The quotation marks are disingenuous. This isn't speculation, there is one confirmed both IC and OOC.
I don't accept this characterisation at all. Polar Raven's use of inverted commas is perfectly reasonable. This was very much the case of realms finding common cause/enemy on a singular issue.
Matthew R's characterisation is much more accurate:
I think a point that I and others take issue with here is the description of the coalition as an alliance bloc. Our characters all had different reasons for wanting to fight Thalmarkin, the fact that everything lined up all at once does not, in any way, indicate that those realms would have ended up at peace with each other afterwards. There is a substantial segment of Obia'Syela that wants to fight the Vales and Nova again, as soon as is practical. Saoirse is very leery of the Sanguine Order, and conflict there is almost inevitable if she stays in power (which is by no means guaranteed). And that's just the stuff that I personally know about that could cause the whole thing to come tumbling down.
Yet you respond to this by saying you didn't regard OS as being in the same block/behaviour? What determines that other than your arbitrary say so - or your desire to court favour with players you deem superior? (which is a problematic mindset in itself). SV's connections with OS despite being complicated as Matt R observes, are closer than with Nothoi or Irondale but by no means fixed.
The problem comes in that you made an OOC decision to forsake diplomacy, Irondale made a decision to go heavy on generating common cause diplomacy around the same time; having the potential to negate VS and draw common cause with SV. It isn't for you OOC to tell them they cannot do that when they had already been making those connections prior to your declaration. You seem to feel entitled to determine not only your dominant realms actions but everyone else's too. If this war was going to be so much in Irondale's interests "fun" wise or otherwise, you failed to even make that case to them.
Irondale/Nothoi's dominance as supposed inevitable victors in determining the terms on which the conflict ends seems something you failed to factor in also, even if as you tenuously argue, there would ever only be one outcome from even that more limited conflict. You didn't let the losers in previous wars set the outcome for the end of those wars. How were you planning to bring this war to an end after you lost some ground? But the truth is that it would more accurately only be presented as posing a greater challenge for your realm rather than being a selfless war you were bound to lose, it was something Irondale clearly did not welcome with the risks it brought to the fragile bonds of a new realm. Were you guaranteeing not to take any regions from them? Irondale was already vulnerable on food and with trying to bring disparate players together who were already at a low morale from previous defeats. It would have been better to seek agreement before setting that in motion rather than arrogantly to tell everyone how you have decided things should be - not only for your own realm but everyone else's too. Thalmarkin's day of reckoning was always likely to come eventually, again it is not for you to be the sole decider in how that might come about. As this thread lays out from different players, there were already plenty of IC stories building towards settling those scores.
As Matt R points out there are headaches regarding when and how to go OOC on these matters. When we have been contacted OOC in a semi adult manner we have reacted promptly to mitigate the imbalance concerns. There is still the counter balancing real sentiment that this takes advantage of our better nature in the process given your flimsy dismissal of hardships you inflicted on both characters and players through past events, which you justify only in retrospect and not with engagement with those players' concerns. Hardships you have not shown willing to face up to for your own realm which you imply deserves some special status. For ourselves going OOC too soon with VS would have removed the IC tension from the situation. There was great uncertainty when our forces rounded the point of no return at Reeds leaving our homelands exposed. If we had gone OOC too soon it would have stifled that tension and limited VS's agency to react in what turned out to be a very unexpected manner (but again justifiable IC).
Issues regarding imbalance could have been and ultimately were, addressed promptly when we were contacted in a mature manner OOC rather than an escalating mix of IC/OOC arguments culminating in you inferring we/I was borderline cheating. We shared a good natured enough brief OOC exchange where the only point I made was if you wanted to look at OOC resolutions message me directly rather than playing to the crowd as you had been with your mixed IC/OOC arguments. You chose to do the opposite to that.
Other than the difficulty of determining when to go OOC, and the need for that to be consultative where possible rather than telling people how you expect them to behave, it does also reveal a common likely problem. Players will inevitably disagree on interpretations of past and present events. Your attempt to present yourself as IC bully, OOC teachers pet with "special" insight or presumed (by you) approval from the mods is problematic for me when different interpretations are inevitable. If we are working towards a good protocol outline with the declarations that could be positive, but if there is sufficient grey areas around the OOC side then debates seem more likely to be inflamed rather than mitigated.
