Varkonia: Difference between revisions
Updated history up to the dissolution of the UNC
(Updated history up to the dissolution of the UNC) |
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==== The Return of Papa_Pound ====
[[Papa_Pound]], aka Papa or ibGod, returned to CivClassic in March of 2019. He originally spawned early on in the iteration, very close to Hjaltland, and was immediately pearled, after which he quit for over a year and missed the entirety of the Somber War. Papa was famous from his leadership role in the HCF invasions and raider crews in CivCraft 2.0, being in leadership of Eagle Crew, America, and to an extent, Nox. These groups of players were infamous for raiding, pearling players indiscriminately, cracking World Police vaults, and griefing. Varkanos, in addition to being a member of SPQR, had also been a key player in Nox in CivCraft 2.0, for which he was sentenced to being pearled by MTA when Nox was eventually defeated. This is where Varkanos's title in Varkonia as King of Nox comes from, being the only high-ranking member of Nox leadership to not be pearled or retired. During CivCraft 2.0, Varkanos and Papa became friends and, fast-forwarding to CivClassic 2.0, Varkanos was happy to see his old friend return. To be clear, Papa returned as an exiled player, still being imprisoned by Hjaltland, who firmly believed Papa would do as he's always done: gather a group of raiders and wreak havoc. While many agreed, there was a popular movement in Papa's favor to try to get him released, an effort Varkonia initially supported due Papa's friendly nature and the length of time he had already been pearled. The main driving force behind getting Papa freed, however, was Evocator, and the upper leadership of Corvus. For the time being, his freedom was not on the table, but efforts would continue.▼
[[File:Papa.png|thumb|Papa logging dark oak in Varkonia, March 2019]]
▲[[Papa_Pound]], aka Papa or ibGod, returned to CivClassic in March of 2019. He originally spawned early on in the iteration, very close to Hjaltland, and was immediately pearled, after which he quit for over a year and missed the entirety of the Somber War. Papa was famous from his leadership role in the HCF invasions and raider crews in CivCraft 2.0, being in leadership of Eagle Crew, America, and to an extent, Nox. These groups of players were infamous for raiding, pearling players indiscriminately, cracking World Police vaults, and griefing. Varkanos, in addition to being a member of SPQR, had also been a key player in Nox in CivCraft 2.0, for which he was sentenced to being pearled by MTA when Nox was eventually defeated. This is where Varkanos's title in Varkonia as King of Nox comes from, being the only high-ranking member of Nox leadership to not be pearled or retired. During CivCraft 2.0, Varkanos and Papa became friends and, fast-forwarding to CivClassic 2.0, Varkanos was happy to see his old friend return. To be clear, Papa returned as an exiled player, still being imprisoned by Hjaltland, who firmly believed Papa would do as he's always done: gather a group of raiders and wreak havoc. While many agreed, there was a popular movement in Papa's favor to try to get him released, an effort Varkonia initially supported due Papa's friendly nature and the length of time he had already been pearled. The main driving force behind getting Papa freed, however, was Evocator, and the upper leadership of Corvus. For the time being, his freedom was not on the table, but efforts would continue.
Papa resided in Varkonia for several weeks, claiming a house in the central plaza. His main activities were logging dark oak for Varkonia and running around eating food. He created a 1-layer DRO 'vault' in his house, and inexplicably one day Baes20 ran over to Varkonia with the pearl of Squareblob, the mayor of MTA at the time. Papa received Baes in his abode and took the pearl, placing it in his 1-layer vault. Technically speaking, Papa had just vaulted the sitting mayor of MTA in Varkonia during rising global tensions due to the NATO-Mir war. Baes was a notable NATO-supporting fighter. The Red Duke was notified of weird happenings and came to the scene to investigate. A few moments later, MrLlamma, leader of Coventhia and also a fighter, one typically opposed to Baes, arrived and was requesting the pearl to be released. Both parties were preparing for a brawl. The Red Duke, equal part confused and amused, had access to Papa's vault, acquired the pearl, and gave it to MrLlamma. The mayor was soon released and all parties returned to their civs without further conflict.
==== The Kaiserreich Coup ====
[[File:KaiserkinTownSquare.png|thumb|Kaiserkin Town Square circa April 24, 2019]]▼
Up to April of 2019, Wubzy had been the leader of the Kaiserreich Protectorate, under Varkonia, and had been representing the Kaiserreich as voting member of the UNC. In mid-April, Wubzy decided to vote against the UNC Iceroad Proposal, which was planned to create a unified iceroad network between all UNC member states. His reasoning for voting against it was "We always approve stuff, I want some conflict here". He was the sole voting member to vote against the project. In the UNC, votes have to be passed unanimously; if even one voting member votes against it, the measure will fail. Wubzy's position as a voting member had been inherited and tolerated after Kaiserreich became a protectorate under Varkonia, however this stunt caused massive outrage among the entire UNC, especially within Varkonia, which had been embarrassed by it.
Wubzy had not actually been playing the game for months and his sole activity was participating in voting in the UNC. Other members of Kaiserreich, such as LazavPhenax, were increasingly becoming disgruntled with Wubzy's leadership in abstentia. The Red Duke of Varkonia reached out to LazavPhenax, and discussed how to improve the situation. Upon opening discussions, Lazav vented a great deal about Wubzy's incompetence and inactivity, and let the Red Duke know that in fact Lazav had ownership of all the groups, bastions, and snitches. Hearing this, the Red Duke suggested that Lazav should become the leader of Kaiserreich, since he was actually active, competent, and ready to lead. Lazav agreed, and the Senate voted in favor of this action on April 22. On April 24 LazavPhenax declared himself leader of Kaiserreich, deposing Wubzy<ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/Varkonia/comments/bgnpe6/formal_overthrow_of_lil_wubzy_and_zestysquidward/</ref>.<blockquote>''"Wub/wubzy hasnt logged into the server/contributed since september. Yet the reason I bring this all up is for the sole fact Wub still leads the country despite having no backing to his power, representing and voting on behalf of Kaiserreich on the global and alliance stage. When Valyria basically annexed our country under the assumption of complete inactivity, I was the one who brokered the transfer of our land back with the assistance of Mickale and the UNC beside us. The citizen had to step up on behalf of his nation because the leader kept flaking and saying he was going to get on to help, despite never doing so. As a result of that event, all reinforcements and bastion efforts were done under my name as he wasn't present. Can you believe that? A leader who can't place or destroy a single block in his own city, yet I am the one with all the actual power of said country. He isn't even a member of the Kaiserreich Discord server. Yet I am supposed to see him as my leader? I tolerated this for months because i was hardly in a place to complain.'' ''Now, as it is too destructive to our civilization to allow these ghosts to keep their grip on power, I formally remove lil-wubzy and ZestySquidward from their positions and make them provisional citizens for the time being."'' (LazaPhenax, 2019)</blockquote>
▲[[File:KaiserkinTownSquare.png|thumb|Kaiserkin Town Square circa April 24, 2019]]
Varkonia immediately recognized this change in leadership, and deployed security forces to the region to ensure stability. As part of this arrangement, Kaiserreich became a full province of Varkonia, with the unifying treaty being re-written to remove all references of Wubzy and formalize Kaiserreich's status within Varkonia. Several buildings were added to Kaiserkin's town square and Varkonian banners were erected throughout the town. Wubzy did not contest the change and the UNC supported Varkonia's actions. The UNC Icreoad Project would now go ahead without Wubzy's objections.
==== The Transition of Government between Varkonia and Ruggetania ====
[[File:Varkonia 20190502.png|thumb|Map of Varkonia as of May 2, 2019. Ruggetania and the Vesuvian Archipelago are bear the center of the map.]]
Ruggetania was a relatively new nation in an island chain in the southeast quadrant of the map, thousands of blocks from Varkonia which was in the northwest. Ruggetania joined Varkonia on the 1st of May, 2019, as a result of discussions between the Ruggetanian leader, Batman_Caleb and Gobblin. Batman_caleb was already a citizen of Varkonia through Gabon, and was hoping to see increased protection and participation within the UNC, which Ruggetania would join by default by joining Varkonia. To that end, Ruggetania joined Varkonia as Protectorate, similar to how Kaiserreich initially joined.
While the population of Ruggetania was very low, primarily just Batman_Caleb himself, and there were no sizeable settlements of note, this event was significant because it gave Varkonia a territorial foothold in the center of the map, towards the southwest, and was strategically important. Additionally, Varkonia would claim the previously unclaimed island chain between Varkonia and Ruggetania so that the territories would not be discontinuous<ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/bk1k8o/updated_claims_of_the_grand_duchy_of_varkonia/</ref>. This new chain of islands between Varkonia and Ruggetania was briefly contested with Icenia, which also wanted to claim them. After some discussions with [[ChrisChrispie]], the leader of Icenia, the Red Duke reached a settlement and the islands would go to Varkonia as planned. These would fall under the jurisdiction of a new province called Vesuvius, which Jacques_Cartier would oversee, with the creation of a new settlement called Barning. These islands contained the ruins of [[Saren_Solaris]]'s initial settlement and farms, as well as some other old infrastructure from before the Somber War and Saren's pearling. A construction effort was undertaken to establish a rail connection to Ruggetania, splitting off the existing Varkonia-MTA rail. The rail never reached Ruggetania as it was too far and there was not enough of a need to travel there, however the rail reach Barning, which was very close to Saren's floating castle.
==== The Seizure of Machinemaker's Bunker ====
On May 2, 2019, a Varkonian expedition into the newly acquired territory of Vesuvius discovered an unmarked bunker. Not seeing any signs of who it belonged to and seeing that some of the reinforcements were decayed, the expeditionary forces entered the bunker to take inventory. Shortly after they entered, Machinemaker, who at this point was pearled by Mir in the NATO-Mir war, logged in and protested that Varkonia was raiding his bunker. Initially, Varkonia tried to argue that it was in the right. The Senate passed a measure ordering the seizure of his bunker. However, after the vote passed, the Red Duke realized that this wasn't easily justifiable or necessarily reasonable. Machinemaker was not held in high regard by Varkonia, the result of what Varkonians felt were abrasive and acidic tones in his commentary on ongoing events, but outright raiding his bunker was seen as too aggressive in the eyes of the Red Duke, who was trying to maintain Varkonia's position of neutrality.
The Red Duke came up with a plan to achieve both the Senate's will and keep Varkonia neutral, at least at face value in this case. Britishwanderer had been using a macro that would broadcast his position to the group he was currently chatting in. The Red Duke suggested that Britishwanderer should talk about being at Machinemaker's bunker in (!) chat, the global chat which most players were part of, then have Jacques_Cartier, governor of newly formed Vesuvius, hit Britishwanderer once. This would trigger the macro and Machinemaker's bunker would be made obvious to anyone looking for it. The idea was that Mirians, who were online at the time, would see this and come to loot the bunker of their enemy. Varkonia, which had only recently acquired the territory and did not yet have snitch coverage, would turn a blind eye, which would be reasonable it would have had no way to detect if Mir entered their territory to loot the bunker. The Red Duke would maintain that Varkonia did not loot the bunker, and meanwhile [[gregy165]] would take the loot back to Mir.
==== The Golden Age of the UNC ====
[[File:Varkonia May2019.png|thumb|The City of Varkonia circa June 2019]]
April - May 2019 was in many ways the peak of the Golden Age in the UNC. Internal trade was booming, the various member states were active, neutrality in the NATO-Mir war seemed secure, and projects were being undertaken to increase mutual cooperation and infrastructure. Votes were being regularly held and Varkonia was leading the way in seeking out new member states to join the UNC while producing content like the UNC Infographic<ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/bulut9/get_to_know_the_unc/</ref>, produced by BritishWanderer with some help from the Red Duke. The Olympics were held in Gensokyo, which was a popular server-wide event, at which Varkonia provided security. Additionally, Varkonia was driving a lot of economies at the time by purchasing a tremendous amount of XP to fund its militarization and its construction efforts on the vault and on its towns, after unfreezing civilian construction efforts.
The Varkonian settlements and vault would grow in size during this time. With the increased security and capacity to hold pearls, Varkonia expanded its role within the region by offering to securely hold pearls on the behalf of the UNC and other foreign parties. AngrePepsi was transferred to Varkonia after an attempt at disrupting the May 2019 Olympics, and a pearl storage agreement was signed with Bloom in late May. A separate agreement with the Brotherhood of Steel would be passed but then vetoed by the King of Nox after it became apparent that the BoS was not necessarily credible and any pearls they might provide may not necessarily be justly held, something Varkonia did not want to entangle itself with.
==== The June 2019 Troubles ====
The stability, peace, and prosperity of May 2019 was replaced with rapidly increasing instability and intrigue throughout the month of June. By this time, the UNC had reached its maximum size, inducting Imperial Truidence, and declining to admit Icenia per SPQR's rejection. A reshuffling of how voting worked in the alliance would occur, with states such as Kaltsburg and Tvtopia losing their votes due to their very low member count. There was some internal drama here, as technically speaking all alliance members needed to approve a change in the UNC charter for such a change to occur, and they would not agree to removing their own votes. Despite this, all the major members of the alliance agreed that change was needed, settling on the ultimatum that if they did not accept this change that they would be removed from the UNC. This succeeded, and those members reluctantly released their ability to vote on UNC matters.
A major test of alliance-wide neutrality came when Icenia and [[New Sovia]] came into conflict. Despite Varkonia offering support to Icenia when it started, and providing the materials for its first compactor, there was some unease between Icenia and Varkonia. This was because of prior history between Volterra and Icenia in Civcraft 2.0, where Volterra raided Icenia, fomenting unrest, resulting in Britishwanderer, who was in-league with Volterra, taking Icenia over as a dictator and then joining Volterra. ChrisChrispie, who was deposed by this process, remained unhappy about it for years afterwards, including into the early parts of Icenia's existence in Civclassic 2.0. This inherited unease came to a boil when Swiftfizz exposed that ChrisChrispie had foreknowledge of griefing and raiding in Nyasaland<ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/c2zw0m/hostile_intentions_67/</ref>, a major UNC-ally of Varkonia. This was simultaneously against the backdrop of the [[Clown Wars]], which is what the conflict between New Sovia and Icenia came to be known by.
The Red Duke of Varkonia was particularly offended by this revelation, because he had vouched for ChrisChrispie's innocence at a UNC meeting. The Red Duke, seeing this as a betrayal of trust by Chris, discussed possible retaliatory measures against Icenia for Chris's role in inflicting harm on a UNC-ally. One of these potential options was disabling the vault Icenia was building, which was referred to as a "Big dick maneuver" by the Red Duke. While the UNC neve even brought this idea to a formal vote, the idea leaked out and reflected unfavorably upon Varkonia and the UNC as a whole. Tensions began building inside the UNC but ultimately nothing came about. A measure was proposed in the Varkonian Senate to intervene in the drama that was unfolding in the Clown Wars, but the measure did not pass. As a result, the matter was let go, and Icenia and Varkonia would continue to have frosty relations for some time. Varkonia began having improved relations with Swiftfizz after this incident, as he had provided insight into the matter with Icenia, was a good pvper, and was a familiar friendly player from prior iterations.
The biggest source of trouble during this time was from Corvus, specifically Evocator. Evocator had been seeking to get Papa_Pound free from Hjaltland for some time, and had come up with a plan to get Thoths, a mutual friend of Hjaltland and Corvus, pearled and then trade Thoth's freedom for Papa's freedom. To pull this off, Evocator got in touch with Varkonia and used the drama in New Sovia as cover for this plan for Thoths to be justifiably pearled. Thoths pearled Britishwanderer in Icenia, and was later himself pearled and held in Varkonia. Varkonia would hold him until agreements were made with Hjaltland to free Papa. However, towards the end of the month, it became clear that Evocator had hostile intentions behind wanting to free Papa. On top of that, Swiftfizz also revealed that Evocator, Thoths, and others in Corvus had been alt raiding, and had asked if Swift wanted to join them. Targets of the alt-raiding included the eastern provinces of SPQR and the chan-states in the east of the map. They denied this publicly, until swift later revealed screenshots of his conversation in which Thoths was unhappy with Swift for posting the prior screenshots showing they were alt raiders, and that Thoths had offered accounts to Swift to participate in the alt raiding.
Hjaltland had already drafted up a resolution to free Papa<ref>https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/465004289094582274/593551562677420042/unknown.png</ref>, which had just been voted on and approved by the Varkonian Senate. However, the revelations about the alt raiding soured things and caused the Red Duke to reach out to [[Frensin]] of Hjaltland. During the meeting, Frensin already knew much of what the Red Duke had discovered and confirmed much of it. He also expected that the intention to free Papa would be troublesome, but had no hard evidence to support it. Varkonia supplied that evidence, and the plans for Evocator to free Papa with intent for him to lead an HCF-invasion based in Corvus were enough for both Varkonia and Hjaltland to agree that this was not a good idea. Instead, the King of Nox vetoed the pearl trade. Varkonia would keep Thoths pearled, Hjaltland would keep Papa pearled, and Varkonia would pearl Evocator before he was able to pull off a lesser version of his scheme. This series of events would have major server-wide implications and represents a fundamental turning point in the history of CivClassic 2.0.
=== The Collapse of the UNC ===
On July 2, 2019, Varkonia issued the order to pearl Evocator. The plan was developed between the King of Nox and Britishwanderer. Britishwanderer would ask Evocator to bring an account over to Varkonia to help bolster security while we were dealing with fictional raiders. Evo would then log out in the rail station and in that time Britishwanderer and the King of Nox blocked up all the rail entrances such that he would be trapped in the bastioned and reinforced station and unable to flee. The Red Duke was away during this time, but had left the decision-making in the King's hands, and was confident things would be resolved. BennyZ had been called over to support this effort. Once the rail station had been fully blocked in, Benny was the one who would be responsible for actually pearling Evocator. Sure enough, Evo logged in, and Benny began attacking him. Shortly after engaging, Benny successfully pearled Evo, and his pearl was held in the Varkonia vault.
Major drama unfolded as a result of this event. Varkonia had just pearled the head of state of a fellow voting ally in the UNC, without informing anyone in the UNC about it ahead of time, out of concern it could be leaked and render the operation inoperative. Immediately following this action, Varkonia held an emergency UNC to brief everyone on what happened and why. Evocator was removed from the leadership of the UNC and Gjum took his place. In the meeting, the Red Duke explained the reasoning and talked about his discussions with Frensin. It boiled down to Evocator and Thoths alt raiding SPQR, as well as Evo's plans for an HCF invasion and an attack on Hjaltland. At first things went well and people generally agreed. However, later on the mood changed. SPQR said it was actually not concerned about Evocator and co raiding them, and that they would not charge them. This caused significant damage to Varkonia's justification. It meant that technically speaking the UNC was no longer obligated to care about the drama because it now concerned a plan regarding Hjaltland, as opposed to a past action concerning a UNC ally. With this turn of events, popular opinion swayed towards neutrality in this case, with Bloom, Tvtopia, Kaltsburg, Corvus, and others not wanting to get involved and questioning whether Evo and Thoths should be freed. This was totally unacceptable to the Red Duke, who believed Varkonia and the UNC had a responsibility to protect others from known threats, particularly considering there was foreknowledge and a capability to do so. Frustrated, the Red Duke took the matter up with the King of Nox and the Speaker of the Senate in Varkonia.
The Varkonian senate discussed leaving the UNC, realizing that the UNC had rendered itself ineffective with a bad-actor member in the form of Corvus, and members who were unwilling to commit to difficult choices in order to prevent large-scale war from breaking out. The King of Nox proposed the vote to leave the UNC.<blockquote>''Senators, should Varkonia withdraw from the United Northern Congress?''
''Reason for leaving the UNC: We believe the way the UNC reacted to and handled the Evocator/Papa plot was unacceptable. Varkonia stands firmly behind pearling Evocator in order to stop his nefarious plans from coming to fruition. While some in the UNC claim "An attack on Hjaltland is #NotOurProblem", Varkonia believes an unjust attack that we can prevent is our responsibility to prevent, and failure to do so is not only morally corrupt, but cowardly.'' (Varkanos, 2019)<ref>https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/463425713035411467/596130874181812234/unknown.png</ref></blockquote>The Senate unanimously agreed, and the law passed. On July 3, 2019, Varkonia left the UNC. The resulting drama, chaos, and confusion left the UNC in a crippled state, and it would dissolve fully shortly thereafter.
== Government ==
Line 1,168 ⟶ 1,204:
== Territories ==
==== Kaiserreich ====
[[File:Kaiserreich flag.png|thumb|200px|Flag of Kaiserreich]][[File:Westmore buildings.jpg|thumb|374x374px|Westmore]]Kaiserreich was ruled by Wublit and later LazavPhenax. During 2018 Kaiserreich signed a mutual defense pact with [[SPQR (CivClassic)|SPQR]].<ref>https://old.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/91cg6l/romankaiserreich_treaty/</ref> Kaiserreich became a protectorate of Varkonia in December 2018, then a full province in April 2019.<ref>https://old.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/a50vxi/establishing_the_protectorate_of_the_kaiserreich/</ref>. The province is located at {{coord|-2650|-11200|800}}.
==== Westmore ====
{{See also|House of Gobbonia}}
Westmore was a member state of the [[UNC]]. The nation was created by BritishWanderer and Gobblin. In October 2018 Westmore became a province of Varkonia<ref>https://old.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/9q5dcv/announcing_the_transition_of_government_between/</ref>. Westmore is located at {{coord|-2500|-6700|200}}.
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