Collapse of Eddie Murphy
The collapse of Eddie Murphy was a major geopolitical event taking place between February 16, 2021 and February 22, 2021. The collapse, which affected what was at the time one of the most active nations on CivClassic, Eddie Murphy, is regarded as a turning point in a number of political affairs.
Prelude
February 13, 2021
At 6:00am EST (yodabird19's time zone), Vice President of Cortesia Del Mar yodabird19 was controversially pearled by the Socialist Federal Republic of Nyasaland's Commissar BennyZ at the nation's capital's rail station. When the pearlee's own direct attempts at communication were ignored, Oko, de facto leader of Eddie Murphy (which was experiencing a succession crisis on account of the split-off of Anyakova on the same day), an ally of Cortesia's via the Defense Union for Mutual Prosperity, took it upon herself to pursue the case, quietly, seeking an uncontroversial resolution.
February 15, 2021
With Oko's attempts at communication also not responded to, the Cortesian transitionary oligarchy, by now well aware of its Vice President's perdicament, took a new approach. At 10:00am EST, Cortesian President IceCarim posted, on behalf of the nation's leadership, a public appeal to r/civclassics, describing the situation as it perceived it and seeking an agreeable resolution. The response in the comments was overwhelmingly positive, and public pressure mounted against Nyasaland. However, still, the Commissariat remained silent.
Cataclysm
February 16, 2021
After three days of ghosting by the Nyasan Commissariat, yodabird19's defenders were beginning to worry. At this time he was still only two months out from first joining CivClassic, and Nyasaland was considered inactive enough that it seemed unlikely for the nation to have any familiarity with the pearled newfriend. This, combined with the socialist nation's lack of an established court system, led the Cortesian Vice President to suspect he was to be permapearled. The issue, in which the entire DUMP alliance was now firmly involved, was under discussion in the alliance's leadership-only Discord channel in the evening.
At 7:00pm EST, Kayla, who, despite being leader of a non-DUMP nation (Cascadia), had access to these critical Discord channels as a result of Cascadia's near-partner relationship with Eddie Murphy, proffered to the concerned alliance leadership a rash idea: to abuse Kayla's namelayer-group access to Nyasaland's vault to steal yodabird19's pearl. Kayla received heavy pushback from all present - IceCarim, yodabird19, and Oko - but was insistent. yodabird19 had to leave for a critical 40 minutes - stymieing effective diplomacy for that time, as he remained the epicenter of the brewing disaster.
At 7:15pm EST, Kayla jumped into the Nyasaland vault. Quickly progressing to the vault center on account of her permissions, Kayla pearled Nyasan Commissar BennyZ in his own vault, before immediately logging out to attend to urgent real-world concerns. This dropped the Commissar's pearl, unfueled, in a barrel at Kayla's log-out point; the pearl was quickly freed, and Kayla was logboxed; Kayla then claimed to be quitting the server. yodabird19's pearl was untouched.
At 7:40pm EST, yodabird19 returned to DUMP's leadership chat; Oko claimed that the Entente alliance had read Kayla's attack on its member as an attack by closely-associated Eddie Murphy, and was dispatching forces to break Eddie Murphy's vault and pearl Oko. To avoid this, Eddie Murphy hurriedly handed primary ownership of its vault namelayer group to Naglafer, relieving the hulking newfriend nation of the asset for which it might have been attacked (and preserving the vault, as Naglafer was more respected by the Entente than Oko). To prevent any implication of the alliance, yodabird19 shot out a condemnation of Kayla's actions by 8:15pm EST.
At 9:00pm EST, after nearly four days, BennyZ created a #yoda-pearl channel in the Nyasaland discord, in which he stated that
- "For Yoda to get released the terms are that you refund a god bow(Power V, Flame I, Infinity, Unbreaking III) and that Cortesia Del Mar stays neutral in any conflicts involving Veldt and Gul"
The first term was a request for fulfillment of yodabird19's promise "to refund the contents of the Nyasan Comissar's [sic] inventory at the time of his death", the second was a consequence of Nyasaland's budding relations with the Veldt leading to concerns about a repeat of the One Hour War.
February 17, 2021
At 10:30pm EST, Columbia declared war on Kayla's nation of Cascadia for its "unwarranted attack on the Nyasaland Vault", "a breach of the non-aggression clause of the Treaty of Valyria, recently signed to allow Cascadia to secede".
What exact events occurred following this war declaration are hotly disputed. Kayla currently (5/7/2021) claims that, while she did destroy some Cascadian valuables as Columbian forces approached, little legitimately owned by Eddie Murphy was damaged as a result of the Columbia-Cascadia War. However, on the day of the war's declaration, she claimed to have "broke every single chest and factory in CAS" and that "everything is dropchested or logged out on accounts that will never login ever again". Columbia holds that its sole action in the Columbia-Cascadia War was to destroy the Cascadian state, and that it did not destroy any Murphian wealth (which is corroborated by shadedoom's statement that Kayla "took the loot out of Cascadia" the day of the declaration). Murphians, especially Oko, have made several claims, varied by individual, time, and evidence, as to who did Eddie Murphy what harm.
However, one thing is for certain: Between the (supposedly temporary, but decidedly permament) loss of its vault, and the contested events of the Columbia-Cascadia War, and the psychological and reputational toll of the crisis from yodabird19's pearling, Murphian activity plummeted.
February 22, 2021
At 7:00am EST, after five days of CivClassic players reporting substantially lower average activity on the server, Tiddy1806 posted a Civball comic titled "EM gone; Empire born". It portrayed the formation of The Empire (as well as Anyakova, though this nation was 9 days old already by this point) as the result of Eddie Murphy being bludgeoned by "BULL SHIT", officializing the death of Eddie Murphy.
Aftermath
February 19, 2021
At 8:15pm EST, Camokool, who had formerly been kept out of primitivist DUMP nation Gul's territory by an independent Murphian intervention, declared his intent to reestablish his antithetical nation of the Veldt. Due to the perdicament of Eddie Murphy, this second Gul-Veldt conflict moved to the slow and tense realm of diplomacy, where the claim conflict simmered for exactly one month before Gul dissolved on March 19, 2021, handing the contested land to the Veldt by default.
February 20, 2021
At 6:45am EST, almost exactly seven days after yodabird19 was pearled, BennyZ of Nyasaland, having received his "god bow" from a charitable Doommad, freed yodabird19's pearl.
No Specific Date
The collapse of Eddie Murphy had profound effects on its former alliance, the DUMP. Formerly an alliance of decidedly weak nations protected by a "babysitter" Eddie Murphy, the defensive alliance, stripped of its most militarily capable member, was forced to dramatically realign its operations. With both Anyakova and The Empire inactive in the extreme, Cortesia Del Mar became the alliance's tentative centerpiece. The DUMP's remaining active nations (at this time, Cortesia, Monterrey, and Blackwell) experienced strong pressure to develop rapidly and grow defensive capabilities, a pressure which remains in play to the present (5/7/2021).
March 12, 2021
Not having quit the server after all, Kayla (having apologized profusely to Columbia, whose vault she had previously claimed to be unironically skybridging), along with her friend Kicky, made a third attempt at founding a nation: Kallos, which remains relatively successful to the present (5/7/2021).