Court of the Caliph: BC Hotseat Council Thread

[barcamartin]

A man comes rushing into the room. He bears the white two-headed eagle on his blue cape. Looking around, he finds the ambassador slumbering in the corner. The ambassador's assistant sees the man coming towards them, and abruptly ends the slumber. The messenger hands a document with the seal of Sultan Arslanshah to the now attentive ambassador. He reads through it, not without a degree of shock and surprisement. After a few moments of thought, he stands and searches the room for the Khawazi representative. Finding none, he looks at the Ghazni and then at the Caliph, before speaking to the council.

' This Council has seen much talk of aggression, usually centered around overt military actions. However, there is another kind of aggression, the kind that seeks to incite war through trickery and deceit.

It has come to the attention of the Sultan of the Seljuks that the Shah of Kwarezhm has resorted to such a type of aggression. He has played his neighbors against eachother, seeking to incite a war between the Seljuks and Ghazni by provoking fear between the two nations. He has even gone so far as to give reports of military movements of each country to the other, so that they would destroy eachother in any war he succeeded in inciting, leaving the Shah to pick up the pieces. As if that weren't sufficient proof of his treachery, the Shah has conquered settlement he agreed was under Seljuk dominion, and was only coaxed into giving it back in return for being allowed to leave other agreements made at the time of the Treaty of Rayy unfulfilled.

This campaign of trickery must stop now. We consider the Shah's actions to be in breach of the Treaty of Rayy's non-aggression clause. The Treaty is immediately nullified, and the Seljuk nation declares war on the treacherous Shah of Kwarezhm. This is a personal war over the breaking of the Seljuk/Kwarezhm treaty, and we ask that other nations do not act to aid the Shah. At the same time, to keep things fair, we do not ask our Coalition allies to intervene in the war. It is up to Allah to grant the side he deems righteous victory. '

Rolling the document up again, he returns to his seat and sends his assistant away. The messenger has left, and he's now alone to think about these tidings. As he sinks deep into thoughts, the sound level in the chamber increases.

[rossahh]

The young man from Jerusalem jumps to his feet and makes his first ever announcement.


We have no desire to intervene in your border war, just as we would hope that you would not intervene in our own border conflict, should we ever have one.

May you triumph over your enemies, if they truly be at fault.

We would, however, like to hear what the Shah says on this matter, before we pass judgment and condemn them.


The young man sits down, his face flushed with excitement. He had never known that diplomacy was so exciting!

[00jebus]

Outraged, the Khwarezmani diplomat stands

We will address the seljuks concerns, we trust the council will agree that are actions are well enough explained, and the seljuks will back down from such an ill-advised action before any innocent blood is shed

we passed infomation on your army composition and movements to the Sultan of Ghanzi, it is true, we do not deny it, but we did it to prevent you from attacking Herat, which was your intention, was it not?
I seem to remember your words were "we can handle the Ghanzi's"
Do you have an explanation for this? Or are you planning an excuse for war with them after us?
In fact, the Shah Ala Addan, Allah rest his soul, spoke no ill word about the Ghanzivids, to say we were trying to provoke a war by raising fear between your two nations is nothing more than an outright lie.

As for Birjand, we conquered it, yes it was a mistake, a fire had burned down most of our early records, but the sum was small, 4000 denarii to be exact, for defeating the garrison, and building infastructure in the region, that is a fair sum for the work we did, nobody else here would argue!

Your paranoid conspiracy thoeries should never leave your imagination, let alone enter real world diplomacy!, given that you first broke the treaty of Rayy, you are bound by its terms, 10,000 florins to be given to any humanatarian cause the council wills, I trust you will not object to this if you do proceed in sending thousands of people to their deaths.

[Askthepizzaguy]

The Turkish ambassador stands up

10,000 florins? Surely this money should go to the suffering people of Armenia.

With a laugh, he shakes his head

The Turks do not have all the information on the dealings between the Shah and our ally the Great Seljuks, and it is not our place to enforce the treaties made between the Shah and the Seljuk. Especially since we recently took heavy losses against Rome...

and we plan on repaying them in kind, muttered the Turk....

As for the Caliph's calls for a peaceful resolution, now that the Romans occupy the Sultan's homeland, and have placed their filthy fingerprints all over the Sultan's magnificent palace, the only way for peace to be achieved is if they should immediately withdraw from our lands and pay reparations equal to the amount they obtained from sacking our greatest city, which should be on the order of some 20,000 florins. That money would allow us to repay our obligations to our allies and we would then back down from our assault as well.

The alternative is to trade blows in a manner more costly for the Romans than for the Turks. And I fully intend to deal the kind of damage which cannot be repaired to the Roman scum, now that they have desecrated Muslim holy land with the presence of their demon armies. Rome has a heavy price to pay for contributing to the Armenian massacre, and now for defiling the Sultan's own bedchambers.

And now for the true aggressors in the Armenian massacre, the "Holy" Crusader armies of "King" Baldwin:

Your armies marching through rebel Syria are of little concern to the Turks, unless you should once again violate the sovereign nation of Armenia, or attack the Turks on our eastern border in a cowardly strike. Rest assured, Crusader King, that your desecration of the Holy Cross has made your Christian brothers very angry with your acts of aggression, and my Muslim brothers are growing weary of the acts of dishonour you have brought to ALL of your neighbors. Shall we recap?

1. You stole the holy Muslim lands in the Levant from the honourable Ayyubid sultanate. Not to mention your unwashed presence in the holy city of Jerusalem, another site holy to the Muslims, which we for some reason have tolerated. Your peace treaty with the Ayyubids was nothing more than a hostage negotiation, and it sickens me that the Ayyubids were forced to accept it. It is no wonder their foolish rulers were overthrown by the powerful forces of Salahuddin for accepting those unfair terms. Regardless, your first actions towards your neighbors were that of aggression, and it set a terrible precedent.

2. You promised this very council that you would never invade Anatolia. And without warning or provocation, you attacked your own brothers, the Armenian Christians, whose ancestral homelands were taken by the previous rulers of the Seljuk Empire so long ago, and are now occupied by the honourable Georgians. Now, after one Armenian genocide, you tried to finish them off where they had resettled in Cilicia. The only answer you gave as a reason why is because of the oath you swore to the belligerent Roman Empire to erradicate their Christian neighbors. Strange that you would "honor" your pact with the Romans, who are without any such thing as honor. And by doing so, you proved you had none. And that you were a coward for destroying a neutral and peaceful state.

3. Your forces now threaten an invasion of the Turkish Sultanate. for which we would have only one response.

4. Your forces are on the verge of trespassing into the lands held and claimed by the Abassid Caliphate. Should even one Crusader clad in western armour set foot on Muslim Holy Land held by our great Caliph, it will be seen as an act of war against all Muslims, not just those involved in our great alliance. I warn you not to insult Caliph an-Nasir the Peacemaker with the presence of your filthy, unwashed, murdering soldiers.

Do not defile the lands of other nations any longer. Do not murder one more innocent civilian. Your neighbors, both Christian and Muslim, tire of your endless aggression and your empty promises of peace. Our patience has run out. Even though the Caliph is a peaceful man, and I do not speak on his behalf, he is well within his rights to expel your invasion army with force before it even sets foot on Muslim land again. And he would have the support of the entire Coalition if he chose to exercise that right.

Finally, if you defile the lands of the Armenians or set foot within the Sultanate of the Turks, or into lands claimed by the honourable Caliph an-Nasir, I will activate the Coalition alliance on their behalf. I've offered you peace, which you rejected by attacking our neighbors. I've offered you an honourable and GENEROUS cease-fire given your hostilities towards our brothers the Armenians, and I've even offered you an alliance against the untrustworthy forces of the Roman Empire. All of these things you have rejected.

And so you have proven that the lame King Balwin IV is utterly incapable of honor or peace. Why I did not declare a jihad against Crusader-occupied Jerusalem is beyond me, for you deserve it far more than the Romans do. Our anger towards the Roman aggressors is but a tiny fraction of the hatred we feel towards your honourless nation of cowards and traitors, belligerents and murderers.

Still, in spite of all this, I've offered you peace at every turn. This offer ends now, if you do not turn your forces back from our borders. I swear on the name of everything that is holy and pure, should you defile our lands again, whether we win the war against you or not, our brothers in arms and even those you might not suspect will all join forces to erradicate your treacherous nation and your warlike band of fundamentalist lunatic mercenaries. Why I even speak to you as if you were our honourable equals capable of establishing peace through diplomacy... that is a compliment you no longer deserve.

You have one last chance to redeem your fallen nation. Otherwise, I will give the order which will end your miserable existence. And then, you and your band of unholy murderers and your cursed King Baldwin can all burn forever in the most painful and torturous hell your Christian God has created for those like you who have forsaked the peaceful message of your religion. And it will be my pleasure to send you there. The Turks are prepared to die in this most just cause.

You can either respect the demands of all civilized peoples here in the Caliphs council of peace, who have allowed you to exist in spite of your treachery and backstabbing, cowardice, and your seemingly endless lies, as you attack neutral and peaceful nations...

Or you can die in a manner more horrible than you can possibly imagine.

[deguerra]

The Omani ambassador just shakes his head at all the bickering and all the wars

[phonicsmonkey]

The Caliph's throne is empty. The Vizier sits on a footstool beside it, his head in his hands.

[00jebus]

The Khwarzmani ambassador stops looking at the Vizor and stands

Seljuks, do you see your muslim brothers?
There should be no war between muslims, we are, after all, ment to be the peaceful Abrahamic relegion, come, no blood has been spilt in this matter, there can be a peaceful solution to this

[rossahh]

The entire delegation from Jerusalem looks shocked at venom of the Turkish tirade. The young man is totally overwhelmed. The delegates gaze hopelessly at each other, until one suggests something and they all hurriedly stand and depart the chamber. They must discuss this with the senior representative - wasn't he going to his quaters for a sleep earlier?