From abstraktworkshop@hotmail.com Mon Aug 12 12:20:40 2002 Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2002 11:23:38 -0400 From: Marcus To: drf5n@mug.sys.virginia.edu Subject: Re: Captain Graham, The Vote is In and the Decision is... Hi Dave, Here's his most recent reply, read it through and then decide for yourself which course of action is best - denounce or schism. He has no intention of meekly going out. I don't know about the alliances well enough to make a judgment about the truth of his assertions that I'm being manipulated and that there is in fact a grand scheme by the SN. Given that there are a number of ships on my list that I know are not SN members, I think he's grasping at thin air and trying to lay the cornerstone of an interpretation of these events that will help him feel justified in withstanding and possibly encourage both defectors from my cause and undecided folks to support him. We'll see what today reveals in the SST! cheers, Marcus AbstraktWorkshop ++++++++++++++++++ Rather unfortunate. Looks like the smugglers net may be about to get their third prophethood. I now have their member list, and will be taking direct action. That includes Captain Doug - a self confessed member. I trust you are aware that Flying Haddock, Dragonblade and M.S.Bounty are SN members. The old Bath University team is still manipulating events. I will address your points below: Graham. Spectral Duck -----Original Message----- From: Abstrakt Workshop [mailto:AbstraktWorkshop@hotmail.com] Sent: Saturday, August 10, 2002 9:23 PM To: Graham Povey Subject: Captain Graham, The Vote is In and the Decision is... Greetings Captain Graham, We have finished discussing your response. Regrettably, we have concluded that your answers and recent actions to rectify our dissatisfaction is too little too late. We ask that you peacably resign the Prophethood of the Wise One to Captain Doug immediately. [ [SD] I will never hand over the Prophethood to him or any other SN member. He has exhibited the same duplicity and incompetence that got him smacked as captain of Paradox. I hoped he would behave better in a second incarnation - seems his more fervent detractors were correct after all. Should you decline to cooperate, we will begin a campaign to denounce you out of office immediately - seen this Monday. [SD] Short notice, but always your choice. This is a peaceful movement and I have not taken part in any plans to forcibly remove you from office. As such, I ask that you, regardless of the outcome, not take any violent action on those involved. [SD] Expect to be excommunicated if you schism/denounce. All SN ships will be attacked on sight. This is something that should have been done a while ago, but there was insufficient evidence. The current situation has at least drawn enemies and friend into the light. I make no promises for others, but I wouldn't expect to victimise those clearly manipulated by the SN. If you should succeed in retaining your position, I will be happy to share with you those ships for whom I want this request honored (unless they request otherwise). Doubtless, there will be many other ships jumping on this bandwagon but I am only claiming amnesty for those specifically contacted by myself and who have coordinated with me since first being contacted. [SD] You start this ball rolling, and you take responsibility. The number of denounces/schisms are currently declining - initial indignation having beed reflected on. Open the issue again, and I'm not going to look on any of you favourably. I realize that you may think I am serving as an unwitting pawn in a larger power struggle. [SD] No sh*t Sherlock! That may be partially true and will remain to be seen. However, I want to reiterate that this movement was born out and instigated solely by myself. I was not approached by any other ships - not even anonymously, with the exception of that peculiar post in the SST very shortly after I was excommunicated(something to the effect of: 'Mr. Workshop, shall we oust this prophet?'). I have no idea who that ship was and it has never been made known to me. So, I contacted ships based on my previous relations with them and it just took off from there. As such, if you are to hold any grudge against this movement, it is mine to bear. I am not a member of any alliance (I don't believe GIN counts, it is purely for information and has not been used for political purposes as far as I'm aware) and I have no obligations to any alliance. I simply found your actions questionable and mobilized support. [SD] I respect your courage in this stance, but must re-iterate that responsibility comes with actions. We are in this position because of actions that I took (mostly successful) for which this may be the price. Denouncing a Prophet out of office comes with a price too - possible retribution is the obvious one, but there are many more subtle costs too. For a detailed assessment of our reasons, I have included some of the key points that, having deliberated on them, we believe are (mostly) independently sufficient grounds for moving forward with your removal. Respectfully, Marcus AbstraktWorkshop Regarding the SST Archives malfunction, which would have precluded me (at the time) from knowing about your post: I have confirmed that there was a problem with the SST archives that are on the PBM site. This was fixed This issue was addressed once before on the design list. At that time the problem was fixed up to turn 799. The problem was fixed again Aug 5th. You should have been aware of this potential problem. [SD] Why - it's a game malfunction. The design list has been swamped by TNG and other development issues. Ever heard of information overload? I personally use Corby's SST archive - hence the confusion over accessibility. Regarding your use of deception in order to carry out a plan that would 1) ensnare Flying Beak and 2) lure out those you suspected to be organizing your removal: It is the overwhelming position of those involved in my movement that your use of deception was motivated primarily to save your position as opposed to benefitting the larger community. Furthermore, we have concluded that this deception was unwarranted given the benefits and that, most importantly, deception of this sort merits no place in the ways of the Wise One. [SD] Anyone who truely believes that is either a fool, or being deceptive ;~) The Prophet positions are primarily political in nature, and subterfuge is frequently involved. It was subterfuge that allowed me to blow open the tbg_popcorn list when the Dybuk conspirators were assisting Alpha. Paradox restarted, Flying Beak changed status from Chosen to Outlaw (ooh look, another spy). Get real. Also, as far as I know the denouncing campaign only started after I was excomunicated. An excommunication 'bot wouldn't prevent an attmept to remove a prophet. [SD] No, but if provides uncertainty and delayed the attempt. Human control is necessary to counter any removal campaign, and the legend of the bot delayed the campaign a couple of turns. A person or a script can only excommunicate one ship per turn. If there was in fact a movement to oust you, it should have been able to succeed in spite of your 'bot. Futher, it is unlikely such a movement existed - unless you refer to my own. But, that would be patently absurd as I had not begun to organize this until after the initial events and you certainly would not have heard of this movement before you left. Thus, the delay in starting my movement's denouncing was to give you a chance to explain yourself. Unfortunately, since the assumption was that you had installed a 'bot was in place (carefully cultivated by yourself, it should be noted), once that 'bot appeared to be broken many other ships decided to voice their ire over the arrangement and began denouncing based on principle. [SD] You flatter yourself too much. The alliance was the Smuggler's Net. And less than half a dozen ships denounced before I returned. Regarding what appeared to be your leave of abscence and installation of a 'bot for some 3 weeks: It is indeed unfortunate that other circumstances complicated your being able to delegate the running of the Wise Prophethood to one of your chosen - namely, that your trip coincided with company reductions (that IS awful in itself and I'm sorry to hear about the layoffs). However, the very assumptions you have regarding your chosen ships is an issue that we believe warrants prior and independent consideration. We find it suspect that you claim concern about a spy. From your web page: "Alliance members are not excluded, but must compete equally with other players. i.e. there will be no preferential treatment or reserved places for alliances." If alliance memebers aren't excluded, what reason do you have to be concerned about a possible SN member among your chosen? It is the opinion of my movement that you reasoning here is a well-conceived fabrication intended to obfuscate the real issue of how you have been negligent with your chosen. For instance, why, in the first place, have chosen ships that you are unwilling or incapable of trusting? [SD] You are indeed being naive. The relationships between captains/alliances are continually changing. While the SN was quietly doing it's own thing, I didn't have an issue with one of their members being amongst the Chosen. Once I had been tipped off that after having secured the Mighty and Fierce Prophethoods, they were after the Wise Prophethood too, that is unacceptable. A SN chosen then gives immediate conflict of interest. And more poignantly, Why are 6 of your current 8 chosen still given that status given that they have consistently broken your own rules on praising? [SD] The script which generates that information is fairly recent. All chosen were given instructions to get their praising in order. Crimson Rodger is currently active on Wise service chasing BSL and therefore is given a period of grace. Zoom has likewise done service recently. As for rotation of chosen, that was scheduled for my return. It has been delayed due to the extra workload (e.g. justifying my position) Regarding multiple chosen ships: While it is true that having multi-chosen ships does limit the number of benefiting ships, we believe that your own running of the Wise Prophethood has inherently limited the number of Wise chosen. The average number of terminals accessed is 6. There are 199 ships in the game. A prophet recieves 6% of total favour income. So you receive at least 72 favour per turn for devotion of all captains, not including possible favour gain from adventures, or favor gain from praises. You shouldn't have a problem supporting more than 10 chosen (again, not even your chosen have demonstrated their ability to reliably praise you an average of once per three turns). [SD] With favour levels back above 5000, that wouldn't be such a problem. The experiment of leaving Dybuk free cost an awful amount of favour which had to be restored. It has been necessary to maintain fewer chosen to allow favour to be rebuilt. That process is currently complete. An ousting campaign will of course undo that work, whoever is prophet at the end of it. And, don't overlook the fact that average access levels are now *back* up to 6. With BSL and Beakies campaign, that figure was lower. Additionally, we disagree with your policy of dictating the programs of the other prophets. It is a little more than ironic that only one ship in the past 300 turns (maybe more) has held two prophet positions at the same time, that would be you. Regardless of your reasons for taking multiple prophet positions, this makes you a hypocrite - it is difficult for us to understand how a distinction can be made between the issue of having multi-chosen ships and a multi-prophet ship. [SD] Your opinions. When I became Prophet, I gave one assurance to the outgoing Feline Grace - that I would maintain the single chosen rule. Multiple prophethood was in retrospect a mistake, even if it was with good intentions. I still believe that the state of anarchy had to be curtailed in order to have an effective prophet in the fight against the Dybuk releasers. That still holds. This was all discussed in great detail then. I don't intend going over the same arguments now. This policy was known well before the SN chose to take the other two prophethoods. [SD] As for multiply chosen ships, I have occasionally given sanction to such for special cases in the common good - Dybuk hunter (I terminated this experiment when it was seen to be not working too well), and up to just recently, Eden who was keeping continual pressure on BSL. The likes of Wolverine, Black Pig and now Dragonblade smacks too much of croneyism, and serves no such common good. Regarding your success at predicting evil's movements: I have been in contact with ships that, together, are on three of the lists that should recieve this information (hunters, terminal codes, and open forum) We are unaware of any posts, from you or your chosen, over the last several weeks giving the ship dybuk was chasing. Since ShadowWraith's departure, this has been even more of a sore point. [SD] Are you aware that the turn Dybuk is unchained he doesn't even inhabit the weasel? Are you aware that the turn after, when he does, that the Predict movement spell isn't available? Are you aware that the combined campaign to re-chain Dybuk after release has been so successful that the predict spell almost never has to be cast? Mailing lists were posted to with the results when it was cast, and the Prophet page updated accordingly. So now we are to be hung because we're a) successful, b) our accusers don't know the game mechanisms, c) It's an excuse for other motives. Sheesh! >From: David Forrest >To: Abstrakt Workshop >Subject: Re: Captain Graham, The Vote is In and the Decision is... >Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2002 10:46:56 -0400 (EDT) > >Hey AW, > >I just got back on line. Strategically, do you suppose schisming on the >first turn is the best answer? If we had a round or two of organized >denouncing first, it would give SD a chance to concede gracefully, to fear >our numbers, and might help get support from those on the brink of >helping. As it is, SD is in a position where he can do nothing other than >resist. If it were just lots of denouncing, he could weakly promise to >change and we could hold him at the least favored of prophets position in >the rankings and schism him out easily at will. > >In any case, you are running the campaign, and I support it, I will >support with a denounce this turn, and reserve a schism for later. >Because of my recent denounces, I've had a couple emails with SD, and >would like to honor them. > >I currently have science favor of 125 +15 terminals -5 artifact and >expect 150 -5 decay= 145 next turn. > >Thanks for your time. > >Dave, Tin Bucket >-- > Dave Forrest drf5n@virginia.edu > (804)642-0662h (434)924-3954w http://mug.sys.virginia.edu/~drf5n/ _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx