Ok, here's the issue. While @Dude and @psychoticstorm are correct that the background and setting material for Yu Jing contains some good "shades of grey" by including positive material to balance out the "evil" stuff, this is mostly in places that recent players can't access (the 1st and 2nd edition books and the RPG). The most recent material for Yu Jing, including the narrative events and Uprising have highlighted the "evil" as well as "incompetent" elements of the Yu Jing character. Although it is true that the wheel will turn and another faction will be negatively reflected (there was a little while there at the midpoint of Flamestrike where the Nomads weren't looking too good, and had things gone a little differently in Wotan it'd be PanOceania holding the "incompetent" badge) RIGHT NOW there's a LOT of negative stuff on Yu Jing. So maybe dial back on the "but it's still GREY" whine a bit. Because it's starting to sound just as petulant as the doomsayers at the extreme of the "Yu Jing will NEVER RECOVER" scale.
PanO already entered Yu Jing territory and threatened their forces and interfered in an internal matter. What PanO did was an act of war; PanO started a war with what they did (or O-12 did, depending on how you see it), Yu Jing backing down in this context basically means they submitted to PanO's ability to enforce its political will on them with force. Essentially you're saying that Gutier's writing is so poor you can't count on it making logical, coherent sense. This is entirely irrelevant; bringing this up just confuses whatever point you're trying to make.
Why is there so much focus on competency? I'm genuinely confused by this. When has the narrative described any faction as incompetent?
People make the assumption that because the kuge were able to use their “grey man” to make the connections without the ISS or Yanjing uncovering the plot, that YJ is thus incompetent. It could be simpler to say, rather than seeing that the kuge managed to do everything right and get lucky as well.
Man, this is Yu Jing we are a talking about. Who cares what a bunch of foreigners think, Yu Jing will do whats necessary to save humanity. If people think its evil they just lack the will to do whats necessary.
PanO got authorised to do what they did by the supreme power of the Human sphere, the same power that told them no, this is Yu Jings' regardless of what you think, in Svalarheima Gutier's writing is so great that can create a logical internally consistent world without resorting to outdated world politics, if you cannot understand the nuances of the superpowers and the reason why O-12 is what it is and has the power that it has, it is not Gutier's problem. The power level the superpowers have and play with is out of imagination of the terrestrial bound countries we have now, similarities with the present is nearly impossible. Oh it is relevant, full scale war on a planet when the entire human sphere economy continues like nothing happened, if it was our planet everything would have halted and the combating nations would be at total war between themselves. Human sphere is not the terrestrial bound human nations and do not act like them.
I'm not even sure if this post is supposed to be in-game Roleplay or out-of character or what. But I think the soldiers who were shot down by PanO air defence do care that Yu Jing managed to get so isolated internationally PanO shoot them and got away with it. Tho I guess dead people don't count. What about me? I'm a foreigner (unless some wacky international event ends up with Catalonia as part of the PRC). I do care that Yu Jing looks evil. Can't we get a decent PR department anywhere? Not just the most recent, it is also the second big fluff advance (Tohaa arrival being the first, I think). EDIT: Okay, so the third because Aleph getting an army was also a fluff advance/EDIT Like, you can quote the whole Ariadna thing, getting land on Svala and all that, but those things were part of the setting we got at the start. This Uprising is something that changed while we were playing. Second serious history advance, Yu Jing gets kicked. I guess in October we will have the third kinda big advance? With the whole we blow up Acon thing? I have seriously low expectations for that whole thing.
ALEPH suddenly 'finding' an illegal standing army from nowhere was also a pretty big advance in the background.
I've always thought about it as ALEPH spinning up a bunch of L-Hosts overnight and sending them to warehouses where it had weapons, armour and equipment waiting to be used. I mean, it's not like that would be hard. ALEPH didn't have to have an illegal standing army 'till it was permitted, then (basically instantly) it did. ... While I understand the whole "read the book and things are better" (and even agree with it to some extent, the book is doing a better job of explaining things than anyone trying to defend it here has) it's also a bit of a dead letter approach to this argument. Even WITH the better explanation from the Uprising, the whole story IS doing exactly what the Yu Jing "naysayers" thought it would. Hell even one of the loudest "defenders" of the storyline summarised it as: Like, wow. This is EXACTLY the point that many have been trying to make.
Get bent. You’re literally saying that disagreement with your viewpoint is unhealthy EVEN THOUGH SOMEONE ON YOUR SIDE DISAGREES WITH IT.
PanO already started the war. That’s the point that you keep deliberately denying in your praise of Gutier’s incredibly awesome lorecrafting.
In Uprising. In Wotan. That’s what this thread is about. Stop trolling, because I can’t believe you’re stupid enough to not recognise that.
This is interesting. How do you want me to respond? Should I point out that you've misread my comment and projected some kind of malice to it? This would be really tricky because I don't even really know how you arrived to this conclusion. Should I respond in kind? This will definitely get the thread locked and maybe we'd both get a well-deserved vacation. But I don't want that. Should I raise this to a moderator? Either you'll get a short ban or the thread will get locked. I don't like this either, though. Do you have another idea? If so, please tell me.