Twenty-one years ago today, I woke up to the sound of the bells of freedom ringing in The North Pacific. We were liberated! Great Bight’s coup had ended.
To really understand what happened, you have to know something about the times we lived in. The drama went beyond simple game mechanics. In 2004 we were a fledgling community. No constitution, no well-defined election system, minimal organization. But we had an idea. Democracy, self-determination, the rule of law. Those were our shared values.
Great Bight’s delegacy placed all of that in jeopardy. Being taken over by Great Bight and other members of the New Pacific Order would have crushed our vision of what we could be. We had to fight.
Before Great Bight came to power, Magicality was the legitimate delegate. She was well-loved and an integral part of the community. But remember, there was little in the way of organizational structure. There was no Vice-Delegate or any security apparatus. When RL intervened Magicality left the game. That left a vacuum which was conveniently filled by UPS Rail, aka Sir Paul of the NPO. People began to be suspicious, and in short order he left TNP. That made Great Bight the most endorsed nation. We later found out that Great Bight was an alt of Mammothistan, also NPO. Almost immediately he replaced the forum link with a pirate website made by sixth graders. Then it was on.
The fight was very high-stakes and very low-tech. Initially. In those days once posts scrolled off the RMB, they were gone forever. There was no mass TGing. There were no scans for nations needing endorsements. Everything was quite labor-intensive. Also, there was no influence cost for the delegate in terms of banning nations.
Great Bight was able to ban hundreds of nations. We worked to keep the forum link on the RMB, run unendo campaigns, and rally support from other regions. Banned nations banded together in a region called Avengers Assemble to organize a Government-in-Exile. Thel d’Ran was the Delegate-in-Exile.
Since Great Bight was behaving like a child throwing a temper tantrum, I created the nation Great Bights Mum in order to put him in his place. I personally trolled his juvenile pirate persona by yelling at him to clean his room, or by giving him “computer time-out.” I recall once when he was online banning nations I told him, “And change that eyepatch, it’s startin’ to ooze.”
I was asked to contribute to the famous Puppetmaster operation. It was an incredible military operation involving hundreds of nations, and masterminded by Ballotonia. I created 3 puppets, had UN (WA) applications in the can, and gave the passwords to Ballotonia. With puppetmaster, the puppets had pre-endorsed the point, and when they all jumped the endos showed up. I'm pretty sure current game mechanics don't allow it, but it was spectacular.
July 28th came and Free4All, Ballotonia’s alt had won the delegacy. We were free!
To really understand what happened, you have to know something about the times we lived in. The drama went beyond simple game mechanics. In 2004 we were a fledgling community. No constitution, no well-defined election system, minimal organization. But we had an idea. Democracy, self-determination, the rule of law. Those were our shared values.
Great Bight’s delegacy placed all of that in jeopardy. Being taken over by Great Bight and other members of the New Pacific Order would have crushed our vision of what we could be. We had to fight.
Before Great Bight came to power, Magicality was the legitimate delegate. She was well-loved and an integral part of the community. But remember, there was little in the way of organizational structure. There was no Vice-Delegate or any security apparatus. When RL intervened Magicality left the game. That left a vacuum which was conveniently filled by UPS Rail, aka Sir Paul of the NPO. People began to be suspicious, and in short order he left TNP. That made Great Bight the most endorsed nation. We later found out that Great Bight was an alt of Mammothistan, also NPO. Almost immediately he replaced the forum link with a pirate website made by sixth graders. Then it was on.
The fight was very high-stakes and very low-tech. Initially. In those days once posts scrolled off the RMB, they were gone forever. There was no mass TGing. There were no scans for nations needing endorsements. Everything was quite labor-intensive. Also, there was no influence cost for the delegate in terms of banning nations.
Great Bight was able to ban hundreds of nations. We worked to keep the forum link on the RMB, run unendo campaigns, and rally support from other regions. Banned nations banded together in a region called Avengers Assemble to organize a Government-in-Exile. Thel d’Ran was the Delegate-in-Exile.
Since Great Bight was behaving like a child throwing a temper tantrum, I created the nation Great Bights Mum in order to put him in his place. I personally trolled his juvenile pirate persona by yelling at him to clean his room, or by giving him “computer time-out.” I recall once when he was online banning nations I told him, “And change that eyepatch, it’s startin’ to ooze.”
I was asked to contribute to the famous Puppetmaster operation. It was an incredible military operation involving hundreds of nations, and masterminded by Ballotonia. I created 3 puppets, had UN (WA) applications in the can, and gave the passwords to Ballotonia. With puppetmaster, the puppets had pre-endorsed the point, and when they all jumped the endos showed up. I'm pretty sure current game mechanics don't allow it, but it was spectacular.
July 28th came and Free4All, Ballotonia’s alt had won the delegacy. We were free!
