Current Political Situation/Activity Levels

Tavon

Hey, considering coming back after my RL situation has calmed down. Of course, I'm also considering swapping orgs again to get a fresh start. Could anyone give me a quick rundown of the current political situations/alliances, or point me to where I could find it?

Followup question: I'm thinking of moving away from my monk/warrior skillsets and back to something with less moving parts. Does bard fit that bill at the moment? How about guardian/wiccan?

Thanks in advance.

Llandros

Hmm, lots of questions with lots of subjective answers.

The general political layout is Celest/Seren/Hali vs Mag/Gaudi/Glom

However, Glomdoring went rogue recently and shacked up with Celest. Not sure how long that will last. Glom was very strong for an truly impressive length of time. Currently, the power sitch has evened out some and they are having a bit of a low swing. The adjustment has created certain challenges for them. Whether or not they have been handled well is not a flame war I want to get into.

Mag, Gaudi and Celest are all pretty strong right now but the difference in power isn't crazy dramatic. Also, Mag/Gaudi are playing 2 vs. 4 so things are reasonably even. Although, Hali got stomped a few nights ago and had their crystals killed. It's hard to measure these things though.

Guardian/wiccan traditionally excel in 1 on 1 combat. Bards have more group and support abilities. Most guilds are what you make of them though. With bards you will be chasing earache balance to keep your enemies hearing. Guardians/wiccans have ents to wrangle. 

Bard combat is very straight forward though which has pros and cons. I would suggest you take RP into consideration. It can help you narrow down your options some.

Ssaliss

I wouldn't exactly call it Mag/Gaudi/Glom, considering there's a treaty between Glom and Celest as well as between Glom and Halli. There's also plenty of bad blood between Glom and Mag following the constant tree cutting and fire starting of Arcanis, the declaration of war from Marcella, and Mag leadership not doing anything about it for the longest time. Let's just say Glom is Complicated at the moment.

Llandros

/objectivity

Yes yes yes. Glomdoring is a special snowflake with closet of participation trophies. Being called out when you come up short should be an expectation and not an unforgivable act of aggression.

Marcella's declaration of war was taken as seriously as if she had set up death squads for garden gnomes. Arcanis was CL of Glom before he was run out of your org. That particular monster is of your own making. Just saying...

Ssaliss

Llandros said:

/objectivity

Yes yes yes. Glomdoring is a special snowflake with closet of participation trophies. Being called out when you come up short should be an expectation and not an unforgivable act of aggression.

Marcella's declaration of war was taken as seriously as if she had set up death squads for garden gnomes. Arcanis was CL of Glom before he was run out of your org. That particular monster is of your own making. Just saying...

Well... Marcellas declaration of war was taken as a declaration of war, yes. She was the CL of Mag, and she claimed she had the full backing of the Iron Council, and none of them said otherwise when asked (until the matter was mentioned on the Crux in public).

As for Arcanis being run out of Glom, well, that's not entirely our making either. It's not like we just went "Oh, let's kick him out for fun", nor did we actually kick him out. He tried to force various matters through, people didn't take too kindly to it, and I honestly can't remember if someone contested him before he quit Glom or if that happened afterwards. Unless you're saying we should've let him do whatever it is he wanted to do just because he was the CL.

Cyndarin

Glom is being pulled in both directions. There are factions supporting Celest/Halli and factions supporting Mag/Guadi. There are even sub factions that support Hallifax and not Celest, and a few who are pro foresty alliance, and some that are pro Gaudi but not Mag. 

Diplomacy is a nightmare right now. Basically the big undecided is if we like Gaudi more than we hate Mag, and if so, do we like Gaudi/hate mag more than we like losing all the time with Hallifax. (Sorry, you guys are sparkly and nice, but you do lose a lot).

Arcanis is Arcanis, and I reject the notion that anyone is responsible for that other than Arcanis.

Everiine

Meanwhile, Serenwilde is playing the isolationist card, more than happy to let the other orgs take out their anger on each other while we sit back and worry about other things. This is different from Hallifax's neutral stance. Yeah, it'll come back to bite us eventually, but with the strange situation going on with Glom right now, it's... interesting. I'm actually really pleased about the current political mess. It's much more dynamic and fun to follow now that it's not simply 3v3 YOU HIT OUR ALLY TIME TO GANK YOUR SOUL.

Synkarin

There's definitely members of Serenwilde jumping in to help the North quite often, so that's not really 'isolationist'

Silvanus

Ssaliss said:

Llandros said:

/objectivity

Yes yes yes. Glomdoring is a special snowflake with closet of participation trophies. Being called out when you come up short should be an expectation and not an unforgivable act of aggression.

Marcella's declaration of war was taken as seriously as if she had set up death squads for garden gnomes. Arcanis was CL of Glom before he was run out of your org. That particular monster is of your own making. Just saying...

Well... Marcellas declaration of war was taken as a declaration of war, yes. She was the CL of Mag, and she claimed she had the full backing of the Iron Council, and none of them said otherwise when asked (until the matter was mentioned on the Crux in public).

As for Arcanis being run out of Glom, well, that's not entirely our making either. It's not like we just went "Oh, let's kick him out for fun", nor did we actually kick him out. He tried to force various matters through, people didn't take too kindly to it, and I honestly can't remember if someone contested him before he quit Glom or if that happened afterwards. Unless you're saying we should've let him do whatever it is he wanted to do just because he was the CL.

Wait, how is Arcanis situation different from Marcella's situation, and Magnagora is responsible for her but Glom isn't for Arcanis?

She tried to force an issue, got rebuffed, was told if tried again, would be ousted (as a Warlord), could've been tried for treason. We didn't let her do whatever she wanted, even though she was CL, and has sought revenge. ((Also, we only knew of the situation OOCly, no information was given until the public announcement outside of a few remarks from Xenthos, but then again, Xenthos is to Glom as Munsia is to Mag, who cares what they say?))

Arcanis tried to push things through Glom, got replaced, sought revenge because he wasn't able to do anything he wanted as CL. Nearly the exact same thing except Arcanis ditched Glom.

I reject the notion that Magnagora is responsible for Marcella, she has been hung(multiple times), publically warned, uncitizened, and is currently on her final warning until she gets the Revan treatment (aka, banishment outside of the most humiliating rehab possible), and that's on top of all her OOC punishments (peacing/shrubbing).

Zagreus

Synkarin said:

There's definitely members of Serenwilde jumping in to help the North quite often, so that's not really 'isolationist'

Yeah that's definitely bullswargle.

Shuyin

It's practically (and realistically!) 2v4. There's no need to muddy waters about it being complicated.

Maybe it is complicated "officially", but not where it matters.

Enough significant characters from both Glom, Seren, Hallifax, and Celest help out against Gaudi/Mag to make it not appear to be a rogue case here and there.

Ssaliss

Silvanus said:

Ssaliss said:

Llandros said:

/objectivity

Yes yes yes. Glomdoring is a special snowflake with closet of participation trophies. Being called out when you come up short should be an expectation and not an unforgivable act of aggression.

Marcella's declaration of war was taken as seriously as if she had set up death squads for garden gnomes. Arcanis was CL of Glom before he was run out of your org. That particular monster is of your own making. Just saying...

Well... Marcellas declaration of war was taken as a declaration of war, yes. She was the CL of Mag, and she claimed she had the full backing of the Iron Council, and none of them said otherwise when asked (until the matter was mentioned on the Crux in public).

As for Arcanis being run out of Glom, well, that's not entirely our making either. It's not like we just went "Oh, let's kick him out for fun", nor did we actually kick him out. He tried to force various matters through, people didn't take too kindly to it, and I honestly can't remember if someone contested him before he quit Glom or if that happened afterwards. Unless you're saying we should've let him do whatever it is he wanted to do just because he was the CL.

Wait, how is Arcanis situation different from Marcella's situation, and Magnagora is responsible for her but Glom isn't for Arcanis?

She tried to force an issue, got rebuffed, was told if tried again, would be ousted (as a Warlord), could've been tried for treason. We didn't let her do whatever she wanted, even though she was CL, and has sought revenge. ((Also, we only knew of the situation OOCly, no information was given until the public announcement outside of a few remarks from Xenthos, but then again, Xenthos is to Glom as Munsia is to Mag, who cares what they say?))

Arcanis tried to push things through Glom, got replaced, sought revenge because he wasn't able to do anything he wanted as CL. Nearly the exact same thing except Arcanis ditched Glom.

I reject the notion that Magnagora is responsible for Marcella, she has been hung(multiple times), publically warned, uncitizened, and is currently on her final warning until she gets the Revan treatment (aka, banishment outside of the most humiliating rehab possible), and that's on top of all her OOC punishments (peacing/shrubbing).

Let's see. She declared war on Glom, claiming she spoke for the entire Council, and was not replaced until she was shrubbed (if I understood it correctly, even then it wasn't by a huge margin). I know for a fact that I sent a message to Arimisia about it, and I believe Xenthos even sent letters out to the rest of the Iron Council. No one even responded to any of those contacts, so what else were we to think about it other than it was a serious declaration?

Arcanis, on the other hand, really really wanted to raise a Vernal Ascendant (most likely himself, but that's pure speculation). When the rest of the Court started opposing it, he kinda threw a fit and quit Glom.

How are those two situations even remotely the same?

Silvanus

Marcella really really wanted to declare war on Glomdoring (most likely by herself outside of three individuals). When the rest of the Court started opposing, she threw a fit and got replaced. (and that fit blended in between IC/OOC).

Seem like exactly the same thing to me.

Tavon

Hey @Llandros, thanks for the summary!

Everyone else, carry on.

Ssaliss

If she had been replaced a week after it happened? Yeah, then I'd buy that argument. Two weeks? Perhaps. Over a month afterwards, and after she was shrubbed? No.

Cyndarin

Personally I think nobody is responsible for what either of those two do, and I think it's beyond silly anyone in Glom or otherwise are trying to hold all of Mag accountable for Arcanis/Marcella's shennanigans. Especially when it's a "we won't even talk to you until you do something about them." At this point, what incentive is there to do favors for an org that refuses to speak with you about anything other than the two people that petty raid. 

Everyone has or has had the wild member that did their own thing. I've done it, and Glom has never threatened to kick me out. When I came out of dormancy, I ran all over Celest. Krellan really went nuts sometimes and Glom barely batted an eyelash. Heck, when Glom was on top, several Glom combatants were very heavy handed in forcing politics through PK actions, and most, if not all, were a lot better at it than hacking down trees and griefing random midbies. In historical context, it comes across as a little hypocritical for any org to act aghast towards another org's leadership over the actions of 2 or 3 ragey individuals. 

Maybe I have a weird perspective because I've been the person to use PK to get my way (admittedly with a little bit more grace and ability than those two, but still), and it would be bananas IMO to criticize others that do the same, or leadership that doesn't do what Glom's leadership hasn't done to me. Ultimately outsiders don't understand the contributions of any internal individual. I'm sure many outsiders thing I'm a griefy, bitchy troll that Glom keeps around to pk for them. That's not really the case, and it's the things they don't know about that have allowed me some leeway in the pk world as far as Glom leadership is concered. They put up with my shim sham because of what I have given back. Maybe Marcella is the same way. I know Munsia, for the bad rap she gets, is held in high esteem in some circle because of how much she contributes behind the scenes. 

The point is it's more complicated than THAT GUY CHOPPED OUR TREES. DO WHAT I SAY NOW OR NO ALLIANCE/FRIENDSHIP/COOKIES FOR YOU. 

But that's just me.

Xenthos

Silvanus said:

 ((Also, we only knew of the situation OOCly, no information was given until the public announcement outside of a few remarks from Xenthos, but then again, Xenthos is to Glom as Munsia is to Mag, who cares what they say?))

1) Everyone on the Iron Council received a message from me, excepting Marcella herself (but including the family rep).  Only one person bothered to reply (I believe it was Arimisia, who said she would look into it, but nothing beyond that was heard).  It was also beyond a "few remarks," it was an exact definition of what was said and a request of Magnagora's actual stance / if her position was supported.
2) You really shouldn't believe everything you hear.

Silvanus

Anything you ever say will be ignored by Magnagora, you have earned that over the years.

It's like when Daevos sent Revan to talk Glom and everyone collectively face palmed. That's the reaction that any Magnagora has when you talk about Mag.

And again, no declaration of war was passed on. You asked Marcella if she planned on it, and she said yes. There was no official proclamation because the Council intervened.

Isn't that exactly what handling the situation is? Nothing official was passed, and you people believed everything you heard.

Pro tip: don't believe everything you hear.

Xenthos

Silvanus said:

Anything you ever say will be ignored by Magnagora, you have earned that over the years. It's like when Daevos sent Revan to talk Glom and everyone collectively face palmed. That's the reaction that any Magnagora has when you talk about Mag. And again, no declaration of war was passed on. You asked Marcella if she planned on it, and she said yes. There was no official proclamation because the Council intervened. Isn't that exactly what handling the situation is? Nothing official was passed, and you people believed everything you heard. Pro tip: don't believe everything you hear.

That's not what you actually said, however.  If you were to say "Xenthos is to Magnagora as Munsia is to Magnagora," as in "Magnagora will ignore anything either of these individuals say," that would at least be an analogy that fits this quote here.  Edit: Or maybe "Xenthos is to Magnagora as Munsia is to Glomdoring"?  Maybe that was even what you were trying to go for?)

On the other hand, something official was indeed passed: One organization leader officially stated that they were planning to declare war whatever happened and had the full support of the Iron Council, and there was no official (or even unofficial) repudiation of that.  So no, that is not what "handling the situation" is.

Shuyin

So yeah, as you can see, it's not gaudi/mag/glom.

2v4

Silvanus

I suppose we have different definitions of official.

By your logic, Glom and Mag officially had an agreement between Svorai and I that Glomdoring broke multiple times.

Again, planning does not mean it came to pass. Plan does not equate to action having taken place. Meaning, a plan was stated, and before the plan was put in place, it got cancelled. Isn't that exactly what handling it means? Words were said, action took place, the action was different from the words said.

Actions like when Glomdoring joined Celest because it believed everything it heard. Nothing official was passed, no official note, no official declaration, and no shots fired until Glom ran during Ascension. Or when Glom actively helped Celest during a revolt because Marcella, a non leader at the time, said she prefers Celest to Glom (and what a big deal that was! But Glom expects us to play nice when It has enabled a leader of is city to lead a crusade of misinformation against Magnagora yet calls foul when Marcella, a non leader, did the same thing).

Again, words were said, Glom acted on those words because it believes anything it hears.

So yes, the situation was handled. Glomdoring decided to break the official treaty (using your logic) or Glomdoring decided to declare war on Magnagora by aligning with Celest using my logic.

And my analogy: most people outside of Mag ignores Munsia, for obvious reasons. Most people ignore Xenthos outside of Glom, for obvious reasons.

Xenthos

Your analogy specifically says "Is to their own organization," not "is to other organizations aside from their own," which is different from what you're saying now (and why I sought clarification-- it seems my edit was pretty close to your actual intent).  And those obvious reasons are, I guess, not so obvious since Xenthos does just fine with most other organizations he works with.  I mean, heck, Kelly actually sought him out for Ascension.

What you appear to be shuffling under the rug here is that Marcella's declaration was "We are going to declare war on you immediately after Ascension, no matter what you do, and the Iron Council fully backs me up on this".  Without a repudiation of that, it was definitely still in effect as far as we were concerned, and directly led to our decisions.  The declaration was still in full effect... which means that, no, it was definitely not handled.  Internally, maybe, but when it comes to diplomacy you have to think about parties other than yourselves.

Talan

Internal politics are exactly that. Other orgs are not privy to them, and cannot be expected to parse them or fully understand them. If a city leader says, "We're going to war with X-org," then X-org is entitled to take that at face value. People are entitled to take anything and everything a city leader says at face value. He or she is the head of state. The assumption is that the leader speaks with authority.

If an org has a city leader who makes declarations that the rest of the org doesn't agree with, then that leader needs to be replaced, and aforesaid declarations summarily disavowed. The consequences of failing to do so rest firmly on the shoulders of the people who didn't speak up or act sooner to replace a bad leader.

Silvanus

No, it was not. It was not in effect because it never came, Glom decided to attack preemptive. Which I have no problem with, Magnagora would've done the same.

The difference is we wouldn't play innocent or cry about it and play the woe is me card while waging a forum campaign at the same time.

I'm not sure how many times this needs to be brought up over and over again, or the same arguments need to be rehashed, but here's the timeline of events

Marcella didn't declare war
She stated her intention when asked by Ssaliss, there was no mention of anything else, and gave a timeframe of when it was to happen
It was never an all or nothing, I had the actual declaration of war. Demands were stated (no matter how extreme, it's never all or nothing)
Glom believed whatever it wanted and attacked before it could happen
Glom then blames Mag and Marcella for it for the next 7 months, ICly and OOCly, saying something along the lines of Mag needs to control its citizens.

I don't care who started this whole Glom/Mag issue, or the he says she says game that goes along with it, I just know which side wants to keep things hostile while trying to be the good guy, ICly and OOCly.

Xenthos

I know which side wants to be hostile, too.  It's the one doing the raiding.  Since, y'know, that is actually hostile.

Silvanus

So we finally agree, I've leashed Arcanis and Marcella after complaints were made to further diplomacy

Glom did nothing to leash Niico or Kethaera, and continued to lead a campaign of misinformation against Magnagora.

Xenthos

I seem to recall Niico being "asked" to stop (if Celina can be said to ask, it is more of a threat), and I have not heard of @Kethaera raiding Magnagora recently. If she had, you would have reported it to the Court, right? Since you keep advocating that and all. I know I sure did not receive anything of the sort.

Meanwhile, we just finished regrowing totems from Arcanis' most recent spree.

Awfully tenuous leash you've got there.

Silvanus

Oh no, see the difference is, those two are not Glomdoring, if they want to raid, they can die too (and Kethaera did raid recently and Niico was only complained about because he was killing novices).

And yes, as I've stated multiple times, the leash was only reapplied recently after a complaint was made again.

I just know common sense, and if I'm trying to diplomatically resolve something, we probably shouldn't be attacking.

So yes, I know which organization has been hostile. The one that has tried to diplomatically resolve something while doing nothing to prevent hostile actions of their own.

Lavinya

Xenthos said:

I seem to recall Niico being "asked" to stop (if Celina can be said to ask, it is more of a threat), and I have not heard of @Kethaera raiding Magnagora recently. If she had, you would have reported it to the Court, right? Since you keep advocating that and all. I know I sure did not receive anything of the sort. Meanwhile, we just finished regrowing totems from Arcanis' most recent spree. Awfully tenuous leash you've got there.

We're no more psychic than you are as to what your members do when you're not around. Nor are we personally responsible for people who go against what they've been specifically instructed - if it's reported though, I can guarantee they'll get an IC ass kicking for it.

I actually think Mag and Glom are in similar circumstances, in that there are some who want to make peace with the other, and others who can't wait to just go and kill everyone. Some individuals are more open about their need to raid, but it doesn't mean they're the only ones. From what I hear, there are plenty in Glom who want nothing to do with Mag ever, and yet others who are actually wanting and trying to form peace. We even have Gloms still in our alliance clan, that quite deliberately do not work against us.

It seems to me @Xenthos that you do like to just point fingers at Mag for being the bad guys for not controlling Marcella. I really wish it was so easy as 'just replace her'. It was a close election to start with. Hell, there was even some idiots who voted for her as a shrub. How reasonable to do you think people like that really are? Are they really going to be easy to restrain? There is zero IC logic to vote a shrub who cannot in any way do the role in any capacity. They can't even speak. Some people, quite frankly, are just in it for themselves and couldn't care less what gets screwed up, including their own org. That is highly unfortunate, but in a game environment very difficult to just simply curb unless we want to start kicking people out for flaky reasons and be considered even more corrupt than we already are and issued and gods know what else.

I'm sorry I didn't personally respond to you about Marcella. I'm pretty sure I DID say to someone though that she didn't have full council backing as I knew nothing about it, and was going to look into it, it may have been Ssaliss. I don't know. I really doubt it would have made a difference though - Glom (and much of Mag) had been looking for an excuse to break off for a long time, let's be honest. This was a perfect opportunity. I just get irritated that on the forums we are constantly painted as the bad guys who destroyed our entire friendship because we didn't control our city leader or replace her. These things are not so easy as a snap of the fingers as I am sure everyone damn well knows. There were issues on both sides of the fence, let's finally just agree on that? And for god's sake can we all just let it gooooooo?

Lerad

I had a long post written up about how it's not Mag's fault Arcanis is what he is. I can't, in good conscience, blame anyone for Arcanis, not even his parents. Especially not after I have had experience dealing with pre-school and elementary school children.

I won't post that long post, but here's the abridged version:

Silvanus said:

...

The difference is we wouldn't play innocent or cry about it and play the woe is me card while waging a forum campaign at the same time. 

...

Arcanis' first recorded tree cutting was in year 406. It's year 417. That's 10 IG years of on-and-off harrassment by someone with the mental age of a goldfish. That's 120 RL days of telling people not to retaliate.

That's pretty ridiculous, to the point where we have admin taking pity on us and asking for demon corpses just to try and ease the pressure on the Gloms who have nowhere to vent. Let's just say that while I am on Celina's side in this whole alliance decision stalemate in the Shadow Court, I'm starting to agree with the admin volunteers.

Sure, communication problems abound, people aren't talking to Mag (or if they are, they aren't respected enough to be heard, etc etc) enough to get speedy re-leashings. Whatever. It's not Mag's fault. Fine. But is Glom "playing innocent" or "crying about it" or "playing the woe is me card"? For 120 RL days? Sorry, but even if I had the inclination to put out crocodile tears, I don't have enough for that long.

Xenthos

You might note that I didn't even respond to this thread until Silvanus made a comment directed at me, actually!  I had just been leaving it alone.  The "letting it go" thing does flow both ways as well. 

The last time you and I discussed it, I believe that I did agree with you that there were issues on both sides.  I have to disagree that Glomdoring as a whole was "looking for an excuse" to break it off, though.  As Celina has said, there's a segment of Glomdoring that wants to work with Magnagora, and a segment that does not.  The segment that does not, does not actually really advocate "killing everything" (I sometimes will go join in a raid in Serenwilde, or more often scuffle in Faethorn, but I never show up on Nil for example-- and you can say Xenthos is definitely in the non-Mag's-friend camp).

I can tell you unequivocally that without Marcella's actions, Glomdoring would not have acted the way it did.  I can't tell you what exactly would have been done.  Most likely I wouldn't have posted and we wouldn't have really showed up at all, but that would have been more due to Gaudiguch and the eaf incident (which was very fresh at that point, but by now has pretty much died down entirely).  When you take Gaudiguch breaking off their treaty with us and Magnagora's CL essentially saying that we're going to be at war immediately after Ascension, it left us with very little option once the latter was, essentially, left entirely intact as far as we were concerned.

You may not know this, but Xenthos (while not caring for Magnagora at all) was actually the strongest proponent for not breaking the Gaudiguch treaty after the Eaf incident.  I had had a broken laptop for most of it when it was going down politically, but when I could get back I tried very hard to save it.  I can guarantee you that if it had not gone, we would've been up there to support Gaudiguch at least (and Mag incidentally).  The Gaudiguch alliance had worked very well for a long time.