Sparta-Morgan "relations" Part II

[Kassiopeia]

Hit the 500 post mark, so time to start a new one methinks. The diplo forum can be reached here, the password is sunburst.

And the delay message of the day looks like this:

We have received your post and are considering it.

Good! That means we're getting somewhere.

I appreciate your pointing out that you lost out on potential profits from pod popping with the Hunter while it was within Morgan control. I did not realize that. To the extent the results of the pod popping exceeded (if it did) the cost of the probe action, Morgan may actually not be out as much money as I initially thought. I'll have to see how many pods were popped and what the result of the pod popping was.

We would expect nothing less - this was potential profit that was, dare I use the word, stolen from us by your aggressive action.

We would like to get back to normalizing relationships with Sparta so that we can share trade and screenshots of ships in the nearby waters with each other.

I can't make any guarantees about that - once we have had a brief period of normalized relations, the Junta could consider that. Please bear in mind that your stock, excuse the metaphore but I find it fitting, is very low in the Federation right now.

Additionally, right now neither of us are benefiting from vendetta.

Well said - the status quo is certainly unbearable.

As always, I would like to restart payments on ECs for the tech purchases, return the Hunter to Spartan control, restart and share trade between us, and share screenshots amonst us.

The order of procedure sounds good to me.

You are still skirting the issue of the lump sum payment you owe us for simply neglecting all of our treaties (this is considered a different sum from the pod-popping reparations, in case you were mixing them up by accident).

Lt. Colonel Kassiopeia

I love it how they're now taking their time to respond. Makes our delaying look hurrying after a fashion. Let's just hope this'll keep up until D-Day.

[Maniac]

( Previous thread )

Great message!

I wonder though what's the advantage of the Morganites by stalling.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Maniac
I wonder though what's the advantage of the Morganites by stalling.

Could be they "must have" things, before paying us the lump sum. Could be an invasion is planned (cash-rushing the whole force in one turn ). Could be they are really undecided, still trying to get a consensus for a final answer. I hope it's the first possibility.

[Kassiopeia]

Could be an invasion is planned (cash-rushing the whole force in one turn ).

Interesting proposition. Economically I don't think it's sound - when they switch from their current productions, they're going to lose a great deal of minerals.

OTOH, since they know we've infiltrated them, they might reason that the only way to gain even a slight upper hand is to delay the negotiations, use a massive amount of energy on a single turn to buy a crapload of troops, load them up on transports and head out.

The only problem with this is that it would still take them several turns to load everything up and send it our way - we'd have ample time to react. Also the amount of energy they'd have to stockpile would be incredible, and they'd risk a lot by piling it up: random events are on, IIRC, and a market crash would wipe out 50% of their reserve which could become a game-deciding sum with the amounts we're talking about here. All that sitting energy would also not be producing anything, so they'd be in a sense losing productive time as well by sitting on it.

I don't think it's likely. More probably they are trying to go for the Fortress Morgan strategy, and they want to keep a war between us from not turning hot so that they can postpone the construction of the fortress until the moment they themselves want to start it. They want to act, not react.

[Modo44]

I don't think they're that desperate either.

Another possibility. They might be negotiating something with the other human-controlled factions, which, as we know, don't answer very quickly. Perhaps that's part of the reason for the Gaians to act strange lately.

[Snoddasmannen]

Yes I agree with you guys, I really doubt they're planning for an attack, seems prohibitively expensive and pretty far-fetched.

Another possibility is that they're probing us to see if we really are stalling. Ie: Delay a little themselves to see if we attempt to rush things on, or if we just play along. That would be a warning sign for them.

[Kassiopeia]

Another possibility is that they're probing us to see if we really are stalling. Ie: Delay a little themselves to see if we attempt to rush things on, or if we just play along. That would be a warning sign for them.

Hmm, good notion. In that sense my message urging them on certainly came in right when we needed it - sheer luck or intuition from me, who knows.

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Modo44
Another possibility. They might be negotiating something with the other human-controlled factions, which, as we know, don't answer very quickly. Perhaps that's part of the reason for the Gaians to act strange lately.

Can't be - they haven't yet met the Angels or the Gaians

[Googlie]

In light of the Hunter's lurking in the fungus just outside Minas Tirith, how about:

Suggested Embassy post by Googlie


Dear Mr. Mead:

I must say that I am appalled at the duplicity shown by the Corporation.

While you profess to be interested in re-establishing peaceful relations between the Corporation and the Federation, you nevertheless hide the erstwhile SCC Hunter in the fungus just outside our naval nase of Minas Tirith - to what purpose we don't know, but the obvious one that comes to mind is to destroy any Spartan vessel that ventures from that base.

We have removed that threat to our navy.

A 'Gator accidently breaching our claimed coastal waters is one thing - we could have negotiated a codicil to the Modo Doctrine to allow for its movement.

However, a blatant anchoring in the fungus just 2 tiles from one of our bases is totally unacceptable - especially when you were talking about returning the Hunter to our control and we had specified Arcadia University (formerly University Base) as the requested handover point

At the same time, we have also removed the threat to our Pactmate's northeastern shores by destroying the laser skimship heading his way. Note that the application of the Modo Doctrine extends to our governed territories, the University of Planet, as well.

The Junta will not tolerate any incursions of any kind into our - or our pactmate's - coastal waters, and we do have the naval strength to back up our claims

Dictatorial? .............. perhaps. But that is the Spartan way

Lt. Colonel Kassiopeia

That ought to deflect attention from any likely invasion - as was mentioned elsewhere, it will make them think that we are bent on a naval supremacy (heck, "bent on"? - we already have it!!)

[Snoddasmannen]

Yes, good idea Googlie
An important question is obviously timing. Do we:
[list=1][*]Post it now, which will be a boost to our claim to eventually want peace.[*]Post it when their turn is up, which will minimize their time to prepare.[/list=1]

[Googlie]

I'd do it now - it gives them a lot of time for recriminations to fly among their faction (eg "Well, that didn't work - whose idea was it again?" and "What now - how do we regain Sparta's trust and all that lucrative commerce income" etc etc)

Plus it will help speed the game along as they'll be erady in advance and won't get a shock when they open the turn. As far as they know, we just have foils/cruisers out and about patrolling our coastline

[Modo44]

I agree with Googlie. With both ships sunk, they didn't get any clues about our raid, which is good enough for me. Let them wander in darkness now.

[Snoddasmannen]

Yeah I'm fine with that We should do it asap though, we don't want them thinking we took too long deciding this. This was just a simple matter of upholding the Modo doctrine, nothing out of the ordinary.

[Zeiter]

Wow, finding the Hunter anchored in a highly suspicious manner outside of one of our bases has been an extremely fortunate stroke of luck. Now, when we invade, we can make it seem like or decision to invade was prompted from Morgan's shading dealings with us, and not because of some secret plan. We can make it seem like we really did want peace all along, and we just kept an offensive task force nearby just in case. But when they showed their shadiness with the two-pronged naval escapade near our bases, and then when they afterwards refused to apologize and give reparations for this breach of trust (which I assume is what they will do), we decided that we just couldn't trust the Morganites any longer, and we had to go to war with them for real.

They won't know the full truth until after the game. Hehehe, when they read all of this after the game they'll be dumbfounded.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Googlie
In light of the Hunter's lurking in the fungus just outside Minas Tirith, how about:

Sounds great!

(heck, "bent on"? - we already have it!!)

Yep. In fact, unless the Angels or Gaians have built a token navy, we're the only faction with combat ships right now.