' Wrote:I can see your point here about the moral irresponsibility of pirates... its like blackmarket armsdealers: they sell to anyone and don't care who gets killed by the stuff they sell.
But I could argue that the phantoms may actually be bad for business for pirates... blowing up transports without dealing in loot, which is kinda like shooting up a pimp's, drug dealer's, or mugger's neighborhood and "clients", and then expecting the pimp, dealer, and stick-up-guy will will accept you with open arms and pour you drinks, simply because you broke the law and they also break laws. I'm not sure what you mean with "lost revenue through unnecessary angst". Is the lost revenue the .75l drinks they would be pouring for this spaceship pilot, or the money repairing the ships and weapons which they aren't able to repair in RP, which they cant because if they could everyone would be using looted weapons? And the "angst" is the unreasonable fear of being in the same room with a psychopathic killer who likes to kill people for the fun of it? Could you be more specific?
Well, as I figure it, docking costs money, rooms cost money, food costs money, drinks cost money, repairs cost money, and a Phantom can always just give away more money if they don't like us. Overall, lots of money can be given to pirates. Like I said before, we're elusive, so we might spend days at a time inside of Buffalo or Nome calling room service, which is lots of money for pirates, if you ask me, as money is no problem to us. Call that 120 credits a day chump change to the server economy, but to an average person, 120 credits a day for food ration is a lot, not to mention what we could be overcharged because we know we're creepy and it's kind of disconcerting to have a Phantom sitting inside the base.
As to angst, look at the Junkers, they're shaking in their boots running to quickdock whenever they see us. Apparently we're scary. Heck, there was a poll in Flood a little bit back about whether we or the Keepers were more of a threat, and despite the fact that we're less than half their size with at most 1/8 their arsenal, we were voted as being more dangerous. I don't really understand how, but with that kind of reputation, I can really see the movie scene Schlurbi described as being something of an RP reality.
' Wrote:Or I could say that most terrorists are actually very picky with whom they deal, and that they have a very strict code of values and honor, more strict than people who stay within the law... that's what makes them the intransigent terrorist brickheads they are. Al Queda would'nt colaborate with the Lord's resistance army in Uganda, some nutjob rightwing US rifle militia, the RAF, the IRA, ETA... only with those who they know correspond to their narrow-minded worldview, and that goes for all of those groups. Xeno's wouldnt collaborate with the GCs simply because both are terrorists, so why would Xenos or GC want to work with phantoms? If they were you, they would tilt their hats and let each other dock?
The Xenos actually enjoy our company because DarkStar was a Liberty folk and we technically made our start as Xenos. GC aren't of the utmost moral caliber, so I think blowing up KNF and Samura is enough for them. Mollys can be easily sated by blowing up a whole bunch of BMM. Bundschuh can be pleased by exploiting the inadequacies of the Rheinland government. Unioners can be happy when we blow up Republican, LWB for Synth Foods. Blood Dragons are another story because they are xenophobic, but destroying KNF and Samura appears to do well enough (as far as I know).
Of course, if anyone shows displeasure at this justification, you can just tell us and we can ask Cannon to make us hostile. Seriously, it's not even our choice, it's everyone else's choice. I can't even say anything about this because we're doing our RP of taking advantage of pirate bases, and it's the other side's turn if they see something wrong.
' Wrote:Thing is... its kinda hard to argue in this line of thinking which you are projecting... because frankly, I have tried to read up on their forum RP and faction background, and tried to observe their RP ingame (which was hard because quite a few times I just got a SNAC in the face before I knew what happened), but I can not figure out what the Phantoms, if they are terrorists, actually want, and why they choose terrorism as their tactic, or even call themselves terrorists.
From what I saw, I'm sorry but I dont belong to your generation and therefore maybe I dont understand this properly manga/anime/emo stuff properly but...
the phantoms are not terrorists but...
Homicidal Emos.
Till now I have never seen a phantom make a terrorist demand (meaning a "you do this and we stop doing that") or tactic (meaning "the terror in your hearts serves our goals for this and this reason"), but all I saw was "you ran from me without saying hello! this makes me sad! apologize! not good enough! Im still crying! BOOYAH SNAC IN YA FACE WUAHAHAHA!".
I'm very sorry but thats not a terrorist, that's a homicidal emo.
If you want to be terrorists, you shoud really think about goals and tactics more, and make sure your members know about it.
Currently, I'm more terrified of LNS lolfleet cruiser captains than of the phantoms.
I'm sorry, but as far as I know, the characters of yours we have killed are not really in-RP important at all. There is no reason for us to give you a demand if you continue to move and don't cooperate; you're just another number in the list of crimes someone has committed which could have been us. We're semi-religious terrorists which look to instate a temporary anarchy in Sirius so our gods can sweep into Sirius like the Revenant predicted. Why would I tell some Joe-Schmoe who doesn't even stop when I ask him to that information? Call us what you will, but unless we encounter someone who can actually make a change in Sirius, our demands are be scared, die somehow, or perform a service if you're extra nice. That is how an interaction with a terrorist goes, just like how a pirate will pirate you, a terrorist will kill you. Unless you happen to be a CEO in some major corporation or an important member of a Military or Police faction, there's very little for us to do with you. Someone has to die, and sometimes it's you.
Also, anime/manga/emo stuff? Apparently you know more about it than I do, because I wasn't aware that I was mimicking any of those things. I don't even know if that's a good or a bad thing.
And, you know what, if you aren't afraid, that's your choice, and good on you. I just hope your fear of LNS fleets is more from RP than OoRP, just like your feelings on us. Aside from that, I don't think anyone can ask anything else about it. I hope it all just translates to fun on the server.
' Wrote:Its kind of a phenomenon...
Whenever you're being massacred by keepers, Order| ships cant be arsed to assist you, and then you find out that half the Order| members are either in the Keepers or have a pending application.
And when you see a group of Rheinland merc pirates in New York, and there is no LN to be found and the LPI stubbornly refuses to lift a finger, you see one of the Rheinland pirates say in system chat "ok we made enough money... wanna go on our LN chars now? // oops sorry thought I was talking in group chat"
Or that its perfect common sense that Order can never land on Malta and Outcasts can never land on Omicron Minor, although they are not enemies in the rep list. But even if the Phantoms have "enemies: everyone" in their inforcard, it feels more like "can land: where they wanna".
I'm not saying there is no sense to phantom RP and docking habits, I'm just saying that the sense is a bit too "elusive", which us of course natural for such an elusive faction.
Maybe you should... you know... stoop down to our level and explain your RP better for the mere mortal?
I'm not sure what you're saying here. We're terrorists. We kill people. That's the RP. We're trying to spread fear throughout the houses to instate a temporary anarchy by any rhetoric, be it Bundschuh, Blood Dragon, Xeno, Gaian, whatever. The means don't matter, as long as that end is reached. That is our holy doctrine and why we kill people. If we can create doubt in the security and stability of the Houses, more people will pay into the extreme values, and anarchy will eventually come. There are lots of little details here and there, but that's a subject more for a pm because it'd be an even bigger wall of text. We kill people. We try not to die. That's pretty much the jist of it.
And what Pipboy is really trying to say is that if you read back somewhere in the range of 1-40 pages, you can probably find the answer to all of your questions, multiple times. That is pretty boring to respond to.
[8:32:45 PM] Dusty Lens: Oh no, let me get that. Hello? Oh it's my grandma. She says to be roleplay.
[12:49:19 AM] Elgatodiablo: You know its nice that you have all that proof and all, Bacon... but I just don't believe you.
Baconsoda Wrote:Well, as I figure it, docking costs money, rooms cost money, food costs money, drinks cost money, repairs cost money, and a Phantom can always just give away more money if they don't like us. Overall, lots of money can be given to pirates. Like I said before, we're elusive, so we might spend days at a time inside of Buffalo or Nome calling room service, which is lots of money for pirates, if you ask me, as money is no problem to us. Call that 120 credits a day chump change to the server economy, but to an average person, 120 credits a day for food ration is a lot, not to mention what we could be overcharged because we know we're creepy and it's kind of disconcerting to have a Phantom sitting inside the base.
I'm sorry, I didnt know the Phantoms were also bazillionaires.
This brings up another question...
Where do phantoms get their money?
In an attempt to find the answer to this question in the preceding 40 pages, I searched for the word "credits" and "money", but only came up with statements emphasizing that Phantoms dont pirate and dont ask for cretis, things in the line of:
Zelot Wrote:Offer us love, offer us devotion, offer to blow up your own cargo, offer to do a dance..... offer something thats not money or cargo and your chances of surviving go up exponentially.
Baconsoda Wrote:Also, anime/manga/emo stuff? Apparently you know more about it than I do, because I wasn't aware that I was mimicking any of those things. I don't even know if that's a good or a bad thing.
As I said I dont have in-depth understanding of this youth culture as I'm too old and grey for it, but what I meant was that externally, the phantoms seem to have this "I'm so dark and mysterious and totally caught up in my personal problems that it makes me totally dangerous" thing in common with what I observe in some anime/manga and emos/goths. But my observations and impressions are of course superficial and I wondered if there was something in your RP that I didnt understand.
Examples of this sort of behavior from Phantoms would be what Zelot said, the example where the Phantom trader because he was "offended" although the trader apologized and met all his demands, and the rather gay way with which phantoms talk to each other, with "kiss and hugs" and so on. "Gay" being not intended as offensive to gay people, but the stereotype-gay being the best way to describe it.
Baconsoda Wrote:As to angst, look at the Junkers, they're shaking in their boots running to quickdock whenever they see us. Apparently we're scary. Heck, there was a poll in Flood a little bit back about whether we or the Keepers were more of a threat, and despite the fact that we're less than half their size with at most 1/8 their arsenal, we were voted as being more dangerous. I don't really understand how, but with that kind of reputation, I can really see the movie scene Schlurbi described as being something of an RP reality.
I think the junkers and others do that mainly because you shoot them before they can say "eek", so its not really a good example of "unjustified angst" as you said before. I wouldnt know about the poll or what other people think, but my reaction to phantoms when I see them is more to roll my eyes than to be scared.
Baconsoda Wrote:I'm sorry, but as far as I know, the characters of yours we have killed are not really in-RP important at all. There is no reason for us to give you a demand if you continue to move and don't cooperate; you're just another number in the list of crimes someone has committed which could have been us.
I think there is a misunderstanding...
I wasnt the trader that got killed, I was merely watching the incident. The trader only tried to run at first. After he was CDed he did everything the phantom said and offered money but was killed anyway.
The time I was killed, I was instakilled while watching a conversation between phantoms and someone else, and after the before mentioned trader was killed, the phantom opened fire on me without warning while I was typing, and when he realized he wasnt winning he fled to Cali base.
Baconsoda Wrote:The Xenos actually enjoy our company because DarkStar was a Liberty folk and we technically made our start as Xenos.
...
Blood Dragons are another story because they are xenophobic, but destroying KNF and Samura appears to do well enough (as far as I know).
I always thought that Xenos were also xenophobic. Why did the Xenos wish to help the phantoms? Maybe Darkstar was libertonians but so are the LN and LPI. I mean ok phantoms kill lawfuls and foreigners but they kill Libertonians just as much.
Baconsoda Wrote:GC aren't of the utmost moral caliber, so I think blowing up KNF and Samura is enough for them. Mollys can
be easily sated by blowing up a whole bunch of BMM. Bundschuh can be pleased by exploiting the inadequacies of the Rheinland government. Unioners can be happy when we blow up Republican, LWB for Synth Foods.
According to the infocards, GC fight for women's rights, Mollies for independence, Bundschuh for liberty and democracy (I think), Unioners for worker's rights, LWB for farmer's rights. I dont see how any of those would be furthered by randomly blowing people up, just because some of the people you blow up may also coincidentally have been enemies of named factions.
Since those would actually want to gain support from the population instead of alienating them, siding with phantoms would be rather detrimental to their cause, in my opinion.
Baconsoda Wrote:Why would I tell some Joe-Schmoe who doesn't even stop when I ask him to that information? Call us what you will, but unless we encounter someone who can actually make a change in Sirius, our demands are be scared, die somehow, or perform a service if you're extra nice. That is how an interaction with a terrorist goes, just like how a pirate will pirate you, a terrorist will kill you. Unless you happen to be a CEO in some major corporation or an important member of a Military or Police faction, there's very little for us to do with you. Someone has to die, and sometimes it's you.
Thats exactly the point.
If I WAS a CEO or important member of a military or police faction, what WOULD you want me to do to stop you from killing people?
I know the answer to that for every RL or freelancer terrorist group, but I dont know it for phatnoms.
Baconsoda Wrote:We're semi-religious terrorists which look to instate a temporary anarchy in Sirius so our gods can sweep into Sirius like the Revenant predicted.
...
If we can create doubt in the security and stability of the Houses, more people will pay into the extreme values, and anarchy will eventually come.
I think we can agree that simply randomly blowng up a few ships here and there isnt going to make Sirius descend into anarchy.
If you want to strengthen extremes, then why dont phantoms pretend to be the other terrorist factions and pin their "accomplishments" on them?
If you pose as someone who kills for the fun of it, you are going to unite people against you, not make them fight among themselves.
Baconsoda Wrote:Of course, if anyone shows displeasure at this justification, you can just tell us and we can ask Cannon to make us hostile. Seriously, it's not even our choice, it's everyone else's choice. I can't even say anything about this because we're doing our RP of taking advantage of pirate bases, and it's the other side's turn if they see something wrong.
...
I'm not sure what you're saying here.
What I think, and what I was trying to say with those examples, is that sometimes people tend to make deals, alliances, give privileges, and do favors because of inter-player relations, and that the RP experience of other people suffers greatly from it if its over-done.
Just a few things and then I will be done here, first about a year ago, Unsielle went around to all the various unlawful factions on a hunt to isolate the Phantoms. Instead of trying to isolate the Phantoms in-rp, he decided to go to all of their feedback threads and try and oorp them into breaking their ties with the Phantoms. Most of the factions said they would prefer to have the Phantoms neutral, because it is easier and safer for them, thats a pretty legitimate rp response. If you want to do the same thing again, and talk to the different factions, be my guest, in this time of FR5's and ninja repping, it's pretty silly to blame relations between groups on just one of the groups. Any faction is welcome to FR5 us, but thats not even necessary, all they have to do is tell us, and we will tell cannon to ninja rep us hostile to them. Fact is, those factions dont come and tell us they want to be hostile, so how are we supposed to know?
Second as to the claims of not giving people a chance to get away, we arent really supposed to. We follow the rules of the server, and we rp, but interactions with Phantoms often occur at lightning speed, because they have to, when Phantoms hang around, there is usually a fleet of lawfuls on the way to kill them. Protracted conversations are often dangerous for Phantoms. We do it when we can or when we need to, but whether it takes a while or not, it is in rp. I have probably have said this a hundred time before, but rp is not only the content of chats between characters, it is often just as legitimate a move in rp to shoot at your enemy, or your target.
Anyway POZ, I think we have listened to and tried to address your feedback, but at this point, I think we are not going anywhere with the discussion, so I think it's time we let it drop in this particular thread.
Zelot Wrote:Fact is, those factions dont come and tell us they want to be hostile, so how are we supposed to know?
...
it's pretty silly to blame relations between groups on just one of the groups
Venomous tongues have told me that some members of the phanoms are, or have been in the past, also prominent members in LPI, LN, LR, Xenos, and a few more. Thats what I was trying to hint at about strange docking rights or strange lack of assistence from allegedly allied forces in some situations. Sometimes people think they are talking with two groups, when they are really talking to the same group two times.
Zelot Wrote:We follow the rules of the server,
You do, but the rules are more liberal for you than they are for other people.
For example I saw the phantom who blew up the trader mercilessly without demand file a violation report about someone else for lack of pirate demand. I know thats within the rules, but somehow... I dont know... something doenst feel right, cant put my finger on what it is. Oh yeah... hypocricy?
Zelot Wrote:Anyway POZ, I think we have listened to and tried to address your feedback, but at this point, I think we are not going anywhere with the discussion, so I think it's time we let it drop in this particular thread.
Ok, I understand. I was shocked by my wall of text when I saw it posted. Too much coffee I guess.
How ever, can I remind you of one last question?
How do the phantoms afford all that room service on Bufallo, I mean what is their source of income?
I wont metagame the info, I promise.
' Wrote:As I said I dont have in-depth understanding of this youth culture as I'm too old and grey for it, but what I meant was that externally, the phantoms seem to have this "I'm so dark and mysterious and totally caught up in my personal problems that it makes me totally dangerous" thing in common with what I observe in some anime/manga and emos/goths. But my observations and impressions are of course superficial and I wondered if there was something in your RP that I didn't understand.
Examples of this sort of behavior from Phantoms would be what Zelot said, the example where the Phantom trader because he was "offended" although the trader apologized and met all his demands, and the rather gay way with which phantoms talk to each other, with "kiss and hugs" and so on. "Gay" being not intended as offensive to gay people, but the stereotype-gay being the best way to describe it.
It is because we want to be worshiped, above the almighty credit. We want to make people realize that their lives are bigger and more important than the society they live in and so the society must change. Most traders offer us money, but that only perpetuates the system which we are looking to destabilize, which means that we want to change their souls. We want to strip them of their civilized emotions and make them feel the first basic emotion: fear. If the character we are interacting with feels that fear and portrays it, begging for mercy, prostrating himself on the floor of his ship weeping for his life, then he is ours, and he will have a service to perform, because then he will feel the second base emotion: love. He will love us for sparing him, if only for a few moments, but that emotion was there, and that emotion is what changes people's minds, and people's minds are what changes society. That is why we kill most people, because they cannot portray their characters as showing a basic fear. Most people don't even develop their characters that far; they just worship the credit as the ultimate gain/loss.
' Wrote:I think the junkers and others do that mainly because you shoot them before they can say "eek", so its not really a good example of "unjustified angst" as you said before. I wouldnt know about the poll or what other people think, but my reaction to phantoms when I see them is more to roll my eyes than to be scared.
Like I said, as long as that is an RP roll eyes, rather than an OoRP roll eyes, then I guess we have more RP to do. I rather think the Junkers have a good RP going of being scared of us, because we have killed a lot of them. I don't know about you, but I don't enjoy exploding, and so I rather am afraid of things which can make my characters explode just like they are.
' Wrote:I think there is a misunderstanding...
I wasn't the trader that got killed, I was merely watching the incident. The trader only tried to run at first. After he was CDed he did everything the phantom said and offered money but was killed anyway.
The time I was killed, I was instakilled while watching a conversation between phantoms and someone else, and after the before mentioned trader was killed, the phantom opened fire on me without warning while I was typing, and when he realized he wasn't winning he fled to Cali base.
Again, I don't like exploding, so when I'm fighting something I'm losing against, I like to run. I like to think that sentiment is shared throughout the faction. As to the specific things, not much I can say without, well, specifics. >.>
' Wrote:I always thought that Xenos were also xenophobic. Why did the Xenos wish to help the phantoms? Maybe Darkstar was libertonians but so are the LN and LPI. I mean ok phantoms kill lawfuls and foreigners but they kill Libertonians just as much.
According to the infocards, GC fight for women's rights, Mollies for independence, Bundschuh for liberty and democracy (I think), Unioners for worker's rights, LWB for farmer's rights. I dont see how any of those would be furthered by randomly blowing people up, just because some of the people you blow up may also coincidentally have been enemies of named factions.
Since those would actually want to gain support from the population instead of alienating them, siding with phantoms would be rather detrimental to their cause, in my opinion.
Well, then, that's your opinion, and if you're the leader of one of these factions at some point, feel free to pm me, Zelot, Virus, or Hoodlum with a request that we become hostile with your faction. However, I withhold the privilege of respectfully disagreeing with you in seeing the gravity of those faction's vendettas against other factions as being much larger, however respect your interpretation of canon and thank you for sharing your opinion. If any one of these factions wants to FR 5 us, they can talk to us or file one. No problems on this side.
' Wrote:Thats exactly the point.
If I WAS a CEO or important member of a military or police faction, what WOULD you want me to do to stop you from killing people?
I know the answer to that for every RL or freelancer terrorist group, but I don't know it for Phatnoms.
I think we can agree that simply randomly blowing up a few ships here and there isn't going to make Sirius descend into anarchy.
If you want to strengthen extremes, then why don't phantoms pretend to be the other terrorist factions and pin their "accomplishments" on them?
If you pose as someone who kills for the fun of it, you are going to unite people against you, not make them fight among themselves.
What I think, and what I was trying to say with those examples, is that sometimes people tend to make deals, alliances, give privileges, and do favors because of inter-player relations, and that the RP experience of other people suffers greatly from it if its over-done.
We want the CEO to feel basic fear. We want to remove him from civilization and feel that fear, because only after he feels that fear can he respect us, whether he knows that he is doing so or not. Near-death experiences change people's lives, and that is what we want to give people. It's not our job to proclaim that people support the Xeno cause, we want them to question their own rhetoric and at least see the merit of another rhetoric. Change like what we are trying to do comes very slowly, but it does come, and even if it is a lost cause, not everything in history was done for the most logical reasons. We kill people. If you're not dead, you're scared. That's how it goes.
' Wrote:Venomous tongues have told me that some members of the phanoms are, or have been in the past, also prominent members in LPI, LN, LR, Xenos, and a few more. Thats what I was trying to hint at about strange docking rights or strange lack of assistence from allegedly allied forces in some situations. Sometimes people think they are talking with two groups, when they are really talking to the same group two times.
You do, but the rules are more liberal for you than they are for other people.
For example I saw the phantom who blew up the trader mercilessly without demand file a violation report about someone else for lack of pirate demand. I know thats within the rules, but somehow... I dont know... something doenst feel right, cant put my finger on what it is. Oh yeah... hypocricy?
Ok, I understand. I was shocked by my wall of text when I saw it posted. Too much coffee I guess.
How ever, can I remind you of one last question?
How do the phantoms afford all that room service on Bufallo, I mean what is their source of income?
I wont metagame the info, I promise.
As I see it, we sell information and counterfeit.
I hope that helps. Legitimately.
[8:32:45 PM] Dusty Lens: Oh no, let me get that. Hello? Oh it's my grandma. She says to be roleplay.
[12:49:19 AM] Elgatodiablo: You know its nice that you have all that proof and all, Bacon... but I just don't believe you.
' Wrote:Well, as I figure it, docking costs money, rooms cost money, food costs money, drinks cost money, repairs cost money, and a Phantom can always just give away more money if they don't like us. Overall, lots of money can be given to pirates. Like I said before, we're elusive, so we might spend days at a time inside of Buffalo or Nome calling room service, which is lots of money for pirates, if you ask me, as money is no problem to us. Call that 120 credits a day chump change to the server economy, but to an average person, 120 credits a day for food ration is a lot, not to mention what we could be overcharged because we know we're creepy and it's kind of disconcerting to have a Phantom sitting inside the base.
As to angst, look at the Junkers, they're shaking in their boots running to quickdock whenever they see us. Apparently we're scary. Heck, there was a poll in Flood a little bit back about whether we or the Keepers were more of a threat, and despite the fact that we're less than half their size with at most 1/8 their arsenal, we were voted as being more dangerous. I don't really understand how, but with that kind of reputation, I can really see the movie scene Schlurbi described as being something of an RP reality.
The Xenos actually enjoy our company because DarkStar was a Liberty folk and we technically made our start as Xenos. GC aren't of the utmost moral caliber, so I think blowing up KNF and Samura is enough for them. Mollys can be easily sated by blowing up a whole bunch of BMM. Bundschuh can be pleased by exploiting the inadequacies of the Rheinland government. Unioners can be happy when we blow up Republican, LWB for Synth Foods. Blood Dragons are another story because they are xenophobic, but destroying KNF and Samura appears to do well enough (as far as I know).
Actually as -VF) member I'd definately be unhappy about Phantoms docking on our base, since Bundschuh people consider themselves to be lawful usually. And sorry, but I haven't seen any attempt to play on Rheinland goverment atm.
Unioners are mostly mere pirates, so if you pirate on their turf, they might get upset. Very upset. Luckily your reputation saves you.
Although, I've never seen you specifically hunting down corporate targets for separate factions. Perhaps do that?:P
EDIT: Oh, and Blood Dragons. They're not completely xenophobic, that's rather individual case... Destroying KNF & Samura shouldn't be enough for them - why'd they allow some terrorists (who have even more fearfull reputation then them) into their secret system? Although I'm not ]bd[ anymore, so it's not up to me to decide.