Regardless, manipulation is on the menu. I've got a good foundation for the lore up in my head and a bit in Skype logs copied various places, and this thread.
Good idea about the name, Blodo. Makes sense, actually.
' Wrote:Well, good luck with the whole manipulation thing, the nomads tried it and we kicked their butts.
The Order is watching you >=)
The Order is the answer of mankind for the Nomads, which are a great threat and due to their different physiology easy to recognize (Except Wild). The Phantoms however are humans and only humans and thus have an essential advantage, when it comes to sneak tactics.
But yes, Blodo hit the nails head. Try to involve different house factions into your RP, ambush convoys and blame a competing house, make terrorist acts, which also blame some other people and so on. Blasting random people is... not the best way to cause havoc.
After reading, I'm going to end up saying more than I intended...
My first Phantom encounter was when I was new to the server. I had only begun to map Sirius, and was attacked while docking with a border station. After hearing threats of calling support to destroy the station, I undocked in order to defend the people there. (Re-engaging, I know.)
Exposure to the Phantoms changed my RP on this server forever. I've shadowed them sometimes, studied the Cambridge incident, Fes, etc. I'm very taken by the whole concept, and if I could somehow manage to misplace my real life, the faction I would create would strive to be your primary antagonist. (Don't get me wrong, I have no intention of hunting you down like a 4.84 BHG.)
I like the galaxy-spanning C'tan Empire. It makes the situation that much more ominous, and the mind wonders what's going on out there... Ever play Star Control II? The Phantoms and C'tan, for me, invoke the same sense of dread the Ur-Quan did. Foreboding like I suppose the Juggernaut is supposed to invoke. The threat of something great and terrible hanging over your head. I enjoy that. And all with only sharing a single PVP with you in my time here.
I ask you not to downsize your threat.
It's not all good, no. My personal experiences have been chilling- fantastic. However I do have some problems shared by other people. For example, holding hands with every unlawful by default. The Phantoms don't really strive to make friends as far as I can see, and they also haven't mustered enough clear and present danger to make, say, the collective houses Hispania kowtow to them. It's not a big deal for me, but it does bother me.
I understand why you use such a hodgepodge of ships, so I don't speak out against it even if it does ruffle me a little sometimes.
My main complaint is probably not having witnessed enough interactions between yourselves and other factions. Now that I think about it, I suppose I enjoy the presence of something so vile and evil. In Sirius there isn't really a lot of true evil- even the Nomads are "right" in what they do, if you can see through their eyes. Phantoms are just personified brutality, maybe that's why I "love to hate" them.
I apologize if I was at any point incoherent. Seriously though, please don't turn your faction puny, Virus.
In the numerous times I have met the Phantoms..and been killed by them...I have thought that they have very extensive RP and that they work very hard.
The only part about the Phantoms is their engagements, they aren't really clear enough.
Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid. - David Hackworth (1930 - 2005)
Ok, a ton of pages showed up and I missed several, but this is the general issue I've always had with the Phantoms and the idea that everyone fears them.
Many, many factions, particularly the unlawful ones, are in a conflict with an entire House. Even the smaller ones. So that means they would only really need to fear the Phantoms if the Phantoms were stronger than a House (otherwise, they wouldn't be tops on the worry about list). And if they ARE stronger, why have they yet to do anything? Even their major attack on Cambridge seems to be less than what a group of Corsairs did to Cork.
' Wrote:Well, good luck with the whole manipulation thing, the nomads tried it and we kicked their butts.
The Order is watching you >=)
Only through some mistakes (Damned Murphy!).
Otherwise ... You know...
About the hand holding with all pirates, I've always assumed that the unlawfuls/pirates are more scared/wary of angering the Phantoms than they are of the lawfuls. Still like Virus says, I'm surprised that some groups haven't tried to push them out. There's lots of RP opportunity between much of the pirates and Phantoms.
Sovereign Wrote:Seek fun and you shall find it. Seek stuff to Q_Q about and you'll find that, too. I choose to have fun.
' Wrote:Only through some mistakes (Damned Murphy!).
Otherwise ... You know...
About the hand holding with all pirates, I've always assumed that the unlawfuls/pirates are more scared/wary of angering the Phantoms than they are of the lawfuls. Still like Virus says, I'm surprised that some groups haven't tried to push them out. There's lots of RP opportunity between much of the pirates and Phantoms.
It seems, so far, that the only unlawful faction who's actually frightened of the Phantoms are the Corsairs, and that's because Crete is a fagile ecosystem (which I think indicates a misunderstanding of desert ecosystems, but...)
Most unlawful factions who've replied so far, 1: think they're a good deal bigger than the phanoms, and 2: think you're helping them out.
Well, people can think they are larger, and in most cases they would be. But, the last time I checked, the size of a nation's armed forces was inversely proportional to the efficiency that it could combat guerilla warfare.
For example, the Hessians may be a great deal larger than the Phantoms, but they are fighting both the Rheinland Military (when they arent assisting them against the Liberty Navy) and the Corsairs. Why would they want to spend resources fending off attacks that come out of nowhere and dissolve without a trace? The same can be applied to almost any unlawful faction, more so the larger they get. In my mind, the Phantoms have always been small enough to be 'ignored' if you can call neutrality that, but organised enough to initiate some very damaging attacks.
Im sure there would be severe inRP reprisals on parties who didn't see the reasoning of such an argument. Nobody wants to be the target of such reprisals, so why bother making them an enemy that you don't need? What could they gain?
It's all down to how visible the actions of a certain group are. I believe in action -> reaction, hence why Hessian diplomacy against Phantoms is placed squarely in "unfriendly", as they are naturally wary of outside groups they know nothing about. And when I mean "know nothing about" I literally mean I haven't seen Phantoms ingame on my RHA character like ever, and I do play a fair bit. The only one report I have of one of my members communicating with the Phantoms involved the mentioned Phantom sitting in Omega-5 on Cadiz side, slandering the Hessian for "inferiority" from across the barricade. Considering the Hessians dropped their alliance with the Outcasts over a suspicion of cooperation with Nomads, well...:P
In case you are wondering what the point to this post is, this is it: you can't just assume that people will put you on friendly because you're too small and they can't be bothered to be concerned. The Phantoms may be small, but they are quite visible if you take happenings such as the bombing of Cambridge or the invasion of Aomori as game canon. And with visibility comes a certain sense of importance, which requires the Phantoms (like everyone else big enough to be known publically) to work for their diplomatic status around certain (if not most) groups. If they see themselves as above consorting with lowly humans, then they have to contend with whatever those groups see them as, and the ensuing diplomatic status as well.
When it comes to manipulation, I am sure you would be able to somehow pull off a neutrality status with Corsairs, Outcasts and maybe even the Hessians, but when stuff like that is expected to happen without any background, I am sorry but the answer is traditionally: lolwut.
' Wrote:It's all down to how visible the actions of a certain group are. I believe in action -> reaction, hence why Hessian diplomacy against Phantoms is placed squarely in "unfriendly", as they are naturally wary of outside groups they know nothing about. And when I mean "know nothing about" I literally mean I haven't seen Phantoms ingame on my RHA character like ever, and I do play a fair bit. The only one report I have of one of my members communicating with the Phantoms involved the mentioned Phantom sitting in Omega-5 on Cadiz side, slandering the Hessian for "inferiority" from across the barricade. Considering the Hessians dropped their alliance with the Outcasts over a suspicion of cooperation with Nomads, well...:P
Fair enough. Unfriendly is just another form of neutrality, except more guarded and scrutinising.
' Wrote:In case you are wondering what the point to this post is, this is it: you can't just assume that people will put you on friendly because you're too small and they can't be bothered to be concerned. The Phantoms may be small, but they are quite visible if you take happenings such as the bombing of Cambridge or the invasion of Aomori as game canon. And with visibility comes a certain sense of importance, which requires the Phantoms (like everyone else big enough to be known publically) to work for their diplomatic status around certain (if not most) groups. If they see themselves as above consorting with lowly humans, then they have to contend with whatever those groups see them as, and the ensuing diplomatic status as well.
Quote:In my mind, the Phantoms have always been small enough to be 'ignored' if you can call neutrality that, but organised enough to initiate some very damaging attacks.
Additionally, visiblity in action but invisibility in presence, as you said. If a group is not present but can conduct devastating attacks on short notice, returning to being dormant until the next big one, would it be wise to make yourself a potential target or focus on more pressing and visible objectives?
' Wrote:When it comes to manipulation, I am sure you would be able to somehow pull off a neutrality status with Corsairs, Outcasts and maybe even the Hessians, but when stuff like that is expected to happen without any background, I am sorry but the answer is traditionally: lolwut.
Then why has it not changed if it is considered by so many as 'lolwut'? The RHA have the power to change their diplomacy (and that of their NPC faction in some cases), as do other official factions. The fear here is that everyone will go "ok, Phantoms are now hostile.". These inRP attacks require the consent of both sides, and who consents to a retaliatory action such as that? I wouldn't, for example, and such action can be easily cast away as powerplaying if its not 'to the liking' of the faction that the reprisals are aimed at.
EDIT: Er, that last paragraph wasn't quite clear. What I meant was, if everybody declares the Phantoms as hostile off the bat, it severely hinders our ability to conduct ourselves in the way that we would. Basing for attacks across Sirius is pretty hard from only the Eidolon and the Revenant. Retaliatory action for factions declaring us hostile would also be hard to play out if they were to have meaningful and negative consequences on those factions. I don't like it when people harm my major faction (used to be the Corsairs, now LN) for changing something to the way it should have been (in my opinion) in the first place, so I can't imagine that anyone else would.
Note, the last sentance was not an admission, it was an example of the way that I think in certain circumstances. Wording has been slightly altered to show this.
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