Infinity War

The NATO-Mir War, often known as the Infinity War, was a war fought by the nation of Mir against the NATO alliance. A rapid expansion of hostilities occurred during the Ransakistan War, when the Entente and UDF alliances, along with several other previously neutral nations, formed a coalition with Mir. After the fall of Ransakistan, this coalition went on to oppose the NATO alliance, along with the nations of Corvus who were discovered to be aiding the Ransaki terrorists, and Laconia, who were attacked after their disastrous defeat at the Battle of Hotel California.

The war started on 28 January 2019, and ended on 19 July 2020, when the Litterbox vault fell to coalition forces.

Notable for lasting over 1.5 years, it remains the longest war in the history of the Civ Genre, dubbed the Infinity War for its apparent endlessness.

Prelude to war (early 2019)
The war largely started due to tensions in the city of Mt. Augusta. These tensions date back to the existence of the FRIENDS alliance, which frequently had heated disputes with Mir. The FRIENDS alliance would disintegrate on January 4th, when Hallow left. The NATO alliance quickly rose to take its place in the geopolitical sphere, being composed of many of the nations that were in FRIENDS. Notably, Rhodesia and Laconia did not join this new alliance.

On 4 January 2019, Baes20 (aka Arctikz_), a citizen of the Holy Jaded Empire, entered Mt. Augusta alongside two accounts, 'LeaveMeTallone' and 'Rhiannasbutt'. These three proceeded to break a few laws in MtA and started a small fight with citizens of Mir. In order to escape the Mirians, they ran to bunkers built on property owned by the Holy Jaded Empire. The two players alongside Baes20 were later revealed to be the banned players bewsiej and dovahkiin, using VPNs to bypass their bans.

On 6 January 2019, in response to the actions taken by Baes20, the Mirian Gregy165 went to one of the Holy Jaded Empire's bunkers near Mt. Augusta and attempted to break in. He was engaged and made to retreat by the fighter thomasih, who was much later discovered to be a VPN alt of the banned player poortea. Around this time, a Mirian fighter known as theJKH returned to the server and became a rogue actor, notably, griefing a bunker in Mt. Augusta which was owned by the nation of Rhodesia. In response to this, S4NTA, an officer of Mir, attempted diplomacy with Holy Jaded Emperor ComradeNick, revoking Gregy165 and theJKH's permissions to Mirian bunkers in the area. ComradeNick did not revoke thomasih's bunker permissions. These discussions were ultimately unsuccessful.

Despite efforts to de-escalate, NATO troops were deployed to destroy the Mir bunker in Mt. Augusta on 29 January 2019. This operation was completed overnight. In response, Mir considered all who helped disable their bunker to be pearl-on-sight map-wide.

The next day, 30 January, Mir constructed a trap on the Great Overland Rail (GOR) between The Commonwealth and Mount Augusta. Mirian fighter Ez2Clutch baited NATO fighters to the trap, where a contingent of Mirian fighters were logged out. The trap was successful, resulting in the pearling of Hangoverd, a NATO fighter.

Mir then made a post on the subreddit, named "Let the Hammer Fall", declaring war on the NATO alliance. With this post, 30 January 2019 became the official start date of the war. The NATO alliance at the time consisted of Hallow, the Holy Jaded Empire, Polska, Tel Aviv, Annwyn, Valyria, Columbia, and unofficially Rhodesia. Over a year later, the war would broaden to include many more combatant nations.

Siege of Pinkerton
Mir launched a large scale ground attack against the Holy Jaded Empire-owned Pinkerton vault near Mt. Augusta, and captured it on 2 February. At this time, Pinkerton was a large hole with a diminutive bunker at the center.

SPQR Border Crisis and invasion
In late February, NATO alleged that Mir had established a bunker in SPQR territory, intended to be used as attack infrastructure against Hallow. NATO leader HanTzu approached the leadership of the UNC alliance, of whom SPQR was a member, and inquired about whether or not they were helping Mir. The situation was initially resolved, with the UNC providing an official statement that they would blockade any fighters from either Mir or the NATO alliance.

Tensions flared when the Holy Jaded Empire disabled a rail line running between the city of Roma in the SPQR, and the city of Westminster in the Commonwealth. Imperial leadership claimed that it posed a wartime security threat to the Empire, given that it ran directly underneath its territory. ComradeNick later stated that this was done "for fun" as the rail had and saw no practical use in the war. The rail was restored to an operational status by the UNC, with the Entente alliance assisting in force, despite protests from NATO.

NATO responded to this action with anger, renewing their accusations against the UNC of aiding Mir, and launching a full-scale invasion of the SPQR. The SPQR was quickly occupied with little to no resistance, and their leadership was mostly pearled. This caused the SPQR to be undefended during the Ransakistan conflict, during which it was extensively carpet-bombed with reinforced obsidian.

The Siege of Sempiternal
The Empire of Columbia's vault, Sempiternal, was besieged repeatedly by Mirian forces, until it finally fell on 23 February 2019.

The Sacking of Hallow
The city of Hallow was attacked repeatedly from 24 February, until 17 March 2019, when it was finally sacked by Mirian forces. The city's defensive infrastructure was disabled, but the nearby Hallow vault remained operational.

The Fall of Rhodesia
Rhodesia fell at some point in the early stages of the war. The displaced Rhodesians would later join Columbia, eventually sparking the Columbian Bush War.

Lull period
After the sacking of Hallow, Mir considered the majority of their goals achieved. Mir had taken Pinkerton, broken a NATO vault, sacked many of their cities, and pearled 16 NATO members without taking any losses of their own. While Mir made significant progress on the Hallow vault during their attacks, they did not have high enough numbers nor available free time to break it, though a few NATO members and one NATO leader were pearled attempting to defend it. Mir would withdraw from their attacks and return to their own lands, where they worked on building their city, Charon. The following months were a fairly minor time during the war where both sides continued to be constantly vigilant and ready to react to any situation that arose. In Mir's absence, NATO would recapture Pinkerton and Columbia, extending their influence back over those regions. Skirmishes occurred across the map, from Polska to Mir, where NATO had been setting up tunnels and bunkers to attack Mir proper. There were also various PR campaigns throughout this time. Many discussions with neutral nations were had by both sides. The UNC had proposed to join NATO and Mir at different points, but did not.

Detente
Beginning in May 2019, several NATO nations such as Valyria, Annwyn, and Columbia reached agreements with Mir to peacefully exit the war.

The Latvian Soccer Dogs and the Laconia War


In September 2019, the Latvian Soccer Dogs alliance, or LSD, was founded by ashnwill with a reported goal of attempting to create a true neutral alliance. Due to the contentious histories of some players involved, and the slow establishment of defensive infrastructure in the southwest region of the map, concerns grew within the largely southern Entente and SATO alliances. As a result, both alliances controversially declared war on LSD weeks after its formation.

The LSD vault Hotel California, very early in its construction, was attacked by SATO-Entente forces who met no defense from LSD, yet the incident resulted directly in one pearl upgrade, followed by the soccer dogs having been attacked in various places around the map. After the attack, Laconia allowed soccer dog survivors to continue to reside within Laconia's fortress capital city Mt. Doom.

Laconian forces organized an attempt to salvage the vault materials being given groups by LSD. They were successful in this, but were intercepted on the way back home, leading to the disastrous Battle of Hotel California. Later, Mt. Doom was attacked, starting the Entente-Laconia War in full swing.

Around this time, the leadership of NATO, Corvus, and Laconia began speaking about military cooperation, due to suspicions on NATO's part that the Entente were already helping Mir.

The Ransakistan conflict
During December 2019, a group called Ransackistan formed and bombed multiple cities across the map, uniting multiple nations to join together against them. The Ransackistan vault was built partly from NATO materials

and also was comprised of various NATO members on alts, which would contribute to the broadening of the war. Though Ransackistan had a large vault and many fighters, it only lasted a week before being broken by the coalition of SATO, Entente, UDF, and Mir. This led Mir to again request other Nations to join the Mir-NATO war, especially after NATO's involvement was discovered.

The Fall of Mt. Doom


Mt. Doom was besieged for over 4 months, enduring weekly attacks by the Entente alliance. Despite being severely outmatched in terms of manpower, assets, and logistical capacity, the Laconians managed to persist in their defense.

After success in Ransakistan, Mir sought to further help the Entente in their war against Laconia, especially because Baes20, a NATO member, had been seen defending Laconia. Mirian fighters began scouting at Mt. Doom to gauge their response. In the following weeks, Mir and Hjaltland would incite fights at the ground level in order to secure pearls, which was largely successful. Multiple Laconians were pearled and taken to Hjaltland's vault, and the Mt. Doom rings were slowly being broken. While these attacks were very successful, Mir lost its first of only two pearls in the Infinity War, when Ez2Clutch's internet disconnected on an archer tower, causing him to be pearled by Laconia. As a result, Mir attempted to negotiate with Laconia, offering peace in exchange for Ez2Clutch's pearl. Laconia declined, due to the Entente refusing to make the same promise. The pearl was covertly transferred to the Holy Jaded Empire. The next day, Mir and Hjaltland skybridged Mt. Doom, now joined by SATO and the UDF, finishing off the remaining two operational rings without any resistance.

After the fall of Laconia, some surviving defenders fled to the northwest, hoping to rebuild near NATO forces. At this point Entente officially joined Mir's war effort against NATO.

After over a year of world police forces ignoring Laconia's attempts to negotiate, BlueSylvaer opened negotiations between Laconia and Hjaltland. Following weeks of negotiations with Hjaltland, Laconian and Hjaltland leadership finally agreed on terms for the release of Laconian pearls, but as a result of the loss of Mt. Doom to Hjaltland and reperations to Yoahtl for not upholding their deal with bgbba.

Second Siege of Pinkerton


Some time after the fall of Pinkerton to Mirian forces near the start of the war, it was recaptured by the Holy Jaded Empire, who built a new megavault there. This megavault fell for the second time, to Coalition forces, some time after the fall of Mt. Doom.

The Fall of the Hallow vault
On 27 June 2020, Coalition forces broke into the Hallow vault, following a massive siege, with ~60 attackers, lasting over 24 hours. The pearl of FlashMigma was freed, and the pearls of attackers ComradeRick and hockey328 were lost in the process. Kicky, a NATO fighter, was pearled by Mir. Hallow remains the largest vault to be successfully attacked in the history of the genre.

The Fall of the Holy Jaded Empire and Vault 76


On 18 July 2020, Coalition forces broke the Holy Jaded Empire's vault, Best Western, following another massive 24 hour siege. During the fight, various pearls that had been secured throughout the war were released, including those belonging to Lodish, bgbba, ComradeRick, among others. ObtainableSplat was pearled after falling off of the skybridge, but was later freed when Vault 76 was broken on the same day. The remaining pearls that were unreleased from Best Western by Pirater were carried by Crackerjack to the vault known as the Litterbox. This vault was constructed by the Zoomers, a group of players that joined NATO's side in the Infinity War after migrating from the Geographica server.

The Fall of the Litterbox
On 19 July 2020, Coalition forces broke the last remaining NATO vault, the Litterbox, located near SPQR, which held the last remaining pearls acquired by NATO during the war. This marked the end of NATO as a functioning military force and the conclusion of the war.

Aftermath
The Infinity War had a massive influence on server population and desire to play. Critics of the war claim that its world wide nature, lack of nuance, and effective permapearling of individuals resulted in a drop-off of player activity. Others claim that nobody was ever effectively permapearled during the duration of the war, and argue that most captured pearls were simply on POW status, awaiting sentencing and or release for time served until after the conflict ended. This has been the case for most, but some were held for significantly longer without proper sentencing.

Several nations involved in the war would die out, particularly on the NATO side of the conflict due to infrastructure destruction and pearling of citizens, but also on the Coalition side due to war exhaustion and other factors. Hallow's citizens would completely move to Realms, HJE's would do the same, and Polska would be utterly destroyed as a functioning city and state. Laconia, although several players still exist on the server, would go inactive too. Other notable nations that would cease to exist in an active capacity during the war would be Coventhia, who would drastically reduce the size of their claims and give their vault and most of their land to neutral nation Grand Imperium. New Sovia, although split by the time of the UDF/Entente's entry into the war officially, would also cease to function as a true state. Bloom, involved in the war on the side of the UDF until its departure from the alliance, would also go to Realms and go inactive. The historic Mount Augusta followed the pattern and ended up migrating to Realms as well.

Columbia took over stewardship of Hallow and Polska cities, and the Jaded Confederation was formed to prevent grief in HJE's cities (that no newfriends could feasibly benefit from) after an incident occured involving various individuals.

There is some evidence that server population is recovering though in the immediate aftermath of the conflict. Imperial Truidence, Icenia, and SPQR have all shown signs of a boost in activity and it remains to be seen if this will continue into the future.