their own, gave UDL the finger, and then refused to help after when LWU took the region anyway. I'd say TITO was the headstrong party in that example.

[Daytime to Night]

snippy

Not suggesting that TITO were blameless, and Grub was always an interesting character to deal with (not just for those outside 10KI), but its odd pot shots like this on unrelated, public topics that create irreparable damage to a relationship.

So in answer to the hypothetical of whether "someone else may have been able to build a more productive relationship with TITO" - the answer is undoubtedly yes. In fact I would go as far to suggest that nearly anyone else in defender circles would have done. Even Falc managed to mediate between TITO and FRA members when problems arised, and handled those relationships in a private manner .

Policy and personality are not disconnected things. Allowing occupations that tie up raider resources has always been a valid tactic for defenders, especially before raiders worked out that you could update in more than one region each update (albeit not usually as a blanket policy). In fact, the FRA regularly used our spies to instigate those raids on specified regions with a contactable/FRA-controlled founder (see naive DEN gloat posts about their 2011 Soviet Union raid) or even fake regions we had created. However, those decisions were dependent on collaboration, trust and communication with other defender groups. If everyone isn't working together then you find yourselves at cross-purposes and natural allies begin treading on each others toes and falling apart.

On the whole, dogmatism in defender leadership has always been counter-productive. It was an issue when Eurosoviets was more concerned about prioritising democratic decision-making over trusting the military experts, but he always had Blackbird to balance out that dogmatism. Whenever individuals inflate their own belief of what is 'right', and then try to impose their own vision of what is 'right' on other communities where they have earned no credit and respect (or lost it) then it is never going to be successful.

The UDL was built on the basis of what Unibot thought was 'right' and was formed out of the rejection of that in the FRA. The very premise of the organisation set defenderdom on the path to disunity and undermined the numbers and recruitment feats that the organisation also achieved. The issues it created were not limited to damaging defender unity but also the pro-defender dogmatism that UDL tried to spread to GCRs like TSP, importing voters against a TNI agreement that would have improved the security of the region, for example, and the damage caused by spying on an independent region like TNP.

When you make strategically bad decisions like that, you can't be surprised that you can't overcome any raider pile because you've burnt bridges with other committed defenders and possible non-defender contributors alike.

[Unibot III]

I think the “dogmatic” claim was something UDL’s external critics made without much evidence. Most of our organization’s internal decisions were made between the Chiefs of Staff and Lieutenants — and I think on philosophical questions, I was often one of the more flexible and open — in part because I believed UDL needed to be a very big tent of defenders to be effective and that we needed to encompass people with a very wide range of views. The result was we were a very wide open organization that included people with very strong and very weak notions of native rights, who represented all corners of the game. It was under that premise that UDL attracted players like Hileville, AMOM, Cormac, and St. George on one hand, and Ballotonia, Ravania, Sov, and Mahaj on the other hand.

An example of this would be in the case of “bigameplayers.” This was a major issue in 2012/2013. UDL took the unusual step of allowing UDL members to casually tag-raid with other organizations provided they prioritized liberations and defences as needed. I authorized that decision — I didn’t wave the Defender Bible around and decry staff as heretics. We were the first defender organization to make this move — not FRA, not ADN: UDL. (As a whole, there was a consensus that this policy did not work and it was eventually reversed.)

TITO’s reaction to this policy change, in particular, Grub, was to publicly designate me personally as an invader and designate UDL as an invader organization. I take exception with the idea that I’m the dogmatic one in this debate. TITO would, by its own policy, not defend against tag raids (viewing them of little consequence), but it also ironically viewed anyone who worked with tag-raiders by extension as invaders-by-association.

I think one thing missing in your post is that almost all occupations in 2011-2013 began as a tag raid. So this was not a small change of protocol, it significantly withdrew TITO from the scope of regular operations. TITO’s new policy was tantamount to refusing to participate in almost any liberation effort. It was essentially a disavowal of responsibilities that had been understood and recognized by defenders since the beginning of the game. FRA may have held friendlier relations with individual TITO operatives, but this close relationship did not generate meaningful cooperation on liberations once TITO’s leadership decided that they would not continue to invest resources into stopping any of these invasions or occupations. It effectively cut TITO off from collaborating with *any* defender allies, UDL or not, on liberations until the leadership changed.

As for who would have been better to send, I admit that I was not my first choice and that I have a temper, but I’ve negotiated my own fair share of agreements over the years with people who I’ve disagreed with. Much of our correspondence is recorded and was formulated by an ad hoc committee of staff - all to no avail, it was like discussing with a brick wall. I think you’re also overlooking the “purist” tendencies of Grub: he viewed everyone based on associations - if I had sent Eluvatar (my preferred choice), he would have been associated with Taijitu and the Lexicon in Grub’s eyes, Goobergunchia was friends with much of the Empire and Equilism (same with Falc), Earth was a former Unknown invader — most of the tactful people that could have been assigned to lead TITO talks would have been “contaminated” by their friendly association with others in the eyes of Grub and his closest advisors. They considered *me* an invader. Grub was a leader who regularly ejected and banned long-standing contributors to 10000 Islands for even the faintest whiff of association with invaders or people who might be considered invaders.

Edit: I think it’s important to emphasize the R/D Conference as the major turning point in defender relations. UDL relations with 10XI went from weak to horrible after the R/D Conference. It was the opinion of a lot of us in the UDL that TITO’s contributions to R/D Conference supported invaders and damned natives — we were of completely different views. TITO wanted to make it harder to invade regions (and as of consequence, liberate regions) and opposed technical changes to make it harder to pile-raid. UDL wanted to make it more difficult to pile raid and was not concerned with making it easier or more difficult to invade regions. Generally speaking, the harshest things that TITO and UDL’s members said about one another occurred during and after that conference because both believed the other side was lying and assisting invaders. Honestly, I *still* believe TITO’s commanders were unwittingly supporting invaders throughout the conference and were participating in utterly bad faith, including lying to the site administrators. And I have nothing but viscerally unpleasant memories of that conference. I would argue the R/D Conference was a foundational event for the Cold War — it split delegations into the essential ‘blocs’ of the Cold War, got everyone pissed off with one another, and relaxed Influence Rates in GCRs.

[6ixDaze]

Goobergunchia was friends with much of the Empire and Equilism (same with Falc)

Alright, I'll bite. This is such a bizarre statement. Do you really think that Goober would have made a poor ambassador because he had good relations with the Empire and Equilism? And ... what is even the point of lumping me in here? What is even your point, that I would have made a poor choice to send to TITO? No kidding, but what is your goal here - to deflect criticism?

I thought this was an NS History thread, not your personal, self-important recollection of history. Give it a rest man. UDL failed and folded, like many organizations before it, including the FRA. We all move on without continually digging up old achievements (edit: relics was a poor, ironic choice of word) and not-so-subtly bragging about them and trying to continually justify actions from nearly a decade ago.

It's actually kind of cringeworthy reading you brush off compliments of the ADN, blaming TITO for all your problems, and praising UDL and bragging about their brief and chaotic existence. The only reason any of us remember the UDL is because you continually bring it up. If you want to be an NS historian, stick to the facts, not your personal interpretations of history, what "could have been", nor your own conclusions for WHY the UDL should be remembered. The UDL has a place in history (edit: to be clear, UDL had success at times and deserves some credit) but not nearly to the extent you are trying to convince us all of.