Varkonia: Difference between revisions

On the evening of August 16, 2019, the Holy Jaded Empire (HJE) blocked off the SPQR-Commonwealth rail that was built and maintained by Langly, prominent citizen of SPQR<ref name=":1">https://www.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/crstpo/hje_has_blockaded_sqprs_cw_rail_to_punish_for/</ref>. This was civilian infrastructure being used mainly by the people of SPQR and Commonwealth for trading purposes between the two distant and neutral nations. SPQR maintained its neutrality after the UNC dissolved, and the Commonwealth was also neutral to this point in the NATO-Mir war. Since it was a public rail, there was no strategic value in it either being operational or closed. Any military power would assume the rail to be snitched in part or in full, making it easily trapped and thus too dangerous to use in warfare. It was therefore surprising that HJE would shut down the rail without any dialogue, and furthermore that they would begin griefing it, especially considering that the realrail pre-datedpredated HJE's claims to the land.<blockquote>''This was my project, built by me before anyone else even had claimed the land it is under. Now they've moved in over it, gotten themselves into a war, and are telling us to go around for refusing to take a side.'' (Langly, 2019)<ref name=":1" /></blockquote>The actions of the HJE were unfavorably viewed by neutral nations, and in particular was viewed negatively by Varkonia, as it showed HJE to be aggressive towards nations which had no active pvpers. NATO fully supported this action, with NATO-supporting players taking HJE's side in the matter.<blockquote>''How dare you stop us from entering your borders after we stopped you from entering ours'' (OrangeWizard, 2019)</blockquote>There was an important difference in this matter, which is that the UNC had barred combatants who were taking sides in the NATO-Mir war from entering their territory. The UNC never blocked passage of regular civilians, even those from NATO or Mir, from using public rails. HJE was effectively seizing neutral infrastructure and blocking neutral civilians from using it, most likely out of spite due to low opinions and mistrust of SPQR within NATO. The King of Nox began gathering support for SPQR to see how the impasse over the rail could be resolved. Varkonia went to the Entente to seek support for SPQR, which had deep cultural ties to Varkonia. The Entente agreed to provide support to SPQR because it believed SPQR to be in the right on this matter. A joint Entente-SPQR operation was conducted to clear grief from the rail and re-open it for public use. The operation successfully cleared the tunnel with no resistance. Mark_Antony recounted the events in detail in his post on the CivClassics subreddit to inform the public, explaining how SPQR tried and failed to reach any compromise with HJE diplomatically on August 26, 2019<ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/cvuyxb/hostile_intentions_111_the_rails/</ref>. Flush, the spokesperson for the Entente, explained the Entente's involvement<blockquote>''This comment will serve to give context to the Entente's mission on the CW-SPQR line. For those unaware: the Entente provided assistance to the Romans working on repairing the aforementioned (public) line. This assistance was in the form of protection and removing checkpoints installed by the HJE.''