SD.Net World Redux Comment Thread VII

[Shroom Man 777]

CSR joins USSR; forms CATO.

The CSR and the USSR were practically conjoined at the hip anyway.

Shroomania joins CATO.

Shroomania is close allies with a lot of the SNC nations. Shroomania shares a "special relationship" with PeZookia and together with Byzantine have an interest in safeguarding the Mediterannean, even before the Warden incident. Previously, there were the incidents involving Shep's sinking of the SHROOM VIKING supertanker, and the cutting of the SHROOMCABLE underwater fiber optic cable. Shroomania and the CSR have also had a thawing out of previously chilled relationships - with the CSR laxing a little and little Shroomanian children like Shroomantha Smith sending letters to Comrade Stanislav.

Also, when SHEP TRIED TO KILL SHROOMANIA, the CSR lent us a hand and basically saved our asses.

So we're pretty tight.

And it can be said that Shroomania was the one that formed CATO. IIRC, I was the one who coined the name and CATO was announced in Shroomania.

Then, in a series of secret meetings, two Frequesque nations join together and become CATO; and another Frequesque nation joins CATO (without even the courtesy of saying out loud they were abandoning FTO neutrality agreements first)

They're all willing and consenting partners of sound age and mind.

[Also, Shroomania and San Dorado are Super Best Friends and San Dorado is a highly influential Frequesean nation.]

and within a week invades a weaker neighbor on suspicious grounds.

A weaker neighbor that was a wartorn Somalia-style craphole whose borders were overcrowding with refugees and other crap-pieces. The Baernish went in with peacekeepers. If it was an invasion, the the US Army Rangers in Somalia in 1993 was Operation Middle Eastern Freedom.

Not to mention that for years San Dorado has had a military base in the Costa to form part of a buffer zone.

There has been, from MESS perspectives, a sudden, alarming, massive and secretly arranged expansion of a power bloc

*shrug* I don't know. Maybe people wanted to form a big power bloc since being in a massive and mighty entanglement of survivalist states is apparently very cool.

Besides, why not? The MESS has been the sole uncontested superpower for, like, forever.

From a non-MESS perspective (i.e. the rest of the world), your Massive Entanglement of Survivalist States is an aggregation of some of the world's biggest and most powerful Imperiums AND Tsadroms.

all using the long-ago Tian Jiao as an excuse for this catalyst.

The Massive Entanglement of Survivalist States is an aggregation of some of the world's biggest and most powerful Imperiums and Tsadroms. When beforehand, the MESS (or Tian Xia) sticks its business in Tian Jiao, the puny FTO cant do or say a thing. Because they're puny. They're composed of Midget Nations like Miratia.

But now, in the CATO, at least they can verbalize how uncomfortable the MESS has made them feel. Going in, when it's all dry and rough, without lube, uninvited. Like an unwelcomed appendage going into an orifice.

At least they consented copulating CATO.

Even a phone call to the MESS leaders to give us a heads-up would have gone a long way to alleviate any sudden alarm, but look at it in reality-- if you were on the outside of this expansion, looking in, wouldn't any reasonable person be alarmed by this?

Look at it in reality -- the MESS has been an undisputed power ever since the game began. The formation of CATO, or something like CATO, was nigh inevitable.

You should at least take consolation in the fact that CATO isn't the Unified Atomic Republic.

I'm sure a few world leaders can still remember the horrifying vestiges of their past lives. The bleached skulls, the blackened skies, the machines rising out of the ashes of the nuclear fire, armies of chrome silver skeletons out to hunt and kill and terminate every human soul left alive...

Because Prime Minister Shroom still does. With every waking moment of his life.

Shroom because he has yet to meet with RougeIce.

I'm out of town. I can barely afford a couple of hours of internets per day. I'm busy and goddamn tired.

Shroom, IC, can be RPed by SiegeTank anywhoo.

And that is what showed the FTO to be a paper tiger when it came to Imperiums doing anything.

Well, now that's obviously changed, with prominent former FTO nations gravitating towards CATO out of their own free will. While NPCs and civil war-ravaged Vineyards going to the MESS.

It was Stas who torched him in this universe so if anything I think most folks IU would be massively more afraid of CATO given that up until the OD's recent use of nukes was the only power bloc to have utilized weapons of mass destruction.

Stas did his attack in secret, though. So it's still widely held that Astaria and Shepistan killed each other by themselves.

So again paranoia IU right now should probably run more towards being wary of CATO axis rather than the MESS axis. Especially since the former has been the force behind at least one coup that we know of and was the principal mover behind breaking up the F-ing Neutrality Pact.

What coup? Which coup? Besides, we can say the same thing about the Vinish, how after a revolution and how the MESS leaders met 'em, the nation ended up becoming a MESS observer. [And is now parroting VICIOUS LIES against its former Super Best Friends, San Dorado and Shroomania!

Breaking up the F-ing Neutrality Pact? Well, CATO didn't break anything. The Frequesean nations that joined CATO did. They chose to. For good reasons. Or something. I'm sure Siege and Baerne can say whatever.

They're the Frequesean nations. Since they're Frequesean nations, they can say way more about it than non-Frequesean nations.

The Result is the same, "Foreign," using that term inaccurately, Troops on Frequesuan Soil. If anything the former is much worse to a Frequesuan Neo-Nationalist, as the Former adds a Layer of betrayal to the opinions of the folks involved.

Well, as long as both parties shared consent. It's for protection.

[Lonestar]

Stas did his attack in secret, though. So it's still widely held that Astaria and Shepistan killed each other by themselves.

I back-conned a while ago(like, several years in-game) that the Old Dominion and Shepistani Forces recovered the remains of a CSR Cruise missile in the Shepistan quarantine zone. Stas hasn't disputed the statement in the couple of times I've mentioned it in-game(although I did keep the knowledge limited to the MESS Leadership rather than making it public), so it isn't a DEEP DARK CONSPIRACY that Stas got away with.

[Siege]

Remember when the PRSF attacked Westchester? You FTO guys were going to intervene, up until the CSR parked a naval fleet in Livorno and declared the PRSF airspace off limits, effectively backing the PRSF in their attack on Westchester. When the FTO left because of that, who did Westchester go to? Their former masters Tian Xia, the only ones who, it seemed, could actually do something about it. And hence went the slide to Tian Jiao.

Yeah, that's not what happened. We sent fleets and troops to the area, and even after the CSR sent its fleet they remained on station. In fact I had to pressure the Vineyards into letting me send fighter-bombers to the region. But rather than thank us Westchester went out of its way to blow us off, and ran to Tian Xia instead. Even then I was going to bomb the hell out of the PRSF troops in Tian Jiao, but the PRSF chose to withdraw before I could do so.

Speaking of which, that above scenario is strikingly similar to the Baerne/Costas Conflict, with CATO (aka Baerne) moving in troops as "peacekeepers" but, as anyone with a brain can see, in reality supporting one side against the other. I guess the more things change...

We've been over this before; you know how I think about what happened and I know how you think about it. I feel no particular desire to go through the motions of this argument again.

Technically the San Dorado Navy intermixed with the Tian Xia Navy, so there you go. Even after they went back apparently you weren't that upset with them.

They seemed the least bad option at the time, but that was before they annexed Westchester wholesale. Clearly I was mistaken. In fact, I've even admitted in-game to the CSR that I badly mishandled the Uranium War. I should've told all of y'all to sod off.

It was Stas who torched him in this universe so if anything I think most folks IU would be massively more afraid of CATO given that up until the OD's recent use of nukes was the only power bloc to have utilized weapons of mass destruction.

As I recall Astaria bombed Shepistan with anthrax after Shepistan showered Astaria in bioweapon cocktails. The subsequent bombing of Shepistan by the CSR (and let's not forget the chemical bombing of Astaria by Tian Xia!) was never made public. The OD may have figured out what happened, but I never did, so I can't act on that information. As far as I know the Pathogen War was a textbook example of mutually assured destruction.

So again paranoia IU right now should probably run more towards being wary of CATO axis rather than the MESS axis. Especially since the former has been the force behind at least one coup that we know of and was the principal mover behind breaking up the F-ing Neutrality Pact.

You mean the pact Tian Xia outright refused to sign? The neutrality pact was worthless the minute that happened. When it became clear the MESS had no intention of making sure Tian Xia was aboard I should've never ratified that treaty. I won't make that mistake in the future.

Given the fact you invited CATO military bases into Coilerburg before that, I'm going to be highly amused at the above.

Oh please. Nations do not change their strategic allegiances on a dime. I realized the FTO was a paper tiger years ago, and since then I worked to better ties with CATO. I was originally going to go at it alone like Indhopal is doing now, and the base was a sacrifice I had to make to secure the free trade agreement with the OC that I needed in case the FTO was going to cut me off.

Fact of the matter is, I wasn't going to sign up with the alliance until Tian Xia pulled its stunt in the CFR. I even mentioned that as being a prime reason for the decision to join CATO in the speech I gave.

Evidently it doesn't bother you when your outside military forces move in, does it? Just Big Bad Tian Xia.

Yes, I thought so much would be obvious. Like I said earlier I never minded the Shinran naval base and you haven't heard me complain about the Canissian legionnaires either. Relations with Canissia and the Shinra Republic are just peachy insofar as I'm concerned. It's Tian Xia's adversarial attitude that gets me. So I tend to react negatively to that, and sue me if you don't like it.

[DarthShady]

Baerne, The UCSR will be more than happy to help fix up your carrier.

Delightful. Actually, I'd prefer to do as much of it at home as possible, but if you could detach somebody with actual working experience on the things, it would surely be helpful.

Sure. I can send over some engineers and equipment to help out. We'll have it back up and running in no time.

Even a phone call to the MESS leaders to give us a heads-up would have gone a long way to alleviate any sudden alarm, but look at it in reality-- if you were on the outside of this expansion, looking in, wouldn't any reasonable person be alarmed by this?

The way I see it you guys have nobody to blame but yourself. The MESS is a pretty isolationist alliance, well most members are, you seem to be the exception. The thing is most players see the MESS as a closed group, which only intervenes with force, when it suits their interests. Honestly from where I'm standing it seems like the MESS has a problem with CATO's expansion because you're used to being the big kid on the block, with nobody who could possibly oppose you. That is now changing due to CATO. I believe you can understand why most players would prefer to work with CATO, we treat every member as an equal. While anybody who joins the MESS, will be overshadowed by the big boys and become nothing but a puppet state, that serves your interests.

Frankly CATO doesn't want to antagonize the MESS, we don't want conflict, but certain MESS members(Primarily Tian Xia)seem to be going out of their way to antagonize us. And trust me when I say this, CATO is not a paper tiger that can be pushed around, we want peace and prosperity, but we will not back down from our interests because it suits MESS interests.

[CmdrWilkens]

The way I see it you guys have nobody to blame but yourself. The MESS is a pretty isolationist alliance, well most members are, you seem to be the exception. The thing is most players see the MESS as a closed group, which only intervenes with force, when it suits their interests. Honestly from where I'm standing it seems like the MESS has a problem with CATO's expansion because you're used to being the big kid on the block, with nobody who could possibly oppose you. That is now changing due to CATO. I believe you can understand why most players would prefer to work with CATO, we treat every member as an equal. While anybody who joins the MESS, will be overshadowed by the big boys and become nothing but a puppet state, that serves your interests.

Frankly CATO doesn't want to antagonize the MESS, we don't want conflict, but certain MESS members(Primarily Tian Xia)seem to be going out of their way to antagonize us. And trust me when I say this, CATO is not a paper tiger that can be pushed around, we want peace and prosperity, but we will not back down from our interests because it suits MESS interests.

The question is can you point to any incident where the MESS intervened with force to protect its interests without say being invited or attacked first? We may be "isolationist" but its hard to be both isolationist and "intervene with force, when it suits their interest." In fact those two actions are essentially antithetical to one another. You can't intimidate with force AND be isolationist at the same time so I think its honestly just paranoia derived entierely from OOC sources and not from IU sources.

Many nations interact just fine buying and selling with the MESS, folks have interchanged with the Byzantines for years in game (and they are MESS members as well), Canissia has been involved in Old Continent affairs, Wilkonian served to host and build the Bioweapons treaty and most of the member states have sold off military and civilian hardware to virtually every (pre-CATO) unaligned power. In other words you would be hard pressed to find an IU reason to be distrustful aside from the fact that Tian Xia intervened when asked to.

You want to know the reason I'm ticked? Its because as with above we have, colelctively and individually, tried to play this in character that suits our government and histories while trying to both prevent another repeat of WWIII from last game and to avoid intervening elsewhere. However given that we are consistently made into the boogeyman for entirely OOC reasons and that ticks me off. I could care less how big CATO gets but I do care that people go "big bad MESS" when there is no IU basis for that and its only OOC paranoia.

[PeZook]

I'm not sure being paranoid over a huge alliance with truly gigantic conventional and nuclear superiority to everyone except maybe CATO is entirely OOC paranoia.

Besides, people keep forgetting that we are SD.netters who were transplanted here. Shep did it, too, complaining that there was no good reason for some alliances: yes, there was, because personal relationships between leaders here are somewhat different than in the real world.

Also, diplomacy is a game of perceptions as much as reality, and the MESS has a PR problem they failed to recognize and correct for a while now. If people perceive you as insular and militaristic, there may be a problem somewhere, rather than just blatant unfairness of the world at large...only Coyote has actually noticed that lately.

Hrmpf...I think we may need a CATO-MESS conference in the near future...

[DarthShady]

I'm interested to know what interests the MESS,Tian Xia in particular is protecting by intervening in the Costa thing, except it isn't; Beowulf is simply messing with CATO and Baerne. Nobody asked him to intervene there. And what of Rogue's attempt to scare Shroom after the Warden Incident. Trying to stop him from doing something that he had every right on doing. You guys use force and political pressure when it suits you, you can't deny that.

And yeah, calling you isolationist was wrong. You're more like a closed club.

What I'm trying to say is; it's your own actions IU and OOC that are making you look like the boogeyman, not ours. And it's not like the MESS Propaganda machine hasn't tried to make CATO into the boogeyman. Like Paul says, the MESS has a PR problem and you aren't doing much to correct it.

P.S. I have to leave now, so more on this when I come back.

[K. A. Pital]

Oh this political antagonisms !!! Retired President Stanislav send the MESS a ray of love. Bunnies and kittens! Don't worry!

1) Shep attacked Astaria with biological weapons, then was counter-attacked. I joined the counter attack as a covert operation by sending some stealthy cruise missiles into the war zone and killifying Shep's territory to ensure he stays dead. After Game 1, that made perfect sense. Doing it in secret, or at least somewhat deniable, also made sense because the public isn't going to like that. Moreover, it's not like the MESS had a problem with my murder of Shep; I guess it had something to do with Shep being your enemy in a recent war didn't it?

2) It's possible to be both isolationist and intimidating. No? Look at Japanistan.

3) Tian Xia interevened of their own will; Beowulf even redrafted the OOB of another nation to be better useful in a war - tells you he was anticipating that war, wasn't he?

4) Wilkonia and Tian Xia are major naval powers and last time they were in a war it was against Shep with the O.D., which itself doesn't gather many sympathies. I mean, the OD and Shep caused a large war and were basically pariah nations for the rest since that day. One of those nations died, but OD lives on and now it's again playing rough

[Master_Baerne]

3) To be fair, the Costa OOB I made was horrible. I recommend we give Beowulf the benefit of the doubt on this particular issue.

[Coyote]

Ignoring for a moment the whole situation in Klavostan and the foreign legionnaires I think it's fairly obvious here that the catalyst for the current situation was the Tian Xian decision to embark on a military adventure in the CFR. That was the reason I left the FTO, and aligned myself with CATO. That's at the root of all of this.

So don't confuse cause and effect here. Oh, and don't give me this crap about phone calls either, because we sure didn't receive any before Tian Xia decided to send troops into the CFR.

EDIT: Note that I'm not even blaming the MESS per se...

Hold on, bear in mind I'm explaining the reactions of the MESS. Everything is seen through the prism of one's own interests. Most of us either have nothing to do with, or are unknowing of, Tian Xia's expansion in Frequesque. We see "the sudden, and many times secret expansion of CATO" and wonder "what could all this be about?" I'm trying to role play this as realistically as possible; many in the MESS see the rapid growth of CATO with similar suspicion to modern Russians view of the massive expansion of NATO. Of course there are differences, since in the real world, NATO's stated goal is an anti-Soviet/Russian mission; whereas CATO doesn't seem to have a stated goal beyond group security, trade, tech sharing, etc-- basically a mirror of the MESS, really.

The MESS has been a large alliance for a long time, but in our eyes we haven't done anything for years, with the exception of Shepistan, which we all felt was a threat.

I have a history of fierce Nationalists, who are my country's "right wing conservatives", who have feared "the Eastern Hand" of political manipulation since the 1890's civil war against the Communists. The Nationalists were originally rebelling against the Monarchy to impose a Republic, but during the fighting the Communists scored numerous victories, and the Nationalists and Monarchists had to ally, come to a hasty agreement with a constitutional monarchy, and unite to drive out the Communists. That's why Canissia is a "Royal People's Republic", a contradiction in terms if there ever was one.

I, as a player character, may know better but I have a tide to ride with my population-- who will overthrow me if I don't "take the threat seriously". Plus, as a player, I don't know the behind-the-scenes goings-on, so there is a bit of real-world "WTF" speculation.

[Siege]

Well I, like you, am RP'ing this from my nation's perspective.

And arguing from that perspective, I feel I can say that I have more than enough reasons to really dislike Tian Xia because of its actions over the years. The Empire has done preciously little to dispel my PC's belief that they like throwing their weight around or running over little nations far too much, and the simple fact that the MESS has done nothing to reign in their behavior is rapidly souring me to the alliance as a whole.

You see, you may feel that you've done nothing as an alliance recently, but that's certainly not how we see it. When a key member of the MESS acts in a belligerent manner, and the rest of the alliance does not distance itself from that behavior, we tend to take that at best as callous disregard for our interests, and at worst as implicit approval of your allies' power-mongering.

This relates to what PeZook already mentioned: in terms of your image among CATO countries you've a whopper of a PR problem, but you seem completely oblivious to it, or at least to how it's come to be this way. It's as if the thought that the actions of one of your member states could reflect negatively on the group as a whole does not even surface--whilst simultaneously several of your own member states were laughing at the paper tiger status of the FTO. I mean, I can hardly be the only one who sees the disconnect there, right?

[Raj Ahten]

EDIT: Hell, if we want to invent plots now, what about Baerne paying off the Sultan to recall those mercs? Without the mercs, Sam Austin's revolution was in deep shit. Baernish intervention bailed him out. Now, instead of Sam Austin pulling it off with the help of mercs, he is indebted to the Baernish government (and thus CATO). Is that not also a possibility?

The fact your overly paranoid intelligence agency is just singling out Tian Xia here, when Baerne has shown much more of an interest in the Costas (and yet absolutely no suspicion has been thrown their way it would seem) is odd.

My intel singling out Tian Xia is hardly the only reason here. If you'll note a big part of the justification given in the game thread is that Indhopal has always seen Klavostan as a loose cannon and with the FTO gone more direct methods of control are needed.

Also I guess you've never heard of intel agencies telling their bosses what they want to hear? Tian Xia being involved with everything is like Iraq helping Bin Laden. Indhopal has been more suspicious of Tian Xia than nearly anyone else ever since they annexed Westchester.

Your point that the Sultan's actions might indicate he is leaning CATO is simply another reason for the coup; I can't afford a foreign puppet of anyone on my border.

Also for the Sultan to be of any real use to Tian Xia he has to change policy and that is something that might be picked up on. (Such as changing advisers from those that favor pan Frequesuan policies perhaps. This is a bit more iffy really.)

Maybe he's just paranoid in general because somebody tried to blow him up. The point is, there ARE other reasons, and you somehow divining that this is all some Tian Xian plot is really, really odd. Or OOC information in-game.

Look I have never said that my intel agency knows that the Sultan has been replaced by Tian Xia. I've just pointed out that it would be ludicrous for a replacement to be able to operate with no one being able to tell any difference. Personality changes and policy changes such as the nationalization indicate the Sultan is changing the direction his rule might be heading. With my analysts saying practically everything is a product of one of the grand alliances, along with Klavostani mercenaries having a history of hiring out for nearly anything, I can't afford to wait and see what a newly unpredictable sultan is going to do.

This coup is also about a shift in Indhopal's foreign policy. I tried alliance building and attempting to build consensus through the FTO and that simply led to the complete ruination of my foreign policy. Now Indhopal is reverting to its hard line policies popular with the 1st Republic where pure power politics was all that mattered. Coup's and other such nastiness are simply now standard operating procedure when you have doubts about your neighbor.

Edit: cleaned up a bit.

[Raj Ahten]

It's only been six, seven years since the "Uranium War", that's not enough time for it to be considered "a long time ago". That's within recent living memory, hell, 9/11 is more "the past" for us now. Therefore it's realistic that the Tian Jiao situation still rankles with Frequesue.

Also, as I recall, the FTO wasn't even given a full chance to respond. The CSR task force was only in Livorno; the FTO still could've gone after the actual attack into Tian Jiao. But they weren't given the chance; Tian Jiao turned immediately to Tian Xia for support.

It's correct to say the FTO was never given a chance to help Westchester. We offered to back them to the hilt, practically even having aircraft on the way the moment we heard they were in trouble. They declined FTO assistance and went with Tian Xia instead as they thought their old masters could provide much better assistance.

[PeZook]

To be honest, CATO did screw up somewhat by allowing Baerne's sudden invasion (let's not pussyfoot around the issue: justified or not, it was an invasion) of the Costa. Though we did make it better by forcing an armistice (against the wishes of Baernish populace, mind you) and peace talks, so overall I think the Costa will be better for it.

We really need a detente, it seems. Former FTO countries would appreciate some assurances against foreign meddling (yeah, that probably includes CATO meddling as well) in their internal affairs, and the MESS will appreciate some more political openness from CATO. Perhaps a treaty on limiting strategic weapon systems would be in order sometime soon? At the very least, I'll be proposing a foreign policy conference soon.

We could use some sort of international forum like the UN, too.

[Lonestar]

Perhaps a treaty on limiting strategic weapon systems would be in order sometime soon?

The OD will not be signing any such treaty.

[Coyote]

I'm interested to know what interests the MESS,Tian Xia in particular is protecting by intervening in the Costa thing.

From our POV, it was "Baerne joins CATO after secret deal; once under CATO umbrella, invades Costa on trumped-up charges". It looks like a "domino effect". Secret deal-->CATO-->Land Grab by force-->Profit.

And yeah, calling you isolationist was wrong. You're more like a closed club.

Did anyone ask to join and we refused? Did anyone even bother trying? We also haven't gone through 'secret club meetings' and back-alley agreements to expand.

[Steve]

I was going to wait to see how the Klavostani situation and Beo's impending response played out before offering, IC, to provide Cascadia as a host for a general world summit.

[Siege]

Perhaps a treaty on limiting strategic weapon systems would be in order sometime soon?

The OD will not be signing any such treaty.

The NFT will not sign any such thing either. It's increasingly clear that those strategic weapons are our only way of equalizing at least somewhat the truly overwhelming conventional firepower we'll be facing in a conflict with any of the usual suspects. No matter how lofty strategic arms reduction is as a goal the NFT is not going to relinquish the capability to reduce a whole bunch of cities into irradiated ash. The conventional force levels are just too skewed for that, and if recent history tells us anything it's that we need a proper deterrent if we're going to stop anyone from fucking with us.

[DarthShady]

Perhaps a treaty on limiting strategic weapon systems would be in order sometime soon?

The OD will not be signing any such treaty.

See. This is why we can't have nice things.

And people ask why the MESS has a bad public image?

If such a treaty was to happen and the OD doesn't sign then I can assure you, neither will the UCSR.

From our POV, it was "Baerne joins CATO after secret deal; once under CATO umbrella, invades Costa on trumped-up charges". It looks like a "domino effect". Secret deal-->CATO-->Land Grab by force-->Profit.

Yeah, I'll admit it; we fucked up that one. But if you will remember it was CATO that forced the peace there, even though we could have gone the other way and let Baerne finish his invasion, or even give him support.

Did anyone ask to join and we refused? Did anyone even bother trying? We also haven't gone through 'secret club meetings' and back-alley agreements to expand.

Your public image doesn't attract new members, I would say the problem is on your side. Like Paul said, you guys have a massive PR problem.

As for secret deals, what do you expect? When the MESS flexes it's muscles on people, the logical thing for them to do is seek protection. Rogue tried to pressure Shroom in the Warden incident and none of you guys stopped him. The Result: Shroom comes to the SNC and CATO is formed. Same thing with the FTO, only this time it was Tian Xia.

[RogueIce]

To be honest, CATO did screw up somewhat by allowing Baerne's sudden invasion (let's not pussyfoot around the issue: justified or not, it was an invasion) of the Costa. Though we did make it better by forcing an armistice (against the wishes of Baernish populace, mind you) and peace talks, so overall I think the Costa will be better for it.

CATO's problem is that they too have a PR issue, though you're not seeing it (and just dismissing us won't help; I really hope if there is a MESS/CATO summit you'll do better in that regard).

The problem is, you change too much, too fast. San Dorado joins, essentially kills the FTO. Status quo is now different. Before anybody gets a chance to get used to it, look and see how you act from there...Baerne joins CATO, seemingly out of nowhere. Wait, what? Then before we have a chance to get used to that, they invade Costas.

The fact these memberships are done in secret meetings, with a pack of world leaders seemingly dropping everything to rush off to do this, makes it even more curious. That just doesn't happen normally, and when it does twice in as many weeks, it makes people wonder. Factor that in when Baerne goes into Costas less than a week after this second CATO Leader Meeting and it makes it look like you, if not put him up to it, then at least knew about it and/or suggested he do it. Rather than simply Baerne deciding to intervene on his own, it looks like he did at the behest of CATO (what, it didn't come up at the meeting? Sure it didn't...)

Do you see the problem? Your secret, drop everything and fly off national leader meetings are already odd enough. The fact you do so and come back with a new member and upset the status quo makes us upset and a bit nervous. Then you did it again in less than a month. Incidently, you make it seem like your expansion is more important than Shroom's "CATO Is Not Your Enemy" world tour, seeing as he departed twice for this (heck, IIRC he took off from Canissia early for the San Dorado one!). That doesn't help, either. The Costas thing less than a week later just adds to this. You can only upset the status quo so many times, in such a limited amount of time, before we start to wonder what the fuck you're up to.

And as Coyote's recent post points out, if you're making the MESS a bit nervous with all this expansion, imagine Japanistan. The fact they haven't had more of a reaction is due to the fact nobody is consistently playing them. You can bet if Skimmer were here you'd have seen lots more. That is also Not Good.

[Lonestar]

See. This is why we can't have nice things.

And people ask why the MESS has a bad public image?

If such a treaty was to happen and the OD doesn't sign then I can assure you, neither will the UCSR.

The CSR UCSR wiped out over a hundred million people with biological weapon, finishing off an ancient state that the OD had been at war with for hundreds of years. You would have to be out of your mind to think I would be willing to neuter the OD further by limiting it's nuclear weapons.

[RogueIce]

As for secret deals, what do you expect? When the MESS flexes it's muscles on people, the logical thing for them to do is seek protection. Rogue tried to pressure Shroom in the Warden incident and none of you guys stopped him. The Result: Shroom comes to the SNC and CATO is formed.

I did that because he was dismantling the thing. Which, from many people's perspectives, he did not have the right to do. Incidently, I did that on behalf of San Dorado, as they were rather upset by the whole thing.

The fact San Dorado then runs and joins CATO later, without even trying to contact Rufus Shinra over his concerns regarding Tian Xia, is doubtless viewed as a sort of betrayal on his part.

[PeZook]

Oooh...a new Decade Of Terror looms on the horizon?

Fuck. CATO guys, we're moving to the moon. Screw this rock!

[RogueIce]

The CSR UCSR wiped out over a hundred million people with biological weapon, finishing off an ancient state that the OD had been at war with for hundreds of years. You would have to be out of your mind to think I would be willing to neuter the OD further by limiting it's nuclear weapons.

An attack which also affected the Old Dominion. Hell, probably the only thing that didn't make it worse was the fortified border they had. And they (and the MESS) knows who did it. So factor that in to our distrust of CATO (since the UCSR is still the Big Dog of your alliance).

[Siege]

How the hell are our meetings 'secret'? We meet in presidential palaces! We hold press conferences for god's sake.

You know what's secret? World leaders flying into Tian Jiao on cargo planes wearing NCO uniforms, or showing up on meetings where heads of state are suddenly and unexpectedly confronted by your presence.

That's secret. Nothing we do is particularly secretive in comparison.

The fact San Dorado then runs and joins CATO later, without even trying to contact Rufus Shinra over his concerns regarding Tian Xia, is doubtless viewed as a sort of betrayal on his part.

That constitutes betrayal in your book?! Jesus, talk about think skin. Don't confuse a cordial relationship with anything else. If there was anyone we were going to call over the Huang-Di's skullduggery it was Shroomania, with whom we've maintained a 'special relationship' since our independence. Incidentally, that's exactly who we called.