Intergalactic Summit

Hardly.

#1: I don't assume anything of the sort. In fact, if you'll re-read my statement, I assume your initial pool of operatives will have been vetted for years already. However, no matter how driven and dedicated the cadre is, a campaign will generate turnover. It always does. It is unavoidable. People will leave. New people will come in. Ask absolutely anyone here who has actually engaged in an extended campaign, and is not, as you describe yourself, simply an industrialist running a small alliance of other industrialists.

Seriously. Don't believe me if you like. Ask Deitra. Or Mizhara. Or literally any of the career combatants here.

#2: Everyone is motivated by self-interest. Even you. The self-interest behind altruism is rooted in basic primatology: empathy. People don't like seeing other people suffer. We feel bad. We don't like to feel bad. So we do what we feel we have to in order to not feel bad. That's still self-interest. If you want to assert that people, especially in large groups, aren't motivated by self-interest, please show me someone who does things that aren't rooted in it—including that selfish impulse to feel good about themselves.

Now, I'll admit, I've a pretty dark view of humanity in general. But my models fit the observed behavior. Let's see yours.

#3: There will always be people who take on the task because they thought 'This will work! We'll win because we're RIGHT!' and won't be prepared, psychologically, for the losses. When you're offering your people hypertech, you're only exacerbating that tendency. No matter how dedicated most of your people will be, some will simply not be up to the task of enduring defeat. This, too, is something everyone here who has been involved in extended fighting knows.



Precisely which sub-capital ship do you think is 'more potent' than the ones that have been engaged already? The Hikanta that ARC and SERAPH have been killing in hives? The Arythmos—which has no superweapon, and so is less of a threat to capital ships?

We have the data on the known classes of Drifter vessels. We have the data on the new capabilities of supercapitals. You're now insisting on more magical and mysterious events for which there is no evidence. Please support your assertions.



I think you over-react to provocation, and it's pretty hilarious to watch you work yourself up into a lather.

And you know, that impulse to help is a laudible goal. It's the essential kernel at the core of what you're proposing in your thought experiment, too. But it has to be coupled with a willingness to listen, too. I'm not going to try to tell Miz what it means to be a slave, or insist I know more about hunting Drifters than Morwen, Makato, or Alizabeth. I'm not going to try to tell you how to handle your industrial interests. I presume you know more than I do about your specific business. But whenever anyone points out even a tiny little error on your part, you have to respond with an attack, with attempted insults and digs, and puffed-up bravado. It's so bad that the idea of 'dude, you misspelled a word and made it mean something else' is an attack on your virility and manliness.

Think about that. I pointed out a spelling error and you lost your cool. You seem to require this impression of infallibility, but you take this really weird approach to it. You suggest things, and construct scenarios that simply don't work. And it's not even difficult to understand why they don't: they're outside your area of expertise. Which is fine, I mean, nobody knows everything. But you insist that you know more about things you don't do than someone who does them.

So I pointed out the holes in your scenario. And you responded with what amounts do 'nu-uh!' and tried to say I wasn't actually working within your thought experiment. Then I gave you a more detailed analysis of exactly where and why your scenario was flawed, and again, you offered no actual response to the points, you just accused me of making assumptions that clearly were not in what I'd said, but only achieved by twisting—and in the case of #1, flat out reversing—what I said.

Your passion is laudible. Your stubborn inability to adapt to new information, and the ease with which you are baited into unforced errors, is not. And those would be used against you in a prolonged campaign, too.

In a prolonged campaign against an opponent of equal skill I would not give you much chance of success because you can not admit when you are wrong.

Anyone who follows the the way you argue cases would recognize what you described above is how you operate, which for the record I noted earlier.

A person who can't admit mistakes is not likely to learn from them. You think because you have a demonstrated skill no one else could be better at it then you, lovely blind spot through which the knockout blow will likely be delivered because you will never see it coming because you can't imagine it even exists.

And you might notice that your 'model' puts a significant military and economic engine behind you and puts Gallente intelligence assets providing information. There's no indication of a Drifter intelligence apparatus at work spying on anyone beyond the now-defunct Jove observatories and the Seekers and Lancers that roam through New Eden and Anoikis. Further, you yourself point out one of the big differences: 'off guard'. No-one was challenging the Golden Fleet in Heimatar at the time. What's more, that didn't happen in a vaccuum.

The Amarr had gone to war with the Jove, remember? And they'd lost the Battle of Vak'Atioth—decisively. Their military was on the back foot, and they were psychologically traumatized. And the Empire couldn't afford to go to war against the Gallente for supporting the Minmatar Rebellion, so there was no way to cut off the supply of materiel and support.

What you're talking about might have been possible in the days immediately after Safizon—and in fact was something that the Defense of the Throne Worlds campaign had people worried about. The Amarr military was on its back foot, the enemy was powerful and largely unknown, and the psychological trauma had them reacting in an uncontrolled and less-efficient way.

That is your parallel. That was your window. Now? Drifters are a threat, but they're a known threat. The Empire has tools to fight back against them with, and tactics developed specifically to kill them. That's a far cry from the sudden, overwhelming assault against a weakened and disorganized force that you're referring to in the Rebellion.

Moreover, they're a known threat to all of the empires. They've attacked all of the empires, and continue to do so. Which means if they're supporting you, you're going to be seeing Republic pushback. That's not exactly fitting your model, either.

Which means your model isn't fitting the observed data, and so isn't a useful predictive model for this scenario.

Two things:

One. Yes I do agree with Arrendis on what she said when she said to ask any combat focused pilots. I've had my share of issues regarding that. After your second batch of new recruits, expect atleast one or two with ill intentions. That is, if you have something to be gained by it. In that senario I would be doubling up security checks on the initial wave since its easily something that people would jump on exploiting.

Two. Sorry its off topic, but aren't drifter battleships immune to ewar effects? I really could be wrong on that...

Nope. Webs, points, tracking disruption, painters, they all work.

Speaking as one of those friends, (1) Ali, in particular, isn't especially new (though her devotion to the Amarrian faith is, a bit); (2) if you want to hear Arrendis wax sharp-tongued about the Amarr, ask her opinion of "God" (and expect to be there a while); (3) both SERAPH and, especially, ARC employ pilots from diverse backgrounds, including pilots formally at war with one another. The Drifters are too large an issue, and pilots willing to face them too rare, for us to be very finicky about who we'll fly with.

And just to have it said, if you're end-game victory condition for all this is 'All the Amarr are dead', well, I don't think you can pull it off, but at least you're being logically consistent.

And, you know, kinda exactly the sort of monster you're justifiably raging against.

So I hope that's not your victory-condition here. But if it is, well, I withdraw the 'not consistent' objection.

Damn, I spend a couple of hours reading a softcore porn/romance back to back and you guys fill entire pages about a hypothetical fleet of drifter equipped guerilla fighters in Empire space. I can't tell which of us spent their time poorly.

The long and short of it is that you're both somewhat right and almost completely wrong. You both started at an adversarial position and then just bloody dug in further with every post. When you both start cherry picking the adversary's posts for the bits you can argue against the hardest while ignoring the reasonable parts, you've both now ended up so far away from reasonable standpoints that you can't even sodding see them from where you are.

Untangling the useful and good bits from either, not to mention both of your posts would be a herculean task that'd keep me here the entire night, so let's just do a quick and dirty summary here:

Arrendis, stop being a querulous **** trying to score cheap points by batting at low hanging fruit with far too much text. You are - or at least have the potential of being - better than that and you know it. You don't need to have the last word and you don't have to exacerbate the argument by encouraging the worst in others with bait, and needless taunts. This is the kind of 'u mad bro' thing people find so annoying with the Goons' outward image, only written in a way that makes the word smug feel a bit tame. There are far better targets for that than him. Your arguments hold their own on their own merit, there is no need to make them less convincing through :smug: and condescension.

Ronin, take it down a few notches. You bit very hard on bait that was barely intentional and then doubled down on every post afterwards. This argument over the last two pages lasted at least five pages longer than it should have, being based on a rather silly hypothetical in the first place. You're not conforming to the standards you ask your opponent to abide by, and you're disregarding very sound arguments and instead focusing solely on the parts you can argue against yourself. Something you're also accusing her of doing - correctly I might add, but glass houses etc - as well. I would also be a bit less eager to ascribe the other person quite as many qualities when you barely know the other. That last one goes for the both of you.

The argument itself is silly, and you both take a ridiculous extreme stance on it. Yes, if we got ahold of Drifter tech I can assure you some Matari guerilla warfare, hit and run tactics and clever traps would take a relatively heavy toll on the Empire. We've already kicked their teeth in a few times, once stopped only because of - what seems to have been - a superweapon of some sort that rivaled or surpassed the Keepstar "Doomsday" weapon. It would not defeat the Empire, as nothing short of a full invasion by at least two of New Eden's nations could possibly do enough damage and hold the field. It might be enough to get them to talk terms, however. Might. Possibly. Maybe. All these ships might also turn into a few lightseconds long smears in space because people have figured out the weaknesses of these ships while flown by Drifters already and the Empire laughs condescendingly at the silly tribal heathens playing with alien toys.

So with that out of the way, how about you two stop making enemies out of each other over something this bloody childish? You're both making yourselves look a damn sight worse than I know both of you are, to the point where I'm starting to doubt my own judgment on the matter. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and say you're both actually this daft. Now prove me wrong, damn it. Spirits blind me, yes I'm asking you to kiss and make up. Preferably as an analogy but sod it, you guys do you, however you take that.

Oh and before the inevitable 'no u' posts: I am well aware I possess many of the bad habits and qualities I just called out. That's one of the reasons I recognize them.

Spirits below, if a tenth of this effort went towards the enemy of our people the Empire would have been a smoking ruin by now.

Pretty sure we did.



Tol'ja she knows me better'n you, Ronin. ;)

You're right, Miz, I got carried away, and I shouldn't have. My bad.