Luria

[vonGenf]

The next day, we hear that a D'Haran army is still on its way,

It takes a particularly twisted mind to conclude that from the letters that were shared...... unless someone made something up along the way.

[Anaris]

It takes a particularly twisted mind to conclude that from the letters that were shared...... unless someone made something up along the way.

I don't know what evidence led someone to conclude this; I only know how it came out on our end.

[Tandaros]

About the whole attack in the wings thing being 'backstabby,' the whole Battle of New Orleans was fought after peace was signed between the US and UK in the War of 1812. It took a while to pull back a military attack in those days. Same applies in BM. nothing happens instantaneously in this game.

I'm cool with people hating D'Hara IC, but this amount of OOC spite is categorically unnecessary.

[Anaris]

About the whole attack in the wings thing being 'backstabby,' the whole Battle of New Orleans was fought after peace was signed between the US and UK in the War of 1812. It took a while to pull back a military attack in those days. Same applies in BM. nothing happens instantaneously in this game.

I'm cool with people hating D'Hara IC, but this amount of OOC spite is categorically unnecessary.

My only OOC problem with D'Hara is the name.

This is all IC as far as I'm concerned.

[Vellos]

The war started in the first place because Luria learned that D'Hara was planning to neutralize Luria, because they believed Luria would invade.

From the very start, every time we have tried to get an agreement about anything, they have always tried to get us to give them more, more, more.

Then, after the most egregiously overreaching proposal so far from D'Hara is flat-out rejected, Rynn just says, "Oh, OK."

The next day, we hear that a D'Haran army is still on its way, and LV lands defect to D'Hara. And we don't immediately get a promise of the LV lands being returned: oh, no, this is "just what D'Hara needs to be able to fight Falkirk more effectively!"

So you tell me: Why the hell should we assume that it's anything but malicious?

Because the supposed army attacking had already turned around, as you were informed. And because the ruler of d'hara invited you to recon queer the ceded lands without intervention. Because every contact you've had with anyone in the moot has been them repeatedly repudiating any possible attack or plan to take lands. Because d'haran armies were already mobilizing against other foes.

I dunno, maybe every rational reason in the world.

It takes a creative paranoia to see that stuff as malicious.

[Anaris]

Because the supposed army attacking had already turned around, as you were informed.

No, we weren't: not until just now.

And because the ruler of d'hara invited you to recon queer the ceded lands without intervention.

First Alanna's heard of it was the relayed message from Hireshmont to Malus just now. (And she's in almost all the Councils in LN, so if she hasn't heard about it, LN in general hasn't heard about it.)

Because every contact you've had with anyone in the moot has been them repeatedly repudiating any possible attack or plan to take lands.

IIRC, the 'moot in general had also advised against D'Hara including LV in their previous peace demands.

Because d'haran armies were already mobilizing against other foes.

It's easy to say that, but we had no proof.

I dunno, maybe every rational reason in the world.

Luria, at this point, honestly believes D'Hara to be deeply irrational.

You have to remember, we have just been through months and months of trying to convince D'Hara that we are serious about wanting to fight Aurvandil, after destroying Luria Vesperi, and having D'Hara tell us, again and again, that we had to not only let LV live, but give them land, or protection, or special status or various other things.

It's all about perspective, Vellos. Obviously from your perspective, a fellow member of the 'moot is trustworthy, and you can see the messages talking about how D'Hara wants peace, and wants the war to end.

We can't.

Literally everything that has come out of D'Hara over the past months has led us to believe they are paranoid, double-dealing idiots who have a vastly inflated opinion of themselves and would rather see Aurvandil conquer us all than admit that they couldn't defeat LN in a war. This incident plays directly into those perceptions.

Do not make the mistake of thinking LN is belligerent and irrational because of our perceptions of D'Hara.

[Solari]

This has all been resolved. There were a few factors that inflated the issue into something greater than it was: the suspicion that a D'Haran army was inbound for LN, an ambassador's response—which, if you're in a state of war, reads as though it were generated by an equivocation machine—, and the defection of the Western Marches to D'Hara at roughly the same time. There isn't much trust between D'Hara and LN. This was viewed with a kind of frustration by some in LN, and recent events sort of flipped the situation on its head, with D'Hara being painted as the duplicitous schemer. Kinda sucks to be caricatured, eh?

EDIT: Interesting observation. Delvin and me were writing our replies almost exactly at the same time, and we came to almost exactly the same conclusions! That's pretty neat as a couple of independent data points.

EDIT 2: To reinforce how LN's suspicion got us this close to war all over again, it's worth pointing out that a D'Haran army was inbound for Girich while the peace terms were being debated and signed. It turned around at sea. I can't recall LN ever sending an army toward D'Hara while simultaneously proposing peace.

[Vellos]

No, we weren't: not until just now.

First Alanna's heard of it was the relayed message from Hireshmont to Malus just now. (And she's in almost all the Councils in LN, so if she hasn't heard about it, LN in general hasn't heard about it.)

IIRC, the 'moot in general had also advised against D'Hara including LV in their previous peace demands.

It's easy to say that, but we had no proof.

Luria, at this point, honestly believes D'Hara to be deeply irrational.

You have to remember, we have just been through months and months of trying to convince D'Hara that we are serious about wanting to fight Aurvandil, after destroying Luria Vesperi, and having D'Hara tell us, again and again, that we had to not only let LV live, but give them land, or protection, or special status or various other things.

It's all about perspective, Vellos. Obviously from your perspective, a fellow member of the 'moot is trustworthy, and you can see the messages talking about how D'Hara wants peace, and wants the war to end.

We can't.

Literally everything that has come out of D'Hara over the past months has led us to believe they are paranoid, double-dealing idiots who have a vastly inflated opinion of themselves and would rather see Aurvandil conquer us all than admit that they couldn't defeat LN in a war. This incident plays directly into those perceptions.

Do not make the mistake of thinking LN is belligerent and irrational because of our perceptions of D'Hara.

On ipad so formatting is hard here. I'll respond in sequence.

1. Alice was told of the possibility of a "technicality war" directly by Rynn I believe. Maybe you got a doctored message. I'll double check this in a bit. Same message telling or turned around army I think?

2. Yes, we encouraged d'hara to abandon LV. Unsure what the point of this was?

3. Proof you know you can't get because you can't scout in water?

4. I still don't OOC believe Luria is serious about fighting Aurvandil on the whole. Y'all like killing each other too much for that to be credible. I'll believe it when I see the battle report. Even if y'all had an army in fission I'd be skeptical y'all weren't just about to backstabbing fissoa. And this is the probably most pro-Luria perspective in the Moot. Y'all are just too finicky, sensitive, and fickle.


Thus far, nobody in the Moot has ever been shown the alleged letter saying there was going to be an attack on Girich. So far it sounds like a Lurians whopper.

[Solari]

Thus far, nobody in the Moot has ever been shown the alleged letter saying there was going to be an attack on Girich. So far it sounds like a Lurians whopper.

I'm confused by this comment. Nobody in Luria said the 'Moot knew about this or planned it. If instead you meant that the army inbound for Girich was a Lurian whopper, then that would seemingly be at odds with what's been said IC by people who clearly know the truth. 

[Vellos]

I'm confused by this comment. Nobody in Luria said the 'Moot knew about this or planned it. If instead you meant that the army inbound for Girich was a Lurian whopper, then that would seemingly be at odds with what's been said IC by people who clearly know the truth. 

I known about the pre-peace army. But a pre-treaty invasion is hardly bad faith. We were given to believe there'd been some post-treaty aggression

[Solari]

I known about the pre-peace army. But a pre-treaty invasion is hardly bad faith. We were given to believe there'd been some post-treaty aggression

Now this is worth following up on. What was the nature of the post-treaty aggression? How was that belief arrived at? I'm not trying to score points here. I think everyone would genuinely benefit from seeing how dysfunctional the present relationship is. IC, everyone is professing the same goal. I can only speak for Luria, but everyone in a position to impact that goal has genuinely been pursuing it for months. War with D'Hara was like this awkward artifact that needed resolving. Are there characters who still very much want to pummel D'Hara? Of course. There are D'Harans who still let their fears of potential Lurian aggression dictate their larger foreign policy strategy. That's normal. If this dysfunction were purely the result of interactions between our characters, we'd all have probably marched to Aurvandil months ago. But it's clearly rooted in the players. This is an excellent opportunity to dissect the problem and improve the quality of play for everybody.

[vonGenf]

But it's clearly rooted in the players. This is an excellent opportunity to dissect the problem and improve the quality of play for everybody.

Really? It seems entirely in character to me. If anything, there were probably players who wanted to put this behind them but didn't because their character wouldn't, and wanted their character to be convinced on top of them.

[Solari]

Really? It seems entirely in character to me. If anything, there were probably players who wanted to put this behind them but didn't because their character wouldn't, and wanted their character to be convinced on top of them.

I'm sure that's the case for some. As the primary driver of the dysfunction, though, I think that reason is at odds with the vast catalog of chatter between people in Luria and D'Hara about the issue on the forums.

[Anaris]

1. Alice was told of the possibility of a "technicality war" directly by Rynn I believe. Maybe you got a doctored message. I'll double check this in a bit. Same message telling or turned around army I think?

From what I understand, Alice received that message several hours after LN was already convinced that D'Hara had decided to betray them.

I don't believe Alanna received anything directly addressing that possibility, though it was mentioned in the letters Malus passed to the Royal Court just before my previous message.

2. Yes, we encouraged d'hara to abandon LV. Unsure what the point of this was?

You were talking about what the Véinsørmoot wanted and was advocating. I don't give a fig what the 'moot wants or says in this matter if it's different than what D'Hara is actually doing.

3. Proof you know you can't get because you can't scout in water?

Doesn't make us any more inclined to trust D'Hara's bare word about it.

4. I still don't OOC believe Luria is serious about fighting Aurvandil on the whole. Y'all like killing each other too much for that to be credible.

OK, then, I'll tell you, right now, OOC, with perfect honesty:

Luria is serious about fighting Aurvandil. We're not deeply thrilled about it, as it doesn't mean any direct gain for us, and it takes us away from the war we've been trying to fight for a while now, but we do recognize the threat they pose. Some of us are less thrilled about it than others, naturally, and some are actively resentful of what they view as SA intervention.

But we are, absolutely, serious about fighting Aurvandil, and, at least from our perspective, we have been trying for months to get D'Hara to accept a treaty that simply says, "We stop fighting now," in order to do it.

Thus far, nobody in the Moot has ever been shown the alleged letter saying there was going to be an attack on Girich. So far it sounds like a Lurians whopper.

Neither has Alanna. All she heard was (I think) Malus declaring it as fact.

[Anaris]

Now this is worth following up on. What was the nature of the post-treaty aggression? How was that belief arrived at? I'm not trying to score points here. I think everyone would genuinely benefit from seeing how dysfunctional the present relationship is. IC, everyone is professing the same goal. I can only speak for Luria, but everyone in a position to impact that goal has genuinely been pursuing it for months. War with D'Hara was like this awkward artifact that needed resolving. Are there characters who still very much want to pummel D'Hara? Of course. There are D'Harans who still let their fears of potential Lurian aggression dictate their larger foreign policy strategy. That's normal. If this dysfunction were purely the result of interactions between our characters, we'd all have probably marched to Aurvandil months ago. But it's clearly rooted in the players. This is an excellent opportunity to dissect the problem and improve the quality of play for everybody.

I don't think I really agree with this.

Surely you don't think it's impossible for there to be two sides, both of whom actually want exactly the same thing, both of which are working hard toward that goal, but who cannot trust each other far enough to even believe that they could have a mutual interest when they're told so?

Distrust breeds distrust, and confirmation bias makes it so very easy to see perfectly innocent actions (and, even moreso, innocent mistakes and misunderstandings) as evidence of malice on the part of The Other.

I don't believe there's any significant problem between the players causing the friction in-game. I think it's all (or nearly all) based on perfectly understandable IC distrust and paranoia.