And finally, here was my thought process during the whole incident:
Aaron and I knew each other by reputation by now. So when he approached me with an OOC message after joining CE, I thought that I could engage him in meaningful dialog regarding his past behavior, some of which I felt was not rule-breaking but detrimental to the game. (I'm willing to elaborate on this if necessary, but Aaron is not the one on trial here.) I suppose I got a little "testy" after Aaron refused to concede any ground rhetorically. I felt the conversation going in a non-constructive direction, so I cut it off. I chalked it up to "oh well, I tried" and considered the matter closed.
This was a completely separate matter from what Enri was considering doing to Remi. You are free to not believe me, but I've been playing this old bastard long enough that he has a mind of his own now. I'm not saying that there is zero-overlap between Enri and Yangfan as individuals, but there are some things where there can be no cross-influence and no compromise. This is one of them. Enri was going to get some amount of payback out of this Solari whelp. He could feel it in his bones. I personally thought it was childish and felt bad for Remi.
Even if Remi came to CE bearing enough gifts and intel to make Enri forget past grievances, I still would have talked to Aaron about my dissatisfaction with him. On the other hand, even if Aaron convinced me that I was in the wrong, Enri would still have sent Remi away from the front lines. Those are two completely separate, different, distinct channels. I should not be punished because they happen to coincide. If you punish me, then you better punish every other player who ever ICly attacked a noble whose player he disliked, or ever ICly helped a realm because he liked the players there. I agree that it looks bad on the surface. I challenge anyone to say that this does not happen on a daily basis.
I figured that I've been playing BM long enough that I could be given the benefit of doubt on this, both by Aaron and by the Magistrates. Apparently I am mistaken.
Aaron, if you had filed a Magistrate complaint soon after our OOC conversation, I would have conceded that I was being unfriendly and apologized to you. I would have thought that you were being overly sensitive, but the apology would have been sincere.
If you had came to me with politeness instead of insults after Remi received Enri's orders, I would have been happy to explain Enri's IC reasoning, AND what hoops Remi has to jump through to obtain his trust. You probably would have been able to convince me that I should avoid even the appearance of IC-OOC mixing, and we could have worked out some sort of compromise or win-win situation.
Instead, you jumped to conclusions and assumed that I was abusing my position. You sent me repeated IC requests for orders, laced with OOC insults. (Not the best way to get your point across.) I ignored the OOC insults and had Enri repeat his orders. When I did not respond to your further harassing messages (because Enri was wounded, and I was busy with work for a few days after he recovered), you threatened to "escalate the matter" and promised that I "will lose badly". When I called you out on it publicly, you asked, I quote, "are you that stupid?" You then dragged me in front of the Magistrates, and here we are.
With all due respect, I believe you owe me an apology.