I'll comment on a few things of mixed importance.
1. Somebody threw in a crack about Evangelical Christians. I would personally rather my own faith tradition were not used as a term signifying ignorance or stupidity.
2. The recent crisis was exacerbated by the message bug. Not being able to communicate with each other until the Zuma had ROTFLstomped half of our army was a bummer. I get it, yeah, you play through bugs... but the GM doesn't
need to communicate to be effective. Furthermore, it deprived me of my opportunity to offend Haktoo again, and I really wanted to do it.
3. De-Legro: I think you need to be quiet. I don't say that in an angry way. I really don't But I think you would be well served by taking a step back and looking at, say, which players seem to like the Zuma as they are currently played, and which ones don't. The degree of satisfaction with the Zuma seems inversely related to the degree of actual meaningful contact with the Zuma.
4. It was asked how the Zuma could be improved. Somebody jokingly mentioned putting, Chenier, the current, GM, and myself all as GMs in one real. Yes. Do it. Well, not us specifically, but that's what the Zuma need:
multiple, disagreeing, conflicted GMs. A GM faction that has similar problems to normal factions. Notably,
this is how the Zuma were originally set up. The 1-GM (apparently) is
not original to Dwilight. I think much of the problem would be solved if we had, say, 4 GMs.
5. I understand how Haktoo could get upset over the Triunist Zuma, kind of. Except I will note that anyone who says the Zuma actually worship the daimons is
wrong. They don't. There is no Zuma religion. Even "Paganism" is almost nonexistent in Zuma lands. They are Elementalists, Triunists, Astroists... there is a little bit of Cordatus Bestiarium, which I guess worships the daimons or something, but they're a tiny minority. Any RP by the Zuma GM stating that the Zuma worship the daimons is directly falsified by simple game mechanics. Most of Zumaland is 70+% Triunist. So please, don't tell me this is the first Haktoo knew about this. The Zuma haven't worshipped the daimons in years.
6. Once I worked through frustration with the message system, figuring out this recent crisis wasn't hard. Hell, I intentionally provoked it. The Zuma make me bored. My plan for the Maroccidens was finished as soon as the Zuma decided to make the thing with Barca something more than "Give us food and an apology and we'll go away." Justw asn't going to happen. ICly, Hireshmont is very nearly a broken man. OOCly, I'm a bored player. So I decided to do the only logical thing: start pushing random buttons to see what happens. I didn't expect
this big of a response quite this fast (and I didn't expect Haktoo to refuse to RP with the two ambassadors from Terran sent to meet him: this is hearsay, but they report Haktoo has being nonresponsive. Could be mistaken.), but I expected something to happen. I hardly even care what. But I don't really feel like sitting around preaching to peasants in Terran. I no longer believe it will be possible to achieve the things I wanted to with Hireshmont, so I've set new goals.
7. I will reiterate what MaleMaldives said: I can think of reasons for the Zuma to attack us. Heck, it's a mystery to me how they haven't found way more reasons to attack us than they have. But... just because I can think of things that might have provoked the Zuma doesn't mean I think it's justified. I had a pretty good idea sending Zuma Triunist monks as messengers would get the daimons all riled up. Because I know that the Zuma GM is a wee bit trigger happy. That doesn't mean I think that's a reasonable response; it just means it's a response that I could expect.
They could have been stopped. Force of arms is probably not the best way, but there was certainly scope for things to have gone very differently. The difference between what happened in Terran and Barca, and say what nearly happened in Iashalur and Kabrinskia should show that there are ways to resolve things even after the Zuma start to gear up.
This is laughable, by the way. Like, literally, I laughed.
Yes, if the Zuma have to march for, like, two weeks to get to you, there is room to resolve things other ways.
I'm sorry, De-Legro, I really think you need to take a step back. You aren't around the Zuma. How on earth are you so adamant about an issue with which you have so little contact, and concerning which you have so little knowledge? I don't go and argue Lurian politics, do I?