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WHAT IF...





Some ideas on re-imagining eRepublik


The Kids are Bored

An ironic and heartfelt lament rises across the lands. Recent steamy articles have ponderered "Where have all the good times gone?".

Ironic. Yes. Because the cry is heard above fair praise for success of e-USA's turn at being the best at Farmville. Training wars, that is. Which are, in fact, an interesting and, dear peaches, a socialistic (i.e., socially cooperative) and (clutching pearls) even a bit of an anarchistic invention. Yes, chitlins, I mean anarcho-syndicalist in the sense that the training wars twist on the war module was invented and deployed, long ago, entirely by we ourselves, the players, for our own amusement.





I recall that in the Way Back When, one of the first training wars, between e-USA and e-Eire, sparked in me a unique and delightful jouissance.

Over time, such little pleasures grew to become the Big Thing. In Olden-Days, a training war was a friendly. It kept players in good form between regular league matches. Now it's t'other way round, nuh? Excitement bubbles up only when there's a "RW". Which, mind you, is not a "Resistance War", as in the Before-Time. Nor does it stand for "Revolutionary Worker", as one may have once longed for, along with his comrades in a Maoist youth gang, far away in the Long-Ago. But "Real War". Oh. Episode number 327, or whatever, of our dear game, the eRepublikan Eternal Balkan Wars, but at least not yet another training war...


The tasty icing on top of the carrot cake is that ye olde e-nation-state is presently providing the Big Cheese on top of the Asterian platter of world-conquering goodies. (Did I just mix metaphors? Yes I did.) Our very own Herr Voots literally sits on top of the ( e- ) world, where he joyfully draws the ire of our frenemies and the congratz of our friendlies. From a traditional game-mechanical POV, the e-USA is sitting pretty.


We are winning.

So. Why the glum faces? Whence the laments?



Simply put. The kids are bored with the old songs.





BUT DO NOT BE AFRAID!


We can be heroes.


For the past couple months, I've been clambering up into the hills, wandering through the forest, farting around in the garden, and slogging along the windy shore at low tide, looking out at the long expanse of sand and sea, along with my wee dachshund companion, contemplating this problem, while he rolls around on his back on the smelly stuff in the wet sand.

OK. Not actually contemplating so much as wandering around, enjoying the arrival of Spring. Without much of a care in the world. Then occasionally letting my subconscious mind land on and laugh about the silly things that drive this amusing little virtual world of ours.

Recently, after a lovely day of naturally doing not much, whilst plonking away at beginner blues riffs on my guitar, I watched one of those movies where Spiderman gets reinvented in multiple ways. At one point my eyes fell upon a copy of that graphic novel, The Watchmen. Maybe you've seen the TV series? That reminded me of a favorite comicbook series from WAY Back When -- the Justice Society of America (JSA). The JSA, recently reinvented in comix, in films, and in TV series, is much like the Justice League of America (JLA). But it all happens on "Earth 2". Which is similar to "Earth 1", where the JLA exists. But everything is different.

The same too, sort of. But different.


Plus the JLA has Doctor Fate instead of Superman. IMHO, Dr. Fate is way cooler than Superman. If you're not ancient like me, you might've encountered him for the first time recently in the Black Adam movie, starring our recent Country President Kody5, err, I mean The Rock, Dwayne Johnson. Doctor Fate is a Doctor of Magic. He resides in the Tower of Fate in Salem, Massachusetts, from which he sallies forth from time to time to fight evil, promote justice and charity, save the planet, and so on. His life's mission is to “bring good to those on Earth who use the ancient magics to do evil.”





It struck me! This is the type of plot change we need right now. Shake things up. Let's keep it the same, but entirely different. Introduce some chaos into the storyline. Good chaos, I mean. Well, mostly good chaos anyway. Maybe a little bad chaos too. But shake things up. Invent new packaging for old themes. Re-brand, re-name, re-purpose some things.

Unblock the blocked energy. Let that horse jump up and down and run wild for a bit. Shake stuff loose. Hand out pogo sticks! (Look it up.)
Then, after a suitable period of shaking things up, bring in methods to re-tone, to re-calibrate, to re-tune our collective energies to a higher, more magical resonance.




Heh.





OK. So here's a few of the Wild and Cra-a--a-a-azy Ideas I've come up with...

I've tried to stick to ones that require no intervention from Admin. No new mechanics or rule changes. Just user-driven tactics and strategies. Respecting the time, effort and money that whales and tanks, dedicated and persistent players, including role-players, meta-players, writers and creatives, have put into the game. I've tried to come up with things that are entirely voluntary and reversible. If a change doesn't turn out to be fun, it can be undone.


Seeking to challenge all of us, including most of all myself, to see if we can't re-imagine and re-shape things. Bang the temple gong super-loud. Shake off the boredom. Sing some new harmonies.


I offer these magic spells, this re-invention, this vision of "eUSA II", in the hopes that it will spark debate, discussion, maybe some sprited laughter. Best of all, would love to see more, better, enthusiastic sharing of other enitrely doable, entirely possible and potentially fun and challenging alternative e-realities.



I have the e-USA in mind. But this kind of "reboot" could be useful for other national groups who are experiencing the doldrums.





CITIZENSHIP



The eUSA has about 1,100 citizens, out of a total e-World population of about 34,830. That's a little over 3% of the e-World population. We hae a lot of regions, a lot of land area, a good number of strong fighters and several very active military units. I think it is not the most populated. While it bounces around in the Top 10 these days, it is not the most powerful nation either.

Currently, there's effectively a ban on accepting new citizens. The immigration process is slow, plodding and bureacratic. In my view, the fear of shenanigans by immigrants is wildly out of proportion to the benefits that new citizens bring. In an alternate reality, let's be an entirely open country, inviting all players to become citizens of the eUSA.







Chaotic Good Suggestion 1 -- Do away with all restrictions and reviews of citizenship applications. Go strictly by the game mechanic. If you get elected to Congress, then you can approve a citizenship application. Period. Furthermore, the changes to how parties and government work (see below) would make using immigration as a "PTO" strategy entirely irrelevant.







PARTIES




As with identity politics in real life, the association with a Party in eUSA (not sure about other eRep countries) tends to ossify into or get stuck into a kind of player identity. This is entirely natural and a fun, role-playing part of the game. I'd like to offer several possible twists to how this module is played that could have interesting, "chaotic good", impacts...







Chaotic Good Suggestion 2 -- Voluntarily equalize the size of the Top Five parties and regularly, voluntarily rotate some members between the parties. There are several health beneifts to be had. Players will likley become more flexible in their views, by meeting and playing with other citizens more directly. It will make it possible to achieve a completely different kind of devolved and autonomous governnance structure. (More on this below.) It will be a nice "F" you to the meaningless and ridiculous Congress election charades. If a sixth party grows beyond a certain size, then a relalignment can be undertaken. And it would go a long way towards removing or decreasing the fear of immigration.









Chaotic Good Suggestion 3 -- Alter the names of ALL the parties, especially the Top 5 parties. This will jumble the neurons of us ancient players, helping to develop fun debates and interesting story lines. Each party will have a new "skin", with a clear-cut primary mission and purpose distinct from the other parties. It will become fun game play to move through the top 5 parties so that you can gather the unique benefits each has to offer. Existing party forums, discords and other media can be maintained and treated like factions or sub-groups within the new, more open, in-game party meta-structures. This also gives each party a responsibility, rather than just buying into Admin's lame vision of competing parties. Each party would be given one of the government organizations to use for their own purposes. (See why this might help in the section on Government.)

Here are my re-branding / new skin suggestions... just spit-balling here. Lots of possibilities....





BTW I know am being a bit wordy. (Sorry, not sorry.) Perhaps somebody who is clever with AI or graphics could come up with some nifty new logo ideas...



Rough Riders become the All-Star League or maybe the American Dragon Dojo, or something like that. Mission and attitude remains about the same as now, but with even more emphasis on helping players advance to tank status. Being in the All-Star League or Dragon Dojo means working hard on your skills, ranking up, improving strength and so on.


The Federalists become the The Vault. This will make even more sense, and be even more necessary, when the government and military are devolved, but central control mechanisms are still needed. Again, not too different from now. Being a part of The Vault means a player will learn how to keep the machinery of the eUSA in good working order, including handling the collection and dispersal of tax monies, being the stewards of the national organizations, and keeping lines of communication flowing between our different tribes and various efforts.


We The People becomes We Are the World. Maybe downplay the sort of real-life focus on conservative politics that this party has been known for over the recent historical period, and put more of an emphasis on being a welcoming place for new citizens from around the world. Special emphasis on helping players to understand international alliances, country-to-country relationships, large-scale war efforts, as well as gathering knowledge and intelligence on what's happening around the e-world.


The Black Sheep become The Black Crows (or Ravens?). Continuing its tradition of stressing the dignity of individuals, the importance of taking one's destiny into one's own hands, and not relying on the state or a bureaucracy for everything, the party would focus strong attention on helping players to develop their own strong economic foundations, maximizing gold harvesting, helping to influence prices, and so on. In the past, schemes for forming equity and bond markets have usually collapsed, but that doesn't mean it's impossible for a group that really wants to build trust and exhibit fidelity to good fiduciary principles to work loans and shares into the game.


The Socialist Freedom Party becomes the Social Equity Party. Continuing its tradition of left-libertarianism, the party would further enhance its dedication to providing a helping hand to newer and lower-ranking players, as well as bringing a fresh, lively, oepn, shake-it-up, critical-thinking attitude to the eUSA's media landscape. Strengthening their emphasis on helping to form democratic collectives or commnunal structures by bringing their tradition of "Revolutionary Committee" and "Mass Line" leadership style into a braoder context, could be especially useful in teching players to be active in a devolved, autonomous and syndicalist structure of national governance...



GOVERNMENT



Outside of war strategy and farming, the sub-regions of the country are pretty much meaningless. In the Way-Back-When-Times, representatives were elected from specific States, which brought a fun element to congressional voting. A suggestion for a mod to elect "local" officials in the form of municipal governors or mayors was floated by Admin, but never implemented.





Chaotic Good Suggestion 4 -- Devolve and decentralize the e-USA govenment, including its handling of military affairs. While maintaining a central clearinghouse for tax collection and distribution, implmentation of common policies (necessary per game mechanics), coordination of communications and so on, the country would be formally broken up into 5 autonomous or semi-autonous regions. Each region would be governed by one of the (re-branded) Top Five parties, probably in alliance with the military units closest to that party. Meaning. Each party would propose, direct, and be responsible for enacting and managing, any in-game activities it is possible to manage at the State (region, province) level, including what training wars to manage in their region.

This would give each party a much more interesting role to play in the game, and make the Congressional election cycles largely irrelevant. Congress would become simply the highest level of a layered syndicate, more about communication than competing. The central government would become a technocratic one. Responsible for smooth functioning of institutions, but having little to do with external relations. Chaotic? You bet. Foreign friends and foes alike would need to deal with a wider range of e-USA players. Decisions on national defense would have to be coordinated between the autonomous regions. There could be some interesting shifts in managing things at an economic level, even outside of renting regions and sponsoring training wars. The internal party elections would stand in for local, regional elections. Party heads would be considered the Governor of that region. A Party's Congressional delegation would be the representatives of their Region, as well as of their Party.






How to divide the country into regions? What to call them?

Just figuring this out would keep us all busy for some time. Probably would want to shoot for a rough balance in terms of economic resources (even if only for role-playing purposes) and strategic concerns (probably want a fair share of more vulnerable border areas in each region?). It would not have to be exactly 10 states per region.

Shooting from the hip, was thinking something like:





Great Plains, Rockies, Central/Western Midwest -- Greater Lakota (The Vault)

Appalachia, Eastern/Northern Midwest, and Ozarks -- American Heartland (All-Star League)

Deep South and Texas -- Patriotic Union (We Are the World)

New England, New York, and Mid-Atlantic states - New Liberty Free Economic Zone (Black Crows)

Western, Pacific, and Southwestern states -- Peoples Commune of New California (Social Equity Party)










OK. That's it! Until next time, xoxoxox.

And hey, we'll always love you Tina!



Let the music play!



PQ