House Rules

There seem to be two prevailing themes in Paxton thinking over the last week or so since CVA broke AAA’s sovereignty rule on Paxton’s behalf and plunged Paxon into hot water. They come through in the various Paxton pilot blogs and forums Paxton pilots frequent.  

To sum up theme number one:

“Paxton never signed any agreement with AAA to honor other alliances sovereignty.”

No one is saying Paxton broke an agreement. They broke a rule. The Rule was imposed by AAA upon Paxton and AAA’s vassal alliances who took over CVA systems during the Great Eviction. To wit: Don’t mess with each other’s sovereignty. Period.

My cat Yoshi isn’t signatory to any agreement regarding his obligation to keep off the kitchen table. Nonetheless, if he gets on the table, he gets squirted with water. Yoshi stays off the table. My house, my rules.

In the same sense, if Paxton breaks The Rule, Paxton loses AAA’s protection of their sovereignty.  It’s not an agreement; it’s a condition of occupancy. Whether or not Paxton signed up for it is beside the point.

Then there’s a curious strain of fatalism in Paxton postings. To paraphrase theme number two:

 “All the AAA Vassals hate us. Sooner or later they’ll find an excuse to come after us, so we might as well go down swinging. We didn’t ask to hold onto our systems, so we demand you come and kick us out. Rawr!”

Seriously dudes.

First of all, Paxton is (or was) protected by The Rule (see above). So what the other AAA vassals want doesn’t matter. If U’K had broken The Rule against Paxton space, AAA would have evicted them.

Secondly, if the AAA vassals were united in their desire to see Paxton gone, Paxton they would be gone by now. Full stop. I’d venture a fair number of Paxton’s new neighbors respect them, and I know some that like Paxton outright. I suspect that had something to do with AAA keeping Paxton in place. 

Finally, Paxton appears to have some serious survivor’s guilt going on. Paxton retained their systems when CVA was evicted, and Paxton behavior suggests a lot of guilt; a near obsessive need to show CVA that Paxton didn't ask for that good fortune, even to the point of casting it aside on CVA's behalf. And CVA will be pushing the guilt buttons as hard as they can, because if Paxton retains its systems under The Rule, its hands are tied when it comes to helping CVA regain its lost systems. 

Based on various blog comments, a number of Paxton pilots have little respect for CVA. They remark on CVA leadership’s tendency to role-play their way into bone-headed diplomatic decisions that catch Paxton in the blow-back.

The willingness of such pilots to follow a losing strategy on behalf of CVA seems predicated on the idea that the fall of Paxton space is a foregone conclusion; that there is no possible diplomatic exit from their situation.
 
I’m not sure that’s the case.

With their initial victory in MH9, Paxton’s had a week to find a diplomatic out. If Paxton can shake off their obsessive devotion to CVA interests at their own expense, they may do just that.