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Manchu wrote:No, again, you're missing the key ingredient: intention. Please read your dictionaries more carefully or, if possible, try to understand actual usage in spoken language.

*sigh*

No intention is mentioned, implied, or required in anyone's definition but yours.

It's funny imaging someone allying by accident.

Kaldor wrote:*sigh*

No intention is mentioned, implied, or required in anyone's definition but yours.

*sigh*

English isn't any easy language, I know. But misreading the dictionary isn't going to make it any easier.

Manchu wrote:

Kaldor wrote:*sigh*

No intention is mentioned, implied, or required in anyone's definition but yours.

*sigh*

English isn't any easy language, I know. But misreading the dictionary isn't going to make it any easier.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/alliance

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/merge

There's no mention in those entries of a requirement of intent.

Could you guys take this petty squabble elsewhere.

I'd like to read about fluff... not what you guys think is the definition of words.

nomotog wrote:It's funny imaging someone allying by accident.

"Hey so exactly who are we fighting again?"
"I don't know but lets fight over there looks like fun fighting! I mean its not like we are purposefully allying ourselves with those creatures. I mean we are fighting with them but we aren't allies, I mean we are both sharing drinks."
"Sir this doesn't make any sense."
"Gak up and do what your told!"

Tell me more about the dictionary.


Your link says:

"a merging of efforts or interests by persons, families, states, or organizations"

A merging that is accomplished by agents acting intentionally. I have demonstrated several times how usage demands an action to be more than coincidental duplication of effort in order to be meaningfully called an alliance.


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DeffDred wrote:I'd like to read about fluff... not what you guys think is the definition of words.

Sorry charlie, it's on-topic as the thread is about what "alliances" might mean to the fluff of 6th edition. By all means, don't read it if you don't want. I won't put a gun to your head.

This is where things can get confusing, because this bit:

Manchu wrote:"a merging of efforts or interests by persons, families, states, or organizations"

Is part of the definition, as mentioned in the dictionary, while this bit:

Manchu wrote:A merging that is accomplished by agents acting intentionally.

Is made up nonsense.

So if you don't mind, let's just stick with the actual definition, and not the one you just made up.

Going back to the original scenario, you said that Ultramarines and Tyranids were both attacking CSM from opposite ends of a battlefield. The issue seems to be with what you think the "interest" at stake is. If the interest is "killing CSM" then we have a shared interest. "Killing CSM," however, is not really an accurate picture of the parties' interests. Ultramarines kill CSM because CSM are traitors. Nids kills CSM because CSM are food. Their interests are not really the same. But even if they were, the parties have done nothing to "merge" their interests.


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Kaldor wrote:Is made up nonsense.

Try using your definition of "alliance" in real life.

Asherian Command wrote:

nomotog wrote:It's funny imaging someone allying by accident.

"Hey so exactly who are we fighting again?"
"I don't know but lets fight over there looks like fun fighting! I mean its not like we are purposefully allying ourselves with those creatures. I mean we are fighting with them but we aren't allies, I mean we are both sharing drinks."
"Sir this doesn't make any sense."
"Gak up and do what your told!"

That's how orks ally.

nomotog wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:

nomotog wrote:It's funny imaging someone allying by accident.

"Hey so exactly who are we fighting again?"
"I don't know but lets fight over there looks like fun fighting! I mean its not like we are purposefully allying ourselves with those creatures. I mean we are fighting with them but we aren't allies, I mean we are both sharing drinks."
"Sir this doesn't make any sense."
"Gak up and do what your told!"

That's how orks ally.

I know I just don't want to write in an ork way. I feel like I lose a small amount of my IQ from typing that way.

Even Orks make a conscious decision, relative to their way of doing things, to ban together under a certain boss/against a certain enemy. The way Kaldor is talking about it, the opposing teams in a football game are allied because they share an interest in "playing football."

You don't need to fight to the death. People rarely recant on the internet. If your right, your right and people will silently agree with your rightness.

Firstly, it's a simplified hypothetical situation. If it isn't to your liking we can manufacture another one.

Say, for example, a force of Tyranids are attacking an Imperial Guard outpost. One (or more) of the Imperial Guardsmen are corrupted by Chaos, and have been tracked by a Grey Knight force.

The Grey Knights arrive on the scene and see that the Imperial Guard are about to break free from the Tyranid forces and escape. The Grey Knights take steps to turn the battle back in the favour of the Tyranids, destroying key Imperial Guard forces and ensuring the Imperial Guard position is over-run, and the corrupt Guardsmen are slain.

Secondly, while a case could be made that their interests are not aligned, one would be hard pressed to argue that their efforts were not aligned.

Manchu wrote:Try using your definition of "alliance" in real life.

Once when I was working as a bouncer, a guy randomly king hit one of our crew and ran out of the venue. As he was running out, he crashed into a woman and sent her flying to the ground. The woman's partner grabbed that man and belted the snot out of him, before we could catch him.

That man was for that moment, without knowing it, our ally.

If bouncers had been approaching from the other direction and simply seen the woman's partner beating the snot out of this man, they would have grabbed the woman's partner and kicked him out, ending our erstwhile 'alliance'.

As it was, we gave him a drink card.

@nomotog:

You're right, of course. The thing about what he's saying, however, is that I actually agree with the point he is trying to make by misusing alliance. You don't need to misunderstand the word to get to that point: namely, that the allies rules might not actually be a reflection of any fluff changes at all. They might just be, as Kaldor mentioned, rules abstraction. The main problem with that, of course, is that the Tyranids are left out completely and we haven't come up with a non-fluffy reason for why.


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Kaldor wrote:Say, for example ...

That's the same problem as the other. "The enemy of my enemy is my ally" is a figure of speech, not a definition.

Well their is no gameplay reason to leave the nids out of the ally table. I think the table is mostly fluff. We can't really tell till they give us more fluff so we can see if things match.

Another good point Kaldor made was that no table would actually make everyone happy. I think there are rules reasons for what we're seeing here. Lynata posted a "fluffier" version in another thread, which she had made. One thing I noticed about it was that there were a lot more "cannot ally" spots than the official one. I agree that her version is better suited to the fluff published so far but it does a lot more for the Imperial factions than the others. So that's a balance rather than a fluff issue.

Manchu wrote:

Kaldor wrote:Say, for example ...

That's the same problem as the other. "The enemy of my enemy is my ally" is a figure of speech, not a definition.

Except for the times when it matches the definition, I suppose.

This isn't really important, or even on-topic any more, but I'm stuck nursing my two month old daughter on the couch and have been for two hours now. I need something to keep me entertained.


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nomotog wrote:Well their is no gameplay reason to leave the nids out of the ally table. I think the table is mostly fluff. We can't really tell till they give us more fluff so we can see if things match.

It's a combination of things. If they'd just let everyone ally with everyone, the boards would be flooded with people crying about Marines allying with Chaos, or other such nonsense. So they put some limitations on it.

Whenever you put limitations on things, people will moan about where you put them.

Also, balance issue.

Kaldor wrote:

Manchu wrote:"The enemy of my enemy is my ally" is a figure of speech, not a definition.

Except for the times when it matches the definition, I suppose.

Right: so the enemy of my enemy would indeed be my ally if we got together and decided to work together to attack our common enemy. Without that, the enemy of my enemy could just be another one of my enemies -- which is exactly what we find in 40k.

Manchu wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

Manchu wrote:"The enemy of my enemy is my ally" is a figure of speech, not a definition.

Except for the times when it matches the definition, I suppose.

Right: so the enemy of my enemy would indeed be my ally if we got together and decided to work together to attack our common enemy.

So close...

If your efforts are aligned, you are allies.

No 'getting together' is required. No intent is required. No 'working together' is required.

See my real life story above for an example of this in action.

in your nid example, if a nid saw the knights, it would attack, because no 'fistbump' was exchanged, therefore they are not allies

Manchu wrote:Your link says:
"a merging of efforts or interests by persons, families, states, or organizations"

Aye, I think that's the important bit.

A merger of efforts is a conscious decision to work together. Mergers don't happen on accident. To get back to the "buying gas" example, two people going to buy gas won't "merge their efforts" unless they co-operate. If they fail talking to each other, it's simply two independent activities coincidentally happening at the same time. Which is not what the TT rules represent.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/merge

my point exactly

Lynata wrote:

Manchu wrote:Your link says:
"a merging of efforts or interests by persons, families, states, or organizations"

Aye, I think that's the important bit.

A merger of efforts is a conscious decision to work together. Mergers don't happen on accident. To get back to the "buying gas" example, two people going to buy gas won't "merge their efforts" unless they co-operate. If they fail talking to each other, it's simply two independent activities coincidentally happening at the same time. Which is not what the TT rules represent.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/merge

Again, there's no requirement for a conscious decision. Ref: the story I posted above. You'll also note the lack of a 'conscious decision' requirement in the definition you posted.

Would you at least agree that merge is a transitive verb, requiring both a subject and an object, which is to say that some agent must "do" the action?

If i recall correctly in the tau codex (i havent read it in ages) theres a blurb about tau and Ultramarines having a short alliance to fight tyrinids (if i remeber correctly) and the marines leaving afterwards without killing the tau. and it said the marine commander was impressed by the tau. Actually it might have been an old white dwarf i read it in. Anyways my point being this isnt a sudden new thing, The Greater Good is an insuis thing.

starraptor wrote:If i recall correctly in the tau codex (i havent read it in ages) theres a blurb about tau and Ultramarines having a short alliance to fight tyrinids (if i remeber correctly) and the marines leaving afterwards without killing the tau. and it said the marine commander was impressed by the tau. Actually it might have been an old white dwarf i read it in. Anyways my point being this isnt a sudden new thing, The Greater Good is an insuis thing.

actually that is in the 5th ed space marine codex

Ohh I'm sorry I got rid of both my Tau armys and Space marine armys awhile back to pick up Grey Knights so I got confused on the codexs. By the way Tau are still my favorite race they just suck game play whise so i dont play them. But man do they look cool and they are definetly the nice guys of the galaxy.

Kaldor wrote:Firstly, it's a simplified hypothetical situation. If it isn't to your liking we can manufacture another one.

Say, for example, a force of Tyranids are attacking an Imperial Guard outpost. One (or more) of the Imperial Guardsmen are corrupted by Chaos, and have been tracked by a Grey Knight force.

The Grey Knights arrive on the scene and see that the Imperial Guard are about to break free from the Tyranid forces and escape. The Grey Knights take steps to turn the battle back in the favour of the Tyranids, destroying key Imperial Guard forces and ensuring the Imperial Guard position is over-run, and the corrupt Guardsmen are slain.

Secondly, while a case could be made that their interests are not aligned, one would be hard pressed to argue that their efforts were not aligned.

Manchu wrote:Try using your definition of "alliance" in real life.

Once when I was working as a bouncer, a guy randomly king hit one of our crew and ran out of the venue. As he was running out, he crashed into a woman and sent her flying to the ground. The woman's partner grabbed that man and belted the snot out of him, before we could catch him.

That man was for that moment, without knowing it, our ally.

If bouncers had been approaching from the other direction and simply seen the woman's partner beating the snot out of this man, they would have grabbed the woman's partner and kicked him out, ending our erstwhile 'alliance'.

As it was, we gave him a drink card.

Your first example is NOT an example of an alliance. I wouldnt even say the second one is an example either but I would never use the word Alliance to define something like a every day world situation.


You have Tyranid attacking Imperial Guard. You also have the Grey Knights. The Grey Knights see the Tyranids and say "we can use this to are advantage" and take out key positions to aid the Tyranids. This does NOT mean they are allied. The GK are indeed helping the Tyranids but that is because they are tools, weapons in a way. If a Tyranid warrior saw a Grey Knight, the Tyranid IS GOING TO ATTACK. This means the Grey Knights are the Tyranids enemies. Im fairly sure it is impossible to be someone's ally and enemy at the same exact time.

40k example, in DoW Winter Assault, the Eldar engage Chaos and Orks to help the Imperial Guard push through these positions. When the Imperial Guard encounter the Eldar, they engage the Eldar. They are not allied and are enemies of each other. The Eldar do not engage only because they lack the manpower to fight both the IG and Orks. They request a truce which the IG agree too to help defeat the Orks, Chaos, secure the Titan, and fight a greater threat. NOW they are allied.

WW2 example, the Western Allies and the Soviets are actively working together, they are allies. The Western Allies contain the 2nd Polish Armor Division, that division is allied with the Soviets. The AK (Home Army, Polish resistance movement) is actively fighting the Nazi's as is the Soviets. The Soviets and the AK are NOT allied. (In fact, the Soviets stopped fighting the Germans during the Warsaw Uprising in 44 so the Germans could concentrate on putting the Poles down, you wouldnt really argue the Soviets are allied with the Germans while they are in a state of active war with each other)

In another SciFi example. In Starcraft, the Confederacy of Man is laying siege to the Sons of Korhal military base on Antiga Prime. To defeat the Confederates, the Sons of Korhal use a device that causes the Zerg (Tyranids) to arrive and rush to this beacon. The Zerg kill every thing in their way. The Sons place it in key locations so it breaks the Confederates military allowing the Sons to escape. The Zerg actively engage and kill many Sons of Korhal soldiers. The Zerg and Sons are not allied
Later, during the invasion of the capital world of Tarsonis, there is a scene (in the book) of Confederate Soldiers killing a Zerg flyer chasing a Sons of Korhal ship. The Humans are still not allied (as that occurs, a human capital ship destroyers another one in orbit)
Finally a military base on the planet has both Confederates AND Sons defending it in a joint defense. THESE people are allied. Factions however are not.




Have you ever played an RTS game in a free for all? Have you ever seen a person attack another and you launch an attack at the same time to kill either the person being attacked or the person launching the attack? (attack his base) just because you share the same interest, does not mean you are allied with the other because if you encountered the other, you would fight him. You may chose to ignore him and focus else where but that doesnt mean you are going to work with him.

noun
1.
the act of allying or state of being allied.
2.
a formal agreement or treaty between two or more nations to cooperate for specific purposes.
3.
a merging of efforts or interests by persons, families, states, or organizations: an alliance between church and state.
4.
the persons or entities so allied.
5.
marriage or the relationship created by marriage between the families of the bride and bridegroom.

An alliance can only happen if the two sides are agreed to not engage each other. A ceasefire to kill a greater threat is an alliance (Blood Angels and Necrons), Coordinating a strike (key word is coordinate) are actively supporting each other are examples of being allied. If person A punches person B and person C punches B and B is physically between A and C, People A and C are not allied, they only reason they havnt fought each other is because B is in the way.

Galdos wrote:just because you share the same interest, does not mean you are allied

The Dictionary wrote:a merging of efforts or interests

What?