I feel like I should also clear this bit up:

The way that set went down (I was hFA in Genesis during that time -- Corflu was pres, Viper was an 'inactive' VP) was that I had been chatting with SoL about merging all set long and we were getting to a place where we were almost done setting it up. I went away for a vacation, came back and found that Corflu had signed a merger deal with IRON, because SoL was being sticklers on selecting a name.

Corflu then had his 2nd child and immediately bailed on the game because of the kid + another game, so I got back to more of less a mess in terms of internal stuff, with us now being an absolutely amazing target for SoF with our size increase. What Corflu didn't check before signing that merger deal was that IRON was mainly a spammy/multi tag, and by the end of our first set together, only about 5-10 of IRON's 40-50 members actually stuck around. Russin was also very inactive/apathetic, and eventually de-merged himself and a few others into a renewed IRON tag a set or two later. About 5-10 others didn't even tag up STEEL prior to the war, but I think they were killed anyway. This merger always irked me more than anything else in Earth, because it basically ruined one of the best netting alliances at the time, souring a lot of the hardcore netters on remaining with us through the difficult sets ahead. It was an obvious mismatch, but Corflu just looked at the #'s and liked the idea of leading a 100 member alliance. Momentum merged in a few weeks later, and even though they were a 12 member alliance, added more to STEEL than IRON did -- eventually making up the core of STEEL leadership during its post-TIL heyday.

Viper wasn't super involved until after STEEL was FS'ed and it was clear that STEEL was now in a very bad place. I don't remember him politicking too much before the wars... but obviously he got into it at some point, culminating with the STEEL vs Omega wars, which I'm confident Dragonlance would love to tell you about :p
I remember people trying to claim that since Viper was in our tag, he was obviously politicking... but he wasn't until Genesis was already dragged into the war and not looking to be in a good spot. He was inactive and I believe he was focusing on his studies.

The result of that war was a few leaders (me, Biscuit and Striker, who I can remember) became more apathetic to the STEEL cause when it became obvious "our side" was going to win, but only because of all of the other NATO allies (especially IX flipping sides), and I eventually went into inactivity towards the end of the TIL saga, so I can't comment on that part.

So ya, that's how that set went down within Genesis, at least as far as I remember. Realistically, Genesis would have netted if SoF hadn't made it obvious they were targeting Genesis that set, partially due to disagreements between Corflu and Helmet.