Intergalactic Summit

As did SYNE before it (though "failure" is relative: we didn't find quite what we were looking for, but we did find quite a bit).

Also, Mr. Thessalonia, it should not be surprising if the audience is more conscious of the puppeteer than are the figures on stage, even those who don't currently have strings attached. This is particularly true when that puppeteer keeps snatching members of the audience and adding them to the play.

It behooves potential prey items to be wary of a predator, and, in this sense, you are merely one talon on something much larger than yourself, "free-willed" or not. No one sane and separate can look at you and not see your Master.

Given a singularly carnivorous "forest," you may just have to excuse people for not noticing if your particular tree is not identically aggressive, Mr. Thessalonia. Your statement that you work diplomatic angles for the advantage of The Foundations, which I would analyze as your particular (again, carnivorous) forest grove, gives further cause for caution.

Naturally, our entirely justified mistrust is an obstacle to joint projects.

I believe I may have been misunderstood. When I say "every can get behind" I'm speaking figuratively, not literally; I refer to the majority who want to see it succeed, even if not directly involved, as opposed to the minority who just want to **** all over the plans. It's like the sandbox analogy, you have the bystanders, watching with awe a person, or group of people, creating something fantastic, possibly lending a hand themselves, then there's some others who just want to tread all over it. Of course there always will be, but I just hope the ratio has not shifted so much as that these prevent any attempt being made. When I talk of the community willing a project to succeed, I mean that the bystanders stop the wreckers from getting to the sand sculpture, or make a scenario where anyone who ruins it would be so unpopular they would not want to.

ISS was flawed in this respect since the chosen system penned in the IAC, to expand the IAC was forced to take directive action, and there are those who appreciate their situation, myself among them.

I have True Slave Foundation's Networking Implants in my head and am therefore part of that greater collective.

Of course I believe that I am working towards the greater good of all humanity; This has always been my goal, even pre-Nation. However, I cannot work for humanity as a whole and so I have to focus my efforts towards that part of it that I would nurture and grow.

Have you ever grown a plant, Ms. Jenneth? The process is similar.

This actually ties into the original discussion! How fortuitous!

Any co-operative initiative that is open to all is, as you have said in another post in a related topic, either going to fail, or be too limited in it's scope to "be any fun".

I can work with CONCORD signatories for limited engagements; I did so, for instance, to help rescue a mutual friend. I would willingly provide details on any non-military quality-of-life technologies to people whom, by my allegiance, I would be forced to class as enemies of the foundations (One of my first acts as a Nation loyalist was to give plans for upgraded food production centers to a friend of mine, for instance).

However, the wider the group, the better a chance there will be someone I would not be willing to work with at all (the EoM and the Angel Cartel spring to mind), or whom I would not share a particular piece of information with (Wormhole technology or knowledge with anyone who might pose the least threat to the New Promised Land, not that I have this technology).

So, as with all things, we must talk about limits. Do we limit our scope, or our membership? Some balance of the two, no doubt.

A'J failed because it tried to let everyone into the treefort. The error of this line of thinking came about when Myxx decided she wanted to create a ship-portable dooms-day device (which no one would work with her on). It further failed when it drove out it's Nation loyalists (minus Guthris) by proposing to study the Sansha's Nation wormhole technology to discover the location of the Promised Land, directly leading to the call for us to burn Arek'Jellan to the ground (so National's withdrew themselves).

There is, unfortunately, no way to perfectly balance these two competing limits. No perfect option exists as long as attitudes are divided.

Oh, certainly a functional balance is possible, but I think it is very much a situation of "Operational Time; Wide reaching scientific input; Useful results. Pick Two"