Forum Post by Mammothistan

[Manson]

This is a forum post by Mammothistan, also known as Great Bight and New People. This post is a little biased but still gives a nice overview of ancient history regarding invaders and defenders and the GCRs. Taken from the RaiderCon forum.

Invader/Defender dynamic was one of the stupidest things the game ever had. Originally there were regions that stood alone, extraregional conflicts were politically-based (UN national movement was an extension of roleplay now relegated to a single subforum on a region's |invisionfree|), with the odd "invader" group such as that mysterious roaming hoarde of Frenchmen.

A couple of things happened. One of them was the Pirate invasion of The Heartland. Ineptia carried a grudge on that for a long time. It precipitated rule changes in the game which created Regional Controls. Ackbar, Juxtapositions, Architeuthis, they argued it would create a worse group of invaders, ones that could really do damage to a region. And, surprisingly, they turned out to be right and the mods wrong.

The Rejected Realms soon became easily one of the world's largest regions. An immature delegate, given unprecedented power over his region overnight, could empty his region in a moment. NS History's version of the Hittites would make emptying a region a point of military conquest.

A few people got upset at that.

The Rejected Realms Army was formed because a schmuck got pissed at being ejected from his region for being a schmuck. Their goal was to "invade" (yes, invade) regions like that and remove tyrannical delegates. He soon gained scores of soldiers.

Civilization watched fearfully. The dichotomy then was civilization vs. anarchy. The barbarians were at the gates!

The failed invasion of The East Pacific, though not the immediate cause, signalled a turning point in the strategy. Shortly after that time Siggi, who was originally an AA double agent (Atlantic were good guys then) gained more influence in the organization, Gres lost influence (a multie and habitual liar, he increasingly became a liability for the RRA over time), and the non-Gres 'faction' changed the RRA's focus to fighting the Hittites. That was my first tour of duty in the RRA, and I remember those first few actions.

Meanwhile in the world, the Allied Liberation League, envisioned by Thomasia (of The Meritocracy) specifically to have the ACC as its military wing, collapsed on itself over Nederland and North American objections to Pilmour and the ACC's focus. Supreme Commander Accelsior (Thomasia's alter ego) disappeared. Men grew restless, Pilmour filled the vacuum of Accelsior's departure and hijacked the Atlantic military apparatus as a Pilmourian private army to be used on personal crusades of his.

The Met abandoned us. We became a pariah. The RRA became the good guys. The gameplay philosophy the Accelsior ACC would have led did not materialize; instead it was this new thing the RRA was doing which would spread and take dominance.

It was helped along by NetWorkRadio, as some of its most prominent reporters (Jerome Hawkins, Yasmine Hawkins) were RRA officers. Being the first widespread media agency of its kind (Associated Press region had only a shadow of that success), where there was no other cultural medium connecting farflung nations together, it made Civilization. What was an easy and exciting source of activity? Invasions. Typically from the POV of the defenders, or of invaders as alien outsiders. A strange new word appeared during the summer of 2003, and soon most armies would be known by it or its opposite: defender.

It's more "good" to be a defender than an invader. Defender regions talked to one another. They held three feeders* and encouraged immigration to the player-created feeders. They held friendships with moderators which led to routine favoritism. If you weren't a defender you were an invader. A single military action would have your region blacklisted on the ADN's "Known List of Invaders".

Invader regions existed in the barbaric outlands, with little ability to conduct diplomacy with "mainstream" regions, and little source of activity other than invading. Whenever a new invader region started intelligence agents of the alphabet soup would have it infiltrated to the kilt; this would be followed by a string of defender successes, brought on by pre-knowledge of movements and sabotage, slowly killing that region with boredom. And whenever an "allied pullout" was engaged, the region would collapse.

I'll leave the Franciscan Wars (known for a time as the Great Patriotic War in The Pacific), the "third way" The Pacific introduced being neither invader nor defender (and yet repeatedly invaded), the excesses of corruption of various defender leaders and their failure -where everywhere else they had it rigged- to remove that harranguing thorn in their side, and the tri-polar world to another post. While I'm inclined to give Francograd credit for winning the war, I've written enough for this early in the morning.

There's a tendancy among children, we like to think this is only limited to children, to have the COBRA Organization outnumbered while GI Joe is given every possible advantage to insure "the good guys" win. This phenomenon carried itself into NationStates.

Except didn't Cobra Commander always kick ass until the last five minutes of the episode? If he didn't, if instead GI Joe beat the sneat out of him at the very beginning of every episode, would people have cared to watch at all? Weren't the Franciscan Wars more fun than Children of the Grave is now?

What about Great Bight? Where other despots gained longevity through tameness, he was all-too-willing to cackle MwaHaHa and curl his mustachio -and, in the end, recognize a climax and bow out of of scene gracefully. I think there's something to be said of Snidely Whiplashes out there. I bet everyone who was part of that campaign was proud they were.

Shrews do not make interest-sustaining enemies. Giants are hard and scary. That's why the struggle means something. But for so many defenders it was about "winning", not playing the game.

You "won". Then all your defender armies died of boredom. Go figure.