A very long note of thanks
It has been two years since my last post. Today I have returned on an auspicious day.
It was exactly 10 years ago that I made my first country on NationStates. I still remember it like it was yesterday: my brother and I were playing one of those Tennis Heads games online and I had asked him: what if this was like Wimbledon, and the Queen was watching? He had no clue what I was talking about and said nothing. Once again, I asked him: what if we were like the royals? He was smart and chose not to respond again, because how the hell do you respond to something like that? But being the brother I was, I pushed him off of the computer we shared and searched up "Nation Making Games" on Google. This was the first thing that came up. And the application form, with its almost CIA-esque dossier, was enough to sell it to me. The Democratic States of Huda was born then and there.
I had come on the tails of the phenomenon we know as the NS Summer. I am here, of course, to confess that I was also underage when I first made my nation. I was ten years old. I had no clue what a republic was, nor did I know how a forum worked. But still, I stuck to it. I enjoyed the gameplay-side of things, answering issues every day, but being the ten-year-old I was, I got bored of it. It was then that I did discover the forum, and that changed my life completely. I still remember the first war I had felt I was properly a part of (Tyrol Civil War) - they kicked me out within 3 minutes because I had not signed up beforehand. It was a two-liner post that made very little sense, and it began with a Bzzt-Sqwerk! But it was then that NS had captured me, and I realized how much I could do with it.
It was exactly 10 years ago that I made my first country on NationStates. I still remember it like it was yesterday: my brother and I were playing one of those Tennis Heads games online and I had asked him: what if this was like Wimbledon, and the Queen was watching? He had no clue what I was talking about and said nothing. Once again, I asked him: what if we were like the royals? He was smart and chose not to respond again, because how the hell do you respond to something like that? But being the brother I was, I pushed him off of the computer we shared and searched up "Nation Making Games" on Google. This was the first thing that came up. And the application form, with its almost CIA-esque dossier, was enough to sell it to me. The Democratic States of Huda was born then and there.
I had come on the tails of the phenomenon we know as the NS Summer. I am here, of course, to confess that I was also underage when I first made my nation. I was ten years old. I had no clue what a republic was, nor did I know how a forum worked. But still, I stuck to it. I enjoyed the gameplay-side of things, answering issues every day, but being the ten-year-old I was, I got bored of it. It was then that I did discover the forum, and that changed my life completely. I still remember the first war I had felt I was properly a part of (Tyrol Civil War) - they kicked me out within 3 minutes because I had not signed up beforehand. It was a two-liner post that made very little sense, and it began with a Bzzt-Sqwerk! But it was then that NS had captured me, and I realized how much I could do with it.
I come from a developing country, and a very urban area. I spent most of my childhood stuck in an apartment block, with little to do but play video games all day. It was difficult to even imagine a world away from these four walls, and that was exactly what NationStates let me do. I began crafting all kinds of stories - a civil war in Huda, with a terrorist organization called the Black Rose... stories that made this new world in my mind so, so, interesting. For the first time in my life, I actually felt the freedom you feel when you know that a place is totally yours. That was the first gift that NS ever gave me. It is probably the gift I remember the most. I was the President of this country now, a great leader that everyone loved - for a kid who was largely bullied (and was also a bully, regrettably), it felt like such a strange, yet exciting thing to be. Leader of my own fake country.
Of course, your nation is a lot of hard work. As a ten year old, you can see, I barely knew how to write, and I knew nothing about what a Republic was. But I tried to get my bearing on things. I gradually understood what RPing was, and I tried to learn from the people I did it with. I still remember my first two friends, who were kind enough to have joined in on my sad, lonely civil war RP - Asigna and Neo Philippine Empire. They have since left NS, but I remember them very, very well, and I cherish the time I had with them. Then I moved on to regions: I still remember being one of the vocal members of the Axis of Resistance, and it was there that I met my first community on this site. Mind you: I was 11 or 12. To me the Axis of Resistance was brilliant: it felt revolutionary. They had taught me what ideology was and what it meant to people: thus when I was 11-12, I decided I was a communist. I knew very little of what communism meant, of course, but it was a start. So, I learnt what these things were from fantastic (though perhaps interesting) people, like Souriya al-Assad, Zataristan, and so many others - they too are now gone from NS. I also remember the people we RPed with - perhaps ideologically they were on the other side of the board - but even from them I learnt so much about what it meant to write, and how what we wrote - from wars to conferences - worked in real life. Cuscatlan (as he was known then), LCR, Inyurstan, Aeyariss, and a bunch of others: I am happy to say that I think they are still in NS, though we have not spoken in ages. I still think of them fondly, and see them almost as older brother figures from those years.
I would be remiss not to recall the non-II RP parts of NS. I did it all in my time. For a while, I had briefly partaken in NS sports (the football World Cup, especially) though I cannot remember my national team making it very far. I also remember diplomatic overtures in the sub-forum NationStates. I really, really remember very vividly my storefronts in GE&T - the Silverstone Hotels; AirHuda/TigerLines; Husseinabad Airport; Moo! and so many more "ventures"... even these were valuable lessons in graphics design. I looked up to many people in these spaces... in fact, it was someone from GE&T who taught me how to use PowerPoint for graphics over telegram - it was just a short telegram he sent me explaining how he does things, and yet it changed my life yet again and gave me a skill I ended up using frequently over school. I still fondly remember the inspiring Karlberg Industries by Eslovakia, who also seems to have left by now. His work was stunning and it was what got me interested in how GE&T worked.
I had stayed in the AoR for a few years, but after a point, I felt like I had to make change. I had tearfully left (though I remained close friends) the region, and then I found two new homes - Peoples Federation of Qandaristan and Atlas. The PFQ has since ended, and its founder, who had also become a close friend, has also left NS, along with other friends like Jumhuriya Hindustan. I remember many fond memories with them, particularly because I tried to help them on the RP side of things. Atlas had changed my life, on the other hand. I spent the rest of my time on this site with Atlas. Atlas changed everything for me. Much of my RPing before this was focused on military matters and focused on war and ideology - in Atlas, for the first time, it felt like worldbuilding. We were building a whole world of our own, with its own planets, and it was during this time that I had perhaps the best experiences in learning how to write. I became an eloquent writer, and my time in Atlas fueled me to do a bunch of creative writing - and even non-fiction writing too. The friends I made there are perhaps the most special of all, because I spent most of my NS time with them from thereon. Acronius, Valdiu, Elesar, Carloso, Rodina, Chazicaria, Brytene - there are truly, truly so many special friends from there (and more I have not mentioned). Our RMB was, at a point, the fastest-running in the website (and also the most problematic). I realize we were all just being stupid kids then, and looking back, much of what we were saying was very wrong. I would like to apologize to anyone I may have hurt or offended in my time here. It was never my desire to do so, and I ask profusely for your forgiveness.
It was then that I had hit a small hurdle. I was RMBanned for (looking back), very valid reasons, and I'd skirted around the ban with a puppet. This meant a DEAT, and my very precious original nation was deleted - there was no way to get it back. This broke my heart, though now of course, I realize that there were real and valid reasons behind it. Since then, I've had this second nation - the Greater Hudian Republic. Huda was DEATed only 3 or 4 years into its existence, and so technically it was a very small part of the long 10 years, a bulk of which has been with this new account. But alas, I was also growing up: by the time of the Greater Hudian Republic, I was 13 and I'd begun middle school. In a few years time, I'd become engrossed in school, which meant I could not post as actively as I used to. I used to think your nation getting deleted due to inactivity was an impossibility for me, but it was around this point that it started to happen. I was nervous, but I also knew these things were a part of life. I went ahead.
Life has changed a lot since the day I made Huda. It was a turbulent time for me back then: my mom had been diagnosed with cancer, and both my parents were going through a divorce. In the ten years that have since passed, I moved to four different countries and went from being some middle schooler to a junior in college. Through it all, NationStates and Huda were both always there with me. Everyone knows about it - all of my family, all of my friends - they all know about this place, because they know how much it means to me. All that writing that I learnt from my friends in NationStates drove me into both creative and non-fiction writing: to this day, I'm proud to say I've managed to publish a lot of my opinion pieces on national dailies - a big jump from the little press releases I used to do in RPs here. All the graphics designing helped me massively in school, because clubs were always looking for someone who could do that work, and that made me indispensable. The study of politics and economics that came with working on your nation led me to realize what I want to do in life: in the past it was anything - car designer, astronomer, pilot - but after NationStates, I have been devoted to the disciplines of economics and politics, and I plan on working in public policy in the future - perhaps, infamously, even running for office. I wrote about NationStates when I was applying to college abroad. It was in my first paragraph. I ended up getting accepted in a super selective dual degree program - I spent my last two years at France's best social sciences institution for my first degree in economics, and now I'm finishing up my second degree (also in economics) at an Ivy League school in the US. Getting into an Ivy League school was a dream that my family had held for a long time, which I wanted to fulfill for them. For a boy who came from Bangladesh, this meant a huge deal. And I am convinced not a single canard of this would have been possible without the time I spent here.
I'm finally getting to the bottom line. I am unendingly grateful for the community that has been built here. I have been wanting to write this for a very long time and to return to this place that I think of as home (you know, the BBCode came back to me like muscle memory?) and thank each and every one of you for the part you play in building this community. To all the RPers, to all the people beyond the RP realm, to the moderators, to the great Max Barry himself: thank you. I do not know if you will ever comprehend the beauty of what you have made here. This thriving, perhaps dysfunctional, but yet thriving online community full of weirdos - all of whom are here making their own fake countries and making friends with strangers from around the world. Life has turned out to be so remarkable, thanks to the grace of God, thanks to all of you. I am grateful, so grateful, to you all. My parents both work, which meant I spent much of my time alone, or with my brother. And yet, I was never alone. I spent all my time with you guys, and I am so grateful for it.
The sad possibility is that this is probably my last ever post on the forum. It actually stings to even say this, but it is the truth. The last time I had even made a post was two years ago. I'd rather go out with a bang like this than a whimper. But this isn't a goodbye. The truth is, as someone who has not lived in a single place for over two years over the last six years, home is a difficult and changing concept. When I feel uprooted, I always come back to this website - you'll notice this nation getting founded in those periods - to look over my old posts, to read those old memories, and to relish that nostalgia. In my heart and in my mind, the Hudian Republic is my home. I can almost picture myself in there, driving through the thoroughfares of the capital city of Husseinabad, drinking coffee atop the government's Abbas Tower, getting deployed on a special forces mission in the jungles of Berakhal - because this is the home we have made together - in this website whose tan-green colors I have never forgotten. What makes me happiest of all, though, is that the forum doesn't seem to have died, and the website seems far from dying. It is true, many of my friends have since left, and perhaps the generation of people I spent so much time with have all moved on with our lives. But plenty of new generations have since come, and have since brought new life into this place. It brings to mind the very summer when I first came and joined this place, so excited by all the possibilities. Perhaps one of you reading this is like me, some kid who should not be on this part of the internet this early. My first advice to you is to leave and come back when you're of age. But if you do not listen to me (which is possible), I ask you to stay, but more importantly, I ask you to learn from all the brilliant minds here. It's what changed my life completely.
So yes, perhaps this is my last post. The truth is that my life has changed completely. All those dreams that I had for what a nation should look like... the imagination of a perfect state that I dreamt of... I have started to realize it is not only possible but important that I make those dreams a reality. My country (as you may have noticed in my signature) is far from perfect, but being in NS has made me realize how much I could do for it. With the privilege and the education I am privileged to have now, I want to go back to my country and serve it. I want to turn my country into a place that I'd dreamt of within these forums. It's an ambitious goal, and chances are I may never attain it. I might become some Wall Street sellout too. But it is still a dream I have, a dream that I cultivated from this place. I may no longer spend time on Huda, but it is still deep in my memory of where I want to see my country - the one in the real world - in the future. I ask for your own support and prayers that I might make it this far, but truly, I am here to thank you.
One last time: thank you so, so much to you all, for all you have done in building this community. I hope this continues, and I hope I can continue coming back here and remembering this beautiful part of my childhood. I do not know if I can ever repay the debt I owe you all, because much of what I have had in life, my time in NS has played some part in. So please accept my unending gratitude. All of you who are reading this and those who are not. My parents always taught me to never forget where I come from, and I believe in my heart I come from this strange part of the internet.
I'll be around for a few days in case anyone has questions (I don't know what kind but I'm happy to answer any questions - I feel like the mods may interrogate me soon), or even to just chat with me, or if you want to catch up if you are an old friend. At the very least - especially to those of you who are still young and applying to college - I'd be more than happy to advise you and support you. It's the least I can do for people from this great community. For matters like this, you're welcome to reach out to me by email - zabbaszabbas21 at gmail dot com.
I know I said this is my last post, but I hope I return once again, many years later, perhaps with even better life updates, and I hope I can once again thank you all for all you have done for me. I hope that the world will be a better place in this future, and we can once again remember these good old days we spent in this dusty old corner of the internet. I have so much love for you all, and I wish you all the very best.
Post-note: I just realized I forgot to say the most important thing: Happy Independence Day for the Hudian Republic!
Of course, your nation is a lot of hard work. As a ten year old, you can see, I barely knew how to write, and I knew nothing about what a Republic was. But I tried to get my bearing on things. I gradually understood what RPing was, and I tried to learn from the people I did it with. I still remember my first two friends, who were kind enough to have joined in on my sad, lonely civil war RP - Asigna and Neo Philippine Empire. They have since left NS, but I remember them very, very well, and I cherish the time I had with them. Then I moved on to regions: I still remember being one of the vocal members of the Axis of Resistance, and it was there that I met my first community on this site. Mind you: I was 11 or 12. To me the Axis of Resistance was brilliant: it felt revolutionary. They had taught me what ideology was and what it meant to people: thus when I was 11-12, I decided I was a communist. I knew very little of what communism meant, of course, but it was a start. So, I learnt what these things were from fantastic (though perhaps interesting) people, like Souriya al-Assad, Zataristan, and so many others - they too are now gone from NS. I also remember the people we RPed with - perhaps ideologically they were on the other side of the board - but even from them I learnt so much about what it meant to write, and how what we wrote - from wars to conferences - worked in real life. Cuscatlan (as he was known then), LCR, Inyurstan, Aeyariss, and a bunch of others: I am happy to say that I think they are still in NS, though we have not spoken in ages. I still think of them fondly, and see them almost as older brother figures from those years.
I would be remiss not to recall the non-II RP parts of NS. I did it all in my time. For a while, I had briefly partaken in NS sports (the football World Cup, especially) though I cannot remember my national team making it very far. I also remember diplomatic overtures in the sub-forum NationStates. I really, really remember very vividly my storefronts in GE&T - the Silverstone Hotels; AirHuda/TigerLines; Husseinabad Airport; Moo! and so many more "ventures"... even these were valuable lessons in graphics design. I looked up to many people in these spaces... in fact, it was someone from GE&T who taught me how to use PowerPoint for graphics over telegram - it was just a short telegram he sent me explaining how he does things, and yet it changed my life yet again and gave me a skill I ended up using frequently over school. I still fondly remember the inspiring Karlberg Industries by Eslovakia, who also seems to have left by now. His work was stunning and it was what got me interested in how GE&T worked.
I had stayed in the AoR for a few years, but after a point, I felt like I had to make change. I had tearfully left (though I remained close friends) the region, and then I found two new homes - Peoples Federation of Qandaristan and Atlas. The PFQ has since ended, and its founder, who had also become a close friend, has also left NS, along with other friends like Jumhuriya Hindustan. I remember many fond memories with them, particularly because I tried to help them on the RP side of things. Atlas had changed my life, on the other hand. I spent the rest of my time on this site with Atlas. Atlas changed everything for me. Much of my RPing before this was focused on military matters and focused on war and ideology - in Atlas, for the first time, it felt like worldbuilding. We were building a whole world of our own, with its own planets, and it was during this time that I had perhaps the best experiences in learning how to write. I became an eloquent writer, and my time in Atlas fueled me to do a bunch of creative writing - and even non-fiction writing too. The friends I made there are perhaps the most special of all, because I spent most of my NS time with them from thereon. Acronius, Valdiu, Elesar, Carloso, Rodina, Chazicaria, Brytene - there are truly, truly so many special friends from there (and more I have not mentioned). Our RMB was, at a point, the fastest-running in the website (and also the most problematic). I realize we were all just being stupid kids then, and looking back, much of what we were saying was very wrong. I would like to apologize to anyone I may have hurt or offended in my time here. It was never my desire to do so, and I ask profusely for your forgiveness.
It was then that I had hit a small hurdle. I was RMBanned for (looking back), very valid reasons, and I'd skirted around the ban with a puppet. This meant a DEAT, and my very precious original nation was deleted - there was no way to get it back. This broke my heart, though now of course, I realize that there were real and valid reasons behind it. Since then, I've had this second nation - the Greater Hudian Republic. Huda was DEATed only 3 or 4 years into its existence, and so technically it was a very small part of the long 10 years, a bulk of which has been with this new account. But alas, I was also growing up: by the time of the Greater Hudian Republic, I was 13 and I'd begun middle school. In a few years time, I'd become engrossed in school, which meant I could not post as actively as I used to. I used to think your nation getting deleted due to inactivity was an impossibility for me, but it was around this point that it started to happen. I was nervous, but I also knew these things were a part of life. I went ahead.
Life has changed a lot since the day I made Huda. It was a turbulent time for me back then: my mom had been diagnosed with cancer, and both my parents were going through a divorce. In the ten years that have since passed, I moved to four different countries and went from being some middle schooler to a junior in college. Through it all, NationStates and Huda were both always there with me. Everyone knows about it - all of my family, all of my friends - they all know about this place, because they know how much it means to me. All that writing that I learnt from my friends in NationStates drove me into both creative and non-fiction writing: to this day, I'm proud to say I've managed to publish a lot of my opinion pieces on national dailies - a big jump from the little press releases I used to do in RPs here. All the graphics designing helped me massively in school, because clubs were always looking for someone who could do that work, and that made me indispensable. The study of politics and economics that came with working on your nation led me to realize what I want to do in life: in the past it was anything - car designer, astronomer, pilot - but after NationStates, I have been devoted to the disciplines of economics and politics, and I plan on working in public policy in the future - perhaps, infamously, even running for office. I wrote about NationStates when I was applying to college abroad. It was in my first paragraph. I ended up getting accepted in a super selective dual degree program - I spent my last two years at France's best social sciences institution for my first degree in economics, and now I'm finishing up my second degree (also in economics) at an Ivy League school in the US. Getting into an Ivy League school was a dream that my family had held for a long time, which I wanted to fulfill for them. For a boy who came from Bangladesh, this meant a huge deal. And I am convinced not a single canard of this would have been possible without the time I spent here.
I'm finally getting to the bottom line. I am unendingly grateful for the community that has been built here. I have been wanting to write this for a very long time and to return to this place that I think of as home (you know, the BBCode came back to me like muscle memory?) and thank each and every one of you for the part you play in building this community. To all the RPers, to all the people beyond the RP realm, to the moderators, to the great Max Barry himself: thank you. I do not know if you will ever comprehend the beauty of what you have made here. This thriving, perhaps dysfunctional, but yet thriving online community full of weirdos - all of whom are here making their own fake countries and making friends with strangers from around the world. Life has turned out to be so remarkable, thanks to the grace of God, thanks to all of you. I am grateful, so grateful, to you all. My parents both work, which meant I spent much of my time alone, or with my brother. And yet, I was never alone. I spent all my time with you guys, and I am so grateful for it.
The sad possibility is that this is probably my last ever post on the forum. It actually stings to even say this, but it is the truth. The last time I had even made a post was two years ago. I'd rather go out with a bang like this than a whimper. But this isn't a goodbye. The truth is, as someone who has not lived in a single place for over two years over the last six years, home is a difficult and changing concept. When I feel uprooted, I always come back to this website - you'll notice this nation getting founded in those periods - to look over my old posts, to read those old memories, and to relish that nostalgia. In my heart and in my mind, the Hudian Republic is my home. I can almost picture myself in there, driving through the thoroughfares of the capital city of Husseinabad, drinking coffee atop the government's Abbas Tower, getting deployed on a special forces mission in the jungles of Berakhal - because this is the home we have made together - in this website whose tan-green colors I have never forgotten. What makes me happiest of all, though, is that the forum doesn't seem to have died, and the website seems far from dying. It is true, many of my friends have since left, and perhaps the generation of people I spent so much time with have all moved on with our lives. But plenty of new generations have since come, and have since brought new life into this place. It brings to mind the very summer when I first came and joined this place, so excited by all the possibilities. Perhaps one of you reading this is like me, some kid who should not be on this part of the internet this early. My first advice to you is to leave and come back when you're of age. But if you do not listen to me (which is possible), I ask you to stay, but more importantly, I ask you to learn from all the brilliant minds here. It's what changed my life completely.
So yes, perhaps this is my last post. The truth is that my life has changed completely. All those dreams that I had for what a nation should look like... the imagination of a perfect state that I dreamt of... I have started to realize it is not only possible but important that I make those dreams a reality. My country (as you may have noticed in my signature) is far from perfect, but being in NS has made me realize how much I could do for it. With the privilege and the education I am privileged to have now, I want to go back to my country and serve it. I want to turn my country into a place that I'd dreamt of within these forums. It's an ambitious goal, and chances are I may never attain it. I might become some Wall Street sellout too. But it is still a dream I have, a dream that I cultivated from this place. I may no longer spend time on Huda, but it is still deep in my memory of where I want to see my country - the one in the real world - in the future. I ask for your own support and prayers that I might make it this far, but truly, I am here to thank you.
One last time: thank you so, so much to you all, for all you have done in building this community. I hope this continues, and I hope I can continue coming back here and remembering this beautiful part of my childhood. I do not know if I can ever repay the debt I owe you all, because much of what I have had in life, my time in NS has played some part in. So please accept my unending gratitude. All of you who are reading this and those who are not. My parents always taught me to never forget where I come from, and I believe in my heart I come from this strange part of the internet.
I'll be around for a few days in case anyone has questions (I don't know what kind but I'm happy to answer any questions - I feel like the mods may interrogate me soon), or even to just chat with me, or if you want to catch up if you are an old friend. At the very least - especially to those of you who are still young and applying to college - I'd be more than happy to advise you and support you. It's the least I can do for people from this great community. For matters like this, you're welcome to reach out to me by email - zabbaszabbas21 at gmail dot com.
I know I said this is my last post, but I hope I return once again, many years later, perhaps with even better life updates, and I hope I can once again thank you all for all you have done for me. I hope that the world will be a better place in this future, and we can once again remember these good old days we spent in this dusty old corner of the internet. I have so much love for you all, and I wish you all the very best.
Post-note: I just realized I forgot to say the most important thing: Happy Independence Day for the Hudian Republic!