We're Going To Be Friends

Part Two of Three.

Hvamsfjordhur signature image, January 2007

On the seventh anniversary of the founding of Star City I compiled and republished my memoirs on NationStates during what looked like the long drawn-out dying days of that game. I'm unable to speculate if that's the case with CyberNations today, on the seventh anniversary of Hvamsfjordhur, as I've never been as involved in the politics of the latter as in the former. That's largely due to the mechanics of the game and the location of its servers in the US which has always resulted in a certain American domination. As update was scheduled at midnight Central Standard Time it meant the command structures of the alliances were firmly entrenched in timezones that would result in all the action happening whilst I was in bed. NationStates never had that because it lacked any realtime interaction between nations.

Personally, CyberNations came to an early peak with the era of the Great Wars. Unlike the Citrus and Polar wars, the Great Wars pulled in almost every alliance into the conflict. Yet at the end of the first instalment of this series the global powers were at peace. Where alliances were not treatied, they were at least signatories of non-aggression pacts. So how was the stability shattered? How is it ever shattered?

The proverbial assassination of the archduke were the actions of Yaridovich, a senior LUEnited Nations member. As with the update, everything of importance in CN happens during the night for European players. I wasn't present to watch events transpire, but the crux of the crisis was the content of Yaridovich's forum posts to seal his resignation from the game - specifically material concerning the International Green Coalition leader, Rysonia. Aside from the out-of-character nature of the crisis, the IGC was closely linked to the New Pacific Order and therefore if there was a political link, there would be a military link should the situation devolve. And devolve it did, when the emperor of the New Polar Order, Tygaland, took it upon himself to nuke a prominent LUE member over the affair. Knowing the implications of using nuclear weapons, he must have done so with the intention of forcing the Orders and their treaty partners to fully commit against LUE. It would be expected that the chain of treaties and pacts would be invoked in the rush to war. Unfortunately the other alliances did not fall into step. The Global Alliance Treaty Organisation (GATO) and Legion, who had fought alongside the Orders against Warpstorm only a week prior, did not share the view that LUE was unapologetic. Legion opted for neutrality for the time being, but GATO broke its non-aggression pact with the NPO (the Dove Doctrine) in favour of a mutual defence pact with LUE arguing that Tygaland had struck without warning or just cause.

Great War ribbon

As the declarations flew the world divided neatly, though rather disproportionately. Pacifica and Polaris' allegiance to each other was never in question - officially bound by the Ordinance of Order mutual aggression and defence pact in June 2006, but informally the two were considered to be different sides of the very same coin - and along with IGC they found themselves (The Coalition of Justice) besieged by the rest of the world (The CoaLUEtion). The defeated spectres of the Orange Defense Network and the National Alliance of Arctic Countries found their chance to break free of NPO occupation and terms and duly joined the war, in so making it The Great War. My own recollection of the war is sketchy. It happened to start just as I was going on holiday and I had to hand my nation over to a sitter. I managed to check in from an internet café to find that Legion had joined the CoaLUEtion. Aside from being the top ranked nation in Zeta Battalion at #580 with an astonishing nation strength of 2,875.049, one thing I do remember from that July was the thread in the NPO forums in which some members expressed a desire for revenge against Legion for failing to assist Pacifica (though the Imperial Accords appear to have been an optional aggression/defence pact from the wording). The notion was quickly and resolutely rejected by the leadership - if I recall correctly, in a reply by Moldavi himself. The presence of one Nosedondekistan would later prove critical as he was subsequently revealed to be a member of a secret organisation which selectively leaked the contents of the discussion to Legion. Believing themselves to be a future target, they honoured the termination clause of the treaty before declaring on the NPO. Having held their ground for the duration of the conflict, the Orders could not survive the entry of fresh combatants.

The Great War had been punctuated by ceasefires and negotiations, and though it seemed like forever at the time it had only lasted seventeen days before peace was announced. The outcome of this war is a bone of contention. No-one would argue the Orders won given the apologies issued by the emperors of the Pacific and Polar Orders and the resignation of the latter emperor; and while many would state the CoaLUEtion was victorious, the terms against the Orders were so lenient in comparison to later wars that it suggests an inability to end the war without significant compromise. It goes without saying that from the NPO's perspective it was a stalemate rather than outright defeat. I lost around three quarters of my infrastructure,  although I only had about 450 at the onset of war. It cost roughly $15 million to buy it back in the following month and a half, and back then, when the game was only six months old, that was a lot of money. I didn't regain my world strength ranking until December.

Previously I mentioned the original design of the game revolved around Google Maps and that clashing borders were for a brief time considered a valid casus belli. How might history have changed if I had attacked the nation whose border overlapped mine? That nation was Tygaland. As it happened, the course of history was a valuable lesson for the Orders. While the NPO had been quite happy to play the pariah in the early days, the wild west days were over and it could no longer afford to be as isolated as it was during what is internally known as The Great Patriotic War. To avoid a repeat it had to cultivate more diplomatic ties that were as strong as those with Polaris. Thus all the alliances began spinning webs in the aftermath of the first global war. As the last alliance to make a move, Legion came out on top in the rankings. The NPO slipped from unquestionable dominance but regained its top ranking fairly quickly with its highly efficient internal aid system.

Major power relations in November 2006 by
Soviet Canuckistan / Sandwich Controversy

Though this is ostensibly a memoir, as my participation in the game was martial rather than political it would be more fitting to call it a history or a recounting. That said, in the period between the wars it was the politics that dominated events. The Grand Global Alliance had fought against and been the amongst the most outspoken critics of the NPO, but with Prodigal Chieftain deposed it turned out he had been the only sticking point the whole time - now it was an ally. The Orders began courting new alliances who had not been present, or at least prominent enough, during the Great War. In particular they formed a very close unit with GOONS, which for brevity I'll call the Drinking Buddies Pact (the text of which was far less serious than usually seen from Pacifica). The former CoaLUEtion also strengthened their military ties spinning their own web between themselves by November of 2006. Oddly, the GGA straddled these two blocs until the announcement of The World Unity Treaty (or The Initiative) in December bifurcated the world once again. In reaction the old CoaLUEtion formalised themselves into The League (with the notable exceptions of the ODN and Legion).

Great War II ribbon

GWII alliance strength change (9th-15th January 2007)
by Unspeakable Evil (?)

Although the NPO had attained the security it sought, this had an important effect on its behaviour. It was still a dominating power, but one such power among many. There was no longer a monopoly on force. It meant consultation and diplomacy with equal parties. Being locked into an alliance bloc prevented the NPO from waving the stick as it saw fit. It couldn't strike out against the ODN or the NAAC as in the early days; and those days were only a few months prior, which goes to show how fast CN politics were evolving in the first year. On the other hand, their burgeoning new allies would be pursuing their own agendas and hoping to exercise some power which would have to be kept in check. Just as the Great War started over an out-of-character crisis, history repeated itself when a news story about the game reached the site Fark in early January. An influx of new players congregated under the Farkistan banner and also brought with them animosity to the Something Awful site which spawned GOONS. The situation wasn't that far removed from the antagonism the NPO and ODN brought with them from NS, and in hindsight I can imagine what GATO must have thought when the latter two burst onto the scene. It progressed beyond insults and LUE stepped in to defend Farkistan while the GOONS declared war. Then the inevitable chain reaction occurred and dragged the rest into the dispute. Unable to restrain the memberships the alliances committed to war. The NPO's anti-isolation strategy was a success. The League had functioned more as a containment policy and had not been prepared for war, brief though it was. In fact, it would be more appropriate to think of the Second Great War as a prologue. It was all over after five days, except for LUE who continued alone as a spent force. I had a single battle in progress with GOLD premier Somalia and was set back only 167 points of infrastructure to his losses of 802. The rebuilding of Hvamsfjordhur lasted all of one day and I hardly slipped from my world ranking of #275 (though I would never surpass that). The neutral ODN and Legion were left at the top of the strength rankings and poised for the resumption of hostilities in due course. The usual drama burbled away through January and February until for once there was an in-character crisis.

Great War III ribbon

The Dramanations Meter on March 22nd 2007

It appeared GATO were attempting to undermine and infiltrate The Initiative while it also emerged that The Initiative was secretly planning to imminently declare war on GATO. This time all the major powers were in - the ODN and Legion abandoned their neutrality and joined the other former League alliances in a loose coalition called Aegis. Once the NPO declared on GATO the cascade of treaty invocations gradually accelerated into the largest war of the era. The Third Great War would not be the war to end all wars, but it would be the war to end several alliances. For the old CoaLUEtion, this was the final opportunity to thwart the NPO's pre-eminence and prevent The Initiative bloc from achieving global hegemony. For the NPO it was a chance to settle the score for the Great Patriotic War and see off the LUEnited Nations for good. Events on the green trading sphere formed a sideshow front as /b/ surprisingly opted to abandon neutrality and running scams like the /b/ank (save your money and totally get it back later) and challenged the Veridian Entente for supremacy.

It was /b/'s entry into the war against all expectations that really marked the breadth of the war. For that VE vowed to chase /b/ into disbandment, and the stakes got higher. Unable to actually win the war, the membership of /b/ drifted from the disintegrating command of its leadership and decided to instead break the game. As was more traditional, the war became influenced by out-of-character issues when the former membership of /b/ and external sympathisers bombarded the server. Shortly before the site went down the NAAC declared a ceasefire in light of events. CyberNations was offline for four days before returning on April 4th. When it concluded ten days later it ended the presence of a number of alliances. The most important, and also most prolonged thorns in the NPO's side, to disband were LUE and the NAAC. Legion, until then only second to the NPO in strength and by far the strongest alliance in Aegis, was revealed to be a "paper tiger" after its disastrous campaign. While it may have been a highly destructive war, my own records show little damage and I bounced back to pre-war levels a day after it ended. It was still financially costly as the growth of nations meant that infrastructure became increasingly expensive as time progressed, though it remained dirt cheap to wage war. The struggle that began in July 2006 was closed with the vanquish of the old enemies and consigned the first era to history. It may only have been nine months, but online that really is forever.

Once again the world was at peace, except this time there was unquestionable hegemony. The New Pacific Order had formed the New Polar Order round a core of Pacifican volunteers not unlike a bone from Adam creating Eve, and now it looked as if it had finally surrounded itself with allies approaching that level of intimacy. The signatories of the World Unity Treaty capped the era of the Great Wars as the kings of the game. However, the Veridian Entente had resigned from The Initiative only four days before the conclusion of the Third Great War casting doubts on the internal unity of the World Unity Treaty. Just how long could the bonds of friendship last?

Actually written 27th and 28th of January, but at least it's not thirteen days late like last time.
[2290 ; 5]