Brethren of the Brick Seas (BoBS) Intro Thread, Era II

[Capt Wolf]

11 minutes ago, Professor Thaum said:

OK we are going to release the 2 ships... but for Prince Alex we can ask for the bar tab ?

Oh, for editorial oversights!  I guess they are asking for the release of three innocent ships!

But I am not an official Prio spokesman, just an overworked KPA editor.    Perhaps we can get an official statement from Prio to clarify their current position.

[Mesabi]

Aw come on guys, don't let prio off the hook! This is worth fighting a war over! 

[LM71Blackbird]

3 minutes ago, Mesabi said:

Aw come on guys, don't let prio off the hook! This is worth fighting a war over! 

Lol... Said everyone who is on the winning side of things...

[Darnok]

4 minutes ago, LM71Blackbird said:

Lol... Said everyone who is on the winning side of things...

The WTC is on no side of this conflict...

[LM71Blackbird]

6 minutes ago, Drunknok said:

The WTC is on no side of this conflict...

Lol. I was just making a broad remark towards Mesabi's statement. Nothing against the WTC.

Just from real history, when someone felt that the war outcome was already determined based on military power and might or money, they would of course be willing to go to war.

[MKJoshA]

1 hour ago, Capt Wolf said:

You may. And I can see how the Sea Rats may have thought the matter was settled. But did you really think Prio would say "Oh, they got away. Oh well."? Is that what your reaction would be if someone captured one of your ships?

What attack does this refer to? The Dark Narwhal and Misfortune's Wrath were considered to be black flagged after they captured the Palmetto. That matter must be resolved with the offended party (i.e., Prio) before they are considered to be in good (non-black flag) standing again. Just lowering the black flag does not remove the status if offending acts have not been resolved.

Prio attacked the exact ships that had captured a Prio ship the previous month. They were not innocent vessels; the attack was a response to a previous attack.

And after still not getting admittance of guilt, return of the ship, or payment for it in the matter of the Palmetto, instead you detain the Peacock and Pearl (and note that they were not the ships that sunk the Dark Narwhal and captured Misfortune's Wrath). And now you're surprised that Prio has decided to arm itself against Sea Rat aggression rather than pay the Sea Rats some DBs and say "Thank you sir, may I have another?" That's how Prio sees it.

You could always release the Peacock and Pearl. That's all Prio is asking for: the release of two innocent ships. That would end the whole thing.

First off, we are not surprised at all. We fully excepted Prio to show their nasty colors and they have. The Sea Rat ships were not flying a Black Flag. You can't just consider them to be flying it because you want to. Either they were or they weren't. And they weren't. As such, that means Prio marked their forms to attack non-Black Flag Sea Rat vessels. That, according to the current rules, is an act of piracy and therefor makes the two Prio ships not innocent.

28 minutes ago, Mesabi said:

Aw come on guys, don't let prio off the hook! This is worth fighting a war over! 

Oh, those ships aren't going anywhere until they've paid their tab. And with 8000 DBs in their coffers, that should be no problem, right?

[Darnok]

All this propaganda speak from both sides is highly amusing. Please, keep it coming!

[Kwatchi]

47 minutes ago, MKJoshA said:

First off, we are not surprised at all. We fully excepted Prio to show their nasty colors and they have. The Sea Rat ships were not flying a Black Flag. You can't just consider them to be flying it because you want to. Either they were or they weren't. And they weren't. As such, that means Prio marked their forms to attack non-Black Flag Sea Rat vessels. That, according to the current rules, is an act of piracy and therefor makes the two Prio ships not innocent.

It is about time the Council addresses this exact issue.  If Romatiprio had at least given notice diplomatically beforehand I could stomach it, but as of right now an NPC nation is playing "dirty pool" and the Sea Rats are being essentially told to simply take it & like it or fight on all comers.  They were pirates and we acted accordingly.

The fun factor drains away with needless shenanigans like this.

[Capt Wolf]

32 minutes ago, MKJoshA said:

The Sea Rat ships were not flying a Black Flag. You can't just consider them to be flying it because you want to. Either they were or they weren't. And they weren't. As such, that means Prio marked their forms to attack non-Black Flag Sea Rat vessels. That, according to the current rules, is an act of piracy and therefor makes the two Prio ships not innocent.

Actually, Prio did not need to mark their forms to attack non-Black Flag Sea Rat vessels. From the Black Flag rules posted in February:

"When a player submits his/her MRCA orders and wishes to go "all pirate," but not have it reflect on the faction, he/she can choose a new "black flag" option on the ship's MRCA order. All ships listed on that order will then, rather than be considered Sea Rats (or whatever faction the player is from), be considered “black flag” pirates. Once a ship has been registered as a “black flag” pirate AND committed an act of piracy, it retains its “black flag” status until some external event (capture, trial, pardon, etc.) wipes its slate clean. A player won't be committed to being a pirate going forward, but each black flag ship will be."

And from further in that thread:

"IMPORTANT: Note that ships sailing in a convoy with a black flag ship will be treated as black flag ships. Don't mix black flag ships in with a trade convoy; the whole trade convoy will be treated as black flag pirates as a result."

Note that this means that if there's one black-flag ship in a fleet, even if all others are not flying the black flag, all are considered to be black-flag ships then and in future MRCAs, whether still sailing with the original black-flag ship or not. Furthermore, the black-flag status cannot be voluntarily removed but must be resolved by in-game actions.

If none of the original offending ships ever raised the black flag before they committed the act of piracy, they don't get to say "but we weren't flying the black flag" and are free and clear. They still committed an act of piracy, and the failure to raise the black flag prior to it simply stains the entire faction rather than just the offending ships. As with the black flag, they are considered pirates subject to retribution. If they never raised the black flag, then the faction should have taken action to make sure that their act of piracy did not reflect on the rest of the faction.

47 minutes ago, MKJoshA said:

We fully excepted Prio to show their nasty colors and they have.

Just curious, but, prior to the Sea Rat capture of the Palmetto, what did Prio ever do to suggest they were nasty toward the Sea Rats?

Just now, Kwatchi said:

If Romatiprio had at least given notice diplomatically beforehand I could stomach it,

So Prio, after requesting the return of the Palmetto and being denied, needed to give diplomatic notice before attacking the exact ships that were involved in the capture? Interesting argument.

[Maxim I]

1 hour ago, MKJoshA said:

First off, we are not surprised at all. We fully excepted Prio to show their nasty colors and they have. The Sea Rat ships were not flying a Black Flag. You can't just consider them to be flying it because you want to. Either they were or they weren't. And they weren't. As such, that means Prio marked their forms to attack non-Black Flag Sea Rat vessels. That, according to the current rules, is an act of piracy and therefor makes the two Prio ships not innocent.

Oh, those ships aren't going anywhere until they've paid their tab. And with 8000 DBs in their coffers, that should be no problem, right?

I find this is a very intersting reasoning of you. You say that you (or any Sea Rat) can attack any PC or NPC, but the victim is not allowed to attack the aggressors the next round because those vessels are suddenly no "black flag" anymore? 

I think the rules about Black Flag is very clear. So or those attacking vessels were flying the Black Flag, and thus were still pirates in the eyes of Prio when they attacked the aggessing vessels. Or those vessels weren't flying the Black Flag (when attacking the Palmetto), and thus have committed an act of war against Prio?

When analysing the whole discussion, I think we (or at least the Sea Rats) should draw a border between actions in "Black Flag" mode and actions in name of the Sea Rats. For me it is confusing, and I guess for Prio it is confusing as well that it are Sea Rats who are asking money for 2 detained vessels while they were dealing with Pirates and not Sea-Rats. 

This is the danger ofcourse that when not keeping the difference between the both, it can happen again in the future that "Black Flag" vessels owned by a Sea Rat will be considered as a "Sea Rat" vessel because it are (other?) Sea Rats who do the communication and not the Black Flag Captain.

So when choosing the Black Flag path, keep it that way till the world knows that the vessels are not to be considered "Black Flag" anymore. Because if you don't, it is too easy to confuse pirates and Sea Rats.

I hope you understand what I mean. If everything was played out as Black Flag actions (on the Sea Rats side), there would be no LoM against Sea Rats now...

 

[MKJoshA]

OoC: I'm looking at this from a game mechanics point of view. Please keep in mind that the incident in question happened very early on when the Black Flag option was introduced. Give us some leeway for learning the immense complexity of all the added rules.

57 minutes ago, Capt Wolf said:

They still committed an act of piracy, and the failure to raise the black flag prior to it simply stains the entire faction rather than just the offending ships. As with the black flag, they are considered pirates subject to retribution.

The rule you quoted just says the ships are considered Black Flag. It doesn't say their status is changed on the forms to Black Flag. So which is it? As an aside, where can we see which ships are marked Black Flag vs not?

5 minutes ago, Maxim I said:

I find this is a very interesting reasoning of you. You say that you (or any Sea Rat) can attack any PC or NPC, but the victim is not allowed to attack the aggressors the next round because those vessels are suddenly not "black flag" anymore? 

Still OoC, my argument is assuming a legitimate nation would take legitimate channels to deal with grievances. Prio is doing that now with LoM, but they started with an act of Piracy. Even if it was against pirates, game mechanics wise they committed piracy themselves.

[Maxim I]

But attacking Pirates is not an act of Piracy, is it?

That would mean that every British vessel that hunted a pirate ship in the past, would be pirates as well?

Prio attacked ships they considered pirates (due their previous actions against Prio vessels). It is not like they attacked other Sea Rat vessels out of the blue?

(plus: don't forget that another Sea Rat has the Prince Alex captured right now. Was this a Black Flag actions or not?)

[Capt Wolf]

1 minute ago, MKJoshA said:

OoC: I'm looking at this from a game mechanics point of view. Please keep in mind that the incident in question happened very early on when the Black Flag option was introduced.

Fair enough!

2 minutes ago, MKJoshA said:

The rule you quoted just says the ships are considered Black Flag. It doesn't say their status is changed on the forms to Black Flag. So which is it?

Leadership is supposed to make sure that the status says black flag for ships considered black flag ships when running the MCRA program.

 

1 hour ago, Kwatchi said:

If Romatiprio had at least given notice diplomatically beforehand

 

4 minutes ago, MKJoshA said:

Still OoC, my argument is assuming a legitimate nation would take legitimate channels to deal with grievances.

And this is an area where I would agree that a lot of this could have been avoided if Prio had continued to seek redress diplomatically after the Palmetto was spirited out of the Corrie port. Prio assumed their position was understood, which it was not. They had filed notice with Corrington since the ship was in a Corrie port. Admittedly, the lack of any centralized Sea Rat authority makes it difficult for nations to know how to discuss matter with them, but I don't recall them specifically reaching out IC to any SRs after that.

8 minutes ago, MKJoshA said:

Give us some leeway for learning the immense complexity of all the added rules.

Granted, but at the same time, don't try to stand on technicalities when piracy results in consequences.

All that said, I plan on making a post IC later tonight that might help resolve the matter. I'd just like to include a small build with it rather than just post some text. Can we agree to wait calmly for a few hours?

 

[Darnok]

And now, for something completely different. The settlement of Mesabi Landing has the following announcement to make:

 

13th day of the 7th month, 618

Mesabi Landing

 

Hear ya, hear ya, ye all citizens of the Brick Seas!

The City Council of Mesabi Landing declares the following ruling to be in place immediately:

 

Mesabi Landing - largest port in the Prio Seas, Crown Jewl of the Paradise Isles - is known to be a haven for adventurers, enterprising traders and misfits of all kind. Due to the bureaucracy being stretched pretty thin, any visiting ship may be detained for unpaid bets, tavern damage, misrepresented cargo, or poorly filled out tax forms. On the other hand, a visiting ship captain might find such errors or gambling winnings in his favour on a good visit to Mesabi Landing.

As a result, docking in the port can yield unforeseen results - be aware of these risks when sailing to Mesabi Landing. The possible rewards are high though!

 

Docking in the port of Mesabi Landing is potentially no longer free of charge. The exact amount each ship might have to pay - or earn due to some sort of shenanigans - is up to chance.

 

By the authority of the Wayfarer Trading Company,

Kadeus Mordo,

Executive of Foreign Affairs

 

===========================================================

 

For the ingame mechanics and OOC details of this: please check out the detailed post in the Mesabi Landing thread.

Edited July 16, 2018 by Drunknok

[Bregir]

Does anybody, as of now, feel that there is any part of the black flag rules they do not understand clearly?/unanswered questions?

I want to make sure we don't have any loose ends here, and questions can easily be lost in the debacle :)

[Garmadon]

Hahaha, I must say, I quite like what you've done here!    I might just have to install something similar in Port Wilks (when it gets a little bigger...  )

I think it's definitely a sign of success if instituting port taxes makes me want to visit a port I haven't been to before instead of trying to avoid it!  

[Professor Thaum]

Mwahahahaha

This thread cracks me up...

More please ! More !

[Darnok]

21 minutes ago, Garmadon said:

Hahaha, I must say, I quite like what you've done here!   

Thank you! It actually started with thinking about all the "random tables" I am used to from other tabletop and roleplaying games.

Quote

I think it's definitely a sign of success if instituting port taxes makes me want to visit a port I haven't been to before instead of trying to avoid it!  

Excellent! I hope more people feel the same.

While the table is in favour of Mesabi Landing when it comes to the bottom line, the number of positive and negative events are equal. Meaning that each visit has the same chance of "profit" or "hurt" for the settlement. Each result also gives a possible starting point for a story, something I hope people will use in the future.

 

And there is of course the chance for some significant profits to be made...

 

P.S.: There are currently two ships of @Bregir docked in Mesabi Landing - if Bregir wishes to do so, they can be affected by these new "taxes" this turn already.

Edited July 13, 2018 by Drunknok

[Kwatchi]

2 hours ago, Maxim I said:

But attacking Pirates is not an act of Piracy, is it?

Sea Rat =/= Pirate. Blackflag = pirate

What did Prio do again? Let's go through this then and figure it out.

Quote

From KPA 3-3

Prio Gets Revenge

Last month Prio representatives were outraged that Sea Rats captured one of their trade ships and snuck out of the Corrie port of Jameston before satisfaction could be obtained. So, it looks like Prio has taken matters into its own hands. We hear from Isla Romantica that the Prio trade fleet, led by the man’o’war Pegasus, sailed into Alexport with a prize crew aboard Misfortune’s Wrath! And crews were happy to report they also sank the Dark Narwhal, while at the same time mourning the loss of the armed sloop Patriot to Davy Jones’ Locker. Is this the end of hostilities between Prio and the Sea Rats, or only the beginning?

So Prio attacked a legitimate owned ship without warning.  Definition = piracy. What brought this on?

Quote

 

From KPA 3-2

More Sea Rats / Corrington Diplomacy In Our Future

Stop us if you’ve heard a story similar to this before. On second thought, don’t -- we need to sell papers! Last month a Sea Rat squadron attacked an Eslandola trade fleet and then sailed into the Eslandolan port of Fuerte Unido. That encounter appears to have been resolved with the Peregrine --  a ship lost by the Greenies in the Battle of the Five Fleets -- being returned to Eslandola. This month our very busy man in Jameston reports that a Sea Rat squadron sailed into port with the Palmetto included in their numbers. Those of you who pay attention to our monthly reports might recognize the Palmetto as a trade ship out of Prio. Under normal circumstances, the Sea Rat crews might be able to explain how they came to have the ship, but these are not normal circumstances. According to the crews of the Peacock and the Pearl, two other Prio trade ships that sailed into Jameston at the same time, the Prio trio was set upon by the Dark Narwhal, The Drunken Monkey, and Misfortune’s Wrath somewhere in the vicinity of Trador. They claim the Sea Rats stole the Palmetto, and damage to the Peacock certainly supports the claim that they were attacked. We understand Prio representatives have petitioned the mayor of Jameston to seize not just the Palmetto, but all the Sea Rat ships involved in the attack. How Corrington will react is anyone’s guess, but it looks like we’re in for another round of Corrington-Sea Rat diplomacy!

 

Were Prio aggrieved? Yes.  The forms were mucked up (again) by us.  Did they contact us to fix it?  No.  They went to Corrington instead. 

Corrington.

What the Megabloks?! What did they have to do with it?

Not only that, but that wonky form cost us a ship in the same month.

Quote

Sea Rats Suffer Defeat at Hands of Terraversan Traders

From Astrapi we hear that a Terraversan trade squadron sailed into port with the Sea Rat ship FTA The Gargoyle. Crews of the armed escorts Typhoon and Tiger were telling the tale in taverns all across town. They claim to have been attacked by the Sea Rats northwest of Nova Terreli and, in addition to capturing FTA The Gargoyle, damaged the King Archibald before driving off it and the Corporal Milton, HMS Pendragon, and Vagabond King.

FTA never even bothered to complain about it.  Wrong button was clicked. Lesson learned and move on.

 

Except Prio never did.  They escalated.

Every time a Sea Rat trade convoy messed up their forms (and it took 3 tries to get  ERA 2 right... not a model record but we figured it out eventually.  None of us signed up for Traders of Trade Seas mind you) things were worked out with the other side.  COR got MkJoshA to play war games with them.  ESL got the Bruhaha mini story & a colony level bump.  Terraversa was simply ignored (out of exhaustion if nothing else).  Prio attacked us without warning the next month and we are now defending ourselves.

 

Why doesn't Prio get chastised?  Why are we the only punching bag?

At this point Prio is sailing a black flag fleet by the definition previously given, and now do so with corporate support no less.  Calling it anything else is deliberate obfuscation.

[Captain Genaro]

There seems to be some confusion regarding the black flag rules. Let me clarify. 

As soon as a ship attacks neutral shipping (i.e. shipping, be it player or NPC, that your faction is not openly at war with), your ship, and any other ship it is sailing with, will be black flagged. They will be pirates. When a black flagged ship sails, any ship sailing with it will be treated as if it is flying a black flag. 

Any attack against black flagged vessels or any vessel sailing with a black flagged ship is permissible, and the game mechanics do not have any penalties for doing so. You are attacking a pirate. There may be IC consequences, but that is strictly between players.

If you are at a state of war, you may freely attack enemy ships without the black flag rules applying. That is not piracy, that is legitimate warfare. If you have a Letter of Marque, granted by a faction that is at war, you may legitimately attack enemy shipping. 

Applying the rules to the current situation: 

The SR vessels Dark Narwhal, The Drunken Monkey, and Misfortune’s Wrath attacked Prio's traders. At this point, these three attackers gained black flag status. In the subsequent MCRA, the Dark Narwhal and Misfortune's Wrath were attacked by Prio. Under the black flag rules, this attack was not against legitimate shipping. This was an attack against black-flagged pirates and was justified. Prio's actions were anti-piracy, not piracy. As such, Prio's ships are not black flagged.

More recently, Prio issued an ultimatum: release our ships of we are at war. The SRs did not release the ships, and a state of war exists between the SRs and Prio. For this reason, the Odin's Scorn fleet, which attacked a Prio fleet, is not black flagged. A state of war existed prior to the assault. Until peace is declared, any SR and their allied privateers may attack Prio and their allied privateers without black flag penalties and visa-versa.

[Bregir]

32 minutes ago, Kwatchi said:

No.  They went to Corrington instead. 

Corrington.

What the Megabloks?! What did they have to do with it? 

Well, you did sail into a Corlander port. :)

When unlawful prizes of formerly Corlander ships are sailed into neutral ports, we too react by contacting the port rather than the criminals/pirates that attacked us.

 

We have done what we can to make Prio react reasonably, like a player controlled nation might have done in the same situation, based on the information available to us.

If all this Prio war is just a question of OOC misunderstandings on a form and you would prefer to close it, I suggest bringing that up with leadership. As far as we are concerned, the attacks have seemed premeditated, and that is the basis we have worked on, not knowing that that was not the case. (or at least missing it - there is a lot to keep track of)

What Prio has seen from the sea Rats is an ultimatum. Pay or lose your ships. An ultimatum had been sent back and have not met with any reply, which has led to an escalation of the conflict with Prio acting on its ultimatum. That said, who says this conflict cannot be deescalated? There may still be ways of negotiation a solution. But Prio has acted on the available information, nothing more. No one is trying to chastise anyone. In fact, we thought we played along with the storyline you have been creating. :)

At least until the discussion took up pace here.

So I am not sure where we stand now. If it is an OOC misunderstanding, do you guys want to settle it quietly? If it is not, do you feel that Prio has overreacted when in fact Prio did exactly as promised in their ultimatum? And if so, contact them. After all, the mrca hasn't had a turn yet, so there is no harm done. :)

[Roadmonkeytj]

3 hours ago, Bregir said:

Does anybody, as of now, feel that there is any part of the black flag rules they do not understand clearly?/unanswered questions?

I want to make sure we don't have any loose ends here, and questions can easily be lost in the debacle :)

Yeah ... Im confused ... So did the prio ships check black flag when they responded to the palmetto?

If so that makes their whole fleet black flag or just the two ships in bastion?

 

(i know you werent the original poster of that response but for clearification)

Ooc - prio officially never reached out to kaiju or myself after the palmetto .... Simply requested we be detained.  I reached out to try and find a IC resolution as it was originally a form mishap.  I MOC'd the palmetto before the story became a story ... COR leadership and Capt. Wolf were involved in the story ... So yes the rats thought it was resolved.  

[Captain Genaro]

8 minutes ago, Roadmonkeytj said:

Yeah ... Im confused ... So did the prio ships check black flag when they responded to the palmetto?

If so that makes their whole fleet black flag or just the two ships in bastion?

None of Prio's ships are black flagged, but they would have selected to attack black flagged SRs when they attacked the Dark Narwhal and Misfortune's Wrath. 

39 minutes ago, Captain Genaro said:

The SR vessels Dark Narwhal, The Drunken Monkey, and Misfortune’s Wrath attacked Prio's traders. At this point, these three attackers gained black flag status. In the subsequent MCRA, the Dark Narwhal and Misfortune's Wrath were attacked by Prio. Under the black flag rules, this attack was not against legitimate shipping. This was an attack against black-flagged pirates and was justified. Prio's actions were anti-piracy, not piracy. As such, Prio's ships are not black flagged.

 

[Bregir]

26 minutes ago, Roadmonkeytj said:

Ooc - prio officially never reached out to kaiju or myself after the palmetto .... Simply requested we be detained.  I reached out to try and find a IC resolution as it was originally a form mishap.  I MOC'd the palmetto before the story became a story ... COR leadership and Capt. Wolf were involved in the story ... So yes the rats thought it was resolved.   

This would have been a misunderstanding, then. All we (thought we) did was to resolve the issue of a pirate ship and its prize using a Corlander port. By letting it slip out unnoticed, we did not have to detain it and hence have diplomatic issues with the SR over a form mishap. As we told you OOC, we did not wish to be involved in that, as we had too many other projects on our plate.

However, at no point in that story did the Palmetto become a lawful prize. You simply managed to sneak our the spoils of your piracy from under our guns.

You still had a ship actually belonging to Prio and made no overtures to correct that. That is why Prio saw it as an aggressive act. And have reacted on that.

Unless I am missing something, that makes perfect sense. Consider that Npc's are only re-actors, so do not expect them to take a lot of initiative in relations. We try to make them react to protect their interest, and respond to player input in a way consistent with that. So if you reach out to Prio, they will likely respond. They never sought war, but had their ships attacked. And hence had to react.

[Roadmonkeytj]

5 hours ago, Captain Genaro said:

None of Prio's ships are black flagged, but they would have selected to attack black flagged SRs when they attacked the Dark Narwhal and Misfortune's Wrath. 

 

I guess im still lost if we chose to be black flag then my ship would still be black flag ... The way the form reads (as far as I understand it) is you can raise the flag (which was never checked by us) then it also asks what ships your willing to engage ... With traversia/prio (sp?) being one of the options which is availible even as a nonblack flag ship.  So do we need to revise the form?

I guess my confusion is that if prios GM selected attack black flag SR then the only ships they would have attacked is MKJoshA's black flag fleet.  Because currently thats the only "black flag" ships in the SR fleets ... But if they selected attack SR ships then this would make sense.   

I'm not questioning the actions of prio's gm just trying to understand the game as I'm still new.

5 hours ago, Bregir said:

This would have been a misunderstanding, then. All we (thought we) did was to resolve the issue of a pirate ship and its prize using a Corlander port. By letting it slip out unnoticed, we did not have to detain it and hence have diplomatic issues with the SR over a form mishap. As we told you OOC, we did not wish to be involved in that, as we had too many other projects on our plate.

However, at no point in that story did the Palmetto become a lawful prize. You simply managed to sneak our the spoils of your piracy from under our guns.

You still had a ship actually belonging to Prio and made no overtures to correct that. That is why Prio saw it as an aggressive act. And have reacted on that.

Unless I am missing something, that makes perfect sense. Consider that Npc's are only re-actors, so do not expect them to take a lot of initiative in relations. We try to make them react to protect their interest, and respond to player input in a way consistent with that. So if you reach out to Prio, they will likely respond. They never sought war, but had their ships attacked. And hence had to react.

It would be a misunderstanding on my part then as after I posted the story there was no further contact about any of it ... I understood that COR was trying to avoid issues and I personally felt that we worked around them quite well and created a good story in the process.

I guess as a new player I didn't understand the GM process of the npcs then ... I barely have a grasp on it now ... Is there a list of the GM members to contact reguarding npc nations somewhere for future reference?