New South Wales is enraged that it was not invited to join the Mediterranean Trade League despite being also located on the same planet and enjoying pizza, gyros, and olive oil. Oh wait, never mind - one of our diplomats just had one glass of scotch too many.
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Civilization 7 has been announced. For more info please check the forum here .
A Clockwork Rainbow
- Thread starter SouthernKing
- Start date
gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
The República Argentina would like to announce, that following the Canadian example, we have decided to create a new international organisation for the defence of liberty and prosperity on the South American continent. Negotiations with the Kingdom of Brazil, Bahian Republic, Republic of Chile, the Peru-Bolivian Confederation have entered an advanced stage, while a specific treaty will be created for the Juliana Republic. We would also like to extend an invitation to the Republic of Colombia as well as the Republic of Grao-Para in the name of South American peace and safety.
Signed, Thiago Cruz, President of Argentina
Signed, Thiago Cruz, President of Argentina
Signed, Thiago Cruz, President of Argentina
Signed, Thiago Cruz, President of Argentina
Last edited:
SouthernKing
crickety cricket
Brazil, Bahia, Chile, and Peru-Bolivia sign the Montevideo Agreement.
Juliana signs the Porto Alegre Agreement.
Grao-Para rejects entirely, we are frankly insulted that the Argentinean oppressors think our new, liberated government would even consider bending the knee again.
Juliana signs the Porto Alegre Agreement.
Grao-Para rejects entirely, we are frankly insulted that the Argentinean oppressors think our new, liberated government would even consider bending the knee again.
tobiisagoodboy
Prince
Siam announces that it will scrap its plans to construct a merchant submarine fleet. All futher constructions, except for the one merchant sub which is already under construction will be stooped. It will be fishined and then serve as a type ship and tech demonstrator for potential customers.
We don't want to see the world burn, just because the europeans are afraid of some small ships. Let's hope their nannies bring them their bottles in time next time or they'll have to cry about the evil asians plotting against them, again.
We don't want to see the world burn, just because the europeans are afraid of some small ships. Let's hope their nannies bring them their bottles in time next time or they'll have to cry about the evil asians plotting against them, again.
gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
I'm not sure whether stirring up the pot will be something that Siam would enjoy.
Zappericus
Euro scumbag
From The Italian Confederation
To The FBU
CC; Republic of Spain, Republic of Greece
The MTL will not distance our nations with Franco-Britannia, nor will it secede or fall into violation from/with the EEC. Initial responses by the FBU has given Italia, Spain and Greece reason to believe that they are worried that we will become distant strangers to them, but would like to assure the union that this is not the case. It is simply a close-knit economically beneficial alliance between nations in the Mediterranean to foster greater kinship between us, as well as a steppingstone for further agreements. It is to not meant to leave the union in the dark.
From The Italian Confederation
To The Ottoman Empire
CC; Republic of Spain, Republic of Greece, FBU
Your exclusion from founder status was not based on any reason in particular. Your potential membership in the MTL is being discussed at this time. Do not worry. And whilst your response was something to be understood, do not threaten us in the future with being "forced to consider it a hostile economic entity and act accordingly." and demanding founder status based on your proximity and size. Your statement weighs heavily on our decision, and our behavior on your nation in the future.
To The FBU
CC; Republic of Spain, Republic of Greece
The MTL will not distance our nations with Franco-Britannia, nor will it secede or fall into violation from/with the EEC. Initial responses by the FBU has given Italia, Spain and Greece reason to believe that they are worried that we will become distant strangers to them, but would like to assure the union that this is not the case. It is simply a close-knit economically beneficial alliance between nations in the Mediterranean to foster greater kinship between us, as well as a steppingstone for further agreements. It is to not meant to leave the union in the dark.
From The Italian Confederation
To The Ottoman Empire
CC; Republic of Spain, Republic of Greece, FBU
Your exclusion from founder status was not based on any reason in particular. Your potential membership in the MTL is being discussed at this time. Do not worry. And whilst your response was something to be understood, do not threaten us in the future with being "forced to consider it a hostile economic entity and act accordingly." and demanding founder status based on your proximity and size. Your statement weighs heavily on our decision, and our behavior on your nation in the future.
jackelgull
An aberration of nature
From: The Ottoman Empire
To: The Italian Confederation
When you act in bad faith, you will be responded to in bad faith. We do not demand founder membership status simply because of size and importance, but because your actions in going behind our back on a matter of importance such as this indicates we will have to take a more forceful stance to assert our status as equals. Can you really blame us for not wanting to be relegated to second class status in Europe?
However, we realize that further shows of bad faith would be counter productive, and as a show of good faith, withdraw our demands to be a founding member. We hope the MTL governments respond with a show of good faith.
To: The Italian Confederation
When you act in bad faith, you will be responded to in bad faith. We do not demand founder membership status simply because of size and importance, but because your actions in going behind our back on a matter of importance such as this indicates we will have to take a more forceful stance to assert our status as equals. Can you really blame us for not wanting to be relegated to second class status in Europe?
However, we realize that further shows of bad faith would be counter productive, and as a show of good faith, withdraw our demands to be a founding member. We hope the MTL governments respond with a show of good faith.
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christos200
Never tell me the odds
From: Greece
To: Ottoman Empire
If the Ottoman Empire wishes to join the MTL some time in the future, it should act as a civilized nation and not as a barbaric one by uttering threats that are against international law and attempting to blackmail other nations into kowtowing to to your monarch. If the MTL was a political or military alliance, we would understand your concern. But the MTL is purely an economic organization regarding trade. It has no hostile intention against the Ottoman Empire nor does it seek to relegate it to second class status. Threatening the MTL member states into accepting you in the organization is not going to work. If you wish to join, you will have to ask to join and the member states will consider your application. Blackmailing will not work. Greece and the Ottoman Empire have cordial relations and it would be a shame to threaten those relations through such rhetoric. Your withdrawing of your demand to be a founding member is a good first step towards restoring our respect for the Ottoman Empire. Hopefully you will continue to act as a respected member of the international community.
To: Ottoman Empire
If the Ottoman Empire wishes to join the MTL some time in the future, it should act as a civilized nation and not as a barbaric one by uttering threats that are against international law and attempting to blackmail other nations into kowtowing to to your monarch. If the MTL was a political or military alliance, we would understand your concern. But the MTL is purely an economic organization regarding trade. It has no hostile intention against the Ottoman Empire nor does it seek to relegate it to second class status. Threatening the MTL member states into accepting you in the organization is not going to work. If you wish to join, you will have to ask to join and the member states will consider your application. Blackmailing will not work. Greece and the Ottoman Empire have cordial relations and it would be a shame to threaten those relations through such rhetoric. Your withdrawing of your demand to be a founding member is a good first step towards restoring our respect for the Ottoman Empire. Hopefully you will continue to act as a respected member of the international community.
Last edited:
Immaculate
unerring
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2003
- Messages
- 7,623
The Stronnictwo, the Individual, and Cancer
I peer through the haze of drugs and fatigue at the glass bottle hanging from the intravenous stand. The bottle says “Methotrexate”. There is a skull symbol below the words. Death. Death dripping through the rubbing tubing. Death dripping slowly through the needle. Death in my arm, in my veins, in my heart.
Death for me but maybe also death for the cancer too. Its just a matter of who it kills first. Dr. Mozdzierz has faith in the new therapy but I have my doubts. From last week's experience, I know the clear liquid will bring raging fever, nausea, fatigue, and a fogginess of thought and memory I hadn’t thought possible.
I reach for Katarzyna and she realizes I am awake. I see that my outstretched arm is thin, emancipated, bone and skin and little else. Katarzyna was once my assistant, a secretary and behind the scenes deal-maker. She is tall and thin, so blond her hair is almost white. She is only 36 but already much older than her too few years. In this way she is much like me. I know she loved me once, yes, even still, but she also knew that I would always love the dream of Miedzymorze more than I could love any other person. She has a lover now and I don’t truly believe she loves him more than shes loves our dream for our people. We are more alike than perhaps she once knew. She looks at me now and where I had once seen admiration and even a bit of fear, I now see only pity. But maybe the fear is still there fear... and if i squint, perhaps the admiration is still there too... perhaps.
“Szef (boss), it pains my heart to see you like this. You are so thin. Thirty-nine years old and you are grey and shrunken like a dziadek (grandfather).”
I make to sush her but instead I cough. When it subsides there is blood spattered across the sheets and my chin. Gently she wipes the spatters away. I catch her looking to the bottle with the skull on it, slowly dumping its poison into my heart. I say nothing.
“Szef, you called me that you might share with me your dream for the Miedzymorze if… if…” She doesn’t finish but she doesn’t mean, “If”. She means "when"; she means “when you die.”
I straighten myself a bit, secretly proud that I can arrange my own pillow. Propping myself on my elbows seems to raise my head out of the Methotrexate fog somewhat and I manage to collect my thoughts a bit.
“Where were we then?”
She opens her notes and quotes, “History is a story of individuals…”
I remember she came to see me yesterday and we had started to discuss our beloved Miedzymorze but we hadn’t gotten very far. Pitifully short-lived that session had been. We had discussed the old times, the war against the Germans and Russians, my rise in the party and my seat at the high council at the young age of 37. Her role in my meteoric success would be forever understated, an unforgivable but stoically borne shame of our society and her gender. Someday.
“Yes, individuals. From individuals comes creativity, ingenuity, the very future itself. To suppress the individual, to force compliance or mediocrity in the face of tyranny or popularist whim is to crush the visionary passion of our society, the driving force for its betterment.
“The difficult part then is to shepherd that creative power, to turn it not to selfish whim, but to the needs of the society as a whole. It is the very basis of the technokratyczny and the Stronnictwo (party). We must all be servants, as you are…”
Katrzyna stops taking notes for a moment and strokes my arm, “And as you have been Szef Gavinksi, to all its peoples.”
Her words are a compliment but they are also an indictment. She means that I was too much a servant of the cause and of the party to have loved her, or indeed anyone. I smile at her- gently. In another life I would have loved her dearly as she had wanted. It would have been very easy.
“Indeed, how then to celebrate the individual, to nurture its creativity and drive, and to, at the same time, harness it for the good of all our people? The answer is the stronnictwo itself. It is why we test and test again. It is why instead of those with the best connections and richest friends, we promote those who score the best in their testing, who prove their worth with success. It is why the stronnictwo reaches so far beyond the halls of governance, why our membership includes academics and businessmen, artists, authors, farmers, factory workers and machinists. The stronnictwo is both a means of excellence, a means for the individual to fulfill their greatness and match their actions to their ambition, and a means for the entirety of our people to gain from that creativity, intelligence and drive.”
“In the western democracies, rulers are those who are best able to lie to the people, to smile at them and tell them the things they want to hear, who can scurry from one whimsical emergency to the other, never truly enacting a vision or actually governing. The truly competent, the individuals of excellence turn to their own pursuits, amassing power and influence and often serving, despite perhaps their own best intentions, as corrupting influences within their societies. The tyrants, of course, are no better; divorced from the needs of the people, they serve only themselves, crushing the strongest in their midst for fear of competition and an end to their rule.
“The stronnictwo cannot crush the ambitious, the intelligent, and skilled and the creative. Its very nature is inclusive. The elite amongst us, those who will truly shape our future, needn’t scurry about misleading the people, lying to them and playing on their fears or momentary whims, nor fear the jackboots of the tyrants. They have merely to prove their worth, to show through their scores or successes that they are worthy and opportunity is made available to them; it is inherent to our government system. It is the very meritocratic heart of the technokratyczny.
“And what of the poor? Journalist speak of the growth of the ‘welfare state’. Ha! We are not some nanny-state, where regulation and taxation will drown us in mediocrity. No matter the occupation, no matter the field, there is always room, indeed demand for excellence. If one stocks shelves in a grocer’s shop, one can have pride in one’s work, or one can work merely to be paid, eager to return home with the shelves half-empty and inventory a mess. And that is where the stronnictwo has a role. We create opportunity for the best, even in mundane things, be they stocking shelves or sweeping streets; there will always been room amongst our membership for those who do best. And for those who do best, there is always better opportunities.
“The same is true in the factories. We pay very well; our laws require employers to recognize superior performance and reward it. Benefits, pay, career growth, even party membership; if you work hard, are intelligent or skilled or both, and are ambitious, you will be rewarded. This is to encourage excellence and effort. And those who do not care for excellence, who are content wallow in mediocrity will always find a place but we will not celebrate them just for their humanity or membership in our society alone. No- we will always encourage them to grow, to reach beyond what they are today."
I had more to say, something about the nanny-state but the treatment is like a tide and the tide is now high, the fog of forgetting, rolling in hazy and thick, turning my dreams and plans, my very words, to wisps lost in the wind.
“I grow very tired Katrzy. I think we will continue another time."
Katrzyna smiles at me, pity mixing with dedication. She, like me, is dedicated to a dream, and after I am gone, she will have to be both her voice and mine.
She turns the lights off on the way out and in the thin light shining through the small window, I watch the last of the clear liquid emptying from the bottle over my bed. The skull seems to grin at me and I wonder if I will die soon or slowly.
I peer through the haze of drugs and fatigue at the glass bottle hanging from the intravenous stand. The bottle says “Methotrexate”. There is a skull symbol below the words. Death. Death dripping through the rubbing tubing. Death dripping slowly through the needle. Death in my arm, in my veins, in my heart.
Death for me but maybe also death for the cancer too. Its just a matter of who it kills first. Dr. Mozdzierz has faith in the new therapy but I have my doubts. From last week's experience, I know the clear liquid will bring raging fever, nausea, fatigue, and a fogginess of thought and memory I hadn’t thought possible.
I reach for Katarzyna and she realizes I am awake. I see that my outstretched arm is thin, emancipated, bone and skin and little else. Katarzyna was once my assistant, a secretary and behind the scenes deal-maker. She is tall and thin, so blond her hair is almost white. She is only 36 but already much older than her too few years. In this way she is much like me. I know she loved me once, yes, even still, but she also knew that I would always love the dream of Miedzymorze more than I could love any other person. She has a lover now and I don’t truly believe she loves him more than shes loves our dream for our people. We are more alike than perhaps she once knew. She looks at me now and where I had once seen admiration and even a bit of fear, I now see only pity. But maybe the fear is still there fear... and if i squint, perhaps the admiration is still there too... perhaps.
“Szef (boss), it pains my heart to see you like this. You are so thin. Thirty-nine years old and you are grey and shrunken like a dziadek (grandfather).”
I make to sush her but instead I cough. When it subsides there is blood spattered across the sheets and my chin. Gently she wipes the spatters away. I catch her looking to the bottle with the skull on it, slowly dumping its poison into my heart. I say nothing.
“Szef, you called me that you might share with me your dream for the Miedzymorze if… if…” She doesn’t finish but she doesn’t mean, “If”. She means "when"; she means “when you die.”
I straighten myself a bit, secretly proud that I can arrange my own pillow. Propping myself on my elbows seems to raise my head out of the Methotrexate fog somewhat and I manage to collect my thoughts a bit.
“Where were we then?”
She opens her notes and quotes, “History is a story of individuals…”
I remember she came to see me yesterday and we had started to discuss our beloved Miedzymorze but we hadn’t gotten very far. Pitifully short-lived that session had been. We had discussed the old times, the war against the Germans and Russians, my rise in the party and my seat at the high council at the young age of 37. Her role in my meteoric success would be forever understated, an unforgivable but stoically borne shame of our society and her gender. Someday.
“Yes, individuals. From individuals comes creativity, ingenuity, the very future itself. To suppress the individual, to force compliance or mediocrity in the face of tyranny or popularist whim is to crush the visionary passion of our society, the driving force for its betterment.
“The difficult part then is to shepherd that creative power, to turn it not to selfish whim, but to the needs of the society as a whole. It is the very basis of the technokratyczny and the Stronnictwo (party). We must all be servants, as you are…”
Katrzyna stops taking notes for a moment and strokes my arm, “And as you have been Szef Gavinksi, to all its peoples.”
Her words are a compliment but they are also an indictment. She means that I was too much a servant of the cause and of the party to have loved her, or indeed anyone. I smile at her- gently. In another life I would have loved her dearly as she had wanted. It would have been very easy.
“Indeed, how then to celebrate the individual, to nurture its creativity and drive, and to, at the same time, harness it for the good of all our people? The answer is the stronnictwo itself. It is why we test and test again. It is why instead of those with the best connections and richest friends, we promote those who score the best in their testing, who prove their worth with success. It is why the stronnictwo reaches so far beyond the halls of governance, why our membership includes academics and businessmen, artists, authors, farmers, factory workers and machinists. The stronnictwo is both a means of excellence, a means for the individual to fulfill their greatness and match their actions to their ambition, and a means for the entirety of our people to gain from that creativity, intelligence and drive.”
“In the western democracies, rulers are those who are best able to lie to the people, to smile at them and tell them the things they want to hear, who can scurry from one whimsical emergency to the other, never truly enacting a vision or actually governing. The truly competent, the individuals of excellence turn to their own pursuits, amassing power and influence and often serving, despite perhaps their own best intentions, as corrupting influences within their societies. The tyrants, of course, are no better; divorced from the needs of the people, they serve only themselves, crushing the strongest in their midst for fear of competition and an end to their rule.
“The stronnictwo cannot crush the ambitious, the intelligent, and skilled and the creative. Its very nature is inclusive. The elite amongst us, those who will truly shape our future, needn’t scurry about misleading the people, lying to them and playing on their fears or momentary whims, nor fear the jackboots of the tyrants. They have merely to prove their worth, to show through their scores or successes that they are worthy and opportunity is made available to them; it is inherent to our government system. It is the very meritocratic heart of the technokratyczny.
“And what of the poor? Journalist speak of the growth of the ‘welfare state’. Ha! We are not some nanny-state, where regulation and taxation will drown us in mediocrity. No matter the occupation, no matter the field, there is always room, indeed demand for excellence. If one stocks shelves in a grocer’s shop, one can have pride in one’s work, or one can work merely to be paid, eager to return home with the shelves half-empty and inventory a mess. And that is where the stronnictwo has a role. We create opportunity for the best, even in mundane things, be they stocking shelves or sweeping streets; there will always been room amongst our membership for those who do best. And for those who do best, there is always better opportunities.
“The same is true in the factories. We pay very well; our laws require employers to recognize superior performance and reward it. Benefits, pay, career growth, even party membership; if you work hard, are intelligent or skilled or both, and are ambitious, you will be rewarded. This is to encourage excellence and effort. And those who do not care for excellence, who are content wallow in mediocrity will always find a place but we will not celebrate them just for their humanity or membership in our society alone. No- we will always encourage them to grow, to reach beyond what they are today."
I had more to say, something about the nanny-state but the treatment is like a tide and the tide is now high, the fog of forgetting, rolling in hazy and thick, turning my dreams and plans, my very words, to wisps lost in the wind.
“I grow very tired Katrzy. I think we will continue another time."
Katrzyna smiles at me, pity mixing with dedication. She, like me, is dedicated to a dream, and after I am gone, she will have to be both her voice and mine.
She turns the lights off on the way out and in the thin light shining through the small window, I watch the last of the clear liquid emptying from the bottle over my bed. The skull seems to grin at me and I wonder if I will die soon or slowly.
Last edited:
Immaculate
unerring
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2003
- Messages
- 7,623
To Brandenburg (@Tyo):
From: Miedzymorze:
CCed: FBU (@Seon)
Your border with us is heavily militarized, especially with FBU soldiers and war machines.
We seek to de-escalate tensions between our nations. As a show of good-faith, we will begin demilitarizing our own border with you and withdrawing our soldiers to more neutral locations. We hope that you will, in the spirit of peace and cooperation, reciprocate in kind. We also ask that you request the FBU units occupying and pacifying your nation to withdraw from our border as well.
From: Miedzymorze:
CCed: FBU (@Seon)
Your border with us is heavily militarized, especially with FBU soldiers and war machines.
We seek to de-escalate tensions between our nations. As a show of good-faith, we will begin demilitarizing our own border with you and withdrawing our soldiers to more neutral locations. We hope that you will, in the spirit of peace and cooperation, reciprocate in kind. We also ask that you request the FBU units occupying and pacifying your nation to withdraw from our border as well.
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
We are glad to announce that Florida is now a signatory to the Winnipeg Agreement
Signed, Nizamuddin Awlia, President of Florida.
Signed, Nizamuddin Awlia, President of Florida.
Decamper
..!
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2014
- Messages
- 1,159
Following the steps of her sister-nation New South Wales, the Kingdom of Canada is proud to announce the Japan-Canada Friendship Pact, signaling a new era in trans-Pacific peace and prosperity.
Signed, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie King
Signed, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II Windsor
Signed, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie King
Signed, Emperor Hirohito of Japan
Signed, Prime Minister Katsuji Miyazaki
Signed, Emperor Hirohito of Japan
Signed, Prime Minister Katsuji Miyazaki
Lord of Elves
Suede-Denim Secret Police
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2009
- Messages
- 6,976
The Spanish Republic sees no reason why the Ottoman Empire should not be invited to join the Trade League, should it endure what is apparently nigh-unanimous international condemnation, and will gladly open negotiations for the Ottoman Empire to join the League.
From: Spanish Republic
To: All Concerned Parties
CC: Italy, Greece
The purpose of the League is to convene a new, closer economic relationship between ourselves, Italy and Greece. All three nations have had close economic and cultural relations for centuries. The fact that nations such as the Ottoman Empire were not initially invited or consulted is not meant as offense, or as an indication of disinterest in a working relationship with such nations, or even these nations' membership in the League. The League is, more than anything else, an arrangement between Spain, Italy and Greece, not a unified market like the European Economic Community. Indeed, we have no intention that the League should ever become a unified market that would exist in competition with the European Economic Community.
We understand, but do not appreciate or take in good faith, the immediate and unprovoked hostility that has come our way simply for daring to order our business and economic affairs in fellowship with our neighbors and historic partners, the Italian Confederation and the Hellenic Republic. We are very willing to work with the international community to arrive at peaceable and equitable solutions to these and other problems.
Seon
Not An Evil Liar
Franco British Union is considering a long term goal to eventually demilitarize and withdraw troops from the German region--but we would be interested in discussing the exact detail of the proposal as well as the exact grievances that Brandenburg and Intermarium Federation have regarding the status quo. Further discussion can happen in a separate private conference.
SouthernKing
crickety cricket
There's about 5 days until the "deadline" - I won't be able to do the whole 72/48/24 hours left thing probably, so here it is. Please send orders as quickly as possible; the more orders I get in earlier, the faster I can get the update done.
Immaculate
unerring
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2003
- Messages
- 7,623
@SouthernKing
How does the FBU troops in Brandenburg work? Are they there as a condition of their surrender, or as invited guests of the new government? Many thanks.
SouthernKing
crickety cricket
Condition of their surrender.
Immaculate
unerring
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2003
- Messages
- 7,623
Thank you.
