EnderAndrew

Obsidian has a topic stickied with info on the content patch which is being worked on.

Launching conventional nukes opens the door to MAD. No one wins, and I don't think the UN would ever approve that under any circumstances. Even if the super powers pushed for it, the larger body of nations would be up in arms.

Again, this would be largely based on fiction and set in the future anyway, so you could get away with making anything up here. But I'm pretty sure in agencies like the FBI and CIA it is just Agent, Special Agent, Department Chief, Assistant Director and Director. There aren't a whole lot of ranks usually. It's not like the military. How people get promoted would be completely up to you. I don't think there are hard and fast rules for this, nor should there be. Again, Shadowrun gives a good equipment list for covert op technology in the future. Cyberpunk as well to a lesser extent. That game focuses more on cybered-up-super-characters in combat and less on covert ops.

Given that any knowledge one might have of a covert government agency is based on fiction, and that this is set in the future to boot, I don't know what you're looking for. You apparently want this to be like Deus Ex, then why not model it after Deus Ex? You have a setting in mind, and a rules system. What are you looking for?

You're looking for a rules system, right? Shadowrun would work for that. Make the PC a government agent instead of a freelance merc and there you go.

I wanted to throw in a comment from one of my friends living in Israel. I added in a few line breaks, but other than that, her comments are uneditted. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- A commonly used "point" used to back up the argument supporting Israel's withdrawal from Gaza is that Israel simply can not afford the cost of maintaining troops to guard the settlements. I don't think I have really talked about this much in previous posts, so I will do so now. Before I begin, I must explain something. Most of the approximatley 9,000 settlers lived in Gush Katif, a block of several settlements located in the southern Gaza Strip. There was only one entrance to this block of settlements, which was well guarded and closed to Palestinians. Each settlement also had a guard post at the entrance and a perimeter fence, often including surveillance cameras. Furthermore, settlers are not completely reliant on the soldiers (this includes West Bank settlers). Many of them own weapons and they all keep an eye out for anything suspicious that needs to be reported. In the West Bank I have seen the use of guard dogs attached to lines set up around the settlement's perimeter so that if a Palestinian were to approach from the outside of the fence to try to break in, the dogs would see and start barking. Settlers are in general very resilient, and while I am unsure whether the dog tactic was employed in Gush Katif (I didn't see it), I am quite certain other resources were used. Next, do you really think it's reasonable to assume that the Israeli government will be able to spend less money guarding our borders now that we have thrown Jews out of their homes in the southern Gaza Strip? Absolutely not. The sad truth is that my government still will have to spend massive amounts of money on the task of defending our borders. The fact that terror organizations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad have openly announced their intentions of moving their headquarters to Gush Katif, and of transferring hundreds of armed militants from camps in Lebanon, only INCREASES the necessity of guarding mainland Israel from the newly occupied (the Palestinians will now be occupying Jewish land) Gaza Strip. The anti terrorism fence will also have to be extended to prevent further terrorist infiltrations and guard posts and surveillance units will have to be carefully manned. The military presence will not depart; it will simply shift to a new border, this time on the outside of Gush Katif. In addition, with militants now capable of shooting Kassam rockets from newly occupied territories in the Gaza Strip into CENTRAL Israel (including Tel Aviv), the threat to Israel's security has drastically increased. The head of our military had to read about the eviction plan in the NEWSPAPERS the day after it was decided by Sharon. He was not consulted by Sharon before the decision was made. I'm talking about the man responsible for securing this nation's borders from all threats, and he was completely disregarded by Sharon before making such a historical decision! He later openly commented on the threat the plan posed to Israel's security. Finally, I want to mention that all the talk of the millions of Arabs surrounding the thousands of Jews is another attempt to sidetrack the bigger issues. Israel is a tiny country of around 6 million citizens (not all of which are Jewish). On every side (except our border with the Mediterannean Sea, of course) we are surrounded by Arab states. We have peace treaties with only two of those countries, Jordan and Egypt. And even that "peace" does not negate the need for constant border surveillance and strict border controls. Especially with Egypt, which constantly allows militants and weapons to stream through, either through complicity or open neglect of security. The borders with Lebanon and Syria require even more careful monitoring, as Hezbollah not-so-infrequently fires rockets into Israel's northern parts and we have had many terrorist infiltration attempts from those borders as well. This is not a nation at peace. This has NEVER been a nation at peace, and in my opinion this will never BE a nation at peace because we are a people that has a long and complicated past with the Arabs, many of whom will never accept the very existance of my country on the map. So I just wanted to point out that just because there is a minority in a region, does not mean that they do not belong there and should be thrown out. Israel is in itself a minority in a vast sea of Arabs. Should my entire nation be thrown into the sea, as Fatah and Hamas have so long proclaimed? Of course not. My friends, just because something is commonly printed in the Associated Press or in other Western media outlets, or spewed by the Bush administration (or for that matter the Sharon administration), doesn't make it true. Use your minds. Critically evaluate the statements made by government officials. Look at the FACTS, educate yourselves about the details, speak to those who have been there in person if possible, and then formulate educated political opinions when necessary. But don't blindly accept, because the complicity of an uneducated populace is one of the greatest dangers to any democracy. -T. P.S. I apologize for this greatly unstructured and not-so-coherent mess of an argument. It's 4am here and I have had a long day. I assure you I am capable of making better arguments, especially in person. ;-)

You can't win any war with conventional nukes. And you can win a war with China if you have the right allies. If we didn't have places to set up air bases, supply lines, or any support we'd be dead. If we had those, we have the edge in technology that individual soldiers suited up wouldn't matter so much. We wouldn't put any soldiers on the ground (other than Force Recon) until we bombed the place silly. We are handling Iraq rather poorly right now because we can't police millions of people. The Army isn't trained for that. But we have proven that we can quickly demolish any communications and air support systems in a country to the point where they can make no effort to defend themselves. And given the armor on the M1 Abrams, there are few things that can touch them. I've even seen an M1 take a direct shot from another M1. You don't want to mess with our tanks. It would be a matter of timing. If we decided to invade China and got the jump, then I'd like our chances.

What amazes me is how stupid most players are in games like this. They really need to read up on basic manipulation skills before jumping into a game like this.

This seems to be one of the more common arguements I've seeing here now. How did this land belong to Palestine? Palestine is not a unique state, but rather a group of people. This group of people from a purely legal standpoint is required to share land with the Jews. Both have a right to occupy Israel as a nation, as determined by the one (and faulty) lone world governing body we have today. So how does that land belong to Palestine? If you say a majority population in an area justifies forcible relocation, I will continue to call up incidents like forcible relocation or Kurds or Native Americans. I though we learned centuries ago that this was a horrid mistake society wouldn't repeat. Yet the civilized world has no qualms with it today. (Then again opponents of the war in Iraq tend to ignore genocide and forcible relocation of Kurds as well.) Why?

Ender pushes the Reboot button on the UN.

A Shadowrunner performs ops covertly. They are illegal, and one must rely on stealth and gadgets. You said in the future. Take James Bond and put him in the future and he'd be a Shadowrunner.

I currently hold Germany's supply centers, and I don't see how Germany is getting any of them back. Kaftan has been eliminated, and Baley officially conceeded. The two remaining players have diplomatically agreed on a peace treaty. I thought the name of the game was Diplomacy, and the game has been resolved in Diplomacy. If the name of the game were Global Conquest and Utter Devestation

Vodka and Pasta all around!

Baley has informed me that he has quit/surrendered/conceeded. That leaves two players and I am content to declare the game a draw between Jags and myself.

I am flat out refusing to acknowledge your posts in this thread from here on out. You insist on talking about legality. You say Israel doesn't have a legal right to the land, citing UN law as the final authority. However you refuse to recognize UN law in regards to the US and Iraq. You also claim the land legally belonged to Palestine. Given that Palestine does not exist as a seperate state, the land cannot legally belong to them. It never has. There is zero legal claim for Palestine to the land. Your hypocritical stance on UN law, and failure to understand what constitutes a legal arguement make it impossible to have any level of debate on this issue. Given that you only turn to Palestinian news sites, and refuse to use third-party sources, it doesn't surprise me that you would villianize settlers that are murdered daily. Point me to a third party, objective news source that shows the settlers themselves have somehow harmed Palestinians as a people and ruined their economic development. Seriously, I have no clue where you come up with this. I fail to believe that sentiment since you don't acknowledge the terrorist activities going on now. God forbid a people should have a home. Their people have only been the targets of genocide and persecution through the entirety of written history. Yes, let us find them at fault for dreaming they might have a place to live in peace. I am done with you.

No, so why should Israel be forced to give up land on the arguement is that the claim of land to take if from Egypt wasn't valid. If that's the case, then give it to Egypt. So, if the majority of a group of people in an area want to have the minority forcibly displaced, this is cool? Tell that to Native Americans. Tell that to the Kurds in Iraq.

Link <{POST_SNAPBACK}> One case sure reflects a national epidemic.

Parliament hasn't really done much of anything on the issue yet, though all parties seem to talk about it being an important issue. However, England specifically is feeling the repercussions of immigration concerns within England.

See above.

I said: And I stand by that statement. I wasn't talking about the entire UK. Are people rushing to move to Northern Ireland because of the wealth there? Is Northern Ireland cracking down on immigration? No. Is England dealing with immigration concerns? Yes. Is England having an abundance of immigrants due to their wealth? Yes.

Because the people who live there are Palestinians. Had the wars never happened, the Gaza Strip been part of the state of Egypt, and the Palestinians there campaigned for their independence, I would have supported that, too. It's called self-determination. Your refusal to acknowledge that the Palestinians should have the same basic rights and freedoms that you have baffles me. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> In that case, Texas should become its own country since people there wanted independence, and it should no longer belong to the US because we gained it via war. I'm inform the President right away. You still lack any logical arguement. Part of Israel, that has been part of Israel for 50 years should become part of a third party because it once belonged to a 2nd party? I think most of the UK should be handed over to a third party since England never had the right to go Imperial. Yeah, that makes sense.

Given that my family is from England, and I have family from Ireland, and that my friends are from Scotland, I hear them refer to England as England, Ireland as Ireland, Scotland and Scotland and the UK as being the UK. You act as if the UK is alone in effectively having multiple states. Do people in Alberta get offended that people in Manitoba are called Manitobans simply because both are Canadian? I didn't say that people in Ireland live in England. I understand the distinction. So I'm not offending them by calling them English, or saying Ireland is a part of England. In fact, I am reluctant to bring up how Northern Ireland is part of the UK.

Actually, no. I've never once heard that. And I have family in England, who refer to it as such. My father in law was born in England. My favorite English author calls the country England. I've heard bands call it England. I've heard the BBC call it England. In fact, the Queen of England isn't called the Queen of the UK, but rather the Queen of England. Blair is referred to as the Prime Minister of England. So surely, the English must hate their country being called England.

The Rock is a supporting actor. Karl Urban is the lead, but they are marketing the whole film about the Rock. Those that have played the game, and know what happens to the Sarge can expect a repeat of the horrible Mummy Returns CGI fiasco. I also love how Demons have been replaced with a medical outbreak situation. The trailer looks horrid.

That is simply just not true. Israel has had control over the Gaza Strip since the 60's. Their stances and positions on giving Palestinians citizenship has nothing to do with the Gaza Strip in particular, but are wide branching policies on immigration and nationalization that are in response to terrorism. England is dealing with the same issues right now, and most any wealthy nation with poorer nation deals with the same issues. Palestine didn't own or control the Gaza Strip. Egypt did, so why is it being given to Palestine? Your insistance to cling to facts that simply aren't true baffles me.