Sparta-Morgan Relations

[Googlie]

Flurry of Spartan posts in the Embassy:

Posted by Googlie in the Embassy
To: Board Members and Officers of Morgan Corporation

The Spartan Federation would be pleased to extend for another five years the Treaty of Friendship and Commerce with the Morgan Corporation.

There is, however, one change that we must insit on, and that is the revocation of Mr. Moneypenny's privileges on board the SCC Hunter. We have explained the reasons for this in the SCC Hunter logs

and the Hunter logs entry:

Posted by Googlie in the Embassy

As the terms of our Treaty are currently under consideration for renewal, we would like to revoke the status of Mr. Moneypenny as an observor aboard the SCC Hunter.

We have found - for those six years he has been on board - that our exploration style has been somewhat cramped, as we have avoided going where sensitive cartographical information known to us already might be revealed. This has resulted in less than optimal operating efficiency for the Hunter.

**Captain Primus Pilus shakes Mr Moneypenny's hand and wishes him godspeed**

And a response to their query re the PK's commlink:

Posted by Googlie in teh Embassy

TO: Mr Mead, CDO, Morgan Corporation

We do indeed possess the commlink for Commissioner Lal

We would be happy to sell it to you for 40 ec's. If this is acceptable, we would prefer to receive payment in a short timeframe - 1 or 2 years would be our preference - as we have a need for energy credits in the near future (4 years out would be about as far as we'd want to go, but that'd be less than optimal)

[Googlie]

This, in the Embassy, in response to our revoking Mr. Moneypenny's observer staus on the Hunter:

Posted ny Mead in the Embassy

We are pleased that you wish to continue the treaty.

We understand the concerns that you have and regret any inconvience our observer may have caused your travels.

Nonetheless, we are disappointed by Mr. Moneypenny's removal from the ship. There was some apprehension over whether he had to 'walk the plank.'

Please note, as noted in our discussions earlier, a portion of the the money sent to Sparta was for Mr. Moneypenny's passage. As fair and equitable measure of the loss of value of the cartographic data, we seek to reduce the amount 'Morgan Bonus' sent to Sparta by one third. We do not wish to present this to you a 'fait accompli'. As always, we seek open and free discussions with you.

In summary, with the removal of Mr. Moneypenny we plan on reducing the 'Morgan Bonus' profit sharing by one third. That is we plan as follows:

If the Morgan Bonus is 10 (Morgan earns 10 more from commerce with Sparta than Sparta earns from commerce with Morgan) then half of the 'Morgan Bonus' is 5. We would then forward 2/3 of this half to Sparta - which is 3ecs rather than the 5ecs.

Please let me know your thoughts and comments.

[Googlie]

I posted this in the Embassy:

Posted by Googlie in teh Embassy

Dear Mr. Mead:

While we recognize that there is a loss to the Ciorporation (cessassion of cartographical information transference), we had believed that the consideration that the Corporation had been tendering to pay for Mr Moneypenny's passage had been applying the profit-sharing formula based on gross differential, and not inefficiency-adjusted differential. Thus we had expected that the adjustment from 2149 onwards would have been to 1/2 of the dfferential net of inefficiency penalties.

However, here is a suggestion that might bridge the gap:

We will reduce the price to the Corporation for the Peacekeepers' commlink to 30 ec's (from our asking price of 40), in return for which the Corporation will contine to share 1/2 of the income differential, but adjusted to allow you to deduct the cost of inefficiency (which we estimate, at this time, to be 1 ec) In a static universe, over the next five years, this would balance out to the same as your proposal.

However, as we expand, and as we see more paired bases between our factions, we would like to see our profit share being 1/2 of the increased income, not 1/3rd

(The same effect would be achieved in leaving the commlink price at 40 ec's, accepting your 1/3rd proposal, but freezing its application to the ten currently paired bases, and sharing at the 50% level for all additional bases. Given the shorter timeframe we are asking for the payment for the commlink, this would actually be more beneficial to the Spartan Federation, but we are prepared to accept the earlier alternative (30 plus 1/2 of all) in the interests of solidarity. Plus, it's an easier formula!!)

Lieutenant-Colonel Googlie

The objective is to get their agreement to the PK's commlink signed sealed and delivered during their current turn (as the key to getting Lal to trade us HEC seems to be selling him Morgan's commlink) If we can get a gross 50 for the doubledeal of the commlinks, plus still get 1/2 of the revenue differential - even adjusted for inefficiency - then we will still have a decent energy credits stream

[Snoddasmannen]

You forgot to quote this from Mead Googlie:

Although we did appreciate the the cartographic information provided by the observer, what we may miss more is the colorful and entertaining commentary from the Captain of the ship. We were planning on making the screenshots and Captain's Logs into a historical screenshow. The work and thought that went into the Logs were of very good quality.

And I whole-heartedly agree - those logs almost makes me wish we had kept Mr. Moneypenny

EDIT: I assume by the way, that we dropped him off with the Hive scout unit. If we conquer some Hive bases in the future, I suggest we should run in to Mr. Moneypenny, maybe in a prison camp, or perhaps running a successful business venture

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Snoddasmannen
You forgot to quote this from Mead Googlie:

I was just being modest

EDIT: I assume by the way, that we dropped him off with the Hive scout unit. If we conquer some Hive bases in the future, I suggest we should run in to Mr. Moneypenny, maybe in a prison camp, or perhaps running a successful business venture

LOL - I like it

[Googlie]

This posted in the Embassy (to clarify, following a series of Mead questions (not copied here)

PK's commlink price reduced to 25 ec's, but firmly tied in to a continuance of the 50:50 revenue sharing

Posted by Googlie in the Embassy

Dear Mr. Mead:

Proposed Treaty Extension and transmittal of Peacekeepers' commlink

To clarify:

The last five years:

As Treatied factions, we have ten bases that are paired with ten Morgan bases, and they each generate 1 energy credit for Morgan and 0 for Sparta

You have been sending 1/2 of this (5 ec's) per year to us, and had (we believe - correct me if I am wrong) justified it internally as a combination of Sparta sharing in your faction bonus (enhanced revenues thru Treaties and Pacts) and the "fee" for having Mr Moneypenny aboard the SCC Hunter in exchange for which we share with you in our "faction bonus" - a faster track to Doc: Flex and no drone problems with military units away from home - by way of sharing in the exploration data from the SCC Hunter.

We never saw that as a trade off (revenue from Morgan to us in exchange for mapping information from Sparta to you), as, frankly, there is no monetary benefit to Sparta to having a Treaty with the Morgan faction, whereas there is no income to Morgan (from Sparta's paired bases) without a treaty with Sparta.

We saw, therefore, the 50% revenue sharing as being payment to Sparta for entering into a Treaty with Morgan, and not as a result of our sharing exploartion data with Morgan.

(If you recall the initial discussions, we asked for an additional payment, per year, for hosting Mr. Moneypenny and sharing exploration data, but agreed to waive this after your representative pointed out that the 10 ec's income for the paired bases wouild not necessarily result in Morgan actually receiving 10 ec's, depending on your Social Engineering settings (ie, there might be inefficiencies resulting in, say only 8 or 9 ec's per year accruing to Morgan) but that you would still share in 50% of the gross revenue accruing as a result of the Treaty.

The next five years:

We have said that we are unwilling to continue with the information-sharing component of the deal, as we feel that it inhibits where we send the SCC Hunter.

You have responded that you would therefore propose reducing the revenue-sharing component from 1/2 to 1/3rd, and separately have asked what Sparta might require in order to transmit the Peacekeepers' commlink to Morgan.

Our suggestion, originally, was 40 ec's for the Commlink (as a standalone deal). Separately, we proposed that if the reduction from 1/2 to 1/3rd applied only to the currently ten paired bases (thus dropping our revenue sharing from 5 ec's to 3 ec's per year, as you pointed out) we wouild like future paired bases' revenues to be shared on a 50:50 basis.

For ease of calculation, we proposed a variant - maintain the revenue-sharing for all bases at 50%, - ie you get 10 ec's per year from the Treaty with Sparta, and Sparta gets nothing, so Morgan sends Sparta revenue-sharing payments of 5 ec's per year - (but use the net revenue Morgan received, adjusted for inefficiency loss - i.e. of you are running at, say -12% economy as a result of your SE settings, you would only enjoy 88% of those 10 ec's, equalling 9, when rounded) and we would drop our asking price for the Commlink to 30 ec's (this would have the same effect over a five year period, as the 2 restored ec's per year for 5 years equate to the 10 ec's lower price for the commlink)

Reducing the Commlink price to 25 ec;s - let alone to 23 - imbalances that equation. (But that, oc course, is based on our intial valuation of the Commlink's worth at 40 ec's).

But in an endeavour to be good neighbours and Treaty parters, we would accept that deal, if bundled with the revenue-sharing continuance at 50% of realized gross Morgan revenue differential. (to re-iterate: currrently Morgan receives 10 ec's as a result of the Treaty, and Sparta receives zilch, so 5 ec's per year would be transmitted. If Sparta grew to 15 bases, and Morgan has 15 paired bases, then the Morgan revenue differential would be 15 ec's per year, and we would expect alternating yearly transfers of 7 and 8 ec's)

And this could be for a ten year term if Morgan so wishes (although we would equally be comfortable with a five year continuance of our treaty.

So to summarize our proposal:

• Morgam sends Sparta 25 ec's (preferably over 1 or 2 years, but no longer than 4)
• Morgan continues to transfer 1/2 of the revenue differential Morgan receives as a result of the Treaty with Sparta
• Sparta sends the Peacekeeper Commlink to Morgan
• The arrangement is reviewed again in 2159

Does this sound like a plan?

[Maniac]

Great post!

One observation:

For ease of calculation, we proposed a variant - maintain the revenue-sharing for all bases at 50%, - ie you get 10 ec's per year from the Treaty with Sparta, and Sparta gets nothing, so Morgan sends Sparta revenue-sharing payments of 5 ec's per year - (but use the net revenue Morgan received, adjusted for inefficiency loss - i.e. of you are running at, say -12% economy as a result of your SE settings, you would only enjoy 88% of those 10 ec's, equalling 9, when rounded)

I assumed that when we were speaking about inefficiency, we were not talking about inefficiency generated by unbalanced energy allocations in the Social Engineering screen, but rather about inefficient "red" energy caused by a low SE Effic rating and distance from your HQ. Was I wrong?

I was thinking the following for example: if the Morganite/s would be producing in total 100 energy in their ten bases that are trading with us, and 20 energy would be lost due to inefficiency, we'd assume that 80% of their total energy, and for ease of calculation derived from that 80% from our commerce, is "efficient". That would mean they'd get 8 efficient energy from our ten energy commerce, and that we'd get half from it: 4 energy.

[Maniac]

Btw, I've been thinking.

Since we know Morganite has met Zak, we know they have:
1) their explorers out, meaning they could soon meet the Angels.
2) now have potential access to about all techs we have.

This means we could have a potential competitor soon in selling all those techs to the Angels/Gaians at the lowest price. But to prevent such cutthroat competition and being forced to sell all our stuff at bargain prices, I'm wondering if we couldn't propose the Morganites a mutual to-third-party tech trading deal for technology we both have trading rights on.
After all, it's in both our advantage to for example sell EthCalc to the Angels for 200 credits, and then share that profit in half, than competing with each other to offer the Angels the lowest price, and get only 50 ec out of the deal for example.

[Googlie]

Ah

I wonder if you should post a clarification? (I had assumed when you first mentioned it that you were referring to SE choice penalties based on slider allocations)

On second thoughts - as our current counter-proposal is based on gross reveues, let's hold that concession in our pockets for the time being?

[Googlie]

They have replied with a couinter-proposal:

Posted by Mead in the Embassy

I'm thinking about your offer and I think I understand it, but what about this to keep it easy for me.

We adjust the payments to 40% of the revenue differential. Assuming we kept the same ten paired bases then Sparta would get 4 ECs per turn rather than 5 ECs per year.

Sparta sends PK commlink.

We increase the payment for the PK commlink to 30 EC and pay it over the next two years (15 EC per year).

We revisit treaty terms after ten years from now.

I think it works out the same as your proposal but it's easier for me to work with.

As it is virtually the same, I accepted on behalf of the Junta - with one proviso: we must receive the first tranche of the PK commlink payment this turn

Posted by Googlie in the Embassy

We accept your counter proposal, but we wouild like to see the commlink price - of 30 ec's - paid this year and next (ie in 2149 and 2150, straddling the year in which the Corporation receives the commlink, rather than that year and the one following)

So the 2149 payment from Morgan Corporation to the Spartan Federation would be 19 ec's pre-accepted (15 for 1/2 the commlink cost plus 4 for the commerce income sharing), and Sparta will, in 2149, send the commlink to Morgan pre-accepted. In 2150, when the Corporation has received the commlink from the Federation, the balance of the 15 ec's will be payable (plus 2150 revenue sharing of 4 ec's)

[Maniac]

[Maniac]

Morgan will research AdapEcon next turn.
Shall we repeat our inquiry towards the possibility of a leapfrog towards IntInt?

[Googlie]

I think that would be a good idea. They need it anyway (plus Adap Econ) for Planetary Economics, which I;m sure is on their critical path (Hybrid Forests, the Economic Victory as well as the Ascetic Virtues SP which lets them grow those bases to size 6 without Hab Complexes - will put their research thru the roof with 2 or 3 specialist scientists per base

Do we offer them Ecol Eng as an inducement? (Their trannie and probe are prolly heading right back to Univ land to get either that or Env Econ from Zak even as we type)

[Googlie]

Just looking at their nexus - and garrisons - they have 2 longstriders not in any base (only probes in bases - 2 of them - are scout, not rover, chassis)

Their trannie operates out of Morgan Mussels, which from their base map is a west coast base (and isn't in the base)

I'd say they have a serious case of Zak-rape going on right now

Also, they seem to have lost a lot more units than we have. We've contained our losses to just Rolling Thunder. They've lost 5 scouts, 2 defensive probes (1 of them to us) and a synth-armoured Rover. They must be having severe mindworm troubles.(it's a pity we couldn't capture an IoD or 2 and release its cargo on Morgan land - turning them loose in the wild)

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Maniac
Morgan will research AdapEcon next turn.
Shall we repeat our inquiry towards the possibility of a leapfrog towards IntInt?

We're also making the assumption that they won't be pissed off at us for the infiltration and loss of their defensive probe at Vander Eudaimonics

It costs them 18 minerals to build a scout probe. Per the table, that's worth 52 ec's. If we gave them a 52 ec credit against future payments, I'd see them as being willing to partner with us on Int Int (but obviously we'd need to give them something of value for it - maybe Doc Init or Ecol Eng - or a future tech)

So I'd suggest something along the lines of:

Suggested proposal to Morgan

We regret the loss of your probe defender at Vander Eudaimonics - had we known in advance that Red River Resort was probe-defenceless, we would have infiltrated at that site.

However, what's done is done.

By way of reparations we would like to offer you a 52 ec credit against future payments (the rush-build cost of a 1-1-1 probe defender)

And we would also like to propose the following:

As the Corporation will have researched Adaptive Economics in 2150, how do you feel about next researching Intellectual Integrity (a key building block for you towards Hybrid Forests, Economic Victory and the Ascetic Virtues) and trading it to us (If you recall, when we entered into the Ethical Calculus arrangement, we indicated that the Citizens' Defense Force was a high priority for us for our inevitable war against the Hive)

We would be willing to trade Doctrine Initiative for Intellectual Integrity (Doc Init is currently a technology known only to Sparta) or Ecological Engineering. (But of corse, with your recent infiltration of the University, you will know tbat Ecol Eng's blueprints can be extracted from the Provost by a competent covert operations team)

We await your response with interest