NS History: You've Got Questions, We've Got Answers!

[Lewis and Clark]

I *think* it's 200. It was imposed as a result of Francos Spain amassing a ridiculously large ban list during the battle for the Pacific I believe.

This is correct.

Lewis and Clark also ran into it in TNP in early 2008.

Yes, the opposition got to reuse their puppets as they fell off the list.

[Klaus Devestatorie]

Can someone explain what The Commonwealth 'super alliance' was and give more details about it in general? It seems intresting. I heard about it in this thread:
http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=328346

Sup. The Commonwealth was my first "region", I can talk about it.

The original commencement of "The Commonwealth" dates back to around the start of August, 2008, when a player best known as James Hughes (or Jamhug as his nickname) founded The Kingdom of England. It was quickly deemed a decent idea, considering the early success of the region, to include a couple more regions underneath the same government- founded to hit more nations with recruitment and therefore recruit even more active players. The Kingdom of Scotland, The Republic(? unsure on specific name, I just remember it was Wales related) of Wales, Kingdom of Ireland, The Kingdom of Sparta and The Kingdom of Hawaii all appeared within a month or so, all founded for the purpose of increasing the size of The Kingdom of England. They weren't colonies, per se; they were equals in The Kingdom of England.

Jamhug did some stuff the general populace didn't like, so we pulled the rug out from underneath him and crowned a new king, Charles; Jamhug took his ball (read: founders) of The Kingdom of England, The Kingdom of Scotland and The Republic(?) of Wales and left. The regional government remained, but there was no longer a capital; so we simply became The Commonwealth of Regions and added a few more (Kingdom of Great Britain, The Kingdom of New England). Various other regions came and went, all but a handful purpose founded to be part of The Commonwealth. The exceptions were Fox Rite, Grand Central, Audux and Lone Wolves United. Often when I got pissy at The Black Riders, it was because they'd inadvertedly raided an ex-Commonwealth region (including one that you appear to have refounded for a different purpose, without knowledge of it's original history). I have the vast majority of them under my control now.

Recruitment was all manual, but we were able to get so much of it done because Charles had built an automatically updating list of new nations that made recruitment much easier than it had been in the past for other places. You didn't have to hunt new nations down, they were all there; you also didn't have to manually keep lists of nations you'd sent to, because the list was of links to new nations and they automatically disappeared when clicked on. The system was integrated into the forum of The Commonwealth, so we had automated records of how many messages everyone had sent, and was able to tie in a currency system to it and stuff. If you wanted to examine the system, it might still exist in Region Inc. Access to this list was originally free on an alternative site Charles had set up, but eventually closed it off due to abuse and used access to the list to gain treaties with regions like Europeia and The New Inquisition.

It split eventually- having so many founders means the people that own those founders can simply leave and take those regions with them. The forums with all the nice toys (a phpbb3 forum and our second one; the first one was an InvisionFree board belonging to Jamhug) had a disaster (backup corruption) and we lost all the posts from the previous 9 months; and the Aeazen Combine believed that The Commonwealth of Regions was going to turn defender (which was a hasty assumption by all the raider orgs after a poorly worded WFE during the Commonwealth occupation of Iran), and undertook several attacks against the region, ending in the destruction of the 3rd forums twice (all the posts and forums were deleted), and an ultimatum from the Aeazen Combine demanding the dissolution of The Commonwealth. This ultimatum was accepted to spare the individual regions from future attacks, and they all struck out on their own, none to much individual success. The 3 regions still surviving as communities are Kingdom of Ireland, Alteran Empire, and The Kingdom of Sparta, with the latter the only one that hasn't had to be refounded or had a gap in activity.

Now that we've got stamps and legal automated recruitment, the concept of using recruitment in multiple regions to feed one offsite forum based government would be even easier than it was back then, possibly even doable by one person with an exceptional amount of disposable income. I've considered it but I probably give Max Barry far too much money as it is.

[Zaolat]

I remember having access to the recruitment system when it was restricted for awhile, but it wasn't for Europeia and such. In that day, it made manual recruitment so much easier and less boring. I could send out telegrams 20mins at a time randomly throughout the day rather than sitting their for hours recruiting and being bored as fuck. Wasn't as good as we have nowadays, but better than nothing.

[Klaus Devestatorie]

The general line of the treaties is that we'd give them access to the system and have something set up for their own region, on the condition that they send a certain number of telegrams for a Commonwealth region as well. This was definitely the case for a few places like Imperial Britain.

[The Risen Jaguar Warriors]

Who is Frak? Raider or Fenda? Who is he...?

[Reploid Productions]

Who is Frak? Raider or Fenda? Who is he...?

A DOSed player. The less said of him, the better.

[Ambroscus Koth]

Has anyone still playing today interacted extensively with DEN's Tommy Franks? I hardly know anything about him for how much I consider myself versed in raiding history. I'd love to hear some stories of the old DEN

[Unibot III]

Has anyone still playing today interacted extensively with DEN's Tommy Franks? I hardly know anything about him for how much I consider myself versed in raiding history. I'd love to hear some stories of the old DEN

I tried to get a hold of him for months for the Gameplay Alignment Test - he was the only person besides Grub who I didn't get. Grub! Grub for frigg's sake! I tracked down The Red Factions even.

[Goddess Relief Office]

Has anyone still playing today interacted extensively with DEN's Tommy Franks? I hardly know anything about him for how much I consider myself versed in raiding history. I'd love to hear some stories of the old DEN

Weird fellow who likes to type walls of text. Also a DOS player, if memory serves correct.

[Sedgistan]

Has anyone still playing today interacted extensively with DEN's Tommy Franks? I hardly know anything about him for how much I consider myself versed in raiding history. I'd love to hear some stories of the old DEN

Weird fellow who likes to type walls of text. Also a DOS player, if memory serves correct.

Yup.

[Evil Wolf]

Weird fellow who likes to type walls of text. Also a DOS player, if memory serves correct.

Yup.

Is he still DOS? I thought he was made DOS on obsolete Invasion Rule violations and thus un-DOS'd when those rules were abolished. Perhaps I am mistaken about the reason he was made DOS or perhaps he got himself put back on the DOS list.

In any case, Franks wasn't a nice person. Initially one might find him inspirational, but once you got to know him you found out he was very power hungry, self-centered, and, above all else, bat-shit paranoid. Saw Defender spies everywhere.

I much preferred DEN's founder, General Powell, although my interaction with him were quite limited. Really my favorite DENers were the people that no one has ever heard about or will remember. People like Illuminated Ones, Belgium Fighters, and Gideon. Oh, and Groznia, he was a trip too.

[Sedgistan]

He was DOSed in 2010, though I'm fairly sure he lost nations in the pre-influence era too.

[Evil Wolf]

He was DOSed in 2010, though I'm fairly sure he lost nations in the pre-influence era too.

I know he did, that's why DEN was forced to move from home region to home region for a while. Franks kept getting his puppets deleted, and said puppets were the founding nations.

[Jakker]

Yup.

Is he still DOS? I thought he was made DOS on obsolete Invasion Rule violations and thus un-DOS'd when those rules were abolished. Perhaps I am mistaken about the reason he was made DOS or perhaps he got himself put back on the DOS list.

In any case, Franks wasn't a nice person. Initially one might find him inspirational, but once you got to know him you found out he was very power hungry, self-centered, and, above all else, bat-shit paranoid. Saw Defender spies everywhere.

I much preferred DEN's founder, General Powell, although my interaction with him were quite limited. Really my favorite DENers were the people that no one has ever heard about or will remember. People like Illuminated Ones, Belgium Fighters, and Gideon. Oh, and Groznia, he was a trip too.

Noldor and OC were the only DEN I have had interaction with. Noldor, especially, is awesome. I miss him

[Klaus Devestatorie]

Franks was okay, but he's also the git that came up with the idea that The Commonwealth was going to turn defender. Thanks Franks :|

[Evil Wolf]

Franks was okay, but he's also the git that came up with the idea that The Commonwealth was going to turn defender. Thanks Franks :|

Like I said, he saw spies everywhere. He probably thought that because Lone Wolves United was a Commonwealth region at one point and he firmly believed that LWU was a Defender Front based upon the fact that we got "too good, too fast" when we were first starting out. He was a bit mental.

[Blackbird]

Franks was okay, but he's also the git that came up with the idea that The Commonwealth was going to turn defender. Thanks Franks :|

Like I said, he saw spies everywhere.

He wasn't wrong.

[Evil Wolf]

He wasn't wrong.

Yeah he was. Almost universally, and that's the problem. People he should have suspected were spies he trusted (and turned out to be spies, duh) and people he should have trusted he treated as spies (and they were raiders).

I mean, he let Nick become an officer in DEN after he destroyed TBH's forums for the RLA. I'm still convinced that Nick never switched sides at all and was RLA the entire time. However, Franks trusted him, all the while telling everyone he could about how LWU was a fenda front and fulla spies, spies I tell you. He would know, I guess, the DEN did have one of their spies, Meridianland, as our General and Forum Admin. Does being full of DEN spies still count?

Oh, and here's one for irony, the rumor that LWU was a Defender Front? Started by an RLA agent known as Joshua who was relying on the paranoia that was running rampant in DEN at the time. Franks bought it hook, line, and sinker because, like I said, he was off his rocker and had a talent for being wrong. I think he still believes it to this day.

[Klaus Devestatorie]

Also didn't help that most raiders still took him seriously til he was deleted.

[Zaolat]

He wasn't wrong.

Yeah he was. Almost universally, and that's the problem. People he should have suspected were spies he trusted (and turned out to be spies, duh) and people he should have trusted he treated as spies (and they were raiders).

I mean, he let Nick become an officer in DEN after he destroyed TBH's forums for the RLA. I'm still convinced that Nick never switched sides at all and was RLA the entire time. However, Franks trusted him, all the while telling everyone he could about how LWU was a fenda front and fulla spies, spies I tell you. He would know, I guess, the DEN did have one of their spies, Meridianland, as our General and Forum Admin. Does being full of DEN spies still count?

Oh, and here's one for irony, the rumor that LWU was a Defender Front? Started by an RLA agent known as Joshua who was relying on the paranoia that was running rampant in DEN at the time. Franks bought it hook, line, and sinker because, like I said, he was off his rocker and had a talent for being wrong. I think he still believes it to this day.

Joshua as in Jedi Gangsters/Bhagavhan?

[The Blaatschapen]

He wasn't wrong.

Yeah he was. Almost universally, and that's the problem. People he should have suspected were spies he trusted (and turned out to be spies, duh) and people he should have trusted he treated as spies (and they were raiders).

I mean, he let Nick become an officer in DEN after he destroyed TBH's forums for the RLA. I'm still convinced that Nick never switched sides at all and was RLA the entire time. However, Franks trusted him, all the while telling everyone he could about how LWU was a fenda front and fulla spies, spies I tell you. He would know, I guess, the DEN did have one of their spies, Meridianland, as our General and Forum Admin. Does being full of DEN spies still count?

Oh, and here's one for irony, the rumor that LWU was a Defender Front? Started by an RLA agent known as Joshua who was relying on the paranoia that was running rampant in DEN at the time. Franks bought it hook, line, and sinker because, like I said, he was off his rocker and had a talent for being wrong. I think he still believes it to this day.

You're my favourite defender spy, EW <3

[Blackbird]

He wasn't wrong.

Yeah he was. Almost universally, and that's the problem. People he should have suspected were spies he trusted (and turned out to be spies, duh) and people he should have trusted he treated as spies (and they were raiders).

I mean, he let Nick become an officer in DEN after he destroyed TBH's forums for the RLA. I'm still convinced that Nick never switched sides at all and was RLA the entire time. However, Franks trusted him, all the while telling everyone he could about how LWU was a fenda front and fulla spies, spies I tell you. He would know, I guess, the DEN did have one of their spies, Meridianland, as our General and Forum Admin. Does being full of DEN spies still count?

Oh, and here's one for irony, the rumor that LWU was a Defender Front? Started by an RLA agent known as Joshua who was relying on the paranoia that was running rampant in DEN at the time. Franks bought it hook, line, and sinker because, like I said, he was off his rocker and had a talent for being wrong. I think he still believes it to this day.

Well, he still wasn't wrong, just wrong about who the spies were. You're correct, except the "destroyed TBH's forums for the RLA." But I suspect you're not looking to wade into that discussion again.

Franks was very paranoid, and we played on that by planting misinformation.

[Evil Wolf]

Joshua as in Jedi Gangsters/Bhagavhan?

One in the same,

You're correct, except the "destroyed TBH's forums for the RLA."

I'll just leave this here.

[Jakker]

You're correct, except the "destroyed TBH's forums for the RLA."

I'll just leave this here.

10 years later and still kicking

[Yao]

Soon.

EDIT: