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

[Unibot III]

Speaking as someone who was one of its primary leaders for most of its relevance...

This is simply not true. You’re entitled to your opinions about my leadership, but you’re not entitled to your own reality.

[TheKeyToJoy]

Another notorious DOS than Cormac, Rojava, and A-Series-Of-Tubes. I ran out of notorious dos that’s why I put the last one though he is a dos.

[Tinhampton]

Historical Resolution #83 is called "The Eon Convention on Genocide" and authorises the UN to establish "The Pretenama Panel"s. Were Eon and Pretenama important people, places or roleplayers in the world of the 2004-era United Nations, or were those names selected for more arbitrary reasons?

Eon is a cut-and-dry non-IRL reference (at least in this context: one of the United Kingdom's "big six" energy suppliers is called E.ON). Ermarian's Jolt archive is down, but all evidence from the modern-day forums suggests that there was no IRL organisation called the Pretenama Panel, and OpenStreetMap doesn't have any IRL place names called "Pretenama" on its rotation. Neither Eon nor Pretenama existed as nations in 2004.

[Serdequre]

Osiris 21 Sep 2003

*Reads mottos, reads RMB. Regrets learning to read.*

Good detective work! Spotted your dispatch too.

Only 7 messages on that RMB (which would show max 10, so must be entire history to that point), so it must have existed on 12 Sep, since earliest post is "9 days ago"
Some of those nations have Wayback entries, all but 1 are which are from 23 Sep.

Apsos was 45m population then, the largest of them (17 days old? - working out from Amerion's thing). All of the UN Nations had endorsed Apsos except Republic Persons.
Boneyard shows Apsos last active on 14 Oct 2003. Presumably CTEd 28 days later with the 337 pop. Again, check vs Amerion population guide to figure out if that's consistent.

The Midget Clan was in a region (not on Wayback) GOOLWAS ARMY on 4 Sep, and had 12m pop at the time. So older than Apsos by a few days?

Nice find!

Edit: worth noting the difference in Boneyard between "last activity" and "CTEd". If last nation was "last active" on 31 Oct, then region may have been around for another 28 days, or however long the nation lasted before CTEing..

Posting from this account due to convenience. :> Thanks for the tips, AWS! Durm sent along this resource, nsdossier, to me, that revealed at least one other version of a UCR Osiris with a Founder (patroni). That iteration only ever had the Founder nation within, it seems, and existed up until less than two months before the region became a UCR.

[The Thaindom of the Shire]

What regions are the successors to Layem and Sanctum? It would be interesting to see how the presence of these ex members has effected regions today.

[Falafelandia]

What happened to August?

[Jewish Underground State]

What regions are the successors to Layem and Sanctum? It would be interesting to see how the presence of these ex members has effected regions today.

Kartakis and Divine Mandate of Sanctum are their successors. I know nothing on how DMS is doing and its been a bit since I caught up with Kartakis. When I last checked up with Kartakis they were loosing a lot of members due to disagreements in leadership. Its safe to say these regions just keep to themselves.

[Quebecshire]

What regions are the successors to Layem and Sanctum? It would be interesting to see how the presence of these ex members has effected regions today.

Kartakis and Divine Mandate of Sanctum are their successors. I know nothing on how DMS is doing and its been a bit since I caught up with Kartakis. When I last checked up with Kartakis they were loosing a lot of members due to disagreements in leadership. Its safe to say these regions just keep to themselves.

Funny way of saying they're both dead. Good demonstrations of the value of anti-fascist raids, since clearly both lots have been crippled since the deletions of their founders and the subsequent raids.

[New Makasta]

Weird question, but I vaguely rember being told there was a day when minor update was canceled because how long major took one day, if true what caused that? Thanks in advance for anyone who takes the time to respond

[Goobergunchia]

Historical Resolution #83 is called "The Eon Convention on Genocide" and authorises the UN to establish "The Pretenama Panel"s. Were Eon and Pretenama important people, places or roleplayers in the world of the 2004-era United Nations, or were those names selected for more arbitrary reasons?

Via the Jolt archive:

While most of TilEnca's history is full of hugs and puppy dogs, there was a period where The Church Of The Lords (the central religion of TilEnca) was corrupted by a fallen Lord (one of the divine beings) named Lucinda. She worked from inside it to make sure she became undeniable ruler of TilEnca, and the other realms of the world (Ellian and Morana). During her reign of terror she engineered the massacre of several thousand people - mostly magic users and clerics, and then anyone who opposed her point of view. It is the darkest period of TilEnca's past, and the only genocide to occur with in our history.

Near the end of her reign, a group named EON was formed to generally be a gang of heroes. It was founded by Nickolas and Toriella, and the members generally went around helping people, fighting monsters and making life better. A good comparison from other countries fiction might be Robin Hood and his Merry Men.

Eventually EON came in to conflict with The Church, and through Tori and Nick's hard work, Lucinda was overthrown and banished to Encana (more or less Hell).

In memory of their work and sacrifice, the President of TilEnca takes their name (Nickolas for men, Toriella for women) and this proposal - an attempt to ensure that genocide never happens again, or at least those who commit it are properly tried and punished for it - is named after their group.

The end.


If you are curious - that really is where the name comes from. Even though this is an international convention, the people of TilEnca hold the memory of Tori, Nick and EON in their hearts, and we thought this would be a nice name for a convention to stop mass murder, torture and general badness in the world :}

[Yokron pro-government partisans]

When did the practice of raiding and defending begin? I was under the impression that it was a relatively new practice, maybe dating back to 2015 or something, but perusing the forum has made me re-think that.
Also, could someone give me a VERY general timeline? Like, no elaboration or anything, just names of the events and when they happened IRL. I know its still a big ask, but I don't know what in the heck happened

[The North Polish Union]

When did the practice of raiding and defending begin? I was under the impression that it was a relatively new practice, maybe dating back to 2015 or something, but perusing the forum has made me re-think that.
Also, could someone give me a VERY general timeline? Like, no elaboration or anything, just names of the events and when they happened IRL. I know its still a big ask, but I don't know what in the heck happened

Raiding began almost as soon as the site itself did in 2002. In the earliest days regions had no founders, and the UN Delegate (now WA Delegate) was the sole nation in charge of administering the region. It didn't take long for groups of players to figure out that it was possible to force your way into the delegacy with a coordinated effort and take the region for themselves.

Defending of course, came almost immediately after raiding as a natural reaction to it.

There are still a few active players from that era that still play. Potentially one of them will see this and be able to provide more of the 'gory' details of how those early days of raiding and defending worked

[Jar Wattinree]

There are still a few active players from that era that still play. Potentially one of them will see this and be able to provide more of the 'gory' details of how those early days of raiding and defending worked

I summon Reploid Productions.

[Reploid Productions]

There are still a few active players from that era that still play. Potentially one of them will see this and be able to provide more of the 'gory' details of how those early days of raiding and defending worked

I summon Reploid Productions.

FOR A THOUSAND YEARS OF SLUMBER I HAVE LAID DORMANT BUT NOW I HAVE RET-- Oh it's you.

As NPU states, raiding existed almost from the moment the site opened to the public in late 2002. It was a fairly established thing when I joined in March 2003. Way back then it was purely for bragging rights (and vandalizing the WFE), as neither founders nor regional border controls existed. Things quickly turned into a colossal headache when regional controls were added, because that did enable raiding to "grief", or completely destroy communities. In those early days we didn't have the Influence mechanic, and the mod team was stuck in the extremely untenable position of trying to police raiding in a way that allowed it to exist while also protecting communities. It really sucked for literally everybody, with the pre-Influence griefing rules basically as follows:

• "Native" = "anyone that was in the region before you arrived".
• No kicking out more than 10% of the natives.
• If you password the region you must give the password to the natives.

Of course, with no Activity page and limited space in the regional happenings, it was functionally impossible to accurately enforce the above, catching raiders, defenders, and even a few innocent natives in the crossfire. Nobody was happy about it.

Then after loads of hand-wringing and angst about it, we got Influence added, getting moderation out of raid-policing entirely. The pre-Influence period left a "mods have defender bias" chunk of grudges and bad blood that lasted for years. There was a lot of angst over Influence "legalizing griefing" at the time too, but that eventually passed.

Ugh, I do not miss the hours wasted trying to detangle who was in the region first, who kicked too many natives, was that a defender or was that a raider, did they REALLY send out the password etc etc etc.

[Reventus Koth]

1 Infinite Loop often used to say that he and Ackbar were among the original five people from Fark.com that first came up with invading. Does anyone have any insight on who the others in that group would have been, even if it's just their names?

[Lord Dominator]

1 Infinite Loop often used to say that he and Ackbar were among the original five people from Fark.com that first came up with invading. Does anyone have any insight on who the others in that group would have been, even if it's just their names?

The Bruce has said that a group called "Evil" I believe it was was actually first - I suspect however that much of it either way is pedantry and that raiding (and probably defending for that matter) was something "invented" independently a number of times by individuals/groups.

[Numero Capitan]

1 Infinite Loop often used to say that he and Ackbar were among the original five people from Fark.com that first came up with invading. Does anyone have any insight on who the others in that group would have been, even if it's just their names?

The Bruce has said that a group called "Evil" I believe it was was actually first - I suspect however that much of it either way is pedantry and that raiding (and probably defending for that matter) was something "invented" independently a number of times by individuals/groups.

I agree with LD, from accounts back then I think the Farkers were just oblivious to the fact that others were already doing the same thing, they certainly planned it independently but the story of their first raid (World Domination) was that they attempted to raid the region at the same time as another group of raiders, who ultimately joined them on future invasions (Axis etc), which obviously suggests that they weren't the first and that it was already part of the game.

The group that planned their first invasion was combination of members from Farkistan and Farktopia, one of them might have been 'Tedmonton' if my notes are anything to go by (not even sure where half this info has come from these days though) but over 600 Farkers joined the site in January 2003 alone so its probably pretty difficult to narrow down who those were without logs/witness testimony.

[Blackbird]

I summon Reploid Productions.

FOR A THOUSAND YEARS OF SLUMBER I HAVE LAID DORMANT BUT NOW I HAVE RET-- Oh it's you.

As NPU states, raiding existed almost from the moment the site opened to the public in late 2002. It was a fairly established thing when I joined in March 2003. Way back then it was purely for bragging rights (and vandalizing the WFE), as neither founders nor regional border controls existed. Things quickly turned into a colossal headache when regional controls were added, because that did enable raiding to "grief", or completely destroy communities. In those early days we didn't have the Influence mechanic, and the mod team was stuck in the extremely untenable position of trying to police raiding in a way that allowed it to exist while also protecting communities. It really sucked for literally everybody, with the pre-Influence griefing rules basically as follows:

• "Native" = "anyone that was in the region before you arrived".
• No kicking out more than 10% of the natives.
• If you password the region you must give the password to the natives.

Of course, with no Activity page and limited space in the regional happenings, it was functionally impossible to accurately enforce the above, catching raiders, defenders, and even a few innocent natives in the crossfire. Nobody was happy about it.

Then after loads of hand-wringing and angst about it, we got Influence added, getting moderation out of raid-policing entirely. The pre-Influence period left a "mods have defender bias" chunk of grudges and bad blood that lasted for years. There was a lot of angst over Influence "legalizing griefing" at the time too, but that eventually passed.

Ugh, I do not miss the hours wasted trying to detangle who was in the region first, who kicked too many natives, was that a defender or was that a raider, did they REALLY send out the password etc etc etc.

[ooc]

Let me confirm: raiding was around at the very beginning. Or as close to the beginning as beginning can be at this point. When I joined in December 2022, there was raiding. Raiding was from my perspective as a member of a left-wing region, mostly along political lines. Nazis would raid us. Raids would happen along IRL political lines.

The thing that I take pains to explain to new players is how decentralized it all was. The NS forums were crap. They were absurdly slow, and no one could post on the "big boards" as we sometimes called them. There was no real large list of regions, or ways to monitor what was going on. There were few off-site regional forums. Governance took place through telegrams and posting on the RMBs. We heard news of raids like it was from far-off lands, only hearing through word of mouth. By the time you navigated to a region after it was griefed, it was 100% different. The natives were gone, the structures of government, which may have been entirely NS site-based were gone, and raiders were Delegate. So we would hear whispers from afar about these things, and it was learning about raiding that brought regions together in common defense. Most of these proto-defender alliances were based around some commonality; universal defenderism wasn't a thing. Take for instance, the Sarduakar Confederacy Defense Trust, which was a tool of the Meritocracy (as was the Atlantic Central Command), which had a capitalist bent. The Marxist-Anarcho-Syndicalist-Socialist Alliance was left-wing and would become the Red Liberty Alliance. The Global Liberation Alliance (GLA) was made up of dutch players and regions. Universal defenderism didn't really rise until the struggle against the Atlantic Alliance, which was also something of a new trend in raiderism--the empire-building raiders.

[The Church of Satan]

This got me curious about The Farkers. I hopped over to fark.com and found a comment from someone named MaliFinn that states Hell's founder, Satan, led one of the UN's largest voting blocs in late January of 2003. I wonder if it had a name or if it was just Hell itself.

The people over at SomethingAwful seemed to have a similar idea to the Farkers as well, but had substantially fewer numbers.

Found a comment made by (allegedly) Sir Paul over there too, just three months ago in a spot about the 20th anniversary of NS.

Magical Equestria (founder of Pony Lands) posted over there too.

[Mirzhitkholm]

What was the region Atlas, and what happened to it?

[Unibot III]

1 Infinite Loop often used to say that he and Ackbar were among the original five people from Fark.com that first came up with invading. Does anyone have any insight on who the others in that group would have been, even if it's just their names?

This list might be helpful for narrowing down further:

7. While not a complete list, the Farkers included: 1 Infinite Loop, ABCNNBCBS, Ackbar, Architeuthis, Backgroundnation, Casus Belli, Feynland, Hilarity Ensues, Jaffa, Jolinar, Laurencia/Laurencie, LeWonkatania, Lotlanthanderamore, Nothingg, Southeastern Canada, Stalingradski, Stimpland, Tommasi, WeirdVille, and WheatonCurtistan.

Loop’s recall is unreliable (in fairness, it’s like two decades ago).

I do wonder if Mammo may have been an original Farker.

[Shwe Tu Colony]

related to a question i asked long ago, any precedent on people publishing content inspired by/using their ns nation, or does the writing quality here copyirhgt usually bungle that

If not that, are there any notable incidents thereof? I recall one person doing it in TEP long ago, but past that I've not recall.

[Almonaster Nuevo]

What happened to August?

Finally succumbed to the Septemberists, I guess.

(sorry, couldn't resist).

[Improper Classifications]

What happened to Nephmir's original account? IK it got deleted but I was curious of the circumstances.

[Sedgistan]

What happened to Nephmir's original account? IK it got deleted but I was curious of the circumstances.

See: viewtopic.php?p=24300403#p24300403 and viewtopic.php?p=24302287#p24302287

Or:

Nephmir was guilty of being bloody stupid and dishonest, but he's not and never has been a malicious actor in the vein of Frak.