The Magnaura

Makedonios thinks for a moment.

Your right. I am terrified that the Caesar is going to pursue endless war as long as he thinks he can get away with it.

I admit I find it hard to trust others when so much is at stake. I saw it as my own personal responsibility to make sure the peace stood. But I see now that will require a whole lot of us.

I will offer the "white peace" that the Emperor asked for.

It's wording is simple.

Quote:

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The war ends now.

---

If it needs more words, or lawyers language, then let me know.

I'll put my name to it.

The last thing our nation needs is a civil war! For gods sake, we have enough enemies piling up on our doorstep to fight!

Andronikos pauses, rubbing his hand

Although a neutral Megas would be good if this conflict even comes to pass, Makedonios has been making all efforts to call a peace, and I will, in no way, second the proposal by Kantakouzinos. It appears that my brother, the caesar, has made a small token of peace, but has yet to put any weight behind his pretty words. Sign the ammendment, my brother! If not for the good of yourself, for the good of our nation!

Ioannis returns to the Magnaura, and turns to address the senators.

I will gladly sign the peace treaty offered by Makedonios Ksanthopoulos. It is most generous of him to forgive my rash actions.

Ioannis signs the treaty and sits down.

Makedonios nods at the Caesar.

Now we need Pavlos Chrysovergos, Lisas Attaleiatis, Ioannis Kantakouzinos, Michail Arianitis, and Hypatios Machonios for the Komnenodoukai and Armatos ek Naksou, Nathanail ek Korinthou, Vartholomaios Ksiros, Vissarionas ek Lesvou, and Stavros ek Amarinthou for the Order to all sign it.

Quote:

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The war ends now.

Makedonios Ksanthopoulos
Caesar Ioannis

---

Andronikos smiles at his brother.

Vissarionas silently stands and writes his name on the peace treaty before returning to his seat.

:egypt:

Now we need Pavlos Chrysovergos, Lisas Attaleiatis, Ioannis Kantakouzinos, Michail Arianitis, and Hypatios Machonios for the Komnenodoukai and Armatos ek Naksou, Nathanail ek Korinthou, Vartholomaios Ksiros, and Stavros ek Amarinthou for the Order to all sign it.

Quote:

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The war ends now.

Makedonios Ksanthopoulos
Caesar Ioannis
Vissarionas ek Lesvou

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*edit*

OOC: Like Mafia games, I ask that we keep a tally. When you add your name, modify the tally and post it like above. :beam:

I don't know how TC planned on keeping track so this seems as good of a way as any.

Vartholomaios Ksiros enters the chambers, walks to his place and is presented the document. Looking at his brothers he sees them nod and takes his quill from the fountain:

Quote:

---

The war ends now.

Makedonios Ksanthopoulos
Caesar Ioannis
Vissarionas ek Lesvou
Vartholomaios Ksiros

---

Pavlos signs.

Quote:

---

The war ends now.

Makedonios Ksanthopoulos
Caesar Ioannis
Vissarionas ek Lesvou
Vartholomaios Ksiros
Pavlos Chrysovergos

---

Hypatios takes the parchement loosely in his hands, looks at his fellow house members for a while, before reluctantly signing with a loud sigh.

Quote:

---

The war ends now.

Makedonios Ksanthopoulos
Caesar Ioannis
Vissarionas ek Lesvou
Vartholomaios Ksiros
Pavlos Chrysovergos
Hypatios Machonios

---

Stavros gets up slowly before staring at the parchment and then slowly signs his name.

Quote:

---

The war ends now.

Makedonios Ksanthopoulos
Caesar Ioannis
Vissarionas ek Lesvou
Vartholomaios Ksiros
Pavlos Chrysovergos
Hypatios Machonios
Stavros ek Amarinthou

---

Armatos Signs.

Quote:

---

The war ends now.

Makedonios Ksanthopoulos
Caesar Ioannis
Vissarionas ek Lesvou
Vartholomaios Ksiros
Pavlos Chrysovergos
Hypatios Machonios
Stavros ek Amarinthou
Armatos ek Nasou

---

Everyone in the Order, except for Nathanail, has signed the treaty. Nathanail has been gone from politics for years. Unfortunately, I do not believe he will be back any time soon, if ever. I believe he is working on his education instead.

OOC: Bananabob has been gone for weeks. I know he had connection issues. I hope we can simply ignore avatars who have reached a certain threshold of inactivity.

Kantakouzinos signs the treaty.

Quote:

---

Quote:
The war ends now.

Makedonios Ksanthopoulos
Caesar Ioannis
Vissarionas ek Lesvou
Vartholomaios Ksiros
Pavlos Chrysovergos
Hypatios Machonios
Stavros ek Amarinthou
Armatos ek Nasou
Ioannis Kantakouzinos

---

Senators,
I will give Scopia back to Comes Tagaris.
I must say that I am disgusted at the attitude of the majority of you. Tagaris broke the law, and now is not punished anymore. His House is his, if he wishes it. His lands are his, as I have been forced to give one province back. His "honour" is his because he serves the Empire, trying to keep the peace in Cairo.
If this is the way lawbreakers and punishers are treated here, then I pity the future of the Empire.
Tagaris, I expect you to release me from your service the second you learn of this.

Dammit Nikophoros!

What kind of a man are you to feel bound by the opinion of a few gutless children? I adore what you did. You saw a problem and fixed it. Tagaris loses nothing with Scopia. It is nothing but a mere symbolic act to punish those who do not uphold the law.

You are a good man Nikophoros and you did the right thing. And I challenge anyone to say otherwise.

A heavily-tanned and smiling Lisas signs

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kagemusha

The war ends now.

Makedonios Ksanthopoulos
Caesar Ioannis
Vissarionas ek Lesvou
Vartholomaios Ksiros
Pavlos Chrysovergos
Hypatios Machonios
Stavros ek Amarinthou
Armatos ek Nasou
Ioannis Kantakouzinos
Lisas Attaleiatas.

---

Personally, I agree with Senator Kalametros. Nikiphoros, you have made Senator Tagaris pay a real price for his dishonor. And you did it not by force, but by using Methodios's own laws. Methodios has no one to blame but himself that you have brought him to task. I agree that you should keep Sofia.

You might as well be clear, Senator. You will or have given Scopia to Methodios? If you have done neither than I suggest you keep it that way. It seems that you are the only one who can punish Meothodios at this time, and so if you think Methodios deserves to be punished, why not do it?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Warmaster Horus

Senators,
I will give Scopia back to Comes Tagaris.
Tagaris, I expect you to release me from your service the second you learn of this.

---

These are the terms I gave you, Manouelitis.

The minute Scopia is mine again, I'll release you from your oath.

(OOC : Perhaps by removing it from your SoT ? )

Or he could just wait a few paltry years instead.

Nikolaos looks up from his paperwork, with a slightly weary yet humored look. "Are you going to talk about nothing but whether or not a certain piece of land should go were? If so, at least take it objectively. First, Methodios gave it in good faith, which has shown to be misplaced severely, by a man with conduct unbecoming of him. Second, If you wish to bring up what is just, remember that Methodios is risking his life now in Alexandria, it behooves us to know that and consider it."

I will not give Scopia back. The support I now see, as well as the thinking I have done made me change my mind. Mostly, it's the fact that you have been punished Tagaris. If I were to give you your land back, then that punishment will have been nothing.
You have kept Alexandria. You can have your House back. Add Scopia to that, and you're basically going free. I cannot accept that.
You have been expulsed of House Korakas. You have agreed to that expulsion. Expulsion includes your vassals and your lord breaking the oaths of fealty related to you. This is what I am doing.
You don't have a choice. You will be a law-breaker to the laws you made yourself, If you refuse this. Then I will hunt you down. I will not do that now, while the Empire is still troubled. But our paths will cross one day. And then...

Nikolaos, I hope all of us here would do the same. Tagaris is bound to serve the Empire, and that service includes protecting its cities and citizens. That argument is out.

And would you tell me, Manouelitis, who gave you the right to be the judge of my actions ? Whose sanction do you have to do it ?

What have you done in service of House Ilios Korakas that should give you the right to pass judgment on its members ?

I'll tell you : all you did was betray the trust the House put in you... You got kicked out and came groveling back in, pleading for being let in once again.

I do not recognize the judgment you passed on me by the simple fact that you treacherously gained my confidence for your own convenience, which was prying Scopia from my hands (and Alexandria if you had been able to do it).

I do not recognize your authority in this matter and therefore you remain bound by your oath. I see you're still intent on breaking it. So be it... But you will not be able to reswear in the years to come.

You say your acts are a fitting punishment for what I did in Alexandria but your own actions are those of a thief, sneaky and underhanded...

As for meeting on a battlefield, I'm your man whenever you want... I never backed down from any challenge and I'll not back down from yours.

I feel sorry for the House who will dare give shelter to such a man... Its name will forever bear the mark of treason.

Very well. I hereby break my oath to Tagaris.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

OOC: no more swearing for the next 5 turns, then...

As for the rest of what you said, I'll just sum it up: I'm a no-good cheat, because I didn't hesitate to act like one of the dregs of society to accomplish what I had to do.
Tagaris, I'm just learning how to be a politician. You pre-emptively tried to avoid punishment. No one else would do it, so I had to get back in. Somehow.
If there's one lesson learned here, I think it's "the end justify the means".

Are we going to take away land every time an edict is broken? If so, we will be pretty busy.

Manouelitis, you took it upon yourself to punish Methodios. You didn't work through us. And the fact that you have kept the land that you stole from Methodios makes your actions look... opportunist...

As for everyone who is cheering you on, I never saw those same people demand Rhodes back from Hypatios when he exterminated thousands of people.

It seems to me that people who are using the excuse of Methodios's sacking of Alexandria are going after him for personal reasons.

This body sat on it's hands when the Caesar broke the "rules." And now, when Methodios breaks an edict, the Senate wakes from it's slumber and bangs it's gavel in the name of justice.

Even Hypatios got off easier than this and his crime was far worse.

I am very much for punishing people who sack and exterminate. And I am very much for punishing people who break edicts and rules. But we need to be consistent and not let our personal feelings for the law breaker color our better judgment.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Warmaster Horus

punishment. No one else would do it, so I had to get back in. Somehow.

---

Not just somehow, but anyhow... That's the crux of the matter.

As for punishment, I'm already serving an harsher penance than either of our law-breaking fellow Senators have served for even graver crimes. And waiting on whatever our Basileus decides should be my fate.

Don't you think it should be Him who should pass judgment on my actions ? Don't you think you have usurped his authority in this ?

Do not try to justify your actions behind pretenses of acting "for the good of society"... You're not fooling anyone.

You saw an opportunity to gain some land without a fight and you snatched it.

So please stop trying to convince us that you did it for justice's sake...

You're not a judge, Manouelitis... Not even a vigilante, you're a thief.

I appeal to our Basileus to right the wrong committed against me and my House. I may deserve to be punished for what I did in Alexandria but I feel it is only within your powers to pass judgment on my actions and set whatever punishment you deem necessary.

If we let vigilantism have its way then we're one step closer to civil disorder.

Alright, I don't know what is going on with Scopia. And I don't really care. But I need to know who owns the province when I build things there.

If you two are going to insist on dragging other people into this, I ask that neither of you drag me into this. I have an Empire to run and I don't want to be sitting on my hands while you two have a staring contest.

Therefore, as a favor to me, I am asking that both of you set Scopia's build queue to "Megas's discretion."

This will allow me to go forward with governance while this is worked out. There are no taxes to set and I won't move the one unit garrison so the other stuff doesn't need to be figured out. But the build queue needs to be left open to me by both of you or the settlement will sit idle.

If the Basileus asks me to return Scopia, then I will do it. But I had every right to take it, and you had no right to demand it. You were in House Korakas, you broke a public law and a rule of that House's Charter. For the public law, I can do nothing. But as far as the House goes...

Makedonios, I agree it's opportunistic. But we have to start enforcing these laws, or the country will go mad! If all one has to expect is a slap for being a law breaker, then tomorrow I'll go and kill Ioannis Kalameteros!
People have to see that illegal acts will not be tolerated. It may look like I'm being opportunistic, and blowing things out of proportion. But if don't we start enforcing the laws properly, then one day you will all be thinking something along the lines of: "If only we'd listened to Manouelitis..."

What our Megas said a few minutes earlier got me thinking.

If Manouelitis truly acted in good faith, though I'll have difficulty accepting that seeing how devious his acts appear, but let's assume it was the case for the sake of the argument...

If such was the case, as it seems he doesn't want to give back what I consider to be my property, why doesn't he release ownership of Scopia into the hands of our Basileos.

This would achieve his self-proclaimed goal of punishing me and at the same time, it would somewhat clear his name of that powerful reek of opportunism...

I, for one, for want of a better solution to resolve that conflict, would accept this solution.

What say you, Manouelitis ?