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

[Cromarty]

1. Who was Poskrebyshev?
2. Have there been distinct eras in the R/D game where one side was firmly on top for a sustained period of time?
3. Where does the whole TRR BBQ thing come from?
4. What was the first UCR?
5. I keep hearing of x organisation or y group (a product of me being a gameplayer for about 53 seconds) that was influencial/powerful ass-ages ago. Who were some of the most major groups, when looking at all 8 years of NS?

1. Posky was one of the original senars of the NPO, and I believe a RL friend of Francos Spain, he also held the delegacy of the Pacific for a while.
3. There was a period where defenders outnumbered the invaders in defenses, but that had to do with coordination and cooperation rather than actually outnumbering them. Defender unity was much better back in the days, where invader unity seems to work better in current times. That is my perception, others might have a different view of it
2. Umm...that came from Kandarin's BBQ & Grill, a term I used years ago when sending invaders to the RR. I guess it kinda stuck
4. No clue. Some silly named test region that has long ago ceased to exist?
5. Back in the days? I'll toss out some names, but I'm sure I'll forget a bunch... ADN, RLA, TITO, GLA, DEN, Blue Moon, Empire of Power, Meritocracy, Atlantic Alliance, RRA, North Pacific Army, Freedom Fighters, Pacific Defenders...Man, I can't remember the invaders anymore..and I'll let the new generation name the newer orgs

All interesting

Although I'm a little disappointed at Posky not being some rival of Francos, locked in a battle for the delegacy, as Topid's delegacy change table seems to suggest ;P

[Greater Mackonia]

What exactly is the black hawks and how were they founded and what are their beliefs

[Crushing Our Enemies]

The Black Hawks is one of the leading raider organizations in Nationstates. It was founded in early 2005 by Halcones, who is probably one of the more brilliant raiders to have played the game. Our ideology is Raider Unity, plain and simple. We have no political motivations or role-play personas.

For more info on the history, check out the History section of the NSWiki article. Everything after the history section is out of date though, cause we don't really look after that page anymore.

[Dimoniquid]

I r haz question. Who were the first founding nations of the NSverse?

[Crushing Our Enemies]

Max and his friends, it would appear.

[Joshuahood]

In reference to New New York's question, what exactly is a farker?

[Argyres]

Don't forget ALL, CG

Glad you remembered us blowhards though.

[The Murtunian Tribes]

In reference to New New York's question, what exactly is a farker?

A member of Farkistan, one the oldest (and most prolific) griefer groups is NS. Many of the old anti-griefing rules were established due to their exploits.

[Unibot II]

If you had a chance to choose a "dream" team of three defenders and a "nightmare" team of three opponents who'd give them the biggest competition (raider, tyrant, whatever), who would they be? What armies would they command? What would be the most "epic" target?

Feel free to use as much history as you'd like to answer the question.

[Ananke II]

Wasn't Ackbar one of the Farkers? If so, I wouldn't call all of them griefers. He was one of the invaders we (defenders) had very good relations with.

[Darkesia]

Loop was a Farker. IIRC, they were actual Farkers (from the site Fark.com) who heard about NS on that site and came to see what havoc they could wreak when left to an environment shackled only by their own creativity.

[The Murtunian Tribes]

Wasn't Ackbar one of the Farkers? If so, I wouldn't call all of them griefers. He was one of the invaders we (defenders) had very good relations with.

Some of them settled down after a bit.

[Joshuahood]

Oh right, I remember this from somewhere now. Thanks!

[New Rome Pax]

What was the biggest war in NS history, and why?

[Jakker]

Who is the oldest active nation?

[Crazy girl]

Ah yes, how could I forget ALL.

And yes, Ackbar was very sensible. I miss having him around.

[Ananke II]

I loved ALL, but damn, I'm still grumpy about Merit's actions there. The biggest reason TNP joined ALL was because it got us allied with The Meritocracy and the first time we actually needed help, half the Merit senators promptly started discussing how to get out of the treaty.

Still, a decent amount of senators did come through for us and that particular Merit administration was pretty awesome.

[Argyres]

It was always extremely difficult to get the Meritocracy to take an unequivocal stance given its membership (especially after my and Unistrut's consulships). I think, in broad terms, the Meritocracy had defenderish leanings because it mirrored our own views regarding national and regional sovereignty. In practical terms, these ideals often conflicted with the realpolitik of our "soft power" - in order to keep dialogues open with, say, the NPO, we weren't going to be raising the banner of liberation for the Pacific as others would want us to.

In addition, with shady characters like you around, the North Pacific was hardly sympathetic

[Punk Daddy]

It was always extremely difficult to get the Meritocracy to take an unequivocal stance given its membership (especially after my and Unistrut's consulships). I think, in broad terms, the Meritocracy had defenderish leanings because it mirrored our own views regarding national and regional sovereignty. In practical terms, these ideals often conflicted with the realpolitik of our "soft power" - in order to keep dialogues open with, say, the NPO, we weren't going to be raising the banner of liberation for the Pacific as others would want us to.

In addition, with shady characters like you around, the North Pacific was hardly sympathetic

During the takeover of TNP, I was always surprised by the nuetrality of The Merit. But given it's broad makeup it should not have been surprising at all. The Merit, at its height, was a very unique organization within NS in that it housed many of the best gameplayers who often were competing with one another in other arenas. Things did come to a head though in early 2005 when the whole ADN-NPO blow-up forced Winnipeg to hit the reboot button.

I have often wondered what would have happened if he didn't reset the forums.

[Joshuahood]

Can someone tell me the history of Regional Influence, why it was created, and what effect it had/has?

[Crazy girl]

I think I can answer at least the why.

*puts down a plate with milk and cookies*

A long time ago, before influence was ever heard of, we had a long list of invasion rules. They were kinda complicated and hard to enforce, and often unsuspecting invader delegates (or even native delegates) broke them and got in big trouble over it.
Of course, there were also defenders who broke them, thinking those rules only applied to invaders, and didn't realise that basically, for those rules, they were also considered invaders
And then there was a group who on purpose went and broke those rules because well...there will always be idiots

The purpose of those rules was to protect the natives against the invaders, without actually outlawing invading. This made the job very hard for game mods though, since they had to figure out who's what in a situation.

Then it was decided from above that a solution needed to be found. And influence was introduced. This practically meant that as a delegate, you needed influence to be able to perform certain actions in regional control, and these actions would drain your influence. The longer you're in a region, the more influence you get.
Influence then replaced the monster called "the invasion rules". Anything you had the influence for to do in regional control, you can do. Kick someone. Ban someone. Set a password.

The result? Perhaps some newer invaders and defenders would like to chime in as well, but as I see it, the game has become easier in terms that you don't need to worry as much as before that what you are doing is allowed. The job has become somewhat harder for defenders in that they are stuck in a region for longer if they want to kick the invaders and they can't make a native delegate. And those invaders who wish to kick a native from a region or password it will need a lot of patience as well, though that was the intention

[Cromarty]

Anyone feel like giving a (short) history of the whole Greece thing?

[Argyres]

Anyone feel like giving a (short) history of the whole Greece thing?

I can get the story started. On my UN nation, Iasonia, I was delegate of Greece when it first really emerged as an active region; we joined the ADN, fought a few battles, much fun was had. At the time I had a lot of stuff going on in real life and elsewhere in the game so I stepped down and various other Greek natives built on what we'd started back then. Activitiy was up and down, eventually more down like the rest of the game.

At some point, it was decided to refound the region (We'd been without a founder since before I joined and a hotspot for attacks) and the refounding didn't go off properly and through a serious of events the Persian Empire took control of the region. There's some RL/ethnic unpleasantry that lurks below the surface as well (Also with some Macedonian-affiliated nations/regions as well).

*EDIT* Editing in a timeline of sorts, checked some TGs on Iasonia to double check details

- Active natives decide to refound the region
- Refounding occurs but by an unknown nation "Yauna"
- Yauna more or less manages the region fine but keeps going inactive, eventually ceases to exist
- Persians invade, take over the region
- TITO(?) fails in a liberation attempt. Only had a couple lines about it so someone else can feel free to clarify

[Mahaj]

Anyone feel like giving a (short) history of the whole Greece thing?

I can get the story started. On my UN nation, Iasonia, I was delegate of Greece when it first really emerged as an active region; we joined the ADN, fought a few battles, much fun was had. At the time I had a lot of stuff going on in real life and elsewhere in the game so I stepped down and various other Greek natives built on what we'd started back then. Activitiy was up and down, eventually more down like the rest of the game.

At some point, it was decided to refound the region (We'd been without a founder since before I joined and a hotspot for attacks) and the refounding didn't go off properly and through a serious of events the Persian Empire took control of the region. There's some RL/ethnic unpleasantry that lurks below the surface as well (Also with some Macedonian-affiliated nations/regions as well).

*EDIT* Editing in a timeline of sorts, checked some TGs on Iasonia to double check details

- Active natives decide to refound the region
- Refounding occurs but by an unknown nation "Yauna"
- Yauna more or less manages the region fine but keeps going inactive, eventually ceases to exist
- Persians invade, take over the region
- TITO(?) fails in a liberation attempt. Only had a couple lines about it so someone else can feel free to clarify

There was a liberation attempt at the time of the liberation proposal and I was involved in the one that occured a long time afterwards.

[Unibot II]

Um, I'll be lazy and copy and paste the orginal "Liberate Greece",

The Security Council,

Recognizing Greece as one of the oldest surviving regional communities in NationStates and that understanding its relatively complicated history is necessary to fully understand the region's current and dire situation,

Understanding that around August 2009, the two remaining natives of Greece (Grandon and Nikolaos The Great) decided to refound their founderless region to ensure the survival of the community,

Concerned by the fact that a relatively unknown nation, Yauna, happened to refound the region before the native, Nikolaos The Great, which intended to become the new founder of Greece, could,

Taking into consideration that, although Yauna performed its duties to the region's security by eventually repelling invasions, it was a notably inactive nation and even called a “joke” of a founder, by one native,

Reviewing some speculation by natives of Greece that Yauna is secretly allied with a foreign force, the Persian Empire, to protect its status as founder from the natives of Greece who were plotting to refound and commit mutiny against Yauna,

Concluding that, although Yauna made some critical and suspicious administrative decisions (such as permitting delegate access to the regional administration) just leading up to the current recent invasion of Greece by the Persian Empire, if Yauna was, in fact, allied with the Persian Empire, Yauna would have been capable of banning and ejecting the natives of Greece without the assistance of the invaders currently holding the region down (and it is therefore unlikely that Yauna is allied with the invaders),

Deeply concerned by the invasion of Greece that was conducted by the Persian Empire on July 30 2010 -- an invasion that used a condemned technique of invading, often referred to as “Password Grabbing,” that was popularized by Macedon and involves an invader delegate imposing a regional password immediately after successfully claiming the position of delegate,

Aware that the founder, Yauna, has not responded to the civil turmoil in Greece because of inactivity, and has since ceased to exist,

Affirming that a counterattack is impossible to conduct in Greece without the removal of the Delegate-imposed barriers to free entry,

Expecting that, without action by the World Assembly, Greece will become another prized possession of the Persian Empire, much like Ctesiphon, Greek Empire, Parthia, Hayk, Aria and Media -- all of which lack the desirable qualities of a region: activity, access and amenities,

Hereby Authorizes a removal of Delegate-imposed barriers to free entry into Greece to aid in the eternal conflict against those who threaten interregional harmony and goodwill.

Sponsored by the natives of Greece, including but not limited to Grandon and Nikolaos The Great.

The liberation passed and the FRA and Dharma ran a liberation to move in and endorse Grandon (Bunnicula/Hornopolis, a total defender newbie was made lead at the last minute because I had to do something in RL. He did fine!). Yauna came back alive.... and banejected us. I talked with Yauna that night and settled a sort of peace agreement, Yauna agreed to not ban Grandon or other Greek natives and fly the Greek flag and use a Greek WFE, so long as the liberation attempts stopped. This peace agreement didn't last, Grandon got into a fiery debate with the Persians and I think there were a couple of liberations attempted before Grandon and a few Greeks were removed from the region. With Grandon gone.. it kind of looked like that was the end.