Sirian Friends,
Sirius and The AMAZON are friends and The AMAZON is not plotting against Sirus
We appreciate your letter, and we are sorry that it was not noticed sooner. You raised many concerns, and we will try to begin with the most pressing and proceed forward from there. First, and most importantly, The AMAZON is committed to our alliance with Sirius, we regard you as our oldest and most cherished friends. We are not party to any 3 way alliance agianst Sirius, nor have we made any plans with CDZ or Q to make war on Sirius or otherwise act against you. So we say absolutely and unambiguously that we are your friends and we have not been conspiring with others against you.
Ending the ETTT prematurely would be disasterous
Second, almost of equal importance, the wise Sirians must realize that if the ETTT was to expel a member or members now, Quatronia or CDZ for example, the expelled parties would immediately join the evil Candy-Axis and give away the technological advantage that we currently enjoy.
More specifically, the home island garrisons of both M&M nations are huge. If they were to simply obtain Astronomy, they could most likely invade and recapture enough territory to re-establish themselves. With Rifling and Steel, they could upgrade and possibly destroy all of us.
Therefore we implore you, in the strongest voice possible, please reconsider the path of excluding CDZ and or Quatronia from the ETTT until we have completed the task which was the purpose of the ETTT, the complete destruction of M&M. We know that the political climate in the Sirius Business is sour to this idea, so we have some suggestions for hopefully making it more palatable. We will address this later in this letter.
The AMAZONs Espionage efforts against M&M
On a directly related matter, the reason we are accutely aware of the strength of the Candy-Axis military is because of our espionage efforts. We believe this is a good time to tell our Sirian friends that part of the reason our technological contributions have been slow, is due in part to our committed focus on driving the M&M economy to a halt, via constant and sustained espionage missions.
Perhaps the Sirians have noticed the sharp and steady decrease in Merlot's score. This is not simply from slaving, it is the result of starvation. We have used our agents to force Merlot to slave population away before it starves away, creating a vicious cycle that denies them the ability to work their gem mines and numerous cottages. At present, the once mighty Merlot Capital, which was the largest city in the world, has a population of 1. Merlot other cities are pop 3 and 5. This is our doing.
We have dedicated ourselves to this effort, realizing that the size of the enemy armies were too vast for invasion, until we obtained a substantial tech advantage. We recognized that if we did not act to prevent M&M from getting Astronomy, they would be able to launch invasions and recapture territory, possibly even overwhelm us in a Blitzkrieg.
We knew that even if we focused on tech, our contribution to our FIN ETTT allies would be modest. But with our substantial espionage abilities, we have tried to protect the ETTT by making it impossible for Candy-Axis to advance to to Astronomy, thus keeping their massive armies trapped on their islands. At this moment, Merlot has abandoned building military in favor of spies in a pitiful attept to counter our crippling espionage. We tell you this, despite some concern on our team that it would be revealing too much. The reason we are sharing this with you, is to give you information about what we have been spending money on, in lieu of teching quickly.
Putting aside our recent disputes
We thank you greatly for sending us the Great Merchant. We would like to use it for a trade mission to your capital. Please expect a ship to bring him to you soon. If you request it, we are happy to give you a screenshot of the vessel en-route, so there are no worries that there are spies onboard.
Economics was a contested issue, with half the team supporting Sirius' desire to tech it... the Captain was against discussing it further, feeling that Sirius mind was already made up, and further discussion would just be inflammatory. Yes we lost many beakers, but our friendship with Sirius has given us many times more beakers than the ones we lost, so we can bear no grudge over this.
Additionally, some on our team are still sore about Mizar, and so further discussion about it will only inflame them. You have Mizar, and we will claim the rest of Comet. You have promised not to obstruct us, so let us move to other matters. We can confirm to you that the cultural conflict on Comet will not spread to other parts of the world, or erode our alliance. You are our friends, and it will stay that way.
On ending the ETTT
We agree that you carrying the alliance's tech must be cumbersome. We are actually surprised that you bore the burden so long without protest. We did not expect you to renew the SAP treaty, as it obligates you to remain a member of the ETTT under section 7.3.*
We have analyzed the ETTT, and in our opinion, Sirius can not unilaterally withdraw honourably from the ETTT. The only way for a member to leave the ETTT is under Section 2.2, which requires consent of all other members, so CDZ, Q and AMAZON would have to vote Sirius out. Of course, we cant vote Sirius out, because Section 7.4 the SAP treaty forbids either of us from voting the other out. So the only way Sirius can get out of the ETTT is to violate the treaty, which means they can be automatically expelled under section 2.3.
Besides comprimising our honour, violating the treaty would almost certainly result in CDZ and Q joining M&M and attacking us both, which we would prefer to avoid. Our espionage production is high enough that we are confident that we would be able to steal any tech that a team outside the ETTT researches as soon as they get it. Indeed, two of the last three techs we contributed to the ETTT were stolen. So we are less concerned with any member leaving the ETTT, as long as M&M are elimminated first.
Of course you already know all of this, but it does not address you issue of not wanting to give any more tech to CDZ and Q. What we suggest, is that Sirius should just stop teching immediately. As you correctly pointed out, we already have the tech advantage we need already to capture the M&M islands, and our espionage prevents them from advancing in tech any further.
If you instead focus on gold, you can bolster yourselves in other areas... upgrades for example, and still stop contributing to the advancement of CDZ and Q. This way you do it without technically violating the treaty and without driving them into the welcome arms of M&M. We are currently preparing to invade Merlot, as you are preparing to invade Mavericks. We also suggest, that you could speed this process along if you were willing to subsidize our upgrades, through a grant or loan while you halt your tech in favor of gold.
Once M&M are elimminated, we could then ask CDZ to vote with us to expel Quatronia as you suggest. Once Quatronia is voted out, the two of us could then vote to expel CDZ. That is the only sane way to do it within the boundaries of the treaty, because if we dump an ETTT ally BEFORE M&M were elimminated, that ally would obviously join M&M immediately, giving M&M all their tech, including Rifling, Steel and Astronomy which would doom the former ETTT allies.
Patience is what we advise our wise Sirian Friends. We look forward to hearing from you.
nabaxo, Special Envoy to Sirius
*On a side note, we notice that you continue to call the treaty the ASP, which of course means 'snake', while we continue to call it the SAP, which of course means 'sucker'. We are both putting the name of the other nation first in an attempt to show affection and deference, but either designation, the snake, shifty, unreliable, treacherous person,or the sucker, foolish, naive and easily taken advantage of is really no proper name for our treaty. That is a seperate issue, but we thought it would be amusing to you if we brought it up, and add some needed levity to this situation.
I will draft the letter to Sirius (in nabaxo's name) outlining the points I mentioned.
? If they are that strong that is a little scary
Anyway I requested it, we will see if they actually give it to us. CDZ and Q have still not requested Econ...
Maybe they are trying to build some Castles...
But since they dont have Econ they wont be able to tell we have Corporation.
They also sent us the letter below. Apparently, there was some paranoia over there that we were conspiring against them, which has gone away as a result of our last letter. They put forth a few plans for withdrawal from the ETTT which they invite us to select from. They at least claim that they are willing to accept our proposal that they stop teching. Finally, they say they will accept our Merchant trade mission and they trust us not to drop off spies.An estimate of the time it would take to eliminate Merlot would assist us. we may consider helping to fund the necessary upgrades, but it would I expect need to be a loan.
I have no idea why CDZ and Q have not requested Econ
