Some of this stuff is posted elsewhere about the origins of SDM, but it was created after splitting from RDLM. HV was as well because HV members wanted to continue playing with one another and a few had not received invites into SDM, but because of previous ties in CJ/LoE remained friends. A little prior to this, multiple large players vacated O26/36 (TBS and others) creating a void. We all decided to form NAP/Pacts. we ate up the ghosts and then TDA pursued war with HV.
TDA does not have to justify anything they do or dont do in a war game. They are a good alliance and have the ability to declare war/start war for any reason they want, just as any alliance does.
SDM did acquire the HOOPS account when she left, and I have learned fairly recently that it was weird that we got it, I legitimately feel bad about that, but we like the account. In all fairness, however, it was TDA that pushed her to quit and it probably should not have gone this way.
Someone from TDA told me that SDM takes in refugees. I truly do not know the truth about refugee status. if a player leaves one alliance due to being upset with other while being actively attacked by another alliance and taken in by a third does that count as refugee. The player did not leave because of the attacking group. I do not know how that works. Either way, we did that!
The stats on blackbreath are a misleading. TDA has KILLED blackbreath, but like a phoenix (I think) has risen from the ashes or ocean and has grown.
I have no reason to hide a thing, nor have I ever. I try to be reasonable and trustworthy and I have no problem saying that I had sent a message to Gareth explaining how if HV members just disbanded or quit we could not allow TDA to grow unencumbered on our islands and some form of discussion would be necessary. Since players are generally located in specific areas, a "player" approach was brought up.
It is my belief that HV members were taken in by TDA to act as a buffer. Rather than actually wanting them as part of the alliance, they have forced them to have attack quotas, WHICH BTW is perfectly fine, just sucks. HV had cities on our islands from LoE days and TDA knew that we would target them.
In the end, I like TDA a lot. They play well together, they are very cunning, and are MUCH better at the politics than I am. I try to do right by my alliance and of course MY greatest mistake was to trust TDA the way I did.