Acadia

Acadia, officially the Republic of Acadia (Simplified Tahar: Dorei'Nothlir o Akkadye), was a nation on CivUniverse and CivClassic. It was a parliamentary constitutional republic, and one of the few sizable civ-nations to operate through (semi-)direct democracy. Acadia held ancestry from Adina, Moloka, Javaya, and Norlund, but was largely a newfriend nation with a diverse and welcoming community, mostly catering to a casual play-style. Acadia was founded on October 21st 2020, prior to the launch of CivUniverse, switched from CivUniverse to CivClassic on April 22nd 2021, where it existed until the end of the server on December 18, 2021. On CivUniverse, Acadia was a vassal state of Javaya. It had one of the largest populations of the server and was a notable exporter of hand-farmed potatoes. On Civclassic, Acadia was an associate member of the UDF and one of the key players in the deep northeast of the +,- quadrant, mostly through having the largest population in the quadrant and through its alliances.

Introduction
Acadia was founded prior to CivUniverse by Cortwade, who created the nation largely from Norlundish and Adinan culture. Although Acadian history starts from October 21 2020, Acadia held ancestry from the older nations of Norlund, Adina, and Javaya. Acadia was founded to be a safe haven from toxicity and a welcoming home for newfriends and casual players, focussing on building and roleplay politics. To ensure the nation's security, Acadia became a vassal state of Javaya, which brought protection and guidance in return for potatoes for their xp-production. As Javaya's vassal Acadia became involved in the New Vegas War against New Vegas and its allies, increasing production for Javaya, delivering a few fighters, and enduring raids from New Vegas ally Savaguard. With CivUniverse losing activity Acadia migrated to CivClassic, where it re-established itself as an independent nation in the +,- quadrant. While it never experienced a major conflict like on CivUniverse, it suffered from the tiresome TNSC conflicts centered around the controversial player Rainie. Acadia became increasingly involved in international politics and became an associate member of the UDF with close relations to Columbia and Icenia.

Acadia has known five Prime Ministers; the first one being Cortwade (three terms), who oversaw the formation of Acadia, its culture, and the migration to CivClassic. Cortwade was succeeded by Bloof (three terms), who oversaw Acadia's increased role on the world stage and kept Acadia together through times of hardship. Bloof was followed by Kannon (one term), who reformed much of Acadia's legal structure and managed to increase activity. Kannon was succeeded by Owain (one term), who emphasized constitutionalism, transparency, and democratic values. The last elected Prime Minister of Acadia was MetalHusband (one term), who sought to increase newfriend recruitment and oversaw Acadia during the closing of CivClassic.

CivUniverse
Officially founded on October 21, 2020, prior to the server launch, the Autonomous Republic of Acadia, sometimes also referred to as 'the dominion of Acadia' was one of the oldest nations of CivUniverse. Undeterred by the risk of shitters and toxicity, Cortwade, the first Prime Minister of Acadia, sought to make a new group on the newly-born server. Quickly after launch Acadians found the continent of Hyperborea and settled their capital city Turing, with help from a few Javayans. Before the day was out Turing featured a factory building and the beginnings of its first large potato farm. In the following month houses were built and the town of Serena was founded as an outpost, and work began on the Acadia Grand Central Station, connecting Turing to Javaya. While activity began to slow down, this was quickly offset by a very successful recruitment initiative, bringing new life and energy into Acadia. The potato farm was expanded, the central station completed, and both Turing and Serena kept growing, most notably with the construction of the Supreme Tribunal in Turing.Shortly after the influx Acadia held its first elections, reelecting Cortwade for a second term. In terms of engagement, the elections were a great success. However, it also marked the beginning of Acadia's divise party politics. The development of an intra-Acadian rail was a paramount issue during the election, with Progressive-Snow candidates campaigning for the construction of an underground rail, and Solidarity Party candidates campaigning for an overground rail and claiming that the Progressive-Snow candidates were dragging their feet on the issue. While the Acadian Parliament kept discussing and delaying the issue, Interim Minister of Homeland Affairs Bloof, member of the Progressive Snow Party and Javaya's 'fixer' in Acadia, eventually decided to finish the rail on her own. With the excitement of a new server sipping away and newfriend activity going down Acadia's population began to shrink in size despite new recruitment initiatives. Nevertheless, Acadia remained on of the most active nations on the server and kept developing. The Lionsgate Stadium was built, as well as a new, larger factory building, and Turing kept expanding with more residential and commercial buildings.

Activity eventually reached new lows due to the rise in toxicity, especially from New Vegas. As a vassal state of Javaya, which joined the Coalition War on the side of the coalition, Acadia did not escape the war against New Vegas, suffering raids from New Vegas ally Savaguard, and supplied fighters and entered a war economy through a War Bond exchange system to support the war efforts. Unfortunately, industrial output was impaired by the decline in activity and Acadia could not properly supply its fighters, leading to heavy casualties on the battlefield. The end of the war on March 10 2021 was celebrated with a national holiday, as Acadian pearls were freed and Acadia could now look toward its own future again. However, while Acadia, as one of few, carried on for a bit after the war, squashing the Tempestian uprising during which a group of players overclaimed Acadian territory on April 3th, activity in both Acadia and the rest of the server was drastically reduced due to the war. Numbering around 30-strong at its peak, Acadia had only 10-15 active citizens when the decision to move to CivClassic was made.

Launch and Early History
Cortwade established claims for the Federal Republic of Acadia on Civclassic on March 10th, 2021 and the Acadian parliament officially voted in favor of the migration on April 4th. The migration finally took place on April 22th. A key player during this transition was JuniorTide, a player from Javaya who had left CivUniverse earlier already and established himself in Icenia. A large number of other Javayans joined Acadia as well, though from the Javayans only Juniortide, LightningBerk, and Egi would remain active in Acadia. The area chosen as the new homeland for Acadia, in the largely empty +,- quadrant, had previously been part of the Chanseatic State, before it was annexed and eventually unclaimed by Mir. To the west of the original claims of Acadia lay the old, heavily griefed ruins of Holy Tree, and the Chanseatic town of Vanhoover, and many remnants of the past, including swastikas, wehrmacht flag banners, and Chanseatic State banners, were found here. Located in the deep northeast, a mostly undeveloped region of the map, Acadia originally had no close neighbours other than the aesthetic city of Gondolin to its south and a Mir exclave to its north, and Acadians began to lean even more into 'frontierism' as a key aspect of their identity.

With a sizable lake island in the middle of Acadia the choice of location for the new capital, New Turing, was easily made, and in a first wave of development a factory building, and a few residential and commercial buildings were quickly build, as well as the Acadian National Arena, and the prominent Square of Perseverance, which would become the heart of Acadian life. However, unlike on CivUniverse, this time Acadia decided to be a federation with internal states and territories, and after the Capitol District with New Turing, the Territory of Babbage was quickly founded by OwainX with state capital Lovelace, as well as the Territory of Kanava with the eponymous capital city of Kanava, and many more would follow. While much progress was made at the very beginning, further development stalled as people increasingly began to work on their own projects, with one Acadian building a private ore smelter before a communal ore smelter had been established, another working on private xp production, and others working on personal build projects away from New Turing. To a degree the fragmentation was encouraged with the Acadian Constitution granting a voting representative in the Senate, the executive body of the Acadian government, for every group of three or more people with their own State, which was later overturned during Kannon's term as Prime Minister. Unfortunately, few settlements outside of New Turing ever became more than personal build projects and those that did never managed to keep activity up for long, which resulted in there being a large number of ghost towns sprawled throughout the previously mostly untouched landscape.

Nevertheless, progress would continue, albeit slowly. Through ancient pre-existing rail Acadia was now connected to the rest of the server, and most importantly Icenia, as the nearest economic center with 20 minutes on rail. Acadia's utter isolation came to an end in June 2021 as the Kingdom of Fish, a spin-off nation from Wyvern, a friendly close nation on CivUniverse, decided to settle east of Acadia. Acadia and Fish immediately signed a Friendship treaty, binding the two nations in an alliance, and giving citizens from either nation unrestricted access to full citizenship in the other. Acadia began to grow a notable population of Fish duals, including Druid and JayTeeR.

The Era of Instability
While Acadia continued it's slow development, the transition from CivUniverse began showing some of the rough edges it had left on the still quite new nation. Layman, who in CivUniverse had been a divise e-lawyer discord politician with debt difficulties murdered another Acadian after a disagreement and had to be pearled and exiled from Acadia. Mat/Pandastical, another controversial figure due to tensions back in CivUniverse, decided to join Acadia as well, merging his personal Lewis Islands claim with Acadia proper as a territory, but ended up seceding after numerous political disagreements. This however did not end his quarrels with Acadians as there was a disagreement on the exact borders between Acadia and his OMN where Mat mistakenly thought he had included a certain area as a claim in his secession bill which the Acadian Parliament had approved. Furthermore, Mat decided to name his OMN (one man nation) 'the Kingdom of the Acadian Lewis Islands' and eventually declared all Acadians PNG (Persona Non Gratae) because of Acadia's refusal to recognize this name. Acadia responded by declaring Mat PNG to which Mat then responded by declaring 'war' on Acadia. The situation calmed down soon after but flared up again when Mat introduced his nation's flag, featuring an Acadian flag despite Acadian requests not to do so. Growing impatient, Acadia decided to annex Mat's OMN on June 10th 2021 to put an end to the issue. Mat was shortly pearled and was banished from Acadia for a few months. More divisiveness followed when it was found out that the Prime Minister, Cortwade, had been voting in the Senate, despite the Prime Minister not being granted this right by the Constitution, and a nearly successful attempt to impeach Cortwade was made.

More trouble followed soon as Acadia had become interesting enough for raiders, but not developed enough to form a successful defense and deterrence against raiders. The raiders were aided by a lack of security-awareness in the general Acadian public. A notable example was the case of Peterdama17, an unknown alt-account, who managed to steal around 100 diamonds from an Acadian citizen who had left them in a stone reinforced chest with the doors leading to the chest left open. By far the most infamous alt-raids came from Acadian and Fish citizens Druid and JayTeeR however, who went on an alt-raidings spree on alt-accounts indonesianbeans and GalacticBroom65 after Druid's almost succesful candidacy for Acadian Minister of Defense, heated discussions about their design of Fish Vault, and general boredom. As they were members of the Acadian military, they had access to Acadian snitches and intel and managed to evade capture for many days, until they were finally pearled by Kayla. During this time, the infamous SCHIZ0TIER spawned in Acadia, where he commited his very first (petty) raids before his later famous HJI raid. As he hid in the deep northeast for a while after his HJI raid, somewhere around Acadia, a large amount of WP-enforcers and bounty hunters crossed through Acadia in their search, bringing more visitors to New Turing than ever throughout Acadia's history.

Unfortunately, the fall-out of Druid and JayTeeR's alt-raids ended up doing considerable damage to Acadia as several Acadians eventually ended up leaving and activity went down. Bloof, who had recently become Acadia's second Prime Minister after Cortwade's retirement after hitting his three term limit and a burnout, had initially set out to improve Acadia's international relations, but, with voice-chat game-afternoons and group projects, saw herself now forced to deal with the increasingly growing problem of inactivity as well. In matters of foreign affairs however, Acadia began to make progress, with Acadia growing closer to Columbia, which had helped out Acadia during Druid and JayTeeR's alt-raid spree and set up a kickback trap featuring as embassy in New Turing. as well as Icenia, due to JuniorTide's efforts.

The First TNSC Crisis
In late July 2021, the controversial player 'Rainie' RainOfPain125 from CivRealms and CivUniverse started playing on CivClassic, choosing to settle close to the north of Acadia with a quickly gathered group of young newfriends and establishing 'The No State Commune'. This immediately resulted in an uncomfortable situation as, due to previous drama on CivRealms and CivUniverse, Rainie held bad blood with some prominent Acadians and other civ players, including Cortwade and Juniortide, whom Rainie considered to be 'violent anti-communists'.

While Acadia initially meant to settle for an uncomfortable peace, a number of issues quickly sprang up that made it hard for Acadia to ignore its new neighbours. As raidings kept being an issue in Acadia, one of them involved a TNSC member, Hawkeye, who was caught in the act though immediately released after an apology and returning the stolen items. However, not much later, another TNSC member was sentenced for raiding in Icenia, who during his trial declared that Rainie had encouraged him and other TNSC members to raid nearby places to help develop TNSC. Additionally, Rainie was accused of vandalism in the form of propaganda on JuniorTide's house, and was seen mining newfriends' unfinished diamond veins under New Turing, even though Rainie had already been declared PNG in Acadia. More serious concerns about Rainie and TNSC arose with Rainie's suspicious excursions through Acadia, especially the area where Acadia's skybunker was being constructed, and when Acadia learned that TNSC possessed many hundreds of diamonds and many high-value tools just mere days after they started playing on CivClassic, leading to concerns of a possible hostile sponsor. With Acadia soon after accidentally finding an almost finished large bunker-complex under construction in TNSC, the Acadian military elected for a pre-emptive strike on the bunker. On July 28, Egi and Juniortide attacked the TNSC bunker, confiscating some of its contents, and disabling it by placing reinforced obsidian inside the bunker. This quickly attracted a lot of international attention as Rainie and other TNSC members made intensive use of global chat to accuse Acadia of harassing them and attacking newfriends as well as posting accusations and requests for help against Acadia on the server reddit page. This attention quickly brought a number of non-Acadian players, TTastic, Okx, and MrJeremyFisher, who were possibly out for 500 diamonds bounty on Rainie's pearl by MCSPenguin due to CivRealms drama. They did not manage to pearl him, and Rainie was only briefly logboxed.

Soon after, news broke out in Acadia that Rainie had been colluding with members of the Workers of Acadia Party (WAP) in a scheme where they funded Rainie with diamonds and in return Rainie sent people from his political anarcho-communism discord to Acadia to sway the Acadian elections in favour of the WAP. One of the key Acadians and WAP members in this scheme, Zombie_Striker, who was elected Minister of Interior earlier, was a friend of Rainie back on CivRealms, and had been arguing in favor of Rainie the whole time. With all their plans coming crashing down she decided to have her 'revenge' by leaking Senate chats, breaking Acadia's diamond tool factories, and planning to obbybomb New Turing. Zombie_Striker ended up quitting civ, and Rainie was soon after banned for doxxing an Acadian citizen, though there is some disagreement about whether the doxxing was intentional or not.

The Era of Recovery
The raidings began to subside, and Acadia's strength began to grow with a succesful campaign to get prot for everyone and with the skybunker becoming operational. Activity stabilized for a while, stimulated by a wave of new people joining the server and Acadia. Additionally, Bloofs efforts in international diplomacy began to pay off as Acadia was admitted into the UDF as an associate member on August 18th, and with the founding of the Plus-Minus Concordat alliance with Fish, Mythril, the City of England, and soon after the Ch1pR Empire (later renamed to Sussex) joined as well. Moreover, the AFK-rail system KANI was expanded into the plus-minus quadrant properly linking Acadia to the rest of the server through AFK-rail, which led to increased interest in the quadrant from the rest of the server.

Acadia's new alliances were soon after put to use when a large group of faction players threathened to coup and attack Acadia. In August 2021, a seemingly normal new person to the server, Bolle_Josh, spawned in Acadia. He was seen as a potentially promising newfriend but it soon after came to light that he was merely the first of a group of 15-20 factions players, planning on using their numbers to effectively take over the nation through the elections, and he and his friends were banished from Acadia. They left and settled in an ancient abandoned palace in unclaimed territory near the City of England and Columbia, where they created their short-lived nation of Vusitania. They were quickly insided by both military officer Kannon, and Tuomasz, who were able to monitor their actions and movements in-game and through their own live-streams; revealing their locations, recording a large number of racist comments, their threats of grief and hostile actions against several nations (including Acadia, City of England, and Gabon), and reporting them for x-raying which eventually resulted in a few bans. Meanwhile the newly created PMC was kept updated live, and a coalition of Columbians and PMC members intervened at their place and managed to pearl their entire core group, effectively eliminating all of 'Vusitania'.

Under Bloofs administration Acadia began to mature as a nation, but there was one aspect of Acadia's democracy where the need for improvement could not be ignored. Until so far the ownership of Acadia's strategic namelayer groups had been split throughout a few of its first core players, with the groups in the hands of the Prime Minister transferred after the election. So far this situation had not caused any problems, but as concerns arose around whether this left Acadia waiting for disaster to happen, the position of the High Commissar, later renamed to Ymir, being the head of state and holder of the national namelayer groups, was created to put an end to this situation. Cortwade, founder and first Prime Minister of Acadia was elected to the position. More political changes were yet to come. As the Javayan Acadians had severely declined in activity the traditional Ashahari People's Party, which had dominated Acadian politics since the very beginnings of CivClassic, began to decline in strenght. Meanwhile, a new party began to rise as the so far marginal National Defense Party and the Visionary Party of Acadia merged into one; the National Visionary Defense Party, seeking broad reforms to Acadia's governmental system. The party immediately gained some political power through a scheme where three members crafted the artifical State of Thompson, earning them a State Senator, a voting representative in the Acadian Senate, as per the Acadian Constitution. Soon after, the October elections were held with Bloof stepping down as Prime Minister after reaching the maximum amount of three terms, and the NVDP ballooned in power, winning all government positions, with now Prime Minister Kannon.

The first reform was abolishing State Senators, so that demographic fragmentation and political power plots would no longer be institutionally encouraged. With the second reform Kannon restructured Acadia's military, making it more independent and hierarchical. The third reform was the Eight Amendment, drastically changing Acadia's governmental system as the National Assembly was completely dissolved and the Senate, comprised of elected ministers, turned into a National Council with full legislative powers. However, popular resistance against the Eight Amendment began to appear as people began to consider the system opressive, comparing it to a military junta. Meanwhile, the constitutional reform turned into a constitutional crisis as some of the powers and responsibilities of the National Assembly weren't properly redelegated and the general public heavily resisted the idea of delegating those powers and responsibilities to the National Council. As the Eight Amendment became increasingly unpopular and divisive, it was eventually repealed by the National Council by the end of October.

Additionally, Acadia grew twice in size with a large westward expansion, claiming the land inbetween Acadia and its close ally Columbia to the west which, with East Columbia touching Acadia on its eastern borders, created a full Columbia / Acadia northwest-northeast world border corridor, linking the Columbian main holdings with Asu's vault Rhea in East Columbia with the last to-be completed part of the full ice road connection under construction. This was essentially part of the final answer to the question of how to establish further integration with Columbia, as the political landscape in Acadia would not allow for full integration into a Columbian Federation, with many Acadians disliking the idea of losing the sovereignty they had proudly gained on CivClassic, no longer having liege as they had with Javaya on CivUniverse. The expansion included the former Chanseatic town of Vanhoover, and grass-roots movement emerged under Acadian newfriends to repopulate and restore the town, which had the approval of the Acadian government as it would legitimize Acadia's claim on the larger area.

The Second TNSC Crisis
Around the end of September, Acadia was shocked by the sudden, short reappearance of Rainie, whose temporary ban had apparently been finished after one month. As Acadians never knew the lenght of the ban, they were surprised to see Rainie back again so quickly. After Rainie's temporary dissapearance the other members of TNSC had decided to rebrand their nation as Consortium with Hawkeye as their new leader, and relations between Acadia and Consortium were somewhat friendly, though there was not much contact with them as activity in Consortium had long been very low. According to Hawkeye, the TNSC members considered Rainie to be a dictator and they had effectively overthrown him after the events of the TNSC crisis. Hawkeye claimed that, after escaping from his bounty hunters, Rainie was then hunted by his fellow TNSC members, that they eventually had Rainie logboxed, and that they had not been in contact with him afterwards. Choosing to believe him, Acadia asked Consortium for the location of the logbox, so that they would be able to pearl him if Rainie logged in on his main account again.

However, Hawkeye was not very willing to do so, as he demanded payment of hundreds of diamonds in return. Negotiations proved fruitless and as Acadia wasn´t willing to pay people for covering someone they considered to be a doxxer Acadia decided to go looking for the logbox in Consortium themselves. During this search Consortium members were briefly pearled so the Acadians could continue their search. The search was unsuccesful, and another round of negotiations followed where, eventually, Hawkeye led Acadia to Rainie's supposed logbox. The logbox was guarded almost 24 hours a day for several days but Rainie never logged in on his main account again, nor would most Consortium members who, by this time, had grown fully inactive. With the attention Rainie's reappearance had amassed on the server a discussion starting to appear around whether the Rainie's ban was sufficiently long enough given the seriousness of doxxing, with the admin team eventually making the very unorthodox decision to reach out publically for opinions.

Unfortunately, especially as far as public information goes, a lot of what exactly happened with Rainie after the first TNSC crisis is shrouded in mystery. It is unclear whether Rainie's ban was kept on one month only, or, as Rainie would later claim, that it was extended to three months, which would mean that he was banned again not long after his reappearance. If his ban was not extended, it is also unclear to what extend he had been active on an alt-account during September/October, which he, contradicting his other statement, claimed he was. Neither was it ever publicly established whether Consortium had actually broken ties with Rainie as Hawkeye claimed, or whether the logbox was real or a fabrication.

The Final Era and the End of the World
The PMC alliance had grown with the admissions of Kallos, at the time close to Columbia, and Jomsviking. The alliance soon proved unstable however, when Jomsviking suddenly unilaterally annexed its neighbour and fellow PMC ally City of England during the Jomsviking-England Incident, dissatisfied with their low activity which delayed their admittance into the PMC as England took a few days to cast their vote, and desiring England's plains biome for the agriculture of melons. As Acadia helped City of England with the removal of the banners, signs, and the hostile city bastion Jomsviking had placed in their city, the situation escalated dramatically as heated dicussions, especially between Acadia's newly elected Prime Minister Owain and Kallos' leader Kayla who supported Jomsviking, turned relations sour. While Jomsviking had already decided to back down, the fall-out increased and virtually all PMC members at that point planned to leave the alliance, with Acadia and Fish together moving to the re-established UNC alliance, announced by Varkonia and Gabon. The PMC alliance was disbanded mere days after the original incident.

The initial tensions were worsened when the leader of Jomsviking, Alunya, who held citizenship in Acadia, was declared POS by Prime Minister Owain, asking her to renounce her citizenship in Acadia in order for the POS to be removed. The Acadian Senate disagreed with this action and Owain briefly resigned, as well as Ymir Cortwade, as there was a heated discussion around whether the POS was an appropriate tool to use in this situation. Unfortunately, the Acadian Constitution did not allow the government or the National Assembly to remove an individual's citizenship. This was eventually fixed with an amendment, but together with a legal incident during the December elections where it took days for it to be established whether the Ministry of Foreign Affairs actually legally existed and whether an election for the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs was to be held, this highlighted a growing problem with Acadia's legal system. Acadia, no longer a simple newfriend nation, had fully outgrown its original Constitution, and, at the same time, with all its amendments which at times conflicted with each other, the Acadian legal system had become increasingly complex, to the point where there was in practice only one Acadian, Aelfred, who fortunately happend to be the Chief Justice, could somewhat effectively navigate through it. This complexity exacerbated the already existing presence of e-lawyerism in Acadia.In the meantime, New Turing, for the first time, began to thrive as Yoahtlan economic presence began to grow in the city and a large newfriend wave increased activity and the need for more residential units. Acadia's population count was on the rise again, reaching 25 in November 2021. Many residential units, as well as commercial units, and a new, larger factory and storage building were built by TheGreatUniter who had recently started playing on CivClassic and joined Acadia. Whereas New Turing never managed to find a convincing, cohesive general aesthetic before, and was limited by the small-scale Acadian architectural norms, Uniter introduced a new architectural style for the city, with taller and more detailed buildings. His style proved succesful as more buildings in Uniter's style began to pop up and genuine excitement about the future of New Turing began to emerge. Redevelopment continued, with the government discussing far reaching plans to increase its control over the capital to organize its redevelopment and to find a way around the e-lawyerism and lack of executive tools that made derelicting unused, unaesthetic buildings in the capital near impossible. Center to the redevelopment plan was to remove the western half of the large boulevard reaching down to the quartz Parliament building construction site, as well the largely unfinished Parliament building itself, which after many months of stalled construction had become a symbol of New Turing's previous stagnation.

However, these plans never came to be, as the Acadian government received word that the server was about to end, and with the incident of Pearled Harbor following. In the last few days of the server, a number of Acadians attended the 2021 Winter Olympics in Rotterdam, Columbia, with Bloof winning silver medals for Acadia in archery and pvp tournament. With the server finally shutting down on December 18th 2021, Acadia's history on CivClassic came to an end.

Culture
Acadia was a very diverse nation, in part due to having a number of different cultural ancestors through some of Acadia's founders and citizens (Adina, Moloka, Javaya, and Norlund), Acadia's willingness to embrace cultural influences from nations it was close to (Javaya, Wyvern/Fish, and Columbia), and the large amount of people still fairly new to civ who brought organic growth of culture.

Acadian Spirit
Core values central to Acadian culture were a love for freedom, role-play politics, property rights, and capitalism, and many Acadians prided themselves on their individualist nature. These core elements date back to the very beginnings of Acadia and was mostly independently formed, though it could be argued that it was at least in part the result of Acadia's institutions, inspired by Norlund, emphasizing democracy and strong defense of personal rights. That said, given Acadia's cultural diversity, a significant opposing faction existed, mostly composed of Molokans/Javayans and Acadians who grew close to Molokan/Javayan cultural influences. The divide between those two sides was most noticable on CivClassic as the arrival of several Javayan players into Acadia enlarged their cultural influence considerably. Its effects on Acadian politics were substantial, with the more individualist Acadians generally arguing for decentralization and direct democracy and against large communal projects, and the Javayan Acadians preferring more of a guided democracy and a centralized state with everyone contributing directly to the common good.

Language and Religion
Another prominent aspect of Acadian culture was its use of Simplified Tahar, brought to Acadia from the Adina/Moloka/Javaya line, as the official language, featured in many official documents and titles. The language has its own vocabulary and grammar, as well as its own unique script. Despite the prominent use of Tahar, there were only ever a handful of speakers. Nevertheless, enthusiasm for Tahar persisted among its supporters and the language is currently undergoing increased interest and attempts to improve its documentation.

While Acadia never had an official national religion, due to the influence from Javaya and the legacy of Adina, Ashahari, a branch from Indoja, was close to a national religion as it was by far the most dominant civ-religion in Acadia and had become central to Acadia's national identity. Two prominent political parties were formed after Ashahari values, though neither of them argued for a theocracy or an official national religion. Followers of Ashahari believe in a monotheistic deity, Ashahari, who is one with the universe. While being a non-corporal all-encompassing entity Ashahari manifests through Avatars. Many Ashaharist tend to focus their worship on specific avatars, leading to the in Acadia dominant denominations of Peleism; where Ashaharist worship the Avatar Pele, the manifestation of Ashahari as a cyclical force of creation and renewal, and Lunism; where Ashaharists worship the Avatar Luna, the manifestation of Ashahari as a watcher against the evils of darkness emphasizing unity and harmony. Despite there being no lack of devotion, no Ashahari temple was eventually ever built in Acadia, although there were multiple plans to do so, including a large castle build with temple by former Javayan emperor Kalipso.

Apart from Ashahari some Acadians also practiced Melonism; a simple religion centered around the worship of melons, and Bezism.

Architecture
As many Acadians believed that everyone should have the freedom to build more or less wherever they want, even in the capital, but also supported an enforced Victorian build theme, architecture remained throughout Acadia's history a prominent and sometimes controversial topic of conversation, especially due to the fact that a majority of Acadians considered themselves 'buildfriends'. Traditional Acadian architecture was most accommodating to these beliefs as it was characterized by simple shapes, small dimensions, a love for the easily obtainable materials stone and brick, and a general 'less is more' approach especially regarding detailing. This resulted in a charming, cohesive style, as can be seen in (old) Turing, where it was born.

Nevertheless, as this style never managed to get off the ground convincingly in New Turing, Acadians began to experiment with other styles and eventually moved toward larger and more detailed buildings, though a convincing approach was only found when TheGreatUniter introduced a new style at the end of Acadia's history on CivClassic; larger, more detailed, and with heavy use of wood. By this time however, New Turing already featured many buildings in different styles and varying levels of aesthetics, which led to a generally incohesive and unconvincing urban fabric and damaged the city's popularity. Inspired by Uniter's new style plans were made to rebuild much of the city, but they were cut short by the end of the server.

Miscellaneous

One of the more visible examples of Acadian culture was the practice of g-posting and j-posting. G-posting was a cultural import from Columbia making way through Acadia halfway through CivClassic, when Acadia began to grow closer to Columbia, and Icenia, which also practiced g-posting albeit to a lesser extent. The first g was brought to Acadia by a group of Columbians after they had constructed their embassy in New Turing, building a large G out of dirt blocks. Some time after, a dedicated g-posting channel was added to Acadia's discord server. However, this cultural import was not universally embraced as a large number of Acadians would instead use the channel for j-posting in what quickly grew to be a large counter-movement. The rivalry between g and j would flare up many times throughout the rest of Acadia's history, leading to a lot of chaos on the Acadian discord, in-game demonstrations, and in one instance even turning violent.

For a while Acadia was home to an internationally popular video news network by Owain known as ANN (Acadian News Network), which helped put Acadia on the map for many people on the server.

Another Acadian traditional preference was naming locations after computer-science pioneers. The capital of Acadia is always named after Alan Turing. Other places have been named after Charles Babbage (the State of Babbage); Ada Lovelace (Lovelace, capital of Babbage); Ken Thompson (the State of Thompson); and many more. It was only near the end of Acadia's time on CivClassic that, due to a surge of renewed interest, new location names, like Mana'thalas and Brethil'mir, were inspired by Tahar instead of computer-science pioneers.

Economy on CivUniverse
On CivUniverse, Acadia was an economic periphery, with a client-state economy centered around producing goods for Javaya, mostly hand-farmed potatoes for Javaya's XP-production, potion ingredients, and obsidian. Despite the low economic development, Acadia had many small economic ventures, with Acadians keeping livestock, farming ice, and many specialized commercial establishments in Turing including bakeries, breweries, and a legal consultancy office. Regardless, Acadia remained a fairly poor nation and relied on Javaya for the import of high value goods such as enchanted tools.

Economy on CivClassic
On CivClassics, Acadia kept much of the capitalist and individualist nature it had developed in CivUniverse, and while in the beginning Acadians often had to rely on mining and buying high value products in Icenia, 20 minutes away, some Acadians quickly established private production of prot, XP, and potions, with The Lovelace Company and Steve Corp playing a particularly large role. Throughout Acadia's history it has also known several different manufacturers of enchanted tools, though the international competition in this sector was tough. As individual capitalist ventures grew less popular throughout time, national (collective) production of XP began to speed up around the end of Acadia's history on CivClassic, with national prot and tools production only held off because of delayed plans to build a small vault in which those factories would then have been housed. Around the end of Acadia's time on CivClassic, Acadia began to develop a small economy, now also hosting among others a nethertree shop and a map-art shop, and with small-scale private production of elytra's and netherite ingots. However, the limits of CivClassic's post-scarcity server economy, the geographic isolation of Acadia, and lack of international profile limited the potential of growing a fully functioning economy, and export remained an unsolved challenge.

Government and Political Parties
For an overview of election results, see: History of Acadia

Political System
Acadia was sometimes considered to be somewhat of a 'Norlund spin-off', as Acadia's governmental system was much inspired by Norlund's. On CivUniverse Acadia took the form of a parliamentary constitutional republic as a dominion of Javaya, while on CivClassic it was a federal parliamentary constitutional republic as an independent nation. The final Constitution of Acadia and its ten amendments can be found here as well as on Acadia's discord. The head of state of Acadia was the Ymir, originally called the High Commissar, instituted part way through CivClassic, who held the namelayer groups and was responsible for organizing elections. The head of government was the Prime Minister, who was the chief diplomat and presided over the Senate (I'Nothlir Farroth), the executive body, composed of all other ministers who were, with the Prime Minister, each individually elected. In the later stages of CivClassic, one exception to this was the Minister of Defense, who was then elected by the Sel'mean, a military council, who were in turn appointed by the National Assembly (I'Dorei Sabar). The Acadian Parliament consisted of the National Assembly and the Senate. The National Assembly was the primary legislative body, composed of all citizens, where people could propose and vote on legislation, which could then be vetoed by the Senate. The Senate also had the power to make legislation, with the National Assembly able to veto if a large majority was against. Outside of legislation, ministers could institute executive orders within their scope of discretion. The Prime Minister and the other ministers were elected for one month each term (not counting time between servers), with a limit of three terms for the Prime Minister. The Ymir was elected for six months, with a monthly vote of trust in the National Assembly. Additionally, while earlier a Chief Justice was temporarily appointed by the National Assembly when needed for criminal and constitutional matters, this later on became a permanent for-life position, evolving into a prominent national advisor to help the Senate and the National Assembly navigate Acadia's increasingly complex legal system.

Political Culture
Throughout Acadia's history there were many attempts to reform its political system, by people who sought to decentralize it, introduce radical executive transparency and institute direct democracy; as well as people who sought to centralize the system and reduce democracy. Neither side could ever get enough support for (lasting) change however, and as a result Acadia's political system remained balanced between the two opposing views. These two opposing sides often coincided with other political divisions; most notably the questions of whether Acadian politics should follow irl moral/political beliefs or adjust to what some believed were the less flattering 'realities' of civ, whether Acadia should try to develop itself competitively and work on large defensive infrastructure projects or remain a casual buildfriend nation, and whether Acadia should be isolationist and avoid alliances or seek to grow closer to the UDF and play a larger role within the +,- quadrant.

Ministers were subject to heavy scrutiny, and mistakes which could fairly easily be made given the complex legal system could lead a large group of Acadians to start an impeachment procedure. While no impeachment was ever succesful, a large number of them where launched or threatened throughout Acadia's history. Especially the office of the Prime Minister could be hard, as the burden of preserving unity fell mostly on them. Two Prime Ministers, Kannon and Owain, resigned or almost resigned and both refused to run for more than one term.

Despite the strength of Acadia's democratic institutions, the nation was for a good part held together by a group known as the 'shadow government', or 'the mafia'. On CivUniverse, this group consisted of a few Javayans and trusted Acadians, who kept things under control behind the scenes and set the priorities on the agenda for the Acadian Senate. While on CivUniverse the shadow government was de facto institutionalized, on CivClassics it was more fluid and consisted of a group of core Acadians with some of the Javayans now also belonging to this group, who used their influence through the Acadian Senate as ministers or advisors, rather than around it. After the workings of the shadow government became more well-known to the general public, this aspect of Acadian political culture came under heavy opposition as many considered it anti-democratic and thus un-Acadian. However, from the very beginning Acadia was always meant to have something like this, to make sure that democracy would not lead Acadia too far away from the path of reason.

A very visible feature of Acadia's political landscape was its many political parties. While many liked the roleplay and the 'aesthetics' they brought to Acadian politics and thought they potentially helped people get more involved with the nation's politics, they werent universally loved as some thought they did more harm than good by dividing the people instead of uniting them and keeping people focussed on discord politics instead of in-game projects. For the first half of Acadia's political history political parties served a real function, organizing votes and propaganda for legislative campaigns. However, in the latter half political parties grew more and more obsolete and irrelevant as people paid less and less attention to them. Possible explanations for this are that a consensus had quietly been reached on the potential harms, that people simply grew tired of them, or that the increased political polarization had the vast majority of Acadians entrenched on coinciding political fault lines, rendering political parties without real use.

List of Political Parties
On CivUniverse, Acadia's political life was dominated by three parties; the Progressive-Snow party (P-S), a left wing party focussing on national progress within the established system, the Solidarity party (S), a left wing party arguing for collective production, and the Libertarian Party (LP), also known as the 'GRILL party', a center-right party arguing for laissez-faire policies, with the Progressive-Snow party remaining dominant throughout CivUniverse. All parties were disbanded with the migration to CivClassic. On CivClassic, Acadia saw a lot more political parties. The Ashahari People's Party (APP) (Ashahara i'Dorei Farroth), in politics similar to the Progressive-Snow party, was the result of the merge between the Progressive-Snow party and the influx of Javayans, who introduced the emphasis on Ashaharist communal values. The APP featured many prominent Acadians and was the dominant party for much of Acadia's history, until with the decline in activity from especially the Javayans its hold began to wane. During the decline of the APP a schism emerged after a disagreement on Acadia's role within a wider international movement of Adinan exiles seeking to return to their homeland, with the New Ashahari Party (NAP) (Gwain Ashahari Farroth) preferring to emphasize national unity within Acadia. Vying for power with the APP in the earlier part of Acadian politics was the left wing Workers of Acadia Party (WAP) (i'Cuin'Dorei o Akkadye Farroth), flirting with abolishing private property and radical system reform to centralize and nationalize Acadian political and economic life. The WAP eventually came crashing down as alt-raiding WAP-members brought embarrassment to the party and the party even ended up in a treason scandal after the First TNSC Crisis. The only party to eventually manage to rival and overtake the APP in power was the National Visionary Defense Party (NVDP) (i'Nothlir Tira a' Nidh Farroth, the result of the merge of the previously irrelevant Visionary Party of Acadia (VPA) (Tira Farroth o Akkadye) and National Defense Party (NDP) (i'Nothlir Nidh Farroth). The NVDP generally sought to centralize Acadian politics and to increase Acadia's role in the quadrant but eventually waned due to internal disagreements. In a counter reaction against the increased support for a centralized government and economy, the Liberty of Acadia Party (LAP) (u'Nosson o Akaddye Farroth), the direct successor of the short-lived Acadian Trade and Prosperity Party (ATPP) (u'Nosson o Akaddye Farroth) and the earlier Libertarian Party sought to fight for decentralization and radical political transparency and direct democracy, fight against national projects and defensive infrastructure, and to ban political parties. Part of the same counter reaction were the less radical Democratic Front for the Restoration of Acadia (DFRA) (i’Dorei Nidh sil U’cae o Akkadye) and the Democratic Acadia Movement (DAM) (i'Dorei'sel Akkadye Sil).

States, Territories, and Settlements


On CivUniverse, no administrative divisions were official and Acadia was a de facto unitary state. No special or official recognition was given to settlements or territories other than the capital, Turing. On Civclassic however, Acadia had a federal system with administrative divisions, which consisted of Federal Territories, States, Organized Territories, and Unorganized Territories. Unorganized Territories were mostly unused land. Organized Territories were recognized by the Acadian Parliament as under the local governance of a governor, and were usually OMN-like build projects. An Organized Territory could be promoted into a State if it had three Acadian residents or more, and for the first half of Acadia's history on CivClassic they would then be granted a voting representative in the Senate. The Federal Territories covered the capital city, New Turing; the northern exclave, used for national xp-production; and the National Arena, which was built between the main settlements at the time of construction, New Turing, Lovelace, and Kanava; highlighting Acadia's federal character. Federal Territories fell under direct governance of the Senate.

Settlements on CivUniverse
On CivUniverse, (old) Turing was the capital city of Acadia, housing notable buildings such as the National Bank, Supreme Tribunal, Acadia Grand Central Station, and more. It was the largest city on the Hyperborean continent, a newfriend hub, and a regional hub for economics, culture, and transport, with the Acadia Grand Central Station being the largest rail station in the southern hemisphere and the Aston Tower being the tallest building in Hyperborea. It was probably one of the best looking cities on the server, with a unique and cohesive architectural style. However, Acadia on CivUniverse was less dominated by its capital city than on CivClassic, as it also had the thriving town of Serena; located on the south coast of Acadia, home to some of Acadia's more libertarian citizens and focussing on small-scale industries and freedom of building, and Norhaven; a small port town in construction and Acadia's southermost settlement.

States, Territories, and Settlements on CivClassic
On CivClassic, New Turing was the capital city of Acadia, situated on the island within Lake Elizabeth, featuring the Perseverance Square, the heart of Acadian life; the factory building; the skybunker; rail station; and ice road center. Even more than on CivUniverse, Acadia's social and economic reality revolved around the capital. Whereas Old Turing's architecture was low in height, New Turing increasingly featured larger buildings, with an ever developing skyline. Close to New Turing lay the State of Thompson, a countryside de facto residential suburb of New Turing; the Territory of Nordvest, a personal build project featuring Art Deco towers and an airport; the State of Babbage with the town of Lovelace, a settlement focussing on commerce and industry, which thrived during Acadia's earlier beginnings but eventually declined in activity; the Stonegate project, an early abandoned project to build a settlement consisting of a grid of bunkers; as well as Eden, a mostly underground settlement with a medieval theme and a large statue. To the east of Acadia lay the Territory and town of Kanava, built around canals, featuring a water tunnel connecting it to Lovelace; the Territory of Wilson with the village of Conway, which was to become a victorian countryside village; and the Territory / State of the Lewis Islands, with the settlements of Pajnitov and Mallorca. The Lewis Islands were widely believed to be cursed due to several separate incidents of Lewis Islanders committing treason as well as the fact that the islands were floating on water due to a world generation error. To the west of New Turing lay the State of Mana'Thalas with the old pre-Acadian town of Vanhoover, as well as the remnants of the pre-Acadian settlements New Jerusalem and Holy Tree.

Landmark Buildings
A selection of Acadia's most significant buildings based on their (im)popularity and historical and symbolic significance.

Landmark Buildings on CivUniverse

One of the most loved and respected builds was the Acadia Grand Central Station. It was the main transportation hub in Hyperborea, linking all settlements in Hyperborea with each other, and linking the continent to the rest of the server with a direct line to the motherland, Javaya. Built in typical traditional old Turing architecture with brick and stone brick, it's the main representative build of this style. The Aston Tower, built by Cortwade, largely followed these same architectural conventions like most buildings in old Turing. Housing a number of newfriend apartments, it was the tallest building in all of Hyperborea, dominating the old Turing skyline. It represented a move towards urbanization as old Turing was growing quickly in its latest weeks. Another landmark came from the same urbanization rush; the Supreme Tribunal building by Huntwolf, an example of Acadia's occasional flirtation with quartz. It was the only Acadian government building that was ever finished.

Landmark Buildings on CivClassic
The Rainbow Row, built by Bloof, was one of New Turing's most successful residential and commercial projects. As New Turing sat upon a large height difference with the surrounding lake, waterfront development was a challenge; however; the Rainbow Row's visibility ensured its inclusion in commercial traffic. It eventually became associated with the later rainbow hot air balloon and the gaybar as monuments to Acadia's LGBT+ community. Another important landmark was the National Arena, designed by Owain in antiquity inspired architecture, the first major break from traditional Acadian architecture. Situated between the early settlements of New Turing, Lovelace, and Kanava rather than in the capital, it was a monument to Acadia's federalism on CivClassic. Unfortunately, perhaps partly due to its remoteness, it was never put to use. Another building that never quite hit its goal was the unfinished Capitol Building, designed by Seekinq and central part of Cortwade´s vision for New Turing. As time went on the building became a controversial symbol of inactivity, and it began to highlight struggles with city planning as it clashed with the skybunker and the boulevard descending to the building clashed with kick-back traps. Right before the announcement of the end of the server, a plan for urban renewal was formed which would have had this entire area removed and rebuilt. Symbol of the same wave of urban renewal was the new Community Center with factories and large communal storage, built by Uniter, and the tallest building in New Turing. Finally, one of Acadia's most controversial buildings; the Vegan Steakhouse by Spleef. Due to its lack of aesthetic value and the fact that it was hardly ever stocked, the Acadian government wished to derelict this building. However, given Acadia's strong property rights, which did not allow for confiscation as long as the owner objected on Discord, and popular disapproval of what many saw as 'government overreach', the building led to one of Acadia's biggest storms of e-lawyerism.

Foreign Relations
Although Acadia's population was traditionally largely in favor of isolationism, against close cooperation with larger powers, and anti-WP sentiments were somewhat common; Acadia's leadership and 'shadow government' was always largely in favor of strong alliances with larger powers to establish security. On CivUniverse, matters of foreign policy were largely handled by motherland Javaya. Regardless, Acadia was part of the Commonwealth of Southern Nations, and oversaw matters on the Hyperborean continent as a guardian of the continent, which was largely populated by newfriends. On CivClassic, Acadia inherited Javaya's good relations with neighbor Wyvern, which was now Acadia's neighbor Fish. A Special Friendship Pact was signed with Fish, granting special citizenship privileges to Acadian and Fish citizens and establishing military and diplomatic cooperation. Together a larger alliance in the +,- quadrant was created; the Plus-Minus-Concordat (PMC), with Sussex, Mythril, City of England, Jomsviking, and Kallos, which lasted until the events of the Jomsviking-England Incident which destroyed the alliance. Additionally, Acadia was an associate member of the UDF, with close ties with Icenia and especially Columbia, with which integration into a larger Columbian Federation was considered though ultimately rejected due to suspected lack of popular support. In the last weeks of the server, Acadia joined the re-established UNC.

Military
With only a handful of decent to strong pvpers, Acadia's own military, the Maena-lamen, was relatively weak, though this was partly compensated by a few log-on pvpers from Norlund and Javaya. On CivUniverse, Acadia relied on its motherland Javaya, which took care of matters of foreign policy and defense, but without Javaya on CivClassic, Acadia established military cooperation with Fish and Columbia.

Central to the Acadian defense on CivClassic was the skybunker in New Turing, nicknamed 'the Octopus' by some. It functioned as a pot bunker, wealth storage, and a home for low-security pearls. Acadia was connected with ice roads to the Crucible, Columbia's main vault, which connected Acadia to the larger UDF ice road network; Rhea, the East-Columbian vault; and connections to Hyperion and Prometheus in Icenia were being worked on shortly before the end of the server. These connections gave Acadia quick access to securing high-risk pearls as well as a route for potential defensive reinforcements. Additionally, a small vault was being planned in cooperation with Columbia at the end of the server for low/mid-risk pearls, prot factories, and to increase the strength of Acadia and its allies in the deep +,- quadrant. New Turing's defense was strengthened with kick-back traps, with plans to install a defensive sewer system inspired by Icenia.

The official hierarchy of the Maena-lamen was established under Prime Minister Kannon halfway through CivClassic, who sought to mature the Acadian militia, institute a clear chain of command, and to depoliticize the military by making it a semi-independent institution. The official head of the Maena-lamen was the Minister of Defense, who was appointed by the Selmaen council, consisting of two Selmaen officers appointed for life by the legislature. Additionally, the Selmaen appointed two generals, traditionally themselves, who led all military operations. Under the generals were two squadrons, alpha and beta, each led by a marshall, with squadron alpha being responsible for most defensive and offensive operations and squadron beta functioning mostly as a reserve force.