We all hate to see diplomacy fail and violence break out. But what I hate to see more than that is a lack of critical thinking and solid evidence being applied to the situation. The Naran Interim Statement ( https://www.reddit.com/r/CivMC/comments/wyea10/interim_statement_on_dnagensokyo_relations/ ) having no evidence is borderline criminal; the fact that the statement is also mostly focused on badmouthing Gensokyo is as well.

Either through intention or ignorance, I have full access to Gensokyo's snitch logs. I used this to create a map of SarenSolaris' footsteps (obfuscating exact snitch locations by - 5 blocks). Then, using the Medi Sea private map sharing server, I overlayed it over the map of Gensokyo to create this image.

https://imgur.com/LTavQAc

From this, we need a little extra context. Saren's video does not have any timestamps, and I'm not in the CivMC discord to check [!] timestamps, so we have to work it out. Around the snitch ping at 19:22, this location corresponds to the location in this part of the video, https://imgur.com/UKdTyjT , almost 8 and a half minutes in. This means Saren started the video at 19:14; and that the PVP must have started before then. This is corroborated by Asu asking Ahri to check lag 4 minutes before the screenshot in this screenshot, https://imgur.com/rnEaH0e , which is roughly when Asu died.

So we know the PvP starts around 19:14, or a few minutes beforehand. This puts Saren's location at the start of the video in a grey area, as there are no logs between snitch pings 39 at 19:10 and 40 at 19:17. We can assume the fight had barely started: Saren's pot inventory is full; it is missing only 2 slots. The location the video starts at is marked by a red waypoint in the image with the map above.

Let's assume the PvP starts at 19:13, and begin reconstructing the events as objectively as we can.

shut up and tell us the story already

- Saren enters Gensokyan territory at 19:05; is asked to leave.

- Saren is told to leave by Topaz.

- Saren /ignores Topaz.

- Saren tries to cross the river towards Nara [Snitches 11, 12, 13] but decides against it for some unclarified reason (horse?).

- Instead proceeds to run along the Gensokyan riverbank for a hundred or so blocks, within render distance of the city, instead of finding a crossing point to the West, outside of Gensokyan territory.

- 5 minutes have passed since the first snitch ping. Asu and Ferro have mobilized and move to intercept a floundering Saren in the river at 19:10.

- Within the next three minutes, PvP starts.

- Saren manages to escape at least one fighter's radar range and is gaining ground in neutral territory but decides to turn and fight at 1:10.

- The fight spills into various locations and ends with both Gensokyans pearled.

- Saren takes both pearls to Nara and then further on towards Utopia, near RI.

What a mess.

The Gensokyans had a right to be wary about Saren going further into their land after being told to leave and the act of mustering Ferro and Asu is totally justifiable- however, the lengthy pursuit can be argued to show intent to pearl, which is especially strange considering Topaz announced that "Violators will be escorted out" in the Gensokyo Discord announcements, not declaring trespassing a pearlable offence.

Saren was on track to escape into neutral territory with 15 pearls left (CDM into Danzilona) about 1 minute into the video but decided to turn, which irks me as a very odd decision. Also, he did close the main diplomatic channel in the form of /ignore-ing Topaz, which could be seen from anything as an immature mistake to an intent to cause trouble.

Required reading for this issue as well is also the long-ongoing feud between Nara and Gensokyo where the latter are tired of being repeatedly misgendered (see https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f8iR1SffVoYE-JuCT-6wje9A_d0SFH89UJ2iOpbZtLg/edit) and the former are tired of being told to kick Saren.

tldr

both sides have plausible deniability but instead decided to led bad blood stew, fight, """"roast post"""" and harass the shit out of each other. great work team, excellent civ content