Sparta-Gaian relations

[KrysiasKrusader]

I got no probs with this at all.
Was just inquiring - cause I want you all to know everything I know!

[Snowflake]

As one of the CMNs I also feel that I need to give some input in your inquiry, KrysiasKrusader. ACDGII was the first team game and we had met some issues that we haven't encountered before. The CMNs in that game had to deal with complains from various teams about deliberate exploring of sensitive information through non official channel and voluntarily leaking of information without authorized by the team. We had some discussion about this issue in the beginning of this game. IIRC we decided communications between friends in different teams are not prohibited, and which member has authority to disclose information will be decided within each team. However, actively persueing sensitive team information through unofficial channel and/or through deception is not allowed.

This may have led to the current "non RP active" appearance of this game. Personally I feel more RP interaction through public forums should be ok. However, I would not encourage you to actively pursueing Gaian's sensitive information through private channels that would not fit in to a RP perpective. In other words, if you are an ambassordor and am able to extract information through interaction with their ambassador, that could happen in the RP world, and would be ok in my opinon. However it would not be likely that a soldier of Spartan has any close contact with a scientist in the Gaians, for example, and this kind of extracting information would not fit into the RP world and would possibly be classified as prohibited behaviors.

Of course the final decission would be made by Drogue and Method. I'm only offering my understanding against the rules.

[Snowflake]

With this understanding I would like to request any and all private chats that involves interexchange of game related information be disclosed inside the team forum. This would facilitate any investigation by Drogue. Also it would be good for me to feel the pulse of the team when writing the history record.

[Snowflake]

Sorry for the triple posts but I would also like to make a clearance about Jamski. He was not outcasted from the Hive because he had shared team sensitive information. He had chosen to leave the team himself, because he had believed something that is different from the team, and chose to leave us for that belief. He was greatly missed in the Hive.

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Googlie
(Or maybe we can just give their co-ordinates and say that we'll exchange a screenshot of the vicinity we've explored - ie the seventy square tiles around our rover - in exchange for a similar screenie of the seventy or so square tiles southwest of the Hive scout - the direction that their mindworm - or a scout patrol that captured it - must have travelled)

On looking again at the map and the pics, the mindworm can't have come from where I thought it had. Southwest of the meeting point is where R-112 came from.

My current thoughts are that the Gaian mindworm came from the east, and got its rtaise from Hatchling to Larval Mass thru its fight with a Hive unit, and not via the Monolith as I originally deduced.

So I suggest that we continue R-112's journey east along that river (Illuminatus, in the Embassy, has confirmed that they moved their MW 1 tile south into the forest to let us pass), and perhaps we'll encounter Gaian-controlled territory and maybe even some bases.

[Snoddasmannen]

Well the Gaians did not like our amendments, it looks like the trade is off. This seriously suggests that our techs were on their way to other human factions ... I hope we can get IndAut some other way

It was unfortunate that we did not remember to add the 'no-trade' clause sooner. Changing an offer like that is quite illegal, at least by swedish law. That said, it was of course the right thing to do, we don't want our techs given for free to some hostile alliance. See you in court Gaia :P

[Kassiopeia]

I think I spun it up pretty nicely. The Gaians HAD NOT told us that they had accepted the trade, before we added our clauses. There was NO WAY we would have known, since they failed to tell us, that we were making modifications to a trade they *had* already agreed to. We were simply in good faith that they were still discussing themselves on the trade that it would not be too late to modify it. So basically it's now at least partly their fault

As far as I understood it, the only problem they have is with the no-trade clause - and that, in turn, we can negotiate on. They are giving five turns, we are giving 20 - I say we go for ten. It'll make us come off as making a big compromise, and hopefully the trade'll be a go again.

[Googlie]

It's a great response, Kass

And the fact that they are willing to contemplate a 5 year embargo suggests that they are not indebted to morgan re onward trading of Ind Auto (if they did indeed get it from them in trade)

I see the new turn is up - I'll open it and get the simple orders executed

[Kassiopeia]

Thanks Googlie. I think we wouldn't have, in all seriousness, edited anything in if we had just known they had already agreed to it. I wouldn't have jeopardised the trade like that, I would have just sucked up our forgetfulness and move on with the trade.

I hope we can all agree that the 5 year period is enough, as long as they agree to the trade. When you consider that the original deal had no restrictionts *at all*, I think we'll emerge better off from this little scuffle.

[Googlie]

Here's the opening shot - the Gaians were willing to trade, in principle, as they say, so we just need to haggle the terms of a non-transfer and I can put our two techs in pre-accepted

I'm not hung up on anything longer than five years on this one as I think Ind Auto is crucial to us, but if you can negotiate 10 or 7, so much the better

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Snoddasmannen
I hope we can get IndAut some other way

The Gaian response to our query regarding the Angel comm frequency is positive, so hopefully we could get their commlink. And SCC Hunter might be close to meeting the other human faction. So still plenty of opportunity I hope. Who knows if we've met all human factions, we could even make a public statement that we're willing to buy IndAut from anyone who offer the lowest price, or next year just make the Gaians the exact same offer as now, but just tell them we can now also get the tech from two other factions.

It was unfortunate that we did not remember to add the 'no-trade' clause sooner. Changing an offer like that is quite illegal, at least by swedish law.

Indeed. And it makes me worried that the Gaians might get the impression about us Spartans that in the previous ACDG the Consciousness had about PEACE, namely that they changed their trade proposal on the last minute. To prevent that, may I suggest a clarification like this:

"We are sorry you do not agree with the 20-year no-trade clause we proposed. Unfortunately neither can we accept a so short no-trade term of five years for an important technology as Gene Splicing, especially since this technology is not widespread yet.

We do hope though this incident will not undermine future relations between our factions. I'd like to stress that it was by no means our intention to act like a "pirate" in this trade and add new clauses at the last minute. Instead we at Sparta always worked from the (in PBEM games) common assumption that traded technologies were not be traded to third parties without explicit permission. It's just that we forgot to clarify that to you immediately.

We are sorry for this, but promise to pay more attention to such matters in the future, in the hope that we will not further damage your trust in us."


Edit: Ah I see other people would be willing to accept a five year term after all. Never mind then I guess.

[Kassiopeia]

Well met, Lord Illuminatus. From now on, to avoid unlucky incidents such as these, we will keep in mind the way your decision-making works. Hopefully we will be able to learn from this experience, so that in the future we can work together without any problems.

The Junta has agreed to lower the restriction period from 20 to 5 years. The restriction will cover gifting units with properties gained by the traded techs (such as special abilities, chassis, armour, weapons, etc.) to a faction without the technology, and the technologies themselves.

Can we both agree to these terms?

Again, I can't stress enough that now that we know how things work, we will from now on bring to the table trade propositions that are final, and will stay final until we get word from you. We have no intentions of "pirating" the trades, as it happens. We find it very important that both parties can trust each other in these kind of matters.

I really, *really* hope we can get this behind us now and, well, trade the damn techs!

[Maniac]

So no one's interested in offering someone else the same trade but with a bigger no-trade clause?

(Just inquiring, I'll of course agree to whatever the Junta decides.)

[Snoddasmannen]

I agree, great response Kass

People seem quite okay with the 5 year constraint, and I also think we should accept it on, second thought.

We could even offer a symbolic 1 energy credit to the Gaians in exchange for the trouble our little trade misunderstanding caused

[Zeiter]

Perhaps you could say something like, "It is important to realize that these protocols are just the default for trades, meaning if nothing is said regarding the no-trade length, it is assumed to be for 20 years. However, exceptions can always be made upon this through negotiation. Thus, we are perfectly willing to negotiate a shorter no-trade duration for this particular exchange."

Funny, right now in history class I am studying pre-World War I diplomacy and how Germany encircled itself through its diplomacy. If there's anything we can learn from that, it is that we do not want to appear power-hungry. Germany's belligerence and non-cooperation forced the other powers to draw in closer to each other and form defensive alliances and such. Otto Von Bismarck was extremely clever in portraying Germany as a "satisfied power," which made the other powers more trusting of Germany. When Wilhelm II abandoned this policy, Germany was put in a much more uncomfortable situation diplomatically.

I'm afraid that our upcoming invasion of Zak (as well as the difficulty we're having with negotiations right now) will give the others cause for alarm. Thus, we'll have to be very clever in spinning the upcoming situation.

Edit: That last message was very clever. That'll teach them to not treat us like a second-class faction by delaying for a long time on their responses.

Also, I think the little EC gift would be a great idea, although 1 EC might actually insult them more than win them over. Maybe something like 5 ECs?