Sparta-Angels relations

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Modo44
The elections are pretty much decided (congrats Yang).

Wouldn't the Angels vote for our mutual allies the Peacekeepers?

There is a simple choice: Either we accept the Pact with the Angles and proceed with tech trades, or we go into paranoia mode and cease all friendly relations. A choice not really being one, because a 3 vs 1 alliance would kill us.

So you're in favour of a pact with the Angels?
A shame Googlie and Snoddasmannen aren't here to give their opinion.

Would you be ok with trading DAP to the Angels btw (given the right price and conditions of course)?

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Maniac
Wouldn't the Angels vote for our mutual allies the Peacekeepers?

I guess they would. But remember, we want to keep Doc:Air from others for as long as possible. Meaning, we would rather not have Lal discover it too soon. The problem with Lal is, his land is too easy to access by enemy Probe Teams, plus he might simply trade with the other factions at some point.

Not that we want others to have an official confirmation, but I think keeping Yang strong is better for us than for them. So there is another reason "not to care" about the election. So, while you were joking in the Embassy, I think your reasoning was pretty much exactly what we should consider best choice.

Originally posted by Maniac
So you're in favour of a pact with the Angels?

Not much of a choice, is it? If we drop negotitions with them, or say no, they will join our enemies. Remember, deals are over, so they would even come out clean. I say we need to keep them close. Some rants about their Pact with the Gaians are in order, but as neither of them knew we would declare war, I think we can live with it.

Originally posted by Maniac
Would you be ok with trading DAP to the Angels btw (given the right price and conditions of course)?

A big price, preferably a long-lasting tech deal (sort of like the Int Int trade), or a really big lump sum. I can think of nothing else, but maybe you guys have better ideas? And a complete ban on forwarding the tech, of course.

[Kassiopeia]

Originally posted by Maniac
Btw with the two most regular diplomacy writers Kassiopeia (exams IIRC?) and Googlie (moving to Vancouver) busy, wouldn't someone else be interested to take responsibility for our diplomacy?

My last matriculation exam (French) is today. I just need a bit of help to get up to speed again and I'll be fine. After that it's the entrance exams, but that's two months away and doing diplomacy will not be a distraction considering the subject.

I just need to get the embassy into a bookmark here somewhere, I am terrible when it comes to checking it.

I would be very much in favour of an Angel pact, btw. I'd dare say we need it. I'd tie the DAP trade together with it to make it as appealing to them as possible, although I wouldn't consider a pact as a trade item as such - we'd still take full price for it, but we should announce that such critical tech won't be traded to any others except allies.

[Maniac]

Should we ask the Angels what their reaction as pactmates would be if we invaded the Corporation or even their allies the Gaians? If they wouldn't choose our side or stay neutral, I think invading another faction could be the end of us.

[Googlie]

The Angels have posted:

Posted in the Embassy by IT Mart

To Spartan Federation,

We would like to inform you, that we are now in Pact agreement with Gaian Union. We were discussing this with Gaians for long time and in fact sent the pre-accepted offer in 2164, which was before you declared vendetta on the Gaian Union. This pact is intended as economic in nature.

We also would like to ask you if you would be willing to enter the Pact agreeement with our faction.

IT Mart

We can be somewhat devious here, if we want to, or can be completely honest.

devious

Sign a pact with the Angels, thus getting full access to their data (and likewise giving them full infiltration on us), but also keeping them neutral in our world war.

Downside is small, as they already have Lal-route data on us (albeit limited), but they will be able to pass on valuable data to the Gaians (limited, thru thier pact, or mega, if openly shared)

Do we care? We've fought long and hard for probe defenses to keep the others from fully infiltrating us.

But note that there will be no commerce benefit until 2169, due to the ten years' sanctions for our obliteration of Morgan Industries.

Fully Honest

We disclose that latter point, and say that we suggest a full pact in 2169, but in the meantime will be willing to sell D:AP under some very strict conditions:

• Neutrality at the minimum (but preferably entering the conflict on our side) in the wars between Sparta and the Morganites and the Gaians
• Guaranteed pact in 2169 (when sanctions lift), to last for at least 30 years
• Absolutely no attack on Sparta - and vice versa - before the pact is in effect and during the duration of the pact
• No onward transmission of Doc Air to any third party, through trade, gift, allowing a probe action, or allowing reverse engineering thru the gift, sale or capture of an aircraft (ie, agreeing to have a base with aircraft in it being mindcontrolled)
• Agreement that the Angels will not build the Cyborg Factory
• one "futures" tech - up to level 5 - at a time of our choosing, this to expire at the end of the pact (if ended)

have i missed anything?

[Kassiopeia]

Hmm. My two cents:

I'm all for a deep pact with the Angels starting in 2169, with the trades etc. taking place before. But I'm not sure if the Angels can be trusted. Their pact with the Gaians is probably a coincidence.

We need to have a little chat with them and make it a matter of life and death to them. If the Gaian-Morganite alliance deepens like it probably will into a bloc, we need to balance it out with our own bloc. Otherwise the Axis of Weasels will just take us out one by one. In terms of realpolitik, we must co-operate very intimately with the Angels, but we have to make sure our trust isn't betrayed.

We have to be sure they'll understand that it's in our and their best interests to form an alliance. They can provide the probe power to keep our technology level up to speed, while we can put the actual boots on the ground.

I'd opt for a more longstanding agreement, more like a pact that can be dissolved only by mutual agreement of both parties. In other words, it'd be a pact made to last until victory is an option to us both, i.e. once the Morganite-Gaian threat has been, ehm, neutralised.

So, I'd start throwing feelers with the honest approach. The time frame of almost a decade also gives us some time to test the waters and see what happens, to see whether we can really count on them not to sell us out, it'll allow us to work out our co-operative efforts and it'll help in lulling the Weasels into a false sense of security. Insisting on neutrality should be a priority when we start the talks, but we must also stress from the get-go that we will expect them to join us on the war sooner or later. In their and our best interests.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Modo44

I guess they would. But remember, we want to keep Doc:Air from others for as long as possible. Meaning, we would rather not have Lal discover it too soon. The problem with Lal is, his land is too easy to access by enemy Probe Teams, plus he might simply trade with the other factions at some point.

Not that we want others to have an official confirmation, but I think keeping Yang strong is better for us than for them. So there is another reason "not to care" about the election. So, while you were joking in the Embassy, I think your reasoning was pretty much exactly what we should consider best choice.

I checked it out, and despite gaining a couple extra labs Lal will still research DAP in five years if Lal becomes governor. So may I suggest voting for Lal after all? Then he will research his next techs after DAP somewhat faster.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Maniac
I checked it out, and despite gaining a couple extra labs Lal will still research DAP in five years if Lal becomes governor. So may I suggest voting for Lal after all? Then he will research his next techs after DAP somewhat faster.

Since it does no harm, sure. I would still prefer Yang, but voting for him given the circumstances would make our aims a bit too obvious.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Modo44
A big price [for DAP], preferably a long-lasting tech deal (sort of like the Int Int trade), or a really big lump sum. I can think of nothing else, but maybe you guys have better ideas? And a complete ban on forwarding the tech, of course.

Originally posted by Googlie
We disclose that latter point, and say that we suggest a full pact in 2169, but in the meantime will be willing to sell D:AP under some very strict conditions:

• Neutrality at the minimum (but preferably entering the conflict on our side) in the wars between Sparta and the Morganites and the Gaians
• Guaranteed pact in 2169 (when sanctions lift), to last for at least 30 years
• Absolutely no attack on Sparta - and vice versa - before the pact is in effect and during the duration of the pact
• No onward transmission of Doc Air to any third party, through trade, gift, allowing a probe action, or allowing reverse engineering thru the gift, sale or capture of an aircraft (ie, agreeing to have a base with aircraft in it being mindcontrolled)
• Agreement that the Angels will not build the Cyborg Factory
• one "futures" tech - up to level 5 - at a time of our choosing, this to expire at the end of the pact (if ended)

Keep in mind the Angels can buy DAP from the Peacekeepers in five years for 100 or 150 credits most likely. So if we give them strict conditions, I'd refuse the deal if I were an Angel. I think we can be happy if they'll accept any deal that involves a trade embargo on DAP.

Eg something like this:

• Sparta gives DAP to the Angels.
• No onward transmission of Doc Air to any third party, through trade, gift, allowing a probe action, or allowing reverse engineering thru the gift, sale or capture of an aircraft (ie, agreeing to have a base with aircraft in it being mindcontrolled)
• They give us a certain amount of cash. 100 or 150 credits or so? We could of course ask a tech in return, but the Angels are still less advanced technologically than us, so who knows when they could repay us (especially since Zak will probably research their current tech project Cyberethics before them)...
• We give Lal DAP, so that he can switch to another tech.
• The Angels and Spartans will share the cost of buying that new tech from Lal.
• That tech can be traded freely onwards to other factions (except the University of course...).
• One exception: if Lal switches to Doc:Ini, the Spartans will give him that tech as well, so that Lal can switch once again to another yet unresearched tech, to which the rules outlined above apply. The Angels have no right at all however to acquire Doc:Ini in any way from Lal. That tech is still full property from the Spartans, and has to be bought from us.

The great attraction of this deal would not be that they can buy DAP from us, but that by buying DAP from us instead of Lal, they in effect get a second tech as well. A tech that they can trade freely to other factions, unlike DAP.

[Maniac]

Oh yeah, as mentioned shortly above, the University has switched research to Cyberethics just like the Angels is researching now, so this opens up opportunities for yet another deal with the Angels: We give them Cyberethics, they switch to a tech of our choice.

I assume it's best to choose Cyberethics for our research as well then, so we can once again switch research to whatever we want after Zak discovers it.

[Kassiopeia]

Hmm, good pointers Maniac.

So this is what I'd propose right now:

- Start up the talks for the pact, state that we are interested but we want to discuss the potential depth of the pact
- Air the possibility of trading them DAP with Maniac's terms (clearly since the PKs will get it we need to make the deal sweet)
- Suggest the Cyberethics trade.

We could propose that we engage in the pact in 2169 when the sanctions are lifted, and that these trades would be helpful in developing the amount of co-operation we'll need. A sort of phasing in, perhaps.

[Kassiopeia]

Ehm, so?

[Googlie]

Sorry - your suggested approach was so logical that it was almost rhetorical

You have my vote to go ahead as proposed

[Kassiopeia]

I'll start writing the post, then, but I won't put it in the embassy right away in case Maniac has something to point out

[Modo44]

Yes, there is nothing to add, really.

Separately, we need to tell them we want to be back at peace with Gaia as soon as possible. We do, right?