FRIENDS

Framework for Respect and International Entity for National Defense and Sovereignty
Poster commemorating the founding of FRIENDS
General
Formation	June 9th 2018
Membership	Columbia Hallow Holy Jaded Empire Rhodesia Laconia Vitelia
Formation
Foundation document	F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Treaty
Preceded by	WCO
Succeeded by	NATO

The Framework for Respect and International Entity for National Defense and Sovereignty, more commonly referred to as F.R.I.E.N.D.S, was a defensive alliance between Columbia, Hallow, the Holy Jaded Empire, Rhodesia, Laconia, and Vitelia. It was formed on June 9th 2018,and after months of external pressure and internal disagreements between member states, fell apart in the first weeks of January 2019. At its peak, it was a powerful alliance exerting itself throughout most of the map, having many proxy alliances which furthered their reach. After being fragmented, most of the former member states including Columbia, Hallow, and the HJE went on to create NATO.

History

Founding of FRIENDS

A little while after the Western Cooperative Organization dissolved, its former member states and other former members' nations decided to form another alliance together. The Holy Jaded Empire formed the alliance with Rhodesia on June 9th, 2018. Columbia, having reclaimed their land from Lusitania after dispersing for a few months, was inducted into the alliance in July 2018, with Hallow following suite after it was founded in August 2018. The alliance was announced publicly on August 1st, 2018.

From the beginning the alliance had a very stringent relationship with SATO, mostly due to old tensions with Yoahtl from the WCO days among other grievances.

Trouble in Columbia

Columbia had fallen apart throughout Spring 2018 due to internal issues and the WCO collapsing. However, in July 2018, a large group of former Columbians came back together to reform Columbia with a different government structure and had successfully regained their land back from Lusitania, who had claimed it during the dispersal.

However, in order to reclaim their territory, the new Columbia had signed a treaty with Lusitania that had many conditions, including that Lusitanian citizens could not be pearled by Columbia. Columbia took them seriously due to Lusitania having a strong informal alliance with SATO at that time.

A few days after the Columbians returned to their city, a player named f1sh98 rejoined Columbia. Over the next few weeks f1sh started to become disillusioned with the people in Columbia, which culminated in him declaring he'd overthrow the government of Columbia.

The Columbian government proceeded to logbox him, however a SATO member named NeoTide_ went into Columbia and freed him. They fled to SATO member state Okashima, where f1sh would continue to play in exile for a month. The Columbian Chancellor at the time, shadedoom, successfully negotiated with Lusitania King Metriximor to rescind the treaty. However, the Columbian government wanted f1sh98's pearl, so they enlisted their allies in FRIENDS to help them. FRIENDS didn't want to simply go to Okashima to pearl f1sh since they wanted to avoid any potential conflict with SATO, so it was decided they'd wait for f1sh to step outside SATO territory. Eventually HJE fighter Baes20 found him riding on a rail through Mount Augusta and took the opportunity to pearl him, kiting him back to the Best Western. This enraged many within SATO, as he had become part of member state Okashima and he had been extradited from MtA illegally. This entire event was the first big divide between FRIENDS and SATO, and relations would continue to sour between the two alliances from this point onward.

Shenanigans in Mount Augusta

Throughout FRIEND's existence, many residents in Mount Augusta would frequently accuse notable HJE fighters Baes20 and LegalityX of a vast assortment of crimes, from raiding to greifing.This caused a lot of tension between MtA and HJE, especially after they refused to allow them to be pearled for their actions due to their claim they were acting independently. This caused the MtA government to frequently appeal to SATO and Mir for protection.

The NUP Incident

During the later half of 2018, several notable Rhodesians and Columbians ran a political party in Mount Augusta called the National Union Party (NUP). On October 1st, 2018, kdeeks, the leader of the NUP, gathered his party members, mostly consisting of Rhodesians and Columbians as well as MtA locals, to storm a vault in MtA to free SouthernBloc, a friend of kdeeks. NUP forces managed to break all the bastions and started breaking the spike, however SATO and Hallow fighters began engaged in combat with the group of NUP members present. Despite the scale of the fight only three people were pearled, with kdeeks personally paying off the reps to release KnotNSA. This incident was notable due to it being one of the first major internal disagreements within FRIENDS that really soured the relationship between Hallow and Rhodesia.

Anti-HJE banner placed on Hjaltland's shop in Mount Augusta, showcasing how bad relations were

Hostile Intentions

During the first weeks of December, a series of posts were made by Capri, leader of Rhodesia, accusing SATO of conspiring to "launch a full scale attack against FRIENDS", providing leaked discord chats and recorded call audio as evidence of this. The community's reaction to this was mixed, with many making shitposts on the subreddit mocking the series of posts. The posts made by Capri escalated tensions with SATO even further, and encouraged SATO to become much harsher and less forgiving towards FRIENDS moving forward. Internally, many people in Hallow didn't support Capri's decision to make the accusations and evidence to be made public in the way it did, causing even more friction between Rhodesia and Hallow.

Chanseatic War

Aftermath of the SATO assault on Vitelia's vault

will write later, I dont remember much about this

End of Vitelia

Before any conflict began, Vinland and other SATO nations already had bad blood with some of the members in Vitelia due to their alleged involvement in Konigsberg's altraiding earlier in the year. However, tensions heated up in the aforementioned hostile intentions posts, with SATO being accused of wanting to attack Vitelia over their past grievances. Tensions finally boiled over when SATO leadership were told by VPN raiders they had pearled that they were geared by Vitelia. Due to this and the fact that they had also recently figured out there were former Lexington players secretly playing in Vitelia, they immediately began to mobilize. Vitelia attempted to appease the concerns of SATO in a lengthy subreddit post but to no avail. When the Vitelians recieved word of the impending attack, they ripped the bastions out of their vault and fled to the HJE. A few days later, on Janurary 6th, 2019, the Vitelian vault was skybridged and disabled on by SATO forces.

Southshire Vault Hole Conflict

In the last week of December 2018, Rhodesian leadership discovered that there was a vault hole about 2500 blocks away from their claims dug out and lined with obsidian at bedrock. This caused a lot of panic internally in both FRIENDS and Rhodesia, due to the assumption it was a vault being constructed by SATO to serve as a point to facilitate an attack on Rhodesia. In reality the vault hole belonged to Southshire, and was the personal project of Southshire citizen GameOfLife.

The Southshire vault hole viewed from CCMap

On December 28th, 2018, Rhodesian forces obbybombed the Southshire vault hole and raided a bunker located near the hole, also belonging to GameOfLife. On the same day, one of the SATO member states' leaders, Maxopoly, made a post a few hours after the operation concluded. He stated that everyone was outraged, and claimed SATO leadership had little knowledge of the vault hole being there until it was greifed. They placed a 1000 diamond bounty on Capri. Many within the broader community didn't support the actions taken by the Rhodesians, culminating in a few shitposts on the subreddit. Internally FRIENDS was divided on how to proceed, some wanted to go to war while others wanted Capri to turn themselves in.

After a very heated argument with FRIENDS leadership, on the night of December 29th, 2018, Capri threw themselves into the Hjaltvault and was subsequently pearled.Capri would remain pearled up until a few days before Civclassic shut down nearly three years later. This event marked one of the final deathblows for both FRIENDS and Rhodesia as a nation on Civclassic.

The Collapse

After hearing about SATO's planned assault on Vitelia, in tandem with most of Rhodesia quitting after Capri got pearled, Hallow left FRIENDS on January 4th 2019. A few weeks prior to this shadedoom had written a treaty for his own alliance between Columbia, Polska, and the then-newly formed Valyria. The original purpose of the alliance was to act as a proxy for FRIENDS. However, after Vitelia fell, shade reworked the treaty to serve as a replacement for FRIENDS. Shadedoom proceeded to invite Hallow and the HJE to this new alliance. They accepted, and founded NATO . Rhodesia declined to join due to their own resentment towards Hallow at the time. With the creation of NATO, FRIENDS effectively became obsolete.