User talk:Dthaiger/GDI Nod Debate2

Response from Tagaziel

 * On the contrary, Dthaiger, you may not know me, but I know you perfectly. We are everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I have befriended you at one point in your life, and I, well, still consider you a good friend...


 * As to the subject at hand... McNeil met Umagon shortly into the Second Tiberium War and she quickly ascended into the position of his advisor. Kind of unlikely for a just-met person you know nothing of.


 * Next, dr Mobius and his daughter were not bankrolled by the GDI, but they joined of their own volition, and were acquired in a Guatemalan research facility by the Black Hand well into the First Tiberium War. However, Mobius was in the initial stages of the war and before it a strong enthusiast of Tiberium, to the point of appearing at a Hong Kong science conference to dismiss claims that Tiberium might be dangerous.
 * Also, there have always been statements that he is researching Tiberium without ever mentioning Tiberium containment. He was the world's foremost expert on Tiberium along with his daughter, and he would indeed be capable of devising at least a basic way of Tiberium removal. Instead, he was commissioned to construct a Mobius suit and his daughter was driven to use Tiberium as a weapon. Ahhhh, priorities...
 * Dr Boudreau was hired shortly before the Second Tiberium War and she wasn't working on Tiberium containment and reversal directly, the responsibility was given to Tratos, GDI also failed to protect, even though he turned out to be their greatest asset. Tell me, is it logical that when facing world's death and dying out, that the most vital scientist is kept in a base out in the wastes instead of, let's say, Southern Cross and protected by light ordnance only?


 * In your sixth point, you try to argue that the facility was indeed a research facility. If it was, then McNeil is even more of a deranged commander, as he'd sacrifice an entire research program just to capture Anton Slavik. We *know* what was going on within the facility and we *know* it was a decoy, even McNeil admitted that it was a trap.
 * Now, is it logical for the ingenious commander to put an entire research program into jeopardy just so that he can capture an enemy commander?


 * Next, you state that projects take long to complete - there is no evidence that GDI had any Tiberium containment research going on at the time 1st september 2030 hit. Some Tiberium anti-mutation serum research, but not large scale containment.
 * Forty years is a lot of time, especially in the modern world. The advent of advanced computers, sophisticated EVA units and research methods, developments in science etc. would have allowed GDI to stop Tiberium's progress at least temporarily. The Fermat's theorem example is flawed, because it was a theoretical mathematical problem that was not terraforming Earth. Both Mobiuses and an army of scientists would've succeeded. But basking in the glory of their victory, they forgot about Tiberium.
 * It took over 55 years for GDI to come up with a machine that can remove Tiberium, even though the technology was around for at least 17 years and possibly even earlier. Why wasn't it tested?


 * Still, the methaphor does not take into account the fact that Tiberium is a resource and right now pretty much the only we have. Divination is working to remove the problem of human susceptibility to Tiberium so that you WOULDN'T need a powersuit to walk in the field and be able to tame the animals.


 * Next, I used the term genocide in the meaning of destroying not [i]genos[/i] but [i]genus[/i]. Tiberium is an alien mineral from outer space. It hit us and now we have to learn how to work with it. While GDI destroys the whole genus of Tiberium based creatures, it also tries to remove Tiberium. However, seeing how the world is essentially a barren wasteland by now, destroying the new ecosystem will result in no ecosystem at all. This will have disastrous effects, as the world will become one giant desert, completely unable to natively support human life. Currently, Tibeirum and it's plantlife keep the world in a stable, but very shaky position.
 * Divination would allow us to live in the newly formed environment and would not kill the planet, as it's now irreversably bound to our planet. Let me give you an example.
 * The marshes in Iraq, a small country ruled by a dictator in the early 1990s, experienced such a small scale disaster. Saddam Hussein, the man unit-to-be-GDI Black Ops 9 failed to assasinate, ordered the marshes east of An Asiriyah to be dried up. This move destroyed the delicate climate, desertified the region and contributed to the genocide.
 * Thus, GDI removing Tiberium completely will result in a completely desertified, inhabitable planet, performing absolute genocide in the process. Compared to this, humanity's advancement by the means of Tiberium augmentation doesn't sound that bad.


 * Now, next point. My friend, you fail to understand that they are like any other animal. Fiends do not discriminate against humans, they act aggressive when they feel threatened. And, as all animals, there's a whole array of behaviour that makes them aggressive.


 * Next point. I would like to point out that the Montauk, in fact, was NOT captured by the GDI. What you got was the flawed prototype. The real Montauk was used by General Slavik as his personal command vehicle, which was later transferred to a young commander during the Firestorm crisis.
 * And the man indeed was a traitor, he was the man that gave Slavik to Hassan. Examine his body language carefully, he's bewildered by the presence of a man he SOLD OUT. Also, it is the code of the Brotherhood, that the punishment is death for treachery. Seth, the Montauk co-pilot, Hassan... they were traitors and were executed. GDI would do the same, but with the minor addition of a "fair" court martial in between.
 * Next, Kane's acts are exaggerated by the GDI propaganda department. Each of his moves had a specific purpose. The destruction of the village was not by a long shot total. The tactical nuclear warhead used by Nod has destroyed the abandoned cathedral and a small surrounding area. The warhead was not an airbust nuke, it detonated pretty much on impact, resulting in a highly concentrated and contained blast.
 * The strike against Białystok was required in order for the propaganda strike, which wouldn't have succeeded otherwise.
 * Now let me ask you a question... was escalating the Mao war by GDI and subsequent slaughter of civilians noble? Or was levelling an unaffiliated civilian village in Botswana?


 * The problem with GDI humanitarian aid is the fact that it's minimal. In the aftermath of the CABAL crisis, both GDI and Nod started off from the same level, wih GDI even having the advantage of Philadelphia and the Ion Cannon network. If they immediatelly made a foothold in the yellow zones and maintained it, actively seeking out informants and maintaining the peace, the problem of location would be non-existant. But, GDI did not do that, for reasons my intelligence group has been yet unable to uncover, but my personal theory is that they were just too lazy.
 * Nod is winning the resource war because it knew that Yellow Zones are the essential to winning the war, unlike GDI. We are there for those neglected by the "humanitarian" organisation, giving them means with which to defend themselves, sustain and live.


 * And indeed, at the very core of our being we *are* the same. GDI propaganda villifies us, but the real picture is not that simple. In shades of gray, everyone is a litle evil and a little good, with the majority of one's person being the core of his personality. Pass the ideology, our occupations and current lives, we are not different.


 * One vison, one purpose, brother.


 * Brother Tagaziel,
 * Nod Intelligence Officer

Response to Brother Tagaziel
I see. I should point out that you must perform basic research before applied research. (IE, one has to figure out what Tiberium is before one can determine how it is to be stopped. Furthermore, again, you cannot just say: 'Oh, you have had 50 years to do X,' even though the X you have been working on is of high importance. I will provide a different example, since you do not like Fermat's last theorem. For example, Fusion energy research was first commenced in 1946, and continued until at least 2006. That's a period of 60 years. And because fusion power was considered to be the next great clean energy source, this was a project that received incredible scrutiny. . Furthermore, all scientists concerned agree that Tiberium research is hard. Note that GDI managed, within a period of one year, to clean the atmosphere before it became completely toxic to humanity.

I should point out that when we captured Slavik and Oxanna, we also captured the Montauk. Slavik and Oxanna were rescued by a Nod Commando operation. The Montauk was not, and remains in GDI hands.

Finally, let me say this: A very low yield tactical nuclear bomb is about 1 kiloton. That is the energy of detonating 1000 tons worth of TNT, or maybe 700 Tons of C4. A reasonably sized tactical nuclear weapon is 10 to 20 times that size. You leveled a good portion of a civilian town, and killed hundreds, if not thousands of people. My sources indicate this was done simply because you had no further use for the town, and because you wanted to kill a specific 7 people. Now, this may have been the specific purpose, but that doesn't make it a noble one. Just because a person is not wanton does not make him or her not evil, or not wrong.

Now let me answer your questions, and pose some to you

1) Tratos was defended by the most advanced defensive system available to GDI, the Firestorm Defense system, and surrounded by dozens of soldiers, including a Ghostalker commando unit, equipped with a railgun. We had also arranged an air pickup if significant Nod forces were detected by a pair of Mobile Sensor Arrays that we had set up, and had Hover MLRS units on patrol in the water Your attack was brilliant, but don't complain that the defenses were weak. And in any case, you kill him, and then you complain that GDI isn't making progress because he is dead. That's like robbing me, and then complaining that I don't have any money.

2) Nod leveled the facility, and from what GDI intelligence can tell us, Slavik never entered the Zone. Slavik was captured by in a separate ruse by McNeil, at which point, Slavik, Oxanna, and the Montauk were all captured. And you cannot argue that there are not still many mutants who despise the Brotherhood because of the action against that facility. Also, you cannot argue both that McNeil's feelings for Umagon outweighed his concern for his troops AND that he has no feelings at all.

3) If you're referring to the Tacitus when you make the question: "why wasn't it tested..." when stating this, I remind you that Tiberium Containment, as important as it was, was not GDI's first priority immediately after it's acquisition. The first priority was scrubbing the air / decontaminating the air so that Humans could still breath. If the atmosphere becomes 100 percent toxic, we run out of air quickly. After that, then we needed to figure out a way to contain the spread of Tiberium, which is significantly easier (although still hard), than destroying Tiberium. After this, we tried to destroy Tiberium, and we have recently met with success. Also, the data may have been available, but it is extremely hard to digest.

Dr. Boudreau, upon first glance, said that the Tacitos contained millions of Teraquads of Data. One quad = 128 bits. Tera = 1024^4, which equals 1099511627776. So we have at least:

2 *10^6 * 1.0995 * 10^12 * 128 = 281,474,976,710,656,000,000 bits of data, which is equivalent to 281 exabits. And given that this is at first glance, it is highly likely that this is a lower bound, and that the actual amount of data in the tacitus is much higher. Performing data analysis on this much data would take an extraordinarily long time - simply sorting it would take huge amounts of computing power. (For comparison, Google's total reserves as of 2006 are estimated to be approximately 4 to 5 orders of magnitude less than this lower bound.)

3. I suppose if it were possible, we would relocate them to a contained area so they wouldn't hurt us. That's just not possible.

4. As for your questions of nobility, I'm pretty sure that you're referring to the usage of a captured Orca helicopter to try and fool the civilians in the area. Even if it's true, which it is not, Nod executed civilians on numerous occassions - for example, the raid on Nikoomba, the destruction of a civilian village for their Tiberium supplies further south, etc.

Now let me ask you some questions myself: Some of these relate to points I raised earlier, that were never addressed.

1) You have formed an argument around McNeil and Slavik. However, you have not formed an opinion related to Kane and General Solomon. I have made an argument that Kane is a Psychopath, and to greater degree than Slavik or McNeil (not that I admit McNeil is one), especially based on what he has ordered, which includes the Nuclear destruction of one of his own generals, Vega. Why is he not a Psychopath?

2) If you believe - truly believe - that Tiberium is the Way, then why are you not in the red zones, where Tiberium has truly taken over? If Divination actually works to render mankind immune to Tiberium, then I would expect you to have a formidable presence there.

3) We didn't have to have as many red and yellow zones as we do now, you know. Kane launched Tiberium Chain reaction missiles that, in addition to murdering untold millions, transformed much of Europe into the yellow and red zones we see today. To put it more succinctly: Nod has done everything it can to infest the world with Tiberium, and then Brother Tagaziel complains that GDI hasn't been able to stop them. How can you reconcile this?

Brother Tagaziel responds...
The basic research on Tiberium was finished by doctor Mobius in early 21st century. The basic methods of Tiberium proliferation and it's life cycle were known. While research should be continued, when the world is threatened, all should be done to save it. We want to save the world and humanity by advancing both. You want to save it by cleansing Tiberium, but even though you possesed a basic understanding of Tiberium in the beginning of the 21st century, you did not perform any environment recovery operation, as evidenced by the state in which the world was by 2030. If something actually was done by GDI, then the Firestorm crisis would never take place, as the atmosphere wouldn't be as polluted.

Also, fusion energy research took so long simply because no scientist was able to come up with a foolproof method of containing a reaction that could potentially result in an annihilation of half the Earth. Stopping Tiberium is a much more urgent problem, and it's not about preventing annihilation, it's about stopping it.

Also, I'm not sure about the source of your information, as I have it clearly stated here, that following the events of the Firestorm Crisis, the original Montauk was disassembled to allow the construction of Nod's primary operations complex underground... and we still have the original manufacturing plaque too.

Also, consider that by the time capt. Parker and his team arrived in the village, there was very little civilian populus remaining on-site, gen. Raveshaw's Black Hand corps have driven most of them out forcibly (something I personally do not approve of, to be honest). Not to mention that, as I said, the warhead was not an airbust nuke, and the blast was contained by the saucer shape of the plaza the cathedral was located in, limiting the damage to at most, the buildings in the plaza. I would also like to bring to your attention that the Black Hand of Nod are elite soldiers hand-picked by Kane, and he would not allow for such a waste.

Now on to the points... my friend, the defenses given to Tratos WERE weak. Tratos was located in a remote location, protected ONLY by the forces you enumerated. While a formidable defence, they are not what I'd expect from a responsible commander to do. For instance, dr. Elena Petrova's research was housed in two major, heavily defended areas, one being an underground, easily defendable outpost in Africa, the second being the depths of the Temple of Nod itself! In the latter case, you had to launch a full scale attack against the Temple of Cairo, then destroy the Temple's outer frame with an Ion Cannon, THEN send in a heavily armed commando, who, according to recordings we salvaged while you were occupied with the assault against the Temple in Sarajevo, had immense problems within the Temple, having to fight legions of Black Hand troopers, autonomous security turrets, flamethrower soldiers, chem warriors and a horde of highly advanced Templar mutants in addition to all the failures in the tomb beneath the Temple and FINALLY had to defeat the evolved Petrova AND her crack team of Stealth Black Hands and mutants. Now, that is protecting an important scientist. You had an even greater opportunity, you could place him onboard Philadelphia, where he would have been safe and sound throughout the crisis.

Next, the facility in question, WAS a decoy, as in order to succesfully command his troops, the Montauk, similiar to McNeil's Kodiak, had to be present close to the battlefield in order to provide a flawless battlefield control without any lag.

In the next point, you prove my point that GDI didn't do anything about GDI containment by stating that after scrubbing the atmosphere it had to find methods of Tiberium containment. Again, the atmospheric pollution problem wouldn't manifest itself, ever, if active Tiberium containment efforts were made after the end of the First Tiberium War. You did possess a basic understanding of Tiberium, while we had an even deeper, and since you managed to salvage a portion of the data, you had all the possibility in the world to put forward an advanced research program that would allow you to devise methods of Tiberium containment and atmosphere scrubbing. However, no such program was initiated, and this negligence was the direct case of the Firestorm crisis.

Additionally, the Tacitus, while a priceless artifact, isn't the only means you have available of researching Tiberium. GDI apparently waited for a miracle to happen, and by pure luck, the Tacitus became that miracle. Ask yourself, what if it *didn't* manifest itself? GDI is able to fund an immense, worldwide military force and sustain a large orbital station, but is apparently unable to form a research division focused solely on researching methods of Tiberium containment?

Last, I was referring to the disruptors, which are clearly the prototype for Tiberium resonators.

Another point brought by you, past the Tiberian wildlife one, which I see we reached a bit of a compromise on, is the civilian casualties issuein Brotherhood operations. The Brotherhood has two approaches to civilians, as when they support Nod, we do everything in our ability to help them (as in the aforementioned Mao civil war, when GDI forces opened fire on Nod supporters, who did NOT attack them), and if they do not, or worse, support GDI openly, the decision how to deal with civilians is entirely left up to field commanders. Now on to the specific points you provided - Nikoomba was a petty African warlord. WARLORD. In intelligence photos provided, he is wearing a full military officer uniform along with a chako. Due to his views and actions in the region being potentially harmful to us, he was marked by Seth for termination. The exact details of how the mission was carried out are hazy, but genrally, a protion of our minigunners opened fire to civilians for no reason, while the rest just left them alone. It's hard to get a testimony now and salvage data you so thoughtfully destroyed by annihilating two archive facilities within the Temple of Nod with an Ion Cannon strike. Next, whenever we decided to attack civilians directly, it always had a goal, in the ORCA case, it was a simple propaganda mission. Quite succesful too.

On to your questions, my friend.

The first question you try to argue that Kane is indeed a psychopath. He is not, as Kane controls his behaviour entirely and all his decisions and orders are coherent. A psychopath is unable to make plans so coherent and detailed. Kane is cold blooded and absolutely logic, entirely amoral, but NOT immoral. Vega's island was obliterated by an ICBM due to a variety of reasons, one of them being the risk of sensitive data falling into the hands of GDI while access was mostly cutoff and shaky, making it impossible to erase the data reliably as well as Kane's plan to use Vega as a decoy so that McNeil would be killed in the blast. If you recall, they escaped the blast extremely narrowly. Plus, there was the fact that Vega was a drug abuser and failed to meet the expectations. All young initiates of the Brotherhood are told a simple line "If you fail, you die.". Vega served Kane for years, and he was fully aware of the consequences of faiilure.

Next, the Red Zones where Tiberium is proliferated are tactically unviable. We use them for resource operations, but still, we are operating in the Yellow Zones mainly due to the fact, that there are lots of people needing help, purpose and most of all, cause there. By retreating into Red Zones, we'd minimize our own influence, something that is extremely foolish. Let me turn the question the other way - if you truly believe that the old Earth is the way, why aren't you simply protecting the blue zones by any means necessary to keep them blue? You spread your ideology and technology, we spread ours.

Your last point is interesting. By launching Tiberium missile strikes, Kane would allow a proliferation of the Tiberian ecosystem in Europe, the gain of an important foothold on the continent and at the same time, destruction of a long-standing GDI stronghold there. The reaction that happened was also one of the final tests of the World Altering missile, to see how the reformatting works in action. The data collected shown that the warhead's contents were a bit TOO effective at reformatting - instead of reworking just the DNA structure and terraforming, matter was reformed at a molecular level.

Last, I'm pointing out GDI's obvious mishap in containing Tiberium due to the fact that they weren't there to help clean out and evacuate my homeland. If GDI had done enough research, then the spread of Tiberium would be contained much earlier, before it has irreversalby altered our planet. Now, seeing how we can choose GDI and either die when Tiberium outgrows us or live the rest of our lives on an unhabitable planet, I chose the Brotherhood, as it gives us an another alternative, that will allow the world to be reborn and habitable once again, to homo sapiens tiberius - the Tiberian human.


 * Brother Tagaziel,
 * Nod Intelligence Officer

Dthaiger on Fusion
The bit on fusion is incorrect. The problem has not been the containment mechanism to prevent the annihilation of half the Earth, it's that (given that you cannot use a nuclear bomb as a trigger, which has been known for a very long time), how the hydrogen as plasma is to be contained, and also how it is to be heated to the requisite temperatures, as well as compressed to the requisite pressures necessary to overcome electron-electron repulsion and activate fusion. Were there to be a containment unit breach of a fusion unit, the precise conditions of high temperature and high pressure necessary to contain the reaction would no longer hold, and the reaction would immediately shut down. The very worst that could happen would be a radioactive release of (relative to fusion), low grade radioactive materials. Back in 2007 the problem was that it takes too much energy to create the conditions required for fusion than is extracted from the fusion process. For example, one such project, ITER, is hoping to gain a 10:1 ratio of heat out to energy in, and if it works, it will be the prototype of another unit with a 25:1 ratio, which would actually be a prototype power plant.

References: ITER website Wikipedia on ITER: A history of fusion power attempts:

Dthaiger's response
There's no use arguing with you, for the positions have already been clearly deliniated already. Especially with the way the tone has changed from the original tone. --Dthaiger 01:24, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree, my friend. Our differences shall be put to test on the battlefield. Or over a beer, whichever you prefer. Mikael Grizzly 08:48, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not yet drinking age in my country. I'll see you in battle, Brother Tagaziel --Dthaiger 16:24, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Cough* you don't actually have to be in universe on talk pages/take it seriously. Eh well. --62.253.128.15 20:40, 18 January 2007 (UTC)