Originally
posted by
tulosba:
I became aware that many viewed SOF as having bullied them in the past
That depends on how you define bully. I have no issue and explaining SoF's conduct as I value my ability as a leader to operate with reasonable transparency to my members and those who I hold in high esteem (i.e aliies etc). But let's look at SoF's recent opponents.
SOL - Since SoF and SOL were FDPed this is the first time SoF has FSed SOL. Whilst certain SOL leaders like to play the victim card and act as if SoF has bullied them you will find that it was SOL who gangbanged SoF out of protection alongside Evo and Monsters. I accept much of the blame for the breakdown in SOL/SoF relations and have openly admitted this to several key SOLers (namely Dragon and Suni) but it was not my intent at the time to actually break the relations. I had grievances with SOL leadership, SOL leadership overreacted out of fear of SoF coming for them and as a result we are where we are.
I actually like SOL and thus had given them lots of latitude. I have the nothing but the highest respect for Dragon. If Dragon of SOL was ever to call me a liar about something and was able to show me I am wrong, I would be happy to admit it and would be nothing but apologetic for it.
LCN - This one is an interesting one. Whilst Servant loves to portray LCN as an innocent victim (surprise surprise, much like SOL) let's look at the facts. SoF and LCN were happily FDPed for a long time. When I became a Head in SoF I had a great working relationship with Deci and I also like Trife and Zen. When Deci departed LCN communication with LCN was virtually non-existent. The FDP was totally useless for a couple of sets because apart from re-signing a pact we had no contact with LCN.
In Deci's last set at LCN they also decided to blindside PDM for no reason at all and without PDM provoking them one little bit. This decimated PDM and I offered to help PDM recover at this point and gave them minor assistance. After deciding not to renew LCN as a FDP we were still happy to give LCN a UNAP on the basis that if we rebuilt relations we could return to a FDP.
Around the same time we learned of a coalition being put together by MD (and Imag) targeting Rival and RD from a few MD allies and were delivered lots of logs of discussions and leadership meetings about planning of this conflict with LCN looking to take on Rival (LCN leadership declined knowledge of this planning and we have no evidence of their direct involvement other than MD leadership making plans for LCN to hit Rival). Looking to avoid a server type war at the time we decided to intervene and at our ally's request we wanted to include a break clause for Rival in our pact with LCN to deter LCN from hitting Rival.
We ended up in a war with MD at this point and LCN decided to FS SoF in defense of MD (a war which MD was the aggressor). The following set LCN decided to send FA to MD (they claim they only sent a few packages but we believe otherwise). SoF does consider outside involvement against SoF as an act of war, and really so does every Alliance, as a result we decided to act upon it.
In essence, LCN FSed SoF then aided SoF's enemy the following set and then SoF is somehow the bully of poor innocent LCN for FSing them back afterwards. Why... because we are bigger than LCN? We do not think things work that way.
Monsters - This one is an unfortunate situation and was much as Warster described it. However once again Servant enjoy's portraying SoF as the bullies because it suits his political objective. I will note that over the 3 sets that SoF and Monsters had issues SoF had offered Monsters a pact on every occasion. I will also note that at no time did SoF ever FS Monsters when we easily could have.
ICN - Due to my personal historical dislike for ICN for my entire time in SoF I had maintained a distance with any ICN dealings so not to allow my personal position to ever affect SoF. Basically SoF had announced it's landtrading policies during this set and ICN was very vocal in their dislike for it. Somehow ICN felt that our policy was targeted at them when ICN was not even a remote consideration when our policy was being drawn up (a policy that was drawn up in coordination with LAF and SOL who both supported and adopted the policy).
ICN then took it upon themselves to purposely and provocatively topfeed SoF, attempt to outrun the retals, retal the retals and then brag about it on AT. At this time we did expect ICN leadership to resolve the issue with us in a reasonable manner but instead ICN's response was quite inflammatory which lead to outrage amongst the entire SoF leadership. I logged in one day to find that we had been set to Red Alert with intentions to act upon ICN. Following the war ICN leadership held very cordial discussions with SoF about the situation and their leader had admitted that he could have handled the situation better. I will not post my discussions with ICN leaders publicly at this time regarding the issue, but I am more than happy to share those messages with ICN members privately.
Now this one has been portrayed by everyone as SoF bullying poor small ICN. But I can guarantee you almost every Alliance in our position would have done the same thing as us. Just because an Alliance is small it does not give them the right to be assholes and expect to get away with it, and to do it against the largest *Warring* Alliance on the server at the time was pure insanity.
Evo - By Evo's own public admission they had no beef with SoF prior to their participation in the gangbang against SoF. They participated in the gangbang on SoF because LAF had FSed them the set earlier. That makes sense right. But wait, SoF is bullying everyone.
We also had mediated on many occasions between Evo and LAF to try and keep things cordial between those Alliances and even at one time recently had offered Evo a DP.
MD - MD may feel bullied by SoF, but by the same token SoF feels that MD always provokes us. MD/SoF relations broke down during the SPERM war (fallout over Hanlong) at which point MD made a big enemy out of Helmet due to comments they posted on AT about him which were fabrications and manipulations of the truth. There are many issues between MD and SoF and a general hatred which now saturates both Alliances to the Core and will probably not be easily fixed regardless of who is leading. In fact in our last few wars against MD I was very constrained in my dealings with MD much to the outrage of many of my members.
We generally do not war for no reason. If we fight someone it is because we have genuine issues with that Alliance. But if we intend to pursue an Alliance, we generally give them a lot of latitude before acting on anything. We do not blindside anyone for no reason. If we FS someone, we have a reason.
Whilst most Alliances on here will preach that we are bullies and we are destroying the game, I will argue that no Alliance has worked as much with other Alliances to assist them in building up, no other Alliance on this server has worked more to mediate disputes between other Alliances and no other Alliance has worked harder to bring players into this game as we have.
I would also argue that no other Alliance leader would have acted differently against those above mentioned Alliances if they were in our shoes.
We are such assholes that if any Alliance ever came to us saying "hey SoF we need help" that we would not tell them to go away or shrug them off. We'd be the first ones there to help them whether that be through guidance or advice or any other logistical support. Hell, even when we were enemies with MD I was giving them IA and recruiting advice (a very small amount during the earlier wars).
The Alliances SoF is fighting have their own agendas and I believe they fear SoF. And so they should. Neither MD, SOL or LCN could fight SoF one on one. They know this. So instead they attempt to manipulate public perception to further their objectives. That's part of the game and I know how that works. I'll let every Alliance make their own judgements for themselves. How MD, SOL and LCN have conducted themselves in this set is now the benchmark and neither Alliance has the right to criticize anyone else for engaging in any such conduct.