Wow. 3000 posts.
thanks for the reminder.
Excuse me, but I am not a joke.
I am a meme.
And Yes, it was wit, but itâs not like CONCORD have provided anything more factual, is it ?
Thereâs CONCORD reports that the news says are distributed to senior figures in the great powers, but that info doesnât seem to trickle down, does it ?
sighs as he scrolls down the list of topics in the IGS before copying a link and pasting it here
I canât be the only one that remembers this thread, can I?!
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Donât see why this âDivinity Socialâ malarkey is even a thing.
What happened to traditional dating methods ?
Just stick an advert in the Mikramurka Motorcycle Magazine:
âLady with own motorcycle seeks mechanic. Must have own sidecar.â
Blammo, youâll get lots of people with similar interests, and who are good with their hands.
Iâm just going to leave this here.
And? Is there something I said in the quoted bit thatâs supposedly not true, now? You were new 14 months ago. You hadnât seen war on the scale youâve now experienced. And the Empires absolutely didnât take the Trig threat seriously enough, or every conduit wouldâve been stuffed with smartbombing titans.
Since CONCORD , ENDECOM, and the Factions keep secrets about their dealings, there are not enough elements to support that they did not take things seriously.
They did not use their full forces? Correct
Why did they not use their full forces? Good question
Perhaps there were diplomatic contacts beforehand, perhaps the proving was an offering (we will fight until we take X ammount of systems, letâs see how much you can defend), perhaps they knew some would fall and use us capsuleers to test things so they could evaluate to commit in full or not.
Ther are many possible explanations that could help understand why they did not commit their full forces, but not enough data to affirm any of them, including ânot taking the threat seriously enoughâ.
Perhaps the reasons are not explicit because they would demolish the support for the current status quo in such a way that loosing systems was preferable to announcing them.
Until the red tape is lifted and the internal documents show up, we can only wonder why would the factions did what they did.
Yes, because as fractured, factional, and fractious an organization as CONCORDâs executive council is, Iâm sure theyâd have been able to keep âweâve been engaged in diplomacy with the Trigs since before this startedâ a secret. The State, especially, would have loved looking like incompetent bunglers, rather than say âthis is all CONCORDâs fault, we should have known things would go bad when the Federation was given an equal seat at the tableâ. Absolutely none of the megacorp CEOs that the Stateâs CONCORD rep answers to would have leaked it out in a way that would embarrass the Fed.
And sure, they were using capsuleers to test whether or not to commit in full⌠sure. Letâs just stop and think about that for a minute. If thatâs the case, then when systems started actually falling, wouldnât that have been an indicator of âyes, we need to commit more fullyâ?
Or not even âin fullâ! There were what, less than a dozen systems being actively invaded at any given moment? Fewer than 10 open conduits in each at any time? So thatâs 120 conduits, and Iâm being extremely generous.
120 conduits. The Imperium can (yes, @Gergoran_Moussou, we definitely still can) put 10-15 titans on each of 120 locations, simultaneously. The combined fleets of PAPI, even more. The Republic, with the smallest fleet among the CONCORD powers, could squash us all like a bug. 3 or 4 thousand titans in null, and any of the empires can meet us 10:1 (or more likely, much, much better) if they want to.
Regardless of why they chose not to commit, they chose not to commit. The very fact that theyâve lost systems and high-sec trade routes that weâre told they considered âcriticalâ means that no matter the reason⌠yeah, they didnât take the threat seriously enough.
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We do not know exactly what motivated them to take a course of action that made them perform in such a meager way.
But what is most likely, that all the 5 major factions and the international organizations are completely and utterly useless and incopetent, or that something held their hand to show up with full force?
Frankly? Incompetence. Let me illustrate what youâre actually asking.
The first bit there? âAll the 5 major factions and international organizations are completely and utterly useless and incompetentâ bit? Hereâs how that plays out:
You have 4 major nations. 2 of them have been actively engaging the other 2 in conflicts of some form for⌠well, basically all of their time as interstellar entities. And just because each of them is allied with one other, that doesnât mean the relationshipâs exactly open, transparent, and incredibly enthusiastic. The Republic still wants the Fed to butt out. The State doesnât want Amarr missionaries etc. The two expansionist powers really wish their smaller partner was more like them, and has different ways of being kinda pushy about it. Thereâs very little real spirit of co-operation. If there were, CONCORD wouldnât need to exist at all.
So they make CONCORD. CONCORD, notably, is basically corrupt, top to bottom. Weâve seen them make up easily-debunked nonsense in order to seize private property from the owners. They keep the peaceâunless you pay them off to be allowed to murder people, no valid casus belli needed. The upper echelons answer to those bickering empires, and as a result, they get next to nothing actually done. And none of the empires trusts them to do jack. Ever.
So now, in a crisis, with the empires already under attack, they decide to stand up a new organization within CONCORD in order to defend New Edenânot any particular empire, but the cluster as a unified wholeâfrom a hostile force attacking all four, with advanced technology. Standing up a new org is always going to be rife with problems, just getting the kinks worked out in the new org. Itâs inevitable. Doing so under stress just magnifies all of the potential problems. The key to doing this successfully is minimizing points of failure, and minimizing missteps.
CONCORD, we know, already has a fleet of advanced spacecraft with extremely advanced weapons. Doesnât matter how big and bad you are, when CONCORD wants to kill you, CONCORD shows up, and you blow up. Usually in under five seconds. These ships already operate in every one of the empires. All four.
However, for some reason, CONCORD makes the decision not to use their advanced hulls and advanced weapons for this new organization. Instead, the empires themselves are tasked with staffing EDENCOM from the ranks of their existing (and in some cases, very old) fleets. This introduces a massive point of failureâand one, in fact, that fails. Pretty hard, too.
We know thereâs resistance to this. We know the navies donât want to give up their ships and officers. How do we know this? Because the navies are run by people, and if thereâs one thing people in charge never want to see, itâs their assets in someone elseâs hands. It reduces their effective power. If something goes wrong, theyâre out those resources. If everything goes right, the other guy just totally showed them up and used their crap better!
We also know all four empires are extremely unlikely to allow ships from other empire navies to operate in their space. As a result, thereâs no integration. Thereâs no use of unified fleet doctrines to shore up weaknesses in one navyâs capabilities with another navyâs strengths. EDENCOMâs coordination is so badâfor whatever reasonâthat allies donât even support one another. So, yeah, this is a colossal point of failure, and an entirely predictable one by anyone with half an ounce of sense.
Part of the job of leadership is to be able to predict the points of failure, and build in ways to work around them, prevent the failure from happening at all, and ensure that even if it does, redundancies and contingencies kick in that render that failure unfortunate, but not incapacitating. Reliance on the empiresâ navies worked⌠ok⌠in 3/4 of the empires. In the fourth, though, yeah, it was incapacitating. The Caldari Navy never adjusted, never re-tasked more suitable detachments and pulled back the obviously-outmatched jamming and missile ships theyâd contributed to EDENCOM.
But EDENCOM, and CONCORD, never adapted either. They never sent Amarr forces, the Stateâs allies, after all, in to support the Caldari Navy. They never sent any of CONCORDâs forcesâwhich were already in those systems prior to the invasion, and which would still respond to unsanctioned capsuleer-on-capsuleer violenceâto assist. And none of the other three empires, watching one piece of the puzzle come spinning wildly out of alignment, pushed for any adjustments, either.
Even in systems where the empire navy seemed up to the task, there was never a draw-down and consolidation. At no point were more powerful strategic assets deployed as a means to end the contest quickly, so that a larger number of forces were available to assist in other conflict zones, and potentially defeat Kybernaut forces as effectively as they could Triglavian forces. This, too, is an entirely predictable point of failure that competent leadership plans for, and makes plans to avoid, mitigate, and offset.
To be incompetent is to lack the qualities needed for effective action, or to be unable to function properly. Of the four empires, CONCORD, and its daughter-org EDENCOM, all five failed to demonstrate that they could a) accurately predict organizational points of failure, b) mitigate the impact of organizational points of failure, c) take effective action to compensate for org failure, or d) function properly in pursuit of the larger strategic objectives in the face of org failure.
So yeah, incompetence is pretty easy to demonstrate here. But now letâs look at the other half of your âwhich is more likelyââŚ
âSomethingâ held their hand to show up with full force. âSomethingâ. âSome unknown thingâ was widely-enough known among the nobles of Amarr, the megacorp CEOs, the Tribal Chiefs, and the whole damned Federation Senate, that nobodyâespecially not Federal politiciansâgot up in front of a microphone to vent their spleens about âwhy isnât EDENCOM doing more? Why doesnât CONCORD commit their real fleet? Why are we not committing our whole fleet?â and rant on about democracy demands accountability, and how the Senate must immediately begin holding hearings to get to the bottom of this and re-evaluate CONCORDâs funding and blah blah blahâŚ
All four Empires have powerful political interests who love getting the spotlight, and love sticking a knife in the backs of their political rivals. If you think theyâd hold off from that, youâre dumber than Val. The only way they donât start screaming about that (if theyâre not incompetent) is if they all know about the âsomethingâ.
And if they all know about the something, I promise you⌠it leaks. Thereâs an old proverb that Iâve always been told is Amarr in origin: âThree can keep a secret if you two hold still a minute.â You donât get all of the intelligence divisions in CONCORD and the four empires (and whoever first learns about âsomethingâ, the other four will want their own verification), and the decision-making levels of all five hierarchies (cuz itâs not just the top level that makes this decision. Intelligence gathers data, military intelligence analyzes, military command structures evaluates and gives recommendations, staffers have to prepare those recommendations, etc etc, all while every other group in the cluster has their own intelligence assets trying to find out whatâs going on in the CONCORD/empiresâ intelligence groupsâŚ
The SSoE didnât exactly take long to find out about the Starkmanir once they started looking. Keep a secret like âThere is this THING we have to keep all our serious combat assets in reserve for, just in case,â when hundreds of people already know about it and are working to keep up-to-date on it?
I promise you: incompetence is far more likely.
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The way events played out with EDENCOM it always looked to me that its members were more suspicious of each other than they were unified in a response to the Triglavian invasion.
Hey ! That was uncalled for.
Also, itâs Doctor Val, thank you very much.
Youâre right, it was. I tossed it in as a freebie. 
See, this is what you donât seem to get: it wouldnât matter. Do I agree with your general position about âfreedom and libertyâ? Itâs irrelevant to my response to you opining about Shakorâs rise to power.
Iâm not gonna go sticking my nose into an argument between you and your sibling, or you and your parents, or cousins. Thatâs a family matter, and not my business.
Regardless of who agrees with you or disagrees, this whole squabble about Shakor etc⌠itâs a family matter. And as much as we might argue and fight about it, the moment someone outside the family starts spouting off, the vast majority of usâeven if we might agree with some of the outsiderâs pointsâare gonna close ranks. Because nobody outside the family gets to try beating up on the family.
Else has a really handy little saying for this that I never properly do justice. Maybe sheâll toss it out.
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Like I said, sorry you feel that way. This tribalism is unfortunate and will be a major impedance to the efficacy of foreign aid and political lobbying.
No more than it has been since the Republic was established. Youâd think after over 120 years, youâd have gotten the hint.
Thereâs variations of it, but something like this is probably the one youâre thinking of?
Me and my sister against my cousin, me and my cousin against the tribesman, me and the tribesman against the outsider, me and the outsider against the Enemy.
Thatâd be it, yes.