OOC Thread

[Daemonknight]

Actually its not, and as to your other point, to Wobbies arn't in Marian space either, C* is running all IS comms, or atleast thats what one would expect with the whole 'kicking them out of the IS' bit that went down. So both of your (outdated) pretexts are basiclly non-starters. And you acted like a total bandit, launching an invasion with overwhelming force to simply obliterate them, without even a token batchall.

The interwebs have spoken again- the Cats calling someone else pirates/bandits/whatever, is the pot calling the kettle black at this point. Tell you one thing, you've lost all credability as 'honorable opponenets' you might've had from the FedSuns, Lyrans and Falcons.

[Cannonshop]

The jump did only delay the invasion. If not for the jump, they would have been there already.

I say its better they actually do something instead of rot away senselessly.

And the marians are still Pirates. The Interwebs has spoken. Seriously, its useless to argue about that here.

if this were 3070 or 3071, that would matter, but it's 3091, the Word of Blake is effectively a campfire story people tell their kids to get them to go to church instead of hanging out with that weird preacher guy on the corner, and the border with the Marians was quiet until now.

Militarily, you err'ed as well-you dumped enough force to take the Marians, and wasted it taking two worlds without taking hte hexes (and hex elements) you were after.  In 3071, those hexes had at most 1 control world, they've developed, now there are two, leaving even your success stalled due to poor deployment choices.  What should've been a knockout, is...degraded.

You're going to have to stay and finish the job at this point.

[GI Journalist]

Yes, by all means, stay. The Spirit Cats showed up on my doorstep with little more greeting than, "Surrender or die!" Therefore, you have no reason to complain that you got a warmer reception than you were expecting. You slaughtered the defending aerospace forces. Now I'm sure the Legion will be happy to send even more cowardly Spirit Cat warriors to hell in a blaze of thermonuclear fire. The Spirit Cats went after my best troops on Alphard with overwhelming force, and it seems they underestimated them. Of course, Caesar Julius O'Reilly, who brought his nation out of piracy, respected the Star League charter and prevented the Legion from using nukes on ground targets. However you may have lost those assurances when Caesar perished in the final assault on Alphard and you decapited the Marian Government.

The Marians, now a civilized state, may be forced back into piracy, but if so, it will be because of the actions of the Spirit Cats, who are attempting to carve out their own Bandit Kingdom. The entire clan is behaving like members of the dark caste, and it's just a matter of time before someone within the Clans notices.

Yes, do stay. 

[Parmenion]

As opposed to slavery or death?

This is all well and good, but twenty years of being 'nice' doesn't make up for over fifty years of rape, pillage and plunder.  It's going to take a lot longer of the Marians playing 'nice' to come within the boundaries of decent neighbours.

And you all are conveniently forgetting that it was the Marians who launched an attack on a fellow Star League member state without any concrete evidence of wrongdoing by the second party.  And that it was the Marians themselves, along with the Taurian Concordant, that murdered their own sailors.  Killed when those two realms gutted that destroyer and used said incident as a pretext for war.

Oh, and guess what.  Launched raids on themselves to frame an innocent independent nation and who then used that as a pretext to launch a massive attack and conquered them.

IC, the Marian leadership has used lies, deceipt and murder to gobble up smaller neighbours.   Morals worthy of an Inner Sphere Great House.

[Fatebringer]

But the clans do believe in true forgiveness. While I do agree that they did things that would warrant this action, I see both sides of this coin, one side claims to have changed, but wasn't given a chance to prove it, the other side was working off the template and guidelines they had been given. On the other hand, I can't blame the cats for their actions and I think it should be an interesting mix from here on. Sorry to hear Ceaser died. I know when I ran the fed suns, we kept a spec ops detail on him at all times. Perhaps he could have had some help getting to a safer place?

[Iron Mongoose]

I will note that the Cats arn't the only faction that seemingly managed to carry on a grudge for 20 years over some slight or another...

... and the sooner we Leaguers get thouse damn Terrans, the better, right?!

[Marlin]

They will stay, GI J, they will. At least its gonna be interesting, right? Even if it went not so well with us 2 involved.

And yeah, blame me for the bad execution of the stuff, happens when one does not check the rules or is generally on his own with all this. A corrector at the side from time to time was really good, thats why I mostly envy the factions that have 2 or more players.

[Cannonshop]

As opposed to slavery or death?

This is all well and good, but twenty years of being 'nice' doesn't make up for over fifty years of rape, pillage and plunder.  It's going to take a lot longer of the Marians playing 'nice' to come within the boundaries of decent neighbours.

And you all are conveniently forgetting that it was the Marians who launched an attack on a fellow Star League member state without any concrete evidence of wrongdoing by the second party.  And that it was the Marians themselves, along with the Taurian Concordant, that murdered their own sailors.  Killed when those two realms gutted that destroyer and used said incident as a pretext for war.

Oh, and guess what.  Launched raids on themselves to frame an innocent independent nation and who then used that as a pretext to launch a massive attack and conquered them.

IC, the Marian leadership has used lies, deceipt and murder to gobble up smaller neighbours.   Morals worthy of an Inner Sphere Great House.

IIRC, the Magistracy wasn't a Star League Member at the time, and in fact refused to acknowledge the MH as a legitimate state at the time.  (I don't know of any attacks PRIOR to Turn 26, unless you count the MH/FWL war and the rickokulous force levels the then-staff gave the Terran Hegemony...)  None of those involved the Spirit-Cats directly, so there's no source for a grudge there, the MH was decidedly inactive during the renewed Clan offensive, so there's no basis of a grudge THERE, and they let the Spirit Cats HAVE NIOPS without a fight, so there's none there (hell, based on the map, the Cats had to transit Marian Space unless the FWL was actively helping them to take NIOPS, which is a relationship about as dirty as anything you've listed.)

it's a land-grab, which is part of the game, but the manner of the action was, well...

poorly thought out, and based on obselete information, or it would've succeeded a bit more thoroughly.  There was ample time for the Spirit Cats to adjust their force deployments before orders-due (final) for turn 1, if they'd done so, they'd have both hexes uncontested, based on sheer numbers sent in.

That's my criticism on the tactical front-they attacked before they were actually ready.  Are they Clanners, or Kzin?

Strategically, the template didn't account for political changes in the environment-do the Marians have allies that might actually do something? how much foreign development is going in, and are those foreign powers going to notice?  The presence of G(MF) on a couple sites in the Hegemony means that unlike NIOPS (Which was effectively cut off from everyone either by politics, or geography and had NO foreign investment), the Marians have someone who isn't going to be keen to lose their property to a hostile third party.

Some of those taking offense have forces in or near the area, and likely won't be keen on letting those forces be annihilated without a response either.

at this point, the Spirit Cats Need to make their case-if not to the inner sphere states, then to the Grand Council, as to why it's vital that their operations go uninterrupted.

which is probably going to be a tough sell to anyone but the Star Adders (who're having troubles of their own and could probably use the assistance of an ally that owes them quite a lot, really), and the Hell's Horses.  (reasons for the second should be obvious.)

The Cats need to engage in a propoganda blitz, I'd actually suggest shotgunning it onto both the Chatterweb, and the IS News threads-not about how successful their operations are (there's not a lot to crow about when you need three to ten times your target's manpower, and you fail to secure the sector), but about the good 'moral' reasons behind their operations-why it's necessary, why it was necessary to wait, and why it is necessary to act.  a couple Disseminate missions framing the Marians for bandit raids or something would help too.  They also need to start aggressively pursuing diplomacy with neighbours and neutrals both to firm up coverage on their rear areas, and to cut the Marians off from potential foreign assistance.

In this situation, the Cats can't just wait for others to want to talk to them-they're CLAN, nobody outside the Clans is going to make the first move unless they want something from them.  

[Marlin]

All your points are quite sound, Cannon (I miss our RP collaborations), but much of what you say need manpower to do. I hope I get the Orders in time to create facts, you know? And yes, they should go out on the PR front, they are investigating what happened to the WoB there. It was their base outside Terra etc. etc.

But well. Cant do much right now.

[GI Journalist]

As opposed to slavery or death?

This is all well and good, but twenty years of being 'nice' doesn't make up for over fifty years of rape, pillage and plunder.  It's going to take a lot longer of the Marians playing 'nice' to come within the boundaries of decent neighbours.

And you all are conveniently forgetting that it was the Marians who launched an attack on a fellow Star League member state without any concrete evidence of wrongdoing by the second party.  And that it was the Marians themselves, along with the Taurian Concordant, that murdered their own sailors.  Killed when those two realms gutted that destroyer and used said incident as a pretext for war.

Oh, and guess what.  Launched raids on themselves to frame an innocent independent nation and who then used that as a pretext to launch a massive attack and conquered them.

IC, the Marian leadership has used lies, deceipt and murder to gobble up smaller neighbours.   Morals worthy of an Inner Sphere Great House.

Thank you for such flattery.  

Sadly, I can't take all the credit, but one thing is true, the Marian Hegemony has struggled to gain recognition as a Star League member with a standing close to those of one of the Great Houses.  You have to remember that the Hegemony is a very young state, born out of the hard scrabble lot of the Periphery in the early 3000's. Piracy was the norm. The previous faction head spent considerable time developing them, eliminating slavery, and making the Lothian League an equal partner. Granted, they were not immune to taking advantage of the occassional bit of intrigue to achieve their ends.  Of course, Parmenion is treating us to a nice taste of the kind of propaganda that the Magistracy of Canopus will use to take advantage of the Hegemony's current situation.

This is considerablly refreshing compared to the bandits formerly known as Clan Spirit Cat, who have never really advertised the reasons for their actions. They seem to either view the Marian Hegemony as undeveloped real estate, or they have some kind of undisclosed link to the Magistracy of Canopus. Either way, their actions won't gain them any glory in the eyes of their fellow Clans. As I recall, the Coalition of Periphery States did make a push on the Magistracy, with the Marians leading the way, claiming that the Magistracy of Canopus was colluding with the Clans. Sadly, the Star League didn't see it that way, and the offensive stalled. When we left them, the involved parties were at the negotiating table, until finally the Spirit Cats crushed the absentee Niops faction. This effectively disbanded the CoPS and returned control of all Magistracy planets to their rightful owner.

I wouldn't expect the Magistracy of Canopus to forgive and forget, even after twenty years of the Marians "playing nice." However, I wouldn't have expected the Spirit Cats to get involved at all.

Go figure.

[GI Journalist]

All your points are quite sound, Cannon (I miss our RP collaborations), but much of what you say need manpower to do. I hope I get the Orders in time to create facts, you know? And yes, they should go out on the PR front, they are investigating what happened to the WoB there. It was their base outside Terra etc. etc.

But well. Cant do much right now.

Investigating my capitals with the Khan, SaKhan, and a fleet of WarShips?

With that investigative team, the only evidence your recon-in-overwhelming-force is likely to find are the Alamo missiles that I used to vaporize your WarShips. That's definitely a side benefit of past Word of Blake support, whose technological aid packages tended to include a disproportionate number of weapons of mass destruction. Lucky for you, I've chosen to use them responsibily. 

If this is your motivation, it's also unfortunate that you initially targeted only the capital worlds, leaving any real or imagined Word of Blake elements at my other improved communication site free to respond. Therefore, I can only hope your invasion is entirely without merit, and there are no WoB agents hiding in Marian space.

--

[Cannonshop]

All your points are quite sound, Cannon (I miss our RP collaborations), but much of what you say need manpower to do. I hope I get the Orders in time to create facts, you know? And yes, they should go out on the PR front, they are investigating what happened to the WoB there. It was their base outside Terra etc. etc.

But well. Cant do much right now.

Based on the reputation of the Spirit Cat navy, and on your attacking forces at Alphard, you don't have a manpower shortage to speak of-the force you sent is enough to cover almost every hex in the MH if you were recon-raiding, for instance, plus you have the SC's special-forces units for certain missions, plus budget for a host of intel ops that, if you hadn't hauled off in the first turn, could've developed sufficient intel to know where he's strong, where he's weak, and where his nukes were.

Your strategy as it stands could manage to still survive and net you results, but again, that's only because you outnumber him so much that you can still blow attack rolls and win in simple res-the only chance he's got is to pop '12's in large numbers-repeatedly.

which goes back to my original point-under those conditions, if the smaller faction HAS nukes, they're negligent if they DON'T use them.  Your WoB pretext doesn't hold up to even a cursory look, because you targeted zones that don't HAVE the IC's that would be staffed by a WoB force.  This leaves only a couple base options for why you're doing this...

1. The MoC hired the Cats to attack their old enemies
2. The FWL hired the Cats to attack an old irritation.
3. Clan Spirit Cat is carving an empire in the south, away from the other Clans.

1&2 are really the same option-the Spirit Cats are doing this on behalf of someone else-a motive that better fits known 'mercenary' states like the UIW, which has a twenty-year reputation of only fighting other people's wars, in exchange for industrial development and Cash-and only justified by the relative poverty of the faction, They even advertise their services with fixed rates and contract terms.  NOT the reputation you want for a Clan, whom fight for Honour as much as Territory.

3 Raises questions about the motives of the Spirit Cats themselves-and why not? they used to be NovaCats, a Clan that turned on the other Clans and went into exile with the Terrans, they next are seen coming to the Homeworlds, hands-out, with data designed to trigger a major war-a war that cost more than one Clan their very existence.  Their ally the Star Adders are under massive Lyran attack, and the balance in that combat is not going in favour of that ally...and where is the Spirit Cat Fleet?  Too far away to affect the outcome, and they OWE the Adders much of the territory they hold above Waypoint.

What can be derived, based on the last 25 years in-game, is that the SC's are indifferent allies verging on serial traitors-they've betrayed everyone in both the Inner Sphere and Clans at least ONCE-in public perception-but the ground-shot is that they're not reliable allies, and after this series of programmed attacks, they're not particularly good strategists when working for their own benefit.

But, they DO have a large and powerful fleet (relative to other states, maybe not relative to the Dominion, but that's a super-state of a different, bluer colour.)

The presence of FWL designs in the Spirit Cat fleet (and the absence of conflict with said FWL) points large and bright to option 2 of the list-the Cats are Cat's paws for....

...an Inner Sphere Great House.

This can, if true, prove difficult to explain, as the Clans that have OPEN relationships with Great Houses (Jade Falcon, Ghost Bear, Snow Raven, Hell's Horses) have this relationship openly, they make no pretense of independence-of-action where the interests of both House, and Clan, merge.

Unlike "mercenary" factions, the Spirit Cats, having only recently won back a seat on the Grand Council, MUST maintain the image of Legitimacy within said council-their position there is too fragile to risk even the scented hint of potential betrayal, or weakness.  Even with Clans in exile and destroyed, (and it's a fair list of both) the problem the Cats have, is that the Grand Council is made of people that, if they're true-to-type, aren't particularly patient OR forgiving folks when it comes to errors among their own.

All that said, "I" know you were just finishing Hugin's plan... but that plan was put together when the map looked VERY different.

[Fatebringer]

Had the cats acted earlier, maybe they would have gotten a bigger piece of the jump forward pie.

The fact that they waited, meant they had to fighter the Marians after they got their piece. Makes a for a bigger war, and as people stated before, we now have 2 groups that have spent some of their "Mad Money" for an in game effect.

The Lyrans have been busy, but they've also saved their mad money by issuing trials, conveniently after the Archon said there would be no Zell for the honorless snakes Sounded kinda like FS-DC talk We know who'se related to who now

[Daemonknight]

its called rousing the troops

[Marlin]

Nice writeup Cannon. You should really join some Clan. Perhaps even the Cats.

Seriously. The GC is not what it used to be. To the rest, I wont comment too much. I think if it keeps people thinking about possibilities, it is a good thing and keeps the game alive. Bad enough that all the big powers in the east play nice with each other.