Infinity War

The NATO-Mir War, later the Infinity War, was a major conflict fought by Mir, the Entente, and UDF, against NATO and the broader anti-World Police axis.

The conflict started during January 2019 and ended on 19 July 2020 with the fall of the Litterbox vault to Coalition forces.

Prelude to war (2019)
The war largely started due to tensions in the city of Mt. Augusta. These tensions go back to the existence of the FRIENDS alliance, which frequently had heated disputes with the World Police. The FRIENDS alliance disintegrated, and its member states, such as Hallow and the Holy Jaded Empire, later reassembled under the NATO banner.

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 minor laws 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, apparently in response to the actions taken by Baes20, the Mirian fighter 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, theJKH, returned to the server, and began to perform rogue actions. He griefed another bunker owned by the Holy Jaded Empire in Mt. Augusta. In response to this, S4NTA, an officer of Mir, attempted diplomacy with Emperor ComradeNick, revoking Gregy165 and theJKH's permissions to Mirian bunkers in the area. Unfortunately, these discussions were ultimately unsuccessful.

Despite promises from S4NTA, additional Mirians were allegedly still helping theJKH and Gregy165 with operations in Mt. Augusta. As a punitive action on 29 January 2019, 20 NATO troops were deployed to destroy the Mir bunker in Mt. Augusta. 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 was 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. 30 January 2019 was the official start date of the Mir-NATO war. The NATO alliance at the time consisted of Hallow, the Holy Jaded Empire, Polska, Tel Aviv, Annywn, Valyria, and unofficially Rhodesia.

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 just a large hole with a smaller 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. This grief was forcibly removed by the UNC, with the Entente alliance assisting in force.

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, allowing it to be extensively carpet-bombed with reinforced obsidian.

The War Broadens
In mid-2019, several NATO nations such as Valyria, Annwyn and Columbia reached agreements with Mir to exit the war.

In late 2019 however, the conflict intensified after LSD was attacked by the Entente and Laconia came to their aid. The Entente progressively joined Mir in their effort against NATO. NATO, on the other hand, received the help of Corvus, Laconia, and LSD.

During the first weeks of 2020, the UDF, which now included Columbia, joined the war on the side of Mir and the Entente and took part in the assault against Pinkerton after NATO took in remaining obby bombers from the War of the Coalition.

The Fall of Rhodesia
Rhodesia would fall to Mir in the first stages of the war. Rhodesian's would later group up in Columbia, starting a civil war called the Columbian Bush War, which was put down by Shadedoom and the UDF.

The Siege of Laconia
After ashnwill's vault Hotel California was attacked by SATO-Entente forces, and other fellow members of the Latvian Soccer Dogs (LSD) were attacked in various places around the map, Laconia came to LSD's aid. Laconia allowed the soccer dogs to reside within Mt. Doom, and organized an attempt to salvage the vault materials. They were intercepted on the way back home, leading to the Battle of Hotel California. Later, Laconia's capital Mt. Doom was attacked, starting the Entente-Laconia War in full swing.

The LSD members integrated into Laconia during the 4-month siege of Mt. Doom, and the remaining forces fled to Hallow and the Holy Jaded Empire after the mountain fell.

Eventually NATO involvement in the defense of Mt. Doom led the Infinity War to become a world war after the Entente followed them back to the northwest quadrant after the fall of Laconia, joining Mir's war effort.

Today Laconia maintains that this element of the war is still ongoing due to no formal peace negotiations between Entente and themselves taking place.

Cracking the Hallow Vault
On June 27th, 2020, Coalition forces broke the Hallow Vault after a 24-hour siege. The pearl of FlashMigma was freed and ComradeRick and hockey328 were lost in the process. The pearl of Kicky was gained by Mir. The cracking of Hallow is notable as it is currently the largest vault to ever be successfully attacked and disabled.

Cracking Best Western and Vault 76
On July 18th, 2020, Coalition forces broke the Best Western vault after a another 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 off of the skybridge but was later freed when Vault 76 was cracked. The remaining pearls that were unreleased from Best Western by Pirater were carried by Crackerjack to the Geo Vault "Litterbox".

Cracking Geo Vault & Conclusion
On July 19th, 2020, Coalition forces broke the last remaining NATO vault, the Geo vault, located by Admintown and SPQR land claims, which held the remaining SPQR pearls. With the final break of the vault, this marked the end of NATO forces 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.

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.

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.