Silence and stagnation was part of the issue to begin with. Anyone who was in D'Hara just before the monsters/glaciers struck would have known the situation that spawned the dissent in the ranks - and none of them should have been surprised given the way things escalated.
A pissing contest over land from long before i ever started playing spawned something like the 3rd or 4th war over the Isles. About a day after I took office as ruler, i made the attempt to start diplomatic discussions over an arrangement for the isles. Almost the next day the event started, which made -everyone- paranoid as hell. Those that were sympathetic to the attempts of peace were immediately shushed, or in the case of the Prime Minister - removed from office citing rather ridiculous reasoning.
Since then, from what i've seen of the shared letters, every effort has been made to basically dictate a "Do as we say" mentality about the war. Leading to more than a few pissed players who had completely valid reasons to seek external support for internal issues. I'm lost as to how a sudden regime change and 'do-or-die' order structure is less damaging to the game than people trying to maintain sanity in what has amounted to one HELL of a cluster!@#$ on the continent.
Indrik, i would agree more with the sentiment about 'close circles only' but that was basically what spawned the 'spying' issues all by itself. The discussions that were made public had their usual political spin to make everyone but them and their allies look like !@#$%^&s. The letters i've seen were twisted into knots, if not straight up lies, about everything I'd said or worked for since taking my seat as ruler. The history of Luria hasn't helped in that regard (not that anyone can deny Luria has a history of backstabbing) but to essentially lump inter-game espionage of any kind with something like OOC Metagaming is ridiculous.
The game doesn't provide a lot of opportunity to remove a leader or council member, let alone get support from the realm. I've seen a fair number of people who simply follow every order given because apparently free thought in a game based around RP and interaction is too much to ask. These are the kinds of people 'crazy rulers' rely on to follow through with plans. You get a couple of well-known people in a realm to agree with you, group-think sets in for the sheep. I got to where i was because i questioned the order from above. Questioning in the Southern League has lead to letters of political manslaughter, or simply direct death threats.
It's simply part of the game, and for that matter - a part of life.
Anyone that is part of this continental mess in Dwilight can see exactly what events took place to cause the sentiment of the players on both sides. No one is innocent in the matter, and those that tried to do something about it without spying were basically run out of town for trying. I'll never denounce IC spying, I expect it and act accordingly for the most part. The only issue i'll raise is the use of IRC to arrange IC situations that have simply no basis or reason to happen. Some of us had friends within the league prior to the war - were we supposed to stop our IC discussion simply because the new sheriff in town said so? That sort of thought will murder the game faster than anything
EDIT: I should clarify that I'm not defending the people who spy essentially just to cheat the game - screw them as well. I'm referring to those that have entirely logical reasons for what they're doing within the scope of the game and the events happening.
