Official: CyCon negotiations

[Snowflake]

Message edited.

[Voltaire]

Greetings Voltaire,

This is a personal message, from one faction leader to another.

I have been quietly informed of a conversation you have on IM with Function Corelli Omega-9, regarding the position of the Hive if there was a war between PEACE and the CyCon. I am aware that it is sensitive information, and cannot come officially yet, but would you be able to inform me of anything regarding this? Basically, I'm asking if you can tell us whether the Hive would support either side, or remain neutral? I am strongly for a Pact with the Hive, as the rest of the CyCon seem. If PEACE were to declare, though help would be appreciated, we would not need it to be written into our Pact that you would declare on PEACE. I realise this is a difficult situtation for you, and I know you cannot say much, I merely wish to inquire if you can say anything about it? I will, of course, only reveal to the rest of the faction what you agree to be.

Yours,
Drogue Beta-8

[Voltaire]

Hello Drogue,

I brought up the issue since I believed that the CyCon may be curious regarding our pact relationship with the Pirates, and what it entails. Since you so desire I will tell you that our pact with the Pirates has been purely a defensive one, by this I mean we entered into the pact in order to prevent a surprise attack by PEACE forces. There do not exist any statutory commitments in the Hive-PEACE pact, thus we will not be obliged to help PEACE in any war they may enter.

As for the second issue you bring up, whether the Hive would support either side in the conflict, I can only assure you that at this time we would remain neutral. If we were to enter into a pact with you (as both many CyCon and Hive members desire) mutual defense can be negotiated, though I cannot make any statements regarding their operability for I am yet unaware of Hive public opinion on the matter (though I believe it to be favorable to such a proposal). I will say this, even if no formal mutual defense agreement will be reached, the Hive would strongly unofficially favor the CyCon, we consider you to be our natural ally, and would do everything in order to help your security. Our intelligence office possesses much information about PEACE, and we would be willing to share such information if so requested. Know that you always have a friend and partner in the Hive, even though it may not be official.

As for reveling this information to the rest of your faction, do with it as you please.

Sincerely,
Chairman Voltaire

[Snowflake]

CyCon Reply:

It has been posted in our forum and that should be ok :-) Thank you for your kind words. The CyCon is very much for strong relations between our two factions. We are currently debating your Pact offer, however we are a little apprehensive about giving PEACE that much information on us. We have almost made a complete map of PEACE territory, from looking at their base productions screens, and it is very possible to do that with ours, looking at the layout. Also, they would see which bases are probe protected and which are not. We should have our most vulnerable bases protected in a few years, but if PEACE find out which those are, they can easily aim for a different base. I want to stress that our hesitation on this issue is no reflection of our extremely positive opinions of the Hive, and purely our fear at the amount of information PEACE will have. We are certainly for a Pact, as far as the actual Pact goes, but we are a little uneasy with PEACE until our defences are built up a little more (since we lost the Pact with them we realised the need not to have undefended coastal bases).

We understand you do not wish to stagnate your research with unnecessary techs, and thus I am authorized to offer you a single trade of Doc: Ini for Gene Splicing. We are debating about units, and it is certainly a possibility, but production is not our strongest point. I'm a bit of a n00b when it comes to PBEM, so could you describe the deal you wish in more detail? We gift you a unit that you do not have the tech for, and you gift us a tech?

[Snowflake]

My Unofficial Reply;

Thanks for your quick answer Function Drogue. I will bring your message back. Personally I feel your reservation is perfectaly understandable from our part. As for the unit trade, I believe your understanding is correct. I do not think there is a high likely hood that the Hive wants to get DocInit at this point since we are following a builder route and DocInit is not very much in need right now (I assume you already have the SP in bag which would further reduce the value of it to us). That is only my personal opinion. I will for sure bring you the official reply from the Hive as soon as possible.

[Rokossovky]

It looks as though they might be hankering for a war with PEACE. Should we begin considering my suggestion that we take PEACE out first with cycon help, THEN go after UNI (as they seem much more willing to do this rather than go after UNI). It would take care of the PEACE and CyCon problem that I talked about in the MSN discussion with John.

As for right now, though, I would suggest informing them that "at present we cannot make any committments to a defensive or offensive agreement as we are working to develop our intelligence networks so as to allow us to make informed decisions regarding our obligations."

- Rokossovky

[dacole]

I say we take out peace asap seem to be butts and militaristic, pact fully with cycon unless we want to take them out later

[Snowflake]

I posted this in the CC Embassy.

In the darkest days, when we met the powerful Drones, there were those of us who voted to wait for you, our soul mate. However, the reality had won, the Hive decided to pact with the Drones. The decision had been proved to be the right one. The pact had strengthened both the Drones, and the Hive. We had decided to be loyal, that we wouldn't betray them, if they would not betray us. It had not been a pact pre made by God, but it had been a pact that met the test of time. Then we met the PEACE, the decision was not hard. Both factions understood it was a temporary wedding. Finally we met you, our long waited friend. Why had tears run down my cheeks, for I was silently asking, if we were meant for each other, why wouldn't the god make us meet sooner. Yes the choice is hard, for every one of us in the Hive. Should we turn our back against another friend for you, or is it possible, for the three of us in it to win. Where is the place of yours in our future life? As for our heart, you have always been there.

[Kody]

I could almost call that poetry.

*wonders what other hidden talnets HongHu has*

Edit:
Actually I think it is. Quite beautifully written.

[Kody]

HongHu,

The two messages about the issue that have been posted are great, and will be fine for now. However, they're really only messages to keep our options open while we figure out what we're going to do.

We still need to give the official response to the cycon on our position, in relation to their joint-victory pact. We don't want to be so evasive that we say we're going to have discussion on it then nothing occurs.

So basically we still need to decide what we're really going to do and what we tell the cycon.

[Snowflake]

Dear Kody you are making me blush now.
/me secretly admits that she never knows how to write a poem.

[Snowflake]

Personally, I feel a three way win is the best possible way to go. However, I realize that some people feel that in a five team game, a three team victory is too easy so should not be allowed. I don't have a strong feeling about how CyCons feel about the Drones. I also don't know what the Drones feel about the CyCons. In addition, I do not feel the time is mature yet from the Hive's point of view to talk to Drones about this.

I agree with Function Drogue and Function Delta that a pact with the CyCons does not mean an immediate break of the Hive-Drones pact. However the Hive has to think about if and when we are going to break pact with them before we make the biggest commitment. My hope is that time will solve the hard choice for us. You know, maybe when the game flows, the CyCons and Drones may feel like to pact with each other. Or maybe, there would be an important issue that the Drones and the Hive simply cannot agree upon. Therefore my feeling is that the Hive would not have the slightest problem to become your loyal pact brother, but it may need time to feel the pulse of everybody before it commits to the last final step.

Anyway, I will start a poll on this issue in the Hive forum and will bring you the official response from the Hive.

As for the issue that CyCon would not be able to pact within the next couple turns, I believe there will not be any problem. We all act based on our best judgement and I feel your steps of action are a prudent one. I haven't looked at our turn yet. I will let you know if I find out any information regarding whether PEACE has infiltration of CyCons.

[Snowflake]

From Drogue:

Thank you, and that is fine. We will wait until your trade is completed until we discuss trades with them. We would also like that tech, if there is any tech you wish from us for it? If not, we are considering how and when we can get prototyped units to you, if that would eb acceptable.

Looks like they will agree to trade prototyped unit. We need to give them more specifics. Kody, or Marshal, can you give me some details that I can convey to them?

[Rokossovky]

Um, Impact weapons or plasma armour would be my goals, I dunno if they have them though?

- Rokossovky

[Snowflake]

Well I need more specific than that. Say if we are going to give them eco engineering. What are we expecting in return? In other words, unit with one aspect (weapon, armour, special ability, etc) we are lacking, or two aspects or three, ect. Basically what is a fair value of the tech vs the unit.