I know this is a bit late but I was out all day and didn't have time to finish it before August rolled around, in fact I'm not sure if it's done as is, but I need to get it out the door either way.

In the dark, wild days of the last generation online gaming in its current form was something I would never have believed. We barely had dial-up at home, and Wi-Fi was akin to magic. Before I had my unified tag of Cwal37 and I went by Clyzer. Despite having five siblings I still craved a massively multi-player experience, one that I found in Cybernations. Cybernations is a text based nation simulation games. You make a country in your image and define it by your actions. Its most popular predecessor was NationStates.



Unlike NationStates, which only allowed you to make a random choice about your country each day, Cybernations allowed you to build a military and go to war with other countries. It also had a complex trading system in which countries are given resources which can be traded with other countries. Specific combinations gave bonuses, and trading within your own team gave a bonus as well. This was all done with the goal of increasing your nation's infrastructure and tech in order to become more powerful. However, the bread and butter of the game sprung from its team system. Your team was based on an arbitrary color chosen upon the creation of your country, but it could easily mean everything for your future play as the colors quickly gave rise to alliances. Several of these alliances jumped directly from the pages of the NationStates forums.



Through forums and IRC a massive bureaucracy quickly sprung to life. Because this game was so much livelier than NationStates with the potential for real(digital) harm to be done a complex web of treaties and peace agreements ensnared the major alliances. From MDPs (Mutual Defense Pact) to NAPs (Non-Aggression Pact)everything had an acronym and for the uninitiated a declaration of war post could be nigh on unintelligible. Not only would the leaders remain within their strict, horrifically verbose personas but sprinkle acronyms throughout like chocolate chips in a delicious pancake. In short, it was a world I immediately loved. I joined within the first three months the site had been active. Already the CN world had been rocked by war, its blood-soaked infancy testament to long simmering NationStates hatred brought to numerical life.

I remained within the game for slightly less than a year, but it was the first two months that defined my entire play experience.



During an chat session a friend who was much more into NationStates than myself linked me to CN. It looked interesting, so I created my nation. Within the first few days I was sent messages extolling the virtues of several alliances. After receiving one such message I wandered into the forums and became a part of something much bigger than my tiny nation. It was amazing to see the pomp and grandstanding present within the posters. Everyone remained within character and I quickly discovered the quirks of various alliances. I had chosen blue as my color and decided to follow through and join the largest blue alliance, the National Alliance of Arctic Countries. The NAAC was a democracy, with elected leaders and a constitution. It's members had a voice and a balance of power was kept, or so I thought. They were all friendly, and I was having a great time. In fact, nearly everyone within the game was friendly except the New Pacific Order.



The NPO was a red sphere alliance ruled with an iron fist by a dictator in all but name. Their entire structure and alliance was brought directly over from NationStates. Because of this base and their ruthless eradication of any red sphere competition they quickly established themselves as one of the most powerful alliances. They always played from a position of power and demanded kowtowing and respect at every turn. Seen through the eyes of an impressionable young recruit to a Democratic alliance the NPO was basically Nazi Germany. Any way it was looked at, they were the enemy. One of the first major wars had been fought between the NAAC and NPO, which had ended in favor of the NPO due to their pioneering of a new midnight blitz tactic. This only added fuel to the fire. It was a burning question in my mind, “Could democracy triumph over fascism the same way it had in the real world?”



I joined at a perfect time to be deeply affected by the game. I had never played anything that involved community interaction on this level, and because you were required to check your nation every day in order to maximize its power there was a lot to be lost by failing in your interactions. As an impressionable new recruit I was awed by the attention the leaders of our alliance paid to me, the little guy. Realistically, the game was just pretty new still and the community was fairly small. However, I was still impressed by my fellow members and their dedication. I resolved myself to work hard and make our alliance the most prosperous and therefore powerful. I participated in an election almost immediately upon arrival. The outgoing Protector was much beloved as he had founded our alliance and set it on the path of strength and peace. In the elections we were collectively idiots, falling for stupid promises and propaganda, instead of focusing on experience and honesty. In the end we elected a coward, although this was not immediately apparent. I was fooled. Fooled in much the same way that voters are today. Essentially it was the candidate who had the most political capital and best speeches, chock-full of amazing assurances about the future.

My first month or so in the game was great. My alliance mates showed me how to optimize my country both economically and militarily, while providing a lot of fun in the forums and IRC. Just as I had begun to really enjoy myself and grow my nation well was when our Protector made a small mistake whose flames he fanned into a massive blaze. Apparently he had been contacted by someone within the NPO who offered inside information. Suspected spying was the NPO's favorite pretense for war, despite their own persistent use of the tactic, which went against every ideal the NAAC stood for. It became an issue when our leader tried to accept some information from this “spy” and everything sort of came out into the open. The particulars remain unclear to this day. What had a chance to be passed off as a small diplomatic snafu quickly turned into a full blown international incident as our Protector sniveled and begged for forgiveness, acquiescing to demand after demand without consulting the alliance at large as per the constitution



In the end, he offered to give up one or more of our members that had somehow offended the NPO in the past. Essentially they would be cast out for the wolves. Without alliance protection most nations, especially older ones, will not last long due to their status as high-reward, low-risk targets. This was completely unacceptable to the rank and file as well as several elected officials. While laughing at our dedication our Protector left the alliance for a safe haven elsewhere along with many of our top officials. Leaving us to fight a war not just against the NPO whom had already defeated us once, but the two other largest alliances in the game who were pulled in due to mutual treaties.



We were crushed, devastated, destroyed. Our leaders were scattered or never were really leaders at all, and our membership quickly dwindled. Our place within the game as the most powerful blue alliance disappeared, and we were forced underground for quite some time. Despite all of this we retained our honor. We refused to retaliate against those who were forced into war by treaty, instead focusing only on the alliance who had forced it upon us all, the NPO.

Not that it mattered. In the end, the NPO went on to become the strongest Alliance in the game, even seeding the blue trading sphere with their own spin-off alliance, the New Polar Order. The NAAC was officially disbanded and disallowed to remain an alliance. Nothing was changed, the Goliath won, and his iron fist continued to rule. It was horrible to watch as they exalted in their always-assured victory. Even worse was reading what our leader said as he labeled those who chose to stay and fight idealistic fools. We were idealistic yes, but fools never.



We understood that standing up meant the end of our nations and possibly tenure within the game. We knew that the alliance might be lost to the vast streams of packets on the web forever. But we chose to make a stand, an attempt to appeal to the better nature of our cyberverse fellows. To always stand and believe in your freedom of choice, not to lick the boot of a dictatorial overlord. None of this came to pass. Our influence was negligible. Quickly forgotten, the game-world moved on to continue the same process of kowtowing, knowing that if you fight, you lose.

I witnessed the death of democracy, and there was nothing I could do about it.

This is not the sort of experience that most games are not built on. It wasn't fun to lose everything that I had put some work into every day for several months. It wasn't nice to see the “bad guys” win. But it worked, in a way, because the game affected me. It had a bigger impact on me than pretty much any other multi-player game I've played. I haven't touched the internet text based genre since, despite the relatively low cost of entry and ease of addiction, it's just not worth it to watch the world crumble around me again. The cost of departure can be quite high.



It also had more personality than any RPG. We had our villains (the leader of the NPO's name was Ivan Moldavi, which just seems designed to instill a sense of evil dictatorship), heroes, (one of the best military minds in the game was in our alliance, his name was Arctic appropriately enough) and everyone in between. I was interacting with a completely different world, one that had spun out of the hands of the creator and its framework into something both amazing and depressing. Perhaps it speaks more to the nature of the internet. Simply put, that democracy does not work as well as something more authoritarian, since both are without material reward, but only one causes motivation through fear of punishment.