Varkonia: Difference between revisions
Updated history up to the 2nd transition of gov between Varkonia and Nevrast
(Updated history up to the 2nd transition of gov between Varkonia and Nevrast) |
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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
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.
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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.
==== Varkonia Alone ====
[[File:Varkonian XP Propaganda 2.png|thumb|Varkonian Propaganda featuring the King of Nox]]
For about a week after the leaving the UNC, Varkonia was without an alliance organization. The first action Varkonia took during this time was to declare Crackerjack, Heisenberg, Rogue, and justliunet personae non grata for their involvement in alt raiding with Evocator and Thoths. The senate passed the measure unanimously. This would mean that Varkonia would not go beyond its borders to seek their pearls, but they would not be welcome in Varkonia and could legally be pearled on sight within Varkonian territory. The Varkonian Senate felt that it was necessary to begin looking for new allies as Varkonia currently held Evocator and Thoths in their vault, making conflict with Corvus a serious possibility.
Additionally, relations had soured extensively with their former ally of Bloom. This was the result of Truckman making inaccurate claims about Varkonia during and after the UNC dissolution, to which Varkonia responded with an official Communique to Bloom<ref>https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRQRo5ONjjfsc72cUH5W5rjNkO9QH9APxkSKcHLqhogvS-Ntnfs6WvEYMzPukIr4j8puRKENVf-rOnr/pub</ref>, which later became known as the Denunciation of Bloom. It was increasingly believed in Varkonia that Bloom in general had deteriorated in terms of competence and had become a liability that could not be trusted. It was decided that, rather than engage with Bloom diplomatically and then be disappointed by their unreliability, Varkonia should instead avoid engaging with Bloom completely.
=== Entente-Era Politics ===
As the UNC was dissolving, Varkonia reached out to the most prominent members of the UNC to lay the groundwork for a new alliance, as it was currently vulnerable. This would mark a major change in foreign policy, as for a long time Varkonia sought to bring in many small nations into the UNC, which would then to varying degrees be brought into Varkonia's orbit of influence. The problem with this was that after a certain point, there were too many nations added and the alliance as a whole became ineffective and untrustworthy. Going forward, Varkonia would reduce the number of nations it was allied with, limiting some of its influence and its obligations to protect nations which would realistically do very little should Varkonia need their support. Most of all, Varkonia was looking for competent allies it could trust. It was hoped that this new alliance could remain neutral in the NATO-Mir war and deter other parties from causing trouble with its considerable military and economic strength.
==== The Formation of the Entente ====
''Main Article: [[Entente]]''
The Entente was formed on July 12, 2019, by Gensokyo, Hjaltland, Nyasaland, and Varkonia<ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/cchgi7/announcement_of_the_entente_gensokyo_hjaltland/</ref>. These nations would remain the only members of the Entente, as it was designed to be exclusive to maximize unity and trust between allies. Varkonia and Hjaltland becoming allies was a pivotal shift in geopolitics as historically the people in these nations had more often than not been on opposing sides. The combined strength of the Entente was formidable, and succeeded in deterring interference for some time with the bloc.
==== The Fake Screenshot Incident ====
Almost immediately after the formation of the Entente, screenshots were sent via an anonymous account to the Red Duke of Varkonia and the rest of the Entente leadership. These appeared to show leaked conversations and plans within the newly formed UDF to attack the Entente and pearl some of its members due to the Evocator drama. A meeting was held in the Entente Presidium, in which Varkonia and the other members of the Entente analyzed the screenshots and determined that they were certainly fake. They decided to do nothing regarding this matter and adopt a 'wait and see' approach.
It turned out that the anonymous account also sent screenshots to the UDF leadership. These appeared to show leaked conversations and plans within the newly formed Entente to attack the UDF over the prior drama between Icenia, Nyasaland, and Varkonia. These were also faked, but one of the few people online at the time was ChrisChrispie, who did not verify their accuracy and made a post on the subreddit under the title of Hostile Intentions, accusing the newly formed Entente of planning to attack Icenia and the UDF. This was somewhat amusing to the Entente, which then revealed it had also received screenshots, but that they were fake and implicated the UDF, and that the Entente had come to such a determination before publicly accusing the UDF of anything.
The UDF made an apology post over the matter<ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/cew5zs/the_udf_formally_apologises/</ref> and both sides agreed to move on as if nothing had happened. Clearly a third party was trying to put the Entente and UDF against each other. Varkonia speculated it was someone with an interest in seeing both being weakened, likely to be Corvus- or NATO-aligned.
==== Handling the Evocator Crisis ====
[[File:Vark Thoths.png|thumb|Excerpt from [https://old.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/cfclvq/varkonia_invites_you_to_be_our_guest/ "Be Varkonia's Guest"]]]
The most pressing matter facing Varkonia at this time, and by extension the Entente, was handling the unfolding drama between with Corvus over the pearling of Evocator and Thoths. The King of Nox had posted a meme video on the topic, simplifying the justification for pearling Evocator and placing it in an entertaining format<ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/cfclvq/varkonia_invites_you_to_be_our_guest/</ref>. While popular, the Entente sought to more formally address the situation, and made an official extensive post on the matter outlining a large amount of evidence and context to the situation, with a commitment to standing behind the pearling as a just act<ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/cgdfa6/the_ententes_final_statement_regarding_the/</ref>. Notably, Corvus attempted to refute the implications, and attempted to create distance between Evocator and Corvus such that Corvus would not be dragged down along with Evocator for his obvious role in all of this.<blockquote>''The attempt at implicating Dill or myself is laughable and straight up stupid. I don’t know a single person that would expect me to allow my city to be used in an invasion, and since when are we taking Papa_Pound, of all people’s, word over others? Dill had put together his own army to attack Nox in 2.0 and has not supported nor even entertained any ideas of working with Papa. The same goes for myself. The sheer amount of history we have against Papa should be valued far more than the word of a man with no redeeming actions in the entire history of this genre. Get your shit together and reevaluate who you are trusting.'' (Jaydrive, 2019)<ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/cgdfa6/the_ententes_final_statement_regarding_the/eukt0ul/</ref></blockquote>The reasoning outlined by Jaydrive is exactly why Varkonia did not initially act on Papa's comments, which were made as early as March and April 2019, until July of 2019. Varkonia did not take Papa seriously at first. It was only after confirmation that Evocator, Thoths, and others in Corvus had been involved in alt-raiding that Papa's words were taken seriously, because at least some members of Corvus were independently confirmed to be involved in shady activity and dishonesty, and no longer lived up to their former world-police reputations from previous iterations.
An hour-long video monologue by Evocator was made in response, although most people didn't listen to it due to the poor formatting, and those who did were not satisfied with the attempted defense. Evocator and Thoths would remain pearled, and Covus would begin building up a vault within its city in preparation for war later on.
==== The Treaty of Salisbury ====
In the middle of July, 2019, Varkonia signed the Treaty of Salisbury with Imperial Truidence, establishing friendly relations and mutual defense. Imperial Truidence had been the newest member of the UNC prior to its dissolution and it was hoped that this would allow Varkonia to maintain good relations with them. They were part of the UDF as well, so this alliance served to in a small way bring the UDF and Entente on more trusting terms with each other.
==== General Mobilization of the Varkonian Workforce ====
[[File:Varkonia Propaganda 1.jpg|thumb|Varkonian XP Propaganda featuring the Red Duke]]
With bigbrainiac10 leading the way, in unison with help from Gobblin and the Red Duke, native Varkonian XP production was massively expanded. Under the Guild System proposed by the Red Duke, xp materials would be gathered in various guilds locations and then sold to the overarching XP Guild. The Guild Master position was created by the Senate on July 16, 2019. The Guild Master would be responsible for taking inventory of XP ingredients, keeping track of who was selling to the guild, adjusting prices, and paying guild members for their work.
This was a hugely successful system and it almost immediately made Varkonia XP independent, which was important as it no longer had the same economic status it enjoyed when it was part of the UNC. Propaganda was created to encourage citizens to participate in the XP production process. Even the King of Nox did his part to help produce XP and build up Varkonian reserves in the event of war. It was effective in mobilizing even newfriends to do their part, and gave them a reliable way to earn income that didn't involve mining. Indeed, the wealth of the average Varkonian soared during this time period as the XP Cauldron saw record use.
Callum was a major contributor to the XP Guilds, as well as taking the time to mine massive amounts of diamonds. His contributions and donations to the Varkonian Treasury were critical for the survival of Varkonia and for the continued arms build-up in preparation for potential future conflicts involving either Corvus or NATO.
Pride notably proclaimed himself overload of the Swamp Guild.
In addition to expanding XP production, a new treaty was written with SPQR called the Sunfish Compact, which the Senate would pass unanimously. This was done due to SPQR being left without an alliance and in a precarious position on the border with NATO, which was unfriendly with it. SPQR would regularly supply Varkonia with a named salmon every month, such as the ''August 2019 Mola Mola,'' and the two nations would cooperate more closely. Sharing of supplies was one of the most important outcomes of this arrangement, as SPQR was actually extremely wealthy relative to its perceived presence on the server. It had many 'silent workhorses' who would not say much or take a stand on either side of political issues, but would generate large amounts of wealth.
==== The Second Transition of Government between Varkonia and Nevrast ====
On August 30, 2019, Nevrast officially joined the Grand Duchy of Varkonia as a province and Seldomshock became a Senator. This was largely due to deteriorating relations between Seldom an Corvus, as well as a desire on Varkonia's part to help Nevrast should Corvus lash out. It was also strategically important because Nevrast was just south of Corvus and it would be very difficult for Corvus to reach Varkonia without setting off snitches within the swamps of Nevrast. Unlike the first transition of government between Varkonia and Nevrast, this would not be considered a meme later on. As a result of joining Varkonia, Nevrast also fell under the protection of the Entente by default.
== Government ==
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