Here's what I wrote up as a draft to send to Sirius. Please read it and comment on anything that should maybe be changed. We want to get this out as soon as possible.
Greetings again to the Sirians.
Congratulations on the founding of Canopus. I'm sure it will be a shining beacon of civilization for many millennia. Things have been well for the people of The AMAZON and recently founded a new city of our own, although we've had to cancel our plans to build a circle of rocks due to some issues with international copyright laws on large structures.
The AMAZON agrees that it is fortunate that we met so soon and that by working closely together both of our peoples will prosper. We should act as quickly as diplomatically possible to take advantage of our chance early meeting.
We have heard rumors that the Sirian people have invented and started using symbols to represent speech. We think this is an important discovery and that it could be utilized to increase trade between our nations. Now that you have discovered Writing, we would like to enter into an open borders agreement with you. We think that it would benefit both of our peoples and from your earlier correspondence we seem to agree on this. To that end we have offered open borders in-game.
The peoples of The AMAZON are favorably disposed towards a non-aggression pact with our new friends, the Sirians, as soon as we can work out the terms. We hope to get a proposal hammered out and sent to you in short order. Feel free to send us any proposals that you have come up with.
We would also like to confirm our interest in trading technologies with you as soon as an Alphabet system can be discovered to aid in the transfer of scientific discoveries. We were wondering if you planned on teching Alphabet next after Writing or if you had other more pressing technological needs. Either way we are looking forward to the day when we can start sharing our discoveries with each other. More needs to be discussed concerning this, and the sooner we can work out some kind of tech trading agreement the better we can coordinate our efforts.
Hopefully we can take the first step towards a strong partnership with an open borders agreement and continue to work towards a NAP and a tech trading agreement.
Sincerely yours,
SilentConfusion, AMAZON diplomat
I thought it no harm to tell them of our new city since they already undoubtedly know about it and can see it in our diplo screen. I also thought that maybe telling of missing SH might lead them to share information. If not that it could be used as a reason to hesitate (not that I think we should) in naming our tech path if we needed one. We can say we were forced to reevaluate. I think we should very soon come up with a longer term tech plan that takes possible tech trades into consideration. This information will need to be given to Sirius to ensure them we will have something to trade them.
The quick action comment, aside from being true that we could loss an advantage if we don't act quickly enough, echoes their own words showing that we agree with them, but also hopefully derails anyone potentially saying that AMAZONs take too long making decisions. I think we as a team are possibly stereotyped as going to be slow deciding and not as efficient to deal with. I hope we can dispel this stereotype. The comment in no way hurts and it might help.
For some reason I don't like the way this sentence sounds: "Now that you have discovered Writing, we would like to enter into an open borders agreement with you." Any one who can think of a better way to say that let me know. Or if everyone thinks it sounds fine, let me know that too. Sometimes it sounds different in your head. We would of course offer OB in game right after having sent this message.
As for the NAP paragraph... I put that "Feel free to send any proposals that you have come up with." to not come over as though we are trying to dictate the terms, but when I read it it sounds like we're giving them permission to send us proposals, which is exactly the opposite effect I was going for. Any ideas on this?
For the tech trading paragraph I was trying to ask about Alphabet without needing to give away our tech plans (because I don't know what they are). I think it came out sounding pretty good. We need to come up with some kind of multi-tech plan soon so we can continue tech trading talks.
I think we want to be somewhat deferential with Team Sirius. LP seems to be sensitive to good manners and I think if we appear to be trying to direct the whole relationship that could put them off. We need to encourage and listen to their suggestions and make it clear that we are listening to their suggestions, while we get as much of what we want as possible. Best case scenario is we can get them to suggest what would be best for us. Then we can graciously accept their suggestion giving deference to their wisdom while reaping the maximum reward.
Please let me know quickly what you think about the letter and any proposed changes. No criticism is too harsh. This is for our team. It needs to be right.
