Hive-Pirate Negotiations

[Kody]

You guys better have that pirate welcoming party.
Voltaire can pass it along.

[Snowflake]

I think PEACE is testing us in raising the pacting issue. We should reply with same attitude as they, saying that it has not been fully discussed yet but you believe they could consider it.

As for flexibility, they might be trying to milk us for the highest price, in saying that they don't want to give it out but is possible for the right price. Perhaps we should let them name their price. And hint to them some of the aspects of their interest may be soon out of area of discussion (We are gonna complete quite a few early game SPs so there goes the SP agreements, etc.).

[Kody]

Check in embassy forum I don't feel like double posting.

[Voltaire]

To PEACE from Hive:

Greetings again from the Human Hive; after further discussion and consultation amonghts the Hive governing and administrative bodies it has been decided to formally issue an offer of trade to Peace.

We offer Applied Physics in exchange for Doctrine: Mobility. We await your response, and wish to see a positive outcome to these trade negotiations in the hopes that this step will help further the good relations between our two factions.

I've sent this message to the Pirates as per Kody's request, still awaiting their reply to my first communique. Though we are not in a hurry as of this moment.

-Chairman Voltaire

[Voltaire]

More word from the Pirates:

Honored voltaire

Your messages has been recieved and I thank you fro your gracious trade offer. It has been presented to the council o' captains and we hope to respond shortly. We have heard no response as to our treaty overtures . We see a treaty evidencing an intention of continuing good relations as an obvious precursor to tech trades . Are you amenable to a treaty as part of our good relations?

Ambassador Flubber
Chief Sweet-talker o' PEACE

Reply:

Greetings from the Hive,

I apologize for the delayed response to this message but I received it rather late. Be assured that we intend on pursuing good relations with your faction, indeed we have already accepted your treaty proposal; let this message be formal recognition that our government has accepted your treaty.

Sincerely,
Voltaire
Chairman of the Central Continuing Committee

[Voltaire]

Tech-trade offer response:

Honored Voltaire

I have been asked if your faction has acquired nonlinear maths or would be in a position to acquire it soon. The council feels that that would be a more desirable tech to acquire.

Our preference for any trade for lower level techs would be for a deal being concluded after our next discovery. The idea is to minimize tech cost. WE could negotiate a binding deal now but we just don't don't have a burning need to acquire any of those lower techs immediately.

The deal applied physics for mobility is still a possibility ( discussion is ongoing) but our people really hoped that we can deal for other techs. Nonlinear maths or HEC are of most interest. If you fear the spread of those techs, we could agree not to trade them onward for a set number of years.

Ambassador Flubber

Reply:

Ambassador Flubber,

I regret to inform you that we indeed have not acquired non-linear mathematics as of yet, I have put forth a request to our Department of Development, as well as the Department of Science, to ascertain when we will be able to acquire such knowledge.

I will pass on your suggestion of a future binding tech-trade agreement to the People’s Congress and Central Continuing Committee. Please feel free to present us with such an offer at any time, the Hive would be most obliged to consider it.

We will await your final decision on the ‘Applied Physics-Doctrine: Mobility’ question, and we are prepared to at any time listen to counteroffers which you present.

I will be contacting you again soon with the information you have requested.

Sincerely,
Voltaire
Chairman of the Central Continuing Committee

[Voltaire]

We will have a chat tonight (if possible, if not then tomorrow) about the Pirate communiques, as well as what our next action should be.

They seem willing to trade for Nonlinear Mathematics or HEC as Flubber has indicated, IMO they have already refused our offer of Applied Physics for Mobility and are simply stalling for time to get a better deal out of us.

This may well be a cynical outlook on the situation, but in light of the CyCon-Pirate tensions, as well as the CyCon's indication that the Pirates were uncooperative and desired the better end of the deal, we cannot take their word at face value. I will give them this though, they are at least being diplomatic.

-Chairman Voltaire

[Kody]

Discussions on pirate negotiations should occur in the embassy. This is firstly to let the drones modify their plans according to what we are doing. Also because the drones may be able to point out details that we have forgotten.

[Kody]

A possibility is sending a diplomatic message to the pirates and requesting that they pass it on to the cycon.

So we can write.

"Do you want to pact?" in 1's and 0's using the simple encoding we broke earlier.

Sure the pirates could break it, but that would just throw them off.

Another possibility is having another shot at breaking their 2nd encoding scheme. I'm certain they're leaking secret information using that encoding scheme in their newspaper.

[EZRhino]

Good ideas Kody, I think we should try both

[Snowflake]

I'm not sure the first one is a feasible option. What do we want to achieve here? Do we just want to throw the pirates off? I'm sure we can't contact CC yet, no matter through what channel, even encoded.

As the second idea, I would say if we could do it it would be great. But if it takes a great amount of effort, well then it may not be necessary.

[Kody]

Umm give encoded message to pirates, ask pirates to give it to cycon. I think that's a perfectly game legal way to communicate with the cycon.

The second part is so we can send secure messages to the cycon.

[Snowflake]

But how does it differ from posting in the public forum except that less people will see it? And if they reply back saying "yes we will pact", what could we do with it?

[Kody]

Because it confuses people, and helps to hide the extent of the drone-hive alliance.

People do realise all the suggestions about trading pacts and secret messages are partly to hide the drone-hive alliance?

[Snowflake]

Well suggesting a pact (with undefined terms) with PEACE could help hide the extent of the DH alliance but actually entering to a pact may not, especially a long term one. As for displaying our preference of pacting with CC, we have done so to a great degree already and passing secret message through PEACE doesn't seem to me will add a lot to it compare to the public display of our intention. To the worst case, PEACE could get really suspicious about our motivation in doing that and this may actually lead them to think that we are hiding something by deliberately acting in such a unusual way.