Mount September Ice Road Conflict

A standoff between the Boomer Iceroad and NebulaSSR's bunker

The Mount September Ice Road conflict was a brief dispute on CivClassic 2.0 between NebulaSSR/minemaster933 and SirTwiggles/Icyski, which is notable for having involved both groups' home alliances - the Augustan Federation and UDF.

Background

In December of 2019 the Ransakistan Conflict began to develop with the obbybombing of Okashima, Gensokyo, and Icenia. When it became clear that much of the conflict would take place in and around Lusitania, a base of operations was set up within Icenia and the nations of Yoahtl and Icenia would collaborate on building an iceroad between the two nations in order to win the war.

This iceroad, dubbed the Boomer Iceroad, would be built under land that would eventually become Mount September. This would result in the UDF being requested to move the iceroad to facilitate the construction of Mount September's vault - a request to which they acquiesced.

Outside of the iceroad, there were other factors which caused a rise in tensions between Mount September and the UDF.

• minemaster933 had previously committed petty c rimes within Icenia dating back to the period in which he lived there, including several break-ins into houses within the city (which eventually led to his being kicked out of the nation); minemaster933's reputation in Icenia was also damaged (albeit uncontrollably) by the falsified claims of Kayla of Eddie Murphy that he had stolen diamond blocks from the Eddie Murphy vault.
• The UDF, widely considered part of World Police, has been the target of disdain from minemaster933.
• Icenia has had in place an unofficial program of sending "undesirable newfriends" (players receiving light sentences for petty raiding, building obscene structures, or generally not fitting within the schematic of Icenia) to Mount September. This has led, within the UDF, to Mount September receiving a reputation as a nation of trolls - some of which, in their eyes, are held in high regard within Mount September's politics such as minemaster933, SamBonusG, and others.
• An alt of Godomasta was wrongly pearled by Imperial Truidence forces. This ultimately led to his freeing after the blockbuster documentary on the incident was released.

Dispute

On August 14th 2021, minemaster933 requested an "injunction to pearl SirTwiggles" from Mount September's court; he cited as reasoning that SirTwiggles "has continued to ping [NebulaSSR's bunker's @everyone] snitches, entering an area he know [sic] is private" and argued that "such a number of pings clearly indicates intent to harass". SirTwiggles responded that "You can't pearl me", and the trial began. Presenting a 1200-word case, minemaster933 argued that SirTwiggles had violated Section 3 of the Mount September Wrongs Act, which states that "it is illegal, and a wrong, to repeatedly engage in conduct reasonably likely to harass, intimidate or torment a person, or to attempt, help or threaten the same, even where the conduct is otherwise specifically permitted by law"; minemaster933 presented snitch evidence, testimony on the sequence of events, and logical arguments in an attempt to prove SirTwiggles's violation of the aforementioned law. SirTwiggles did not initially engage seriously with the court case (stating that "I cant [sic] be sentenced without my consent"), but eventually presented an argument which dragged in the Boomer Iceroad: that he and it were supposed to be there, and NebulaSSR's bunker was not; SirTwiggles cited the fact that before the trial, UDF members had also found holes in the ice road near NebulaSSR's bunker that had been unauthorized. This argument did not initially catch on, but it began to change the focus of the dispute - towards the iceroad.

On August 25th, Judge AllenY sided with minemaster933, ordering SirTwiggles to pay 16 diamonds' reparations to minemaster933. SirTwiggles refused to comply - when minemaster933 said that "you better pay", SirTwiggles replied, "make me". The resulting Septembrian pearl threat to SirTwiggles was then interpreted as "members of the UDF...being prevented from using [their] own ice road essentially", dragging the UDF into the dispute.
On August 26th, bgbba posted an essay titled "Get Off My Lawn Zoomer: An Explanation of Yesterday's Incident by the Owner of the Iceroad in Question" to r/civclassics. In this 1700-word post, bgbba thoroughly condemned "ungrateful vermin willing to engage in that most degenerate of behaviors: escalationism" presenting an extensive "Sequence of Events" focusing mainly on the Boomer Iceroad rather than NebulaSSR's bunker. Expressing dismay over "illegal iceroad entrances and snitches...made on our iceroad" (an issue mentioned (as NebulaSSR's bunker was connected to the iceroad illegally), but not focused on, in SirTwiggles's trial) and alarm over a shovel attack on Icyski by NebulaSSR on the iceroad adjacent to the bunker (which postdated the inciting trial), and stating that the @everyone snitches in question had fields overlapping the iceroad (making their violators innocent of deliberate harassment), bgbba leveraged the Boomer Iceroad predating Mount September to argue that the latter had no business enforcing itself over the former (which, as bgbba was quick to point out, it already successfully had once before for its vault); bgbba compared KingOfTheMochas's argument that the age of Mount September was "irrelevant" to the Holy Jaded Empire's casus belli against SPQR (use of a rail which predated the former's claims), generalizing that "KingOfTheMochas and his supporters are now directly saying that NATO was right", and used this to justify the conclusion of his treatise: the declaration that "Nebula/Nebulandd/ShockandAwe, KingOfTheMochas, and Minemaster are banned from entering the Boomer iceroad indefinitely".
bgbba's declaration was met with a divided response - a 65:35 upvote-to-downvote ratio, and several comments to the effect of "My dude you really need to dial down that ego of yours". Mount September especially was incensed, and squareblob posted "Some short clarifications to Bg's post", most importantly that "the @everyone snitch in question is clearly outside the ice road". With the Augustan Federation and UDF now both thoroughly enmeshed in the dispute, and the rest of the world watching, both sides dug their heels in.

As August 26th became August 27th one time zone at a time, tension grew. UDF and Augustan Federation supporters bickered in the comments of bgbba's and squareblob's Reddit posts, while Augustan Federation members hurriedly prepared for the worst. Tension peaked at approximately 10:40pm EDT August 26th, when several fully-armored players (most from the UDF, with extras such as The__druid) appeared ready to attack and capture NebulaSSR's bunker. Players across CivClassic were forced to ponder the threat of war. But nobody made a move; the sides began to talk with one another, and became less serious in their opposition to one another. As thraldrek put it, "in true CivClassic fashion, people forgot why they were there for a second and just started screaming about how many people showed up to the event". Remaining players, largely those from Kallos and Mount September, cleaned up the damage, and tensions receded.

Aftermath

Such a close brush with the end of The Long Peace has had substantial effects on several nations and players on CivClassic. These are listed below:
- Mount September renewed efforts to "just...construct more defences, tbh"
- FKA_twink was "nominated by myself to discuss mending the harmed AF-UDF relations"
- NebulaSSR, minemaster933, and KingOfTheMochas remain banned from the Boomer Iceroad (KingOfTheMochas was unbanned from the iceroad at some point in October)
- Kaprediem resigned as President of Lambat and Resident of Mount September, citing exhaustion as a result of recent events.

In the aftermath of the event, all parties have resorted to a defensive stance on the matter. Yoahtl-UDF appear to be making efforts to continue defending their ice road (Boomer Ice Road), while the Augustan Federation is maintaining their original stance on the issue: one of maintaining respect for existing infrastructure while also defending it's right to sovereignty on the map. Yoahtl has since registered the ice road under Mount September property law and hold the right to defend it via the courts. They also maintain the right to defend their foreign infrastructure, which the Augustan Federation respects.

Individual tensions remain, however. Minemaster933 and SirTwiggles have made their positions known on discord, as has NebulaSSR.