(CLOSED)

[Tramiar]

Rough week for the fendas. They watch as we hold 3 regions and all they can do is fail.

Back to the drawboards. You guys have much to improve upon if raiders are ever to be challenged.

Nice article as always.

Its actually been quite a good week for the FRA. Your not the only raiders out there

Well, all the major groups and the Cat Burglers are involved in a total of 4 raids that the FRA has failed to take care of, along with the other defenders. So... you either found some small raiding group, or you've been chasing TBR on their tags.

[Frattastan II]

It has been a decent week (especially considering most of us are minor updaters).

But maybe you think we can have a good week only if we prevent 100% of the raids.

[Communist Quinntopia]

redacted

[Cormac Stark]

I do not believe they are or were spies, but I would not be surprised if they were. Are they traitors? Yes, I would say they are. They turned their back on Asgard when she needed them most and tried to steal her members. They betrayed both Asgard and me.

Let me tell you about Ambroscus Koth and Venico since Jagermeister seems to have a distorted memory. Koth and Venico participated in nearly every raid that Asgard engaged in. New to the game, Venico stayed up in IRC with me for every major update during the month-long occupation of Christmas. It was Venico who helped me send telegrams to Delegates when we were campaigning against Liberate Christmas, despite that being Jagermeister's job as WA Regional Delegate -- a job he was, as usual, not doing. It was Koth who took charge of handling the debate on the Security Council forum, also Jagermeister's responsibility. It was also Venico who kickstarted Asgard's culture, which until his arrival had been basically non-existent.

Koth and Venico were vital members of Asgard's community and contributed to it far more than Jagermeister ever did; that he is Keisair now instead of one of them is ludicrous. Were they wrong to encourage citizens of Asgard to move to their new region? Possibly, though there was no law against doing so. On the other hand, neither Koth nor Venico signed up for an Asgard in which an absentee WA Regional Delegate who hasn't the first clue about gameplay was the Keisair and neither of them owed him any loyalty. Loyalty is earned, and Jagermeister never did anything to earn their loyalty prior to becoming Keisair or since.

The Brotherhood of Malice is a raider organization and I'm sure I'll have my differences with its members from time to time, but I wish Ambroscus Koth and Venico -- two individuals who have always been loyal to me and who were loyal to Asgard -- the best of luck in this game. I wish Jagermeister and the abomination into which he has turned the region I founded nothing but contempt.

[Ambroscus Koth]

I wish Ambroscus Koth and Venico -- two individuals who have always been loyal to me and who were loyal to Asgard -- the best of luck in this game.

First of all I'd like to apologize to Pandella for not responding to his offer of an interview for this week's article. Venico and I have been absolutely loaded with RL work and other priorities, so NS has taken somewhat of a backseat. In the 27 days or so of Malice's existence most of it was spent setting up, a chore that's been pretty much completed by now. Yesterday I finalized all the shit we'd need for a smooth military and recruitment and blah blah blah, so don't go saying that we're inactive yet~

In regards to the Asgard situation, I did in fact plan on sticking around. I wanted to remain a citizen in Asgard and the only thing I ever did was resign my job as Forseti (which would have been over in like 10 days at that point anyway). Call me a traitor all you want Jager, but I feel mounds more betrayed by getting banished from my home region because I had shit to do and no longer wanted to be Forseti. The trial, which has apparently been in the making for over a month now, will be a joke because the only thing Asgard could possibly sue me for is resigning my position. Seriously. There's no evidence to suggest I did anything else, I never wished any ill harm on Asgard after Cormac and Izzy left. Venico's resignation wasn't exactly the cleanest, but there's no legal way you can knock him for saying Jager is manipulable (because newsflash: I approved the criminal code, I would know if that was in there. It isn't.)

Anyway, I thank the editors of NS Weekly for another great article. Again my apologies for not adding to it

[Communist Quinntopia]

redacted

[The Great Mid-North]

First of all I'd like to apologize to Pandella for not responding to his offer of an interview for this week's article. Venico and I have been absolutely loaded with RL work and other priorities, so NS has taken somewhat of a backseat. In the 27 days or so of Malice's existence most of it was spent setting up, a chore that's been pretty much completed by now. Yesterday I finalized all the shit we'd need for a smooth military and recruitment and blah blah blah, so don't go saying that we're inactive yet~

In regards to the Asgard situation, I did in fact plan on sticking around. I wanted to remain a citizen in Asgard and the only thing I ever did was resign my job as Forseti (which would have been over in like 10 days at that point anyway). Call me a traitor all you want Jager, but I feel mounds more betrayed by getting banished from my home region because I had shit to do and no longer wanted to be Forseti. The trial, which has apparently been in the making for over a month now, will be a joke because the only thing Asgard could possibly sue me for is resigning my position. Seriously. There's no evidence to suggest I did anything else, I never wished any ill harm on Asgard after Cormac and Izzy left. Venico's resignation wasn't exactly the cleanest, but there's no legal way you can knock him for saying Jager is manipulable (because newsflash: I approved the criminal code, I would know if that was in there. It isn't.)

Anyway, I thank the editors of NS Weekly for another great article. Again my apologies for not adding to it

Its fine Koth, and I totally understand. I tried my hardest to not make it sound bias with only one side on it, and I hope it didn't sound like I was bashing you three (Cormac, Koth, and Venicos) because I wasn't.

Im not going to choose a side, because as far as im aware, my region is still allied with Asgard. Best of luck to all of you.

[A Million Voices]

Very informative article.

[Communist Quinntopia]

redacted

[New Darenjo]

Very informative article for today. Thank you. This helped a lot with getting myself situated.

[Communist Quinntopia]

redacted

[Bundabunda]

Good stuff, good stuff.

I don't know how much the Anti-Communist tag will really mean. I mean, the people who were the first to suggest the tag and wear it, [nation]Liberosia[/region] and his region Libertatem, had the intention of fighting "Communists", a term he used to describe all antifascists. All their activity seems to have died down by now.

[Communist Quinntopia]

redacted

[Ambroscus Koth]

With all the recent fun going on in R/D, I'm excited to see what you guys have in store this week.

[Of the Free Socialist Territories]

Article XIII – Saturday 13th October 2012

It’s certainly been a busy week across Gameplay, with particularly dramatic developments in the R/D game. I’ll update this article as and when I become aware of wider news, but as of now there’s only one story on Gameplayers’ lips: the fall of Eastern Islands of Dharma.

A Disaster for Dharma

After Unibot II’s DEATion, Dharma was left Founderless, but with a password in place and a Delegate, in the form of Quelesh. It had been gradually abandoned for around two months beforehand, after Unibot II moved to Gholgoth, a process which has been somewhat speeded up by the arrival of a vast raiding party in the region.
Led by The Black Hawks, with Jakker as the point, the initial contingent has been boosted over the last few days, with support from regions as varied as The Black Riders, Unknown, The New Inquisition, Antarctic Oasis and The Legions, to such a degree that the raid leader has 46 endorsements at the time of writing – seemingly an unassailable total.
It remains to be seen whether Dharma can be rescued, but for now one of the UDL’s heartlands outside of Kyzikos has been transformed into one of the greatest concentrations of raiders seen in months, all eager to take part in the feeding frenzy.
Depending on your outlook, this raid is either a foul example of regional destruction and endorsement piling, or a spectacular achievement for raiders across NS. What cannot be denied is its scale and scope.

An Interview with Unibot III

This interview was conducted by my comrade Communist Quinntopia before his departure.
Q1: Did you found the UDL, or was it someone else? Also, when was the UDL founded?
A: I founded The United Defenders League, yes. The initial creation of The United Defenders League closely followed my resignation as Arch-Chancellor of The Founderless Regions Alliance. It was founded sometime roughly around June 7, 2011 (which was when our forum was first built), although we didn’t “formally” accept our first member (besides me) till June 13 2011. Ironically, our first member was Spartzerium and our second member was Rawrgirnia; the former now serves for The Black Hawks and the latter served for DEN. But fortunately, I can say our third member, Eluvatar, has served with us faithfully for well over a year now. *makes a sigh of relief*
However we didn’t “publically release” The United Defenders League until September 1st – this way we could use the summer (which is lacking in activity and a bad time to try to generate enough momentum for a new organization) to build our forum infrastructure and get a core group of defenders trained and “detagging” as well as defending. By the time September 1st came around there was significant buzz generated by our activity that when we came on the scene and announced our organization publically, we attracted a lot of players to defending in general and were considered a major defender organization in a very short period of period.

Q2: From your distinguished career as a defender, do you have a most significant defence?
A: I am going to assume you mean “significant mission”. In defending, we have two three broad categories of operations: liberations, defenses and restorations (detags). Liberations are measures to remove entrenched invader delegates from regions they have been invaded, Defenses are measures to stop invasions in progress and Restorations are actions taken to return a region to the state it was in prior to an invasion.
If you were asking me what my most significant defence is (specifically): I took part in a solid evening of defending with my colleagues-in-green-tights that actually “shut-out” all tag-raids one night on Mar 31 2012. Some regions that usually are regularly targeted like The Youngworld and Benevolent Capitalism were defended which is a relief.
My personal favorite mission (in general) would probably be Operation Little Stalingrad, the Liberation of ITALIA, this past April, which was the largest successful liberation done in a rather long time (31 updaters) and the first “big” liberation that I did successfully after ending my drug use about two months previously. I just remember the relief that came with the mission’s success, that operation in itself was three days of planning and recruiting in addition to no sleep; So, to have that come off without a hitch and save a great community, while proving to myself that it wasn’t the narcotics that was the “magic spark” necessary for victory, brought me an overwhelming sense of joy.

Q3: As some speak about "raider unity", would you say there is some sort of "defender unity" amongst the main defending organisations?
A: Well, let’s first decide what “raider unity” is? I’d argue that raider unity is (1) cooperation on raids, viz. raiders will help other raiders (of different organizations and stripes) to raid targets, also “supplier” regions will provide sufficient ‘piling’ on the raider delegate to ensure a liberation would be improbable, (2) diplomatic cooperation, viz. raiders agree not to talk bad about each other in public.
If you want to argue the extent of raider unity is more than this, I’m willing to listen to alternative versions, but I’m going to compare this model for raider unity to defenderdom.
Do we have diplomatic cooperation? We try, but the thing about defenders is: most of us really care about native communities. We get mad sometimes and we speak out against our fellow defenders in public – this can be a consequence of cross-organizational communication being rescinded sometimes but often it’s just us being stressed-out human beings saying stuff we probably shouldn't say out of stress.
Do we have cooperation on operations? Not to the same extent as raiders, several major organizations will not take cooperative measures to better ensure victory in defenses (e.g., cross-organizational-endorsing), although we do share hints, nods and prods which can be immensely helpful.
We’ve seen full cooperation across the spectrum of major defender organizations for a couple of authorized liberation missions: Belgium and Capitalist Paradise, to be specific. But nearly as soon as the word gets out that the defender machine is ready to get in full gear, raider groups flee (in Belgium’s case, The New Inquisition fled to The Rejected Realms where it was greeted with an ambush by all the major defenders organizations). Obviously this is a concern for cross-organizational counter-intelligence, but it’s also rather evident, I think, that we do not usually see all-inclusive defender cooperation for liberation missions whereas all-inclusive military commitments is less rare in the raider world.
We see this deficit of cooperation for a number of reasons; one I would like to share is simply put: a difference of options for the realization of one’s main objective. Raiders have a simple objective: to cause damage to native communities thereby frustrating defenders. This is achievable in a number of varying approaches to one main scheme: “an invasion”. Defenders also have a simple objective: to protect native communities from unjust invasions. But how to go about that vague objective carries with it at least two general methodologies (“liberations” and “defenses”), ethical disagreements over the prioritization of those methodologies and structural differences in the capacity of defender organizations to perform either methodology well. So… cooperation is complex. In retrospect, I think, we (defenderdom) have done a good job of cooperating for the greater good of native communities considering all the obstacles that are in our way.

Q4: Judging by your forums, the UDL seems to have a Robin Hood-like theme to it. Is there any particular reason for why this is?
A: I knew I wanted The United Defenders League to have a medieval chivalric and romantic tone to it; something idealistic that we had not seen before in a major non-regional defender organization. We've always seen a general militaristic or political theme (e.g., ADN, FRA, EAA) or a left-wing theme (e.g., RLA) but nothing grand and idealistic that just screams: we’re here to help you because it’s the right thing to do. NationStates was home to those sentiments before, but to really revive it and get people energized in an actual humanitarian effort, I thought it needed to be symbolized and restored as apart of the core virtue of our organization.
Originally, I was going to go with a King Arthur theme, but then I remembered TITO actually uses a vague “knight” theme, so I was stuck for a theme until I drove by a street-post that said “Sherwood St.” and the name clicked. Robin Hood’s Band of Merrymen were loyal tight-wearing civilians turned combatants, authorized not by any state’s law but a higher moral law (a sense of justice) to challenge illegitimate leaders and the injustices they commit against political communities. It seemed like a perfect fit.

Q5: What do you expect to happen to the UDL in the future?
A: We will see the end of injustice or go down trying. Either way, I am sure we will have left NationStates better off than it was without us. Thanks for the interview.

Silly WA Proposal Of The Week

This week’s silly proposal, chosen by me on account of its poor quality and the particularly hilarious “ACKNOWLEDGES that Silver Dragon refuses to acknowledge” clause, is “Condemn Silver Dragon”.

RECOGNIZING that all regions in Majestrate are under the control of Silver dragon,
NOTING that Silver dragon has desecrated Lazzarania,
FURTHER NOTING that Silver dragon overtaxes its residents for no apparent reason,
KNOWING that Silver dragon has further supressed all free trade,
ACKNOWLEDGES that Silver dragon refuses to acknowledge the venerated World Assembly,
CONCEDES that Silver dragon is a treacherous authoritarian,
DEEMS Silver dragon worthy of condemnation,
HEREBY CONDEMNS Silver dragon.

That’s all for this week – to be honest, I have absolutely no idea what’s coming next week, so I’ll wait for Quinntopia to spill the beans rather than speculating myself, as interesting as that would be.

Yours,
- FreeSoc (Of the Free Socialist Territories)

[Eist]

Interesting interview. I was really hoping there was going to be a piece on the sudden disappearance of Halcones' puppets from the WA Happenings page during update of recent.

[Ambroscus Koth]

Interesting interview. I was really hoping there was going to be a piece on the sudden disappearance of Halcones' puppets from the WA Happenings page during update of recent.

I was also expecting a bit on this.

Also just to note, 46 endorsements is far from a record for a pile. There have been missions where over 100 nations piled, but that's just me being picky. Thank you for the article, guys!

[Drop Your Pants]

That interview with Uni was very......calm. I'm still in shock.

[Of the Free Socialist Territories]

Interesting interview. I was really hoping there was going to be a piece on the sudden disappearance of Halcones' puppets from the WA Happenings page during update of recent.

I was also expecting a bit on this.

Sorry, I wasn't really aware of it.

[Communist Quinntopia]

redacted

[Whiskum]

We’ve seen full cooperation across the spectrum of major defender organizations for a couple of authorized liberation missions: Belgium and Capitalist Paradise, to be specific. But nearly as soon as the word gets out that the defender machine is ready to get in full gear, raider groups flee (in Belgium’s case, The New Inquisition fled to The Rejected Realms where it was greeted with an ambush by all the major defenders organizations)..

Unibot's answer here reflects an extremely creative reading of history.

Belgium had over 90 endorsements: by point when the ejections into TRR occurred, there was no prospect in that case of 'liberation' regardless of how much inter-regional defender cooperation occurred, while there was no intention to hold The Rejected Realms beyond taking it for one update, so there was no 'ambush' (excepting the defenders who unsuccessfully tried to defend TRR before it was taken). Taking TRR was an achievement in itself worth more than spending a couple more days in Belgium before leaving voluntarily in any case (as TNI does not ordinarily occupy regions permanently).

[Unibot III]

We’ve seen full cooperation across the spectrum of major defender organizations for a couple of authorized liberation missions: Belgium and Capitalist Paradise, to be specific. But nearly as soon as the word gets out that the defender machine is ready to get in full gear, raider groups flee (in Belgium’s case, The New Inquisition fled to The Rejected Realms where it was greeted with an ambush by all the major defenders organizations)..

Unibot's answer here reflects an extremely creative reading of history.

Belgium had over 90 endorsements: by point when the ejections into TRR occurred, there was no prospect in that case of 'liberation' regardless of how much inter-regional defender cooperation occurred, while there was no intention to hold The Rejected Realms beyond taking it for one update, so there was no 'ambush' (excepting the defenders who unsuccessfully tried to defend TRR before it was taken). Taking TRR was an achievement in itself worth more than spending a couple more days in Belgium before leaving voluntarily in any case (as TNI does not ordinarily occupy regions permanently).

It's a creative reading of history if you try to dictate the terms of victory and failure.

[Whiskum]

Unibot's answer here reflects an extremely creative reading of history.

Belgium had over 90 endorsements: by point when the ejections into TRR occurred, there was no prospect in that case of 'liberation' regardless of how much inter-regional defender cooperation occurred, while there was no intention to hold The Rejected Realms beyond taking it for one update, so there was no 'ambush' (excepting the defenders who unsuccessfully tried to defend TRR before it was taken). Taking TRR was an achievement in itself worth more than spending a couple more days in Belgium before leaving voluntarily in any case (as TNI does not ordinarily occupy regions permanently).

It's a creative reading of history if you try to dictate the terms of victory and failure.

First, those who engage in an operation can set its objectives. Whether or not attaining those objectives constitutes meaningful achievement is a different question altogether, but I suspect most people at least will find it unreasonable to regard, as you do regard evidently, spending a couple of more days occupying Belgium with 90 endorsements as potentially amounting to more of a victory for TNI than invading TRR in the first instance.

Returning to your original point though, are you standing by the position that you articulated in the interview above? Namely the view that TNI, despite being backed by over 90 endorsements, 'fled' from Belgium because it thought defenders would work together to liberate? If so, presumably, you also believe that I thought in early February 2012 the defenders had a combined total update force of at least 70-80 units, if not a lot more in practice.

That idea is utter rubbish and we both know that was not the case.

[Communist Quinntopia]

redacted

[Drop Your Pants]

Oh, not the arguments again.

They never stop having that argument. I just wish they'd make a new topic for it so we can get more news