1906: Alternative Divergence [AH][OOC-CLOSED]

[The Hobbesian Metaphysician]

Reservation

Nation Name: Kingdom of Northumbria (Cinric o Norþimer)
Territory: Southern Scotland, Northern England
#AltDiv (do not delete this, it's for keeping track of the apps)
*Note: Reservations will last for 48 hours. The OP board reserves the right to be subjective in regards to accepting and removing reservations.

Break the British Isles into pieces and make Scandinavia the premier naval power of the north?

I'd not be upset with this.

Having an absolutist Britain plays into why their north American possessions have gone full-on leftist...so it presents a problem to suddenly disappear.

[The Hobbesian Metaphysician]

wait what are "recognized great persons" and how do you become one

I'd argue having someone of such high importance to the world, and the chain of history qualifies.

[The Hobbesian Metaphysician]

Full Nation Name : The Revolutionary Compact of Columbia

(Image)

Majority/Official Culture : Columbians [English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish].

Territorial Core : New England, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia
Territorial Claim : As of now the revolution is content to be contained within Columbia.
Capital City : Liberation, Workers Communal Capital (Formerly city of Hartford).
Population : Total Population: 33,648,909

A) New England: 7,400,909
B) Virginia: 2.347 million
C) New York: 10.28 million
D) Pennsylvania: 8.74 million
E) New Jersey: 3.198 million
F) Delaware: 219,000
G) Maryland: 1.464 million

Government Type : Revolutionary Compact

Government Explanation: Born in the fires of anti-Marxian socialist tyranny the leftist united coalition formed a government based off the fact that participatory citizens in a revolution must be sovereign in their action, and compact their actions. The compact isn't just a state of governance, but a state of mind.

A) Utopian Socialism- Influenced primarily by the thoughts of assassinated philanthropist Robert Owens, utopian socialism acknowledges the right of humanity to organize in any state or society it wishes to be. The absolutist truths of the old order don't hold water in an ever-changing, and progressive world.
*Other contributors include French Philosopher who promoted the concept of phalanstère (units of people organized by their passions).
* Étienne Cabet contributed the political thought process regarding the organization of loosely knit communities into a federative style agreement (communalism).
* Edward Bellamy advocated a commons system of property, and finances to be held under a system of equal credit for all. This credit system valid for a year, and non-transferable between individuals was tracked via credit cards. Bellamy advocated for the organization of labor via departments with a retirement age system. Crime is a symptom of broken people (mental illness).
* Leo Tolstoy's Christian Anarchist works, and philosophy

B) Libertarian Socialism
C) Religious Democracy
D) Mystic, and Religious Based Anarchism.


A system inspired by anarchism, leftist nationalism, council style governance, and theodemocratic elements.
Government Ideology/Policies : Revolutionary Compact

Official Policy: Neutrality of Revolution: Content to work on its own society, the compact while supportive of revolutionaries abroad sees no logical benefits toward actively expanding to support an international revolution. To do so would violate the principles of autonomy since it must be the people in those areas themselves rather than an outside force that ferments a revolution.


Government Focus : Stability- traditional socialist factions, and more extreme authoritarian ones vie for a chance to return to their old days of glory, but in a greater sense, the government wants stability enshrined as a virtue for the benefit of its citizenry.

Head of State : Assembly of the Governed


Head of Government : The Directory
Government Description :

Majority/State Religion : The Universalist Temple of Brotherhood
Religious Description : [[OPTIONAL]]

Economic Ideologies : Market Socialism backed by religious charity, and a heavy focus on social welfare.
Major Production : Industrial Goods
Economic Description :

Development: Modernized.
Development Description : [Explain further why your nation is in one of the above categories]

Army Description : [[Describe your nation's army in as much detail as you can]]
Army Weakness :
Naval Description : [[Describe your nation's navy in as much detail as you can]]
Naval Weakness :
Further Military Description : [[OPTIONAL]]

National Goals : Cultural Revolution in One Society
1] Protection of the Revolution
2] Extreme Autonomization
3] Racial, Economic, and Social Justice for All
4] Anti-imperialism, and colonialism.
5] Republic of the Everyman
National Issues :
1] The Red Guard of Vermont-Practitioners of wartime socialism, and believers of modeling the revolution by an army with a state they are a remnant of an old government. They are content to sit in Fortress Vermont, but many people suspect they may hold ambitions for the rest of the compact just as their wider branch cousin groups once held power..they may seek it back.
2] The Office of Strategic Information-Formerly secret police turned insurgents once they found themselves out of a job, and purged from the government after massive reforms by the compact structure.
3] The Rightists- Practitioners of socialist orthodoxy that now have found themselves out of a job following the collapse of the Peoples Republican government.

[[what needs to be fixed in order for your nation to achieve its true potential]]
National Figures of Interest : [[OPTIONAL]] [[Are there any Mother Teresas or Moses that we need to know about?]]
National Ambition/Aspirations : [[OPTIONAL]] [[Not really a set objective, but rather the big picture that your nation is drawing towards]]

History :

The Enlightened Revolution
1776-1783: The Enlightened Revolution occurs within the colonies that would one day become Columbia but despite the defeat of the Independent Coalition of Provinces the Kingdom of Angeland is utterly exhausted by the war effort. Due to the economic recession it is suffering, and the low morale of the home islands the government on behalf of the king signs a moderate treaty and forms a dominion arrangement with the rebellious provinces.

A) The government of the Independent Coalition of Provinces dissolves.
B) The leading government figures are granted pardons in exchange for lifelong oaths barring them from politics.
C) The provinces will renew their governments, and be allowed to resume normal economic business with the home islands.
D) The Acts of Religious Toleration would finally end-state the persecution of fellow Christians from different sects.
E) The soldiers involved in the Provincial army are granted amnesty and allowed to return home as a sign of goodwill.
F) The "Albany Plan of Union" proposed by the assassinated peace delegate Benjamin Franklin is put into place.
G) In a moment of extreme irony the Scottish house of Stuart (former anti-Rome kings of Angeland until their deposition by roman loyalist forces in 1688) is chosen to fill the position of Grand Duke. The current head of the house had fought for the loyalists not out of loyalty for the king so much as a planned restoration of order in the colonial provinces. Charles Edward Stuart had matched the provincial army commander George Washington in the third, and final battle of Jamestown, Virginia (named for the celibate princess Elizabeth exiled here following her renunciation of the "roman faith").

Early Period of the Grand Duchy of Columbia (1783-1788)

Charles Edward Stuart [Charles the 1st]: His reign as Grand Duke is both a mixture of irony and frustration. Irony as despite his allegiance to the king of Angeland he disavows the romanized faith of Britain for the homegrown Protestantism in Columbia. The very issue of taxes that started the war become a non-issue while Charles the 1st short, but important reign sees the institution of a moderate version of the "enlightened principles articles" the provincial rebels advocated. The provincial legislatures and governments acted pretty much as they had before the war with little interference from the Grand Duke. Other than the annual collection of war reparations that were sent to aid the economic recovery of the homeland things continued normally.

Middle to Late Period of the Grand Duchy of Columbia (1788-1807)

Henry Benedict Stuart [Henry the 1st]: The odd son out, an extremely religious man he focused on integrating much of the principles from the articles of the independent coalition of provinces. He began to distance Columbia further, and further from the home islands while also working on several key social reforms the country needed. The last generation of slaves was born at the start of Henry's reign as he would work to convince legislatures one by one to ban the practice. Seeing himself as an "enlightened sovereign" he worked constantly to improve the lives of the citizens of Columbia, and in the process began to ferment a national identity separate from the "Anglish". Henry promoted the myth of the resilient Romano-Briton, the forbearer of the true civilizations of the Christians on the home islands...not the uncivilized Danes. As a result, the term English began to appear in journals written on the Grand Duke's opinions on the matter.

In the final year of the Grand Duke's reign, he withdrew all obligations remaining to the Anglish masters. Years in the making the war reparations payments got smaller as did the garrisons of Anglish troops, and the government attaches grew to a nominal skeleton crew. By 1800 the Grand Duke officially stopped talking with the king using a freedman to deliver messages on his behalf. By 1807 a final letter was sent titled "the Union is separated, Columbia is free", by this point the 82-year-old grand duke decided to abdicate, and abolish the position of Grand Duke entirely. To a surprised crowd in Williamsburg, Virginia he announced the proclamation from his palace and then left for the nearby woods on a religious retreat.

The Early Republic (1807-1823)

Prime Minister George Washington Parke Custis (1807-1814)
Known as the Conservative Republic, the period was tumultuous internationally more than politically. The newly created parliament reborn from the political assembly of Columbia that existed under the Grand Duchy set out to cement their rule. The famed Virginian author George Washington Parke Custis relative of the famous defeated general Washington at the young age of 26 was elected as the first prime minister.
*Set the first official session of Parliament in Philadelphia as the capital of the nation.
* Commissioned a vote to connect the young nation together with a system of roads, and canals.
* Held a state funeral for the Grand Duke upon his passing at the age of 82.
* Held a vote for the creation of a pension system for the veterans of the enlightened revolution.
* Reformed the model army of Columbia
* Turned away the ambassador from Angeland citing "irreconcilable differences".
* Designated the countries official name as "The English Republic of Columbia", and tried to establish diplomatic relations with the Adamites.
* Opened formal relations with the French as a part of the "Anti-Anglish" strategy.
* Held a funeral for the retrieved remains of the beloved Benjamin Franklin (interred in France since his assassination).
* Stepped down at the end of his seven-year term, and retired to Mount Vernon.

Prime Minister James Madison (1814-1821)
*Ramped up the escalation of trade tensions between Columbia, and Angeland in response to forced impressment of Columbian sailors on their way to French ports.
* Began to increase the funding of the Columbian Transoceanic Navy to guard their ships, and in one route a firefight occurred (1815).
* Worked with Parliament to acquire funding to pay for increased wages for new militias, fortifications, and other defensive measures.
* The Three Years War (1816-1819) started following the sinking of a civilian ship with the deaths of nearly the entire crew. The Atlantic turned into a warzone with fleets on both sides fighting everywhere. In 1818 the war reached a fevered pitch as Anglish troops commenced the "central campaign", the invasion force burned Mount Vernon while also laying siege to Baltimore, New York, and Boston. The troops engaged in house to house fighting on the streets of the capital before the prime minister ordered the city bombarded to stop the Anglish offensive. While the city was saved a massive fire killing thousands erupted as a result of the bombardment.

The British would remain in parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware until being pushed out in the "Road to Dover" liberation counteroffensive. At sea Commodore Isaac Hull lead a fleet of several ships of a new design for a revenge mission towards Angeland (the ships were fitted with live oak helping them bounce off cannons). Isaac's flagship the CSS Article launched the first volley of bombardments on Cardiff itself, and one bombardment round even ended up killing the king himself during all of this. The campaign ended with several land raids across Southern Angeland before the flotilla returned back home to avoid the larger bulk of the royal navy catching up with them. The war ended on a dreary note in 1819 with no official victor as the sides were drawn into a stalemate at sea with both having hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war waiting to return home.

*Following the peace treaty of Paris (1819) the war ended, and both sides returned home bitter, this would be the last interaction Angeland, and Columbia would officially ever have. Any diplomatic interaction did under the neutral arbitration of a myriad web of intermediaries through Paris. James Madison spent the rest of his term fixing the war-torn country before resigning in 1821.

Prime Minister Daniel D. Tompkins (1821-1823)

* Remembered as the final prime minister of the early republic the country entered into a recession, and despite Tompkin's best efforts to relieve the economy, they weren't working due in part to low treasury funds.
*In 1823 the citizens of several provinces formed "Tax Break" leagues to request an end to the high taxation that was being forced on them. In some communities, these tax break leagues seceded from the government out of protest and formed their own governments which caused particular alarm in the province of Pennsylvania. Welsh-Columbian philanthropist Robert Owen now the leader of a local community in Pennsylvania was shot, and killed by a provincial militia during a dispute causing nationwide outrage.
* The tax breaker communities in Pennsylvania assembled a militia lead by veterans of the three years war who marched on Philadelphia, and rather than face having the government overthrown Tompkin's resigned, and an election commission worked out terms with the strikers.

Middle Republic (1823-1848)- Known collectively as the Liberal Republic

Prime Minister James Monroe (1823-1830)

*Appointed in an emergency session the Virginian delegate found himself in a new era of the republic. He resolved to amend the high taxation, and in a moment of political weakness moved the capital to New York citing security reasons following the near overwhelming of Philadelphia by mobs. With parliament, he worked tirelessly to create a more liberal version of the enlightened principles articles known today as the "New York Articles". This enshrined universal male suffrage and established a pension system for veterans of the war. He began to work with several business interests to industrialize and alleviate the economic depression causing issues all over the country.

Martin Van Buren (1830-1837)

1844-Governor of the Province of New York Joseph Smith, an avowed Christian leftist is assassinated while on a tour of the provincial jails. He intended to demonstrate the success of his reforms in regard to the rights of convicts.

1845-
RP Sample: [[Either a link to a past post, or an example written right here.]]

#AltDiv (do not delete this, it's for keeping track of the apps)

[TENNOHEIKA BANZAI NIHON]

-snip-

The rules also state that all apps need a point of start and a build-up, which is exactly what Kai was trying to explain to you. Your concept is indeed a little different from real life Japan, but there were two issues - the first was that you didn't actually have a concept. You started with Meiji Japan, changed some names, changed some more names, and then removed the overthrowing of the Shogun and just replaced what the Emperor was doing in your previous app with the Shogun. You do not have a clear divergence, and you're not exploring the changes that would have been made properly. Is your main divergence the survival of the shogunate or the establishment of this Namura Shogtunate? Was your Sengoku Jidai different? You're mentioning the existence of four kingdoms, what exactly were those? What sort of kingdoms were those, what was their relation to the imperial court? Was there a shogunate ever before Namura, what happened with the daimyos? How exactly did Namura win the wars? From my meager understanding of it, people were already using guns, so there is no difference there. Moving on, if the Shogunate was focused on trade and was in a state of peace why does it suddenly start becoming militaristic and aggressive? Who is this nameless Shogun who is behind it? There are just too many questions.

I gave you some advice in my last post but you've ignored it. Find a divergence, and build things starting from there. Just trying to continuously patch your initial history isn't going to work. If you want your nation to be a surviving Shogunate, find the divergence that would explain it and work from there.

I'm also not sure why you're so defensive about it. Japan by itself is not controversial. Shintoism is also not offensive, it's a religion, and I'm also not why you're so focused upon the divinity of the Emperor. Shintoism seems to be very interesting religions with a lot of deities and rituals, the divinity of the Emperor is just a part of it.

The things that are a bit controversial are different. You have indeed stopped using the Kenpeitai, and I appreciate it, but you instead have "the Army back home is promoting a stance that Japanese are racially superior to all Asians and it is destiny, and their right to rule all of Asia.". This is what I would call a bit controversial, and this is what I would like you to remove.

First off I would like to apologize for my initial reaction. I will not deny it has been getting frustrating the constant denial. But I would like to thank you for your time and your effort to help me improve my app.

So I have redone the app. I hope it explains things a bit better, and since you asked these questions it helped me focus on points that you seem to be looking for. My app may require more work, but I feel the division from IRL is much more pronounced. I decided to make this Shogunate Christian...

I apologize in advance if anything in the app relating to Christianity doesn't make sense because I am not Christian but I know people who are and I know a few things, and I did a little research of my own.

I hope things are cleared up a bit more, and just want to make clear, I just included the history from before 1600 to have a solid base of an origin story. It wasn't ever meant to be an important part of my app, just a origin story. I mean no one else is starting their history from 600 BC. That's why it is very brief. But I beefed up the history to clear everything (I think) up and improved on the history to make sense.

Since it probalby has gotten hard to find now, here is the link to it: viewtopic.php?ns=1&f=31&t=482272&p=36854076#p36854076

I hope my app is okay, and I would be very happy to join this RP.

[Elerian]

Angelond gets a bit more breathing time since an app was started, but I will send the player a TG today and remove their app tomorrow night if there is no answer.

if this happens......

Reservation

Nation Name: Kingdom of Northumbria (Cinric o Norþimer)
Territory: Southern Scotland, Northern England
#AltDiv (do not delete this, it's for keeping track of the apps)
*Note: Reservations will last for 48 hours. The OP board reserves the right to be subjective in regards to accepting and removing reservations.

We are trying to avoid breaking up areas like the British Isles, that would otherwise be great powers.

[Remnants of Exilvania]

While Scandinavia does run a more liberal society than the French, if we are going to be the paragon of free trade and laissez-faire, liberalism is in serious trouble.

Zentraleuropa is the true defender of liberal trade and economy.

Just ignore the confiscation and near forced labour that can be imposed upon you.

What exactly is Scandinavia's goal apart from just existing

Scandinavia is a small country - it certainly cannot go one-to one against Russia, Central Europe, France, or Angelond on any basis except perhaps the scientific. The preservation of the status quo is ambition enough.

Are you sure about that?

I can see Scandinavia handily smacking the Germans.

if this happens......

Reservation

Nation Name: Kingdom of Northumbria (Cinric o Norþimer)
Territory: Southern Scotland, Northern England
#AltDiv (do not delete this, it's for keeping track of the apps)
*Note: Reservations will last for 48 hours. The OP board reserves the right to be subjective in regards to accepting and removing reservations.

We are trying to avoid breaking up areas like the British Isles, that would otherwise be great powers.

*literally just broke Germany and Austria into 13 tiny pieces*

[Plzen]

I mentioned several other countries represented here in the history for the country I am applying for. If you are representing one of the following countries, please give my history a brief skim and let me know if anything looks terribly objectionable:

Central Europe/Germany (Section III), Russia (Section IV and V), Anglelond/Britain (Section IV), Korea (Section V), France (Section V).

EDIT: Revised some sections for clarity and grammatical coherence.

Full Nation Name: The formal name of the polity is the Northern States Association (sk: Norðurríkjasambandið), with the Northern States and the Associated States both being accepted short names, but Scandinavia, after the dominant ethnic group of the polity, is a popular albeit incorrect alternative.
Majority/Official Culture: Scandinavian is the dominant culture of the Northern Association, but Finnish, German, and Sami hold official recognition on a regional basis.
Territorial Core: The territory of the Northern States consists of Scandinavia (including associated islands, such as but not limited to Svalbard, the Orkney Islands, the Shetland Islands, the Faroe Islands, and Jan Mayen and also including South Jutland/Schleswig), Finland (to the extent of its Grand Duchy era territory), and Iceland. The Northern States also has, as a colonial dominion, Greenland and Vinland (Atlantic Canada and Anticosti Island).
Territorial Claim: The Northern States hold no official territorial claim in any particular region, the occasional national-romanticist dreams of a Baltic liberation to the contrary.
Capital City: Copenhagen (sk: Kaupmannahafn)
Population: The total population of the core territory of the Northern States Association is 14.08 millions, breaking down into Swedish Republic 4.42, Danish Republic 4.07 (including Skane 0.98 and South Jutland 0.37), Finnish Republic 2.94, and Norwegian Republic 2.64 (including 0.09 Iceland and 0.04 Northern Isles). Culturally, this population is 79% Scandinavian, 19% Finnish or Sami, 2% German, with smaller Russian, Jewish, and Scots Gaelic minorities. In addition to this, there are colonial populations of South Vinland with 0.94 millions, North Vinland with 0.24, and Greenland with 0.01, for a grand total of 15.27 million subjects of the Association.

Government Type: The Northern States Association is a federal, parliamentary, and democratic republic.
Government Ideology/Policies: Nordic politics broadly falls into three camps - the national-conservatives, the liberals, and the socialists, with a broad coalition of conservatives and liberals in power and largely focused on containing or appeasing the increasingly popular socialist movement. It remains committed to free trade, to interventionist-capitalist economics with a strong focus on promoting industrial development, a secularised society and government, a relatively closed approach to citizenship with rather difficult administrative barriers against immigrants, and a broadly anti-militarist, yet economically assertive position in foreign affairs.
Government Focus: The government of the Northern States holds a broadly defensive, futurist, culturally exclusionary, and reformist outlook on politics. After the military humiliations of the 1700s and the 1800s and the disintegration of its colonial empire, any expansionist or imperialist ambitions of the Associated States have been heavily curtailed. While some circles, even in national leadership, remain interested in the idea of rebuilding its network of commercial outposts or reclaiming the Baltic territories, with each passing decade these voices shrink from an already small minority and the armed forces of the Northern States remain focused on the defence of its homeland. Chancellor Dagursson’s government, furthermore, has invested heavily into maintaining peace in Central and Eastern Europe, working to establish cordial relations with all of the Associated States’ neighbours and assertively promoting a free trade policy across the world. The Associated States maintains a futurist attitude towards national development, holding a "modernised" society as a key virtue and with a dismissive attitude towards those not keeping up with the latest innovations of the Industrial Revolution. Generous funding is provided to high-technology industries and towards scientific institutions, with the government obsessed with maintaining the country's position at the bleeding edge of scientific engineering. The government of the Associated States is also culturally exclusionary and generally maintains a dismissive attitude towards the more Christian, hierarchical cultures of the Continent and abroad. Finally, the society and government of the Northern States is broadly reformist, with relatively non-confrontational political traditions and a long custom of containing social and political dissent to within the legitimate avenues of redress.
Head of State: Sigurd Níelsson, Speaker of the Northern Assembly (sk: ræðumaður Norðurlandaráðsins), is nominally the highest person of the land even though his actual powers are largely limited to the chamber of the Northern Assembly.
Head of Government: Adrian Dagursson, Chancellor of the Association (sk: kanslari Sambandsins), runs the day-to-day affairs of the state on behalf of the Assembly, which nominated him.
Government Description: The Northern States is a federal polity. The autonomy of its constituent republics in their own internal affairs is firmly entrenched, with the Association government responsible primarily for defence and foreign policy as well as a few integrated institutions like the Northern States Central Bank. The Northern States is a parliamentary polity. The sovereignty of the state is invested in the legislative assembly of the Association, the Northern Assembly (sk: Norðurlandaráð), at the pleasure of which the government serves. The Northern States is a democratic polity. The composition of the Northern Assembly is determined by elections held regularly every four years under proportional representation by region and universal male suffrage. Finally, the Northern States is a republic, recognising no monarch or hereditary nobility and guaranteeing the legal equality of all of its citizens.

Majority/State Religion: The majority religion of the Northern States is Norse polytheism, with a significant minority of Finnic animists and smaller but still notable minorities of Jews, Reformed Christians, and Chalcedonian Christians.
Religious Description: With the exception of the small Chalcedonian minority, religions in the Associated States, whether monotheist, polytheist, or animist, are disorganised, lacking a coherent church hierarchy or codified religious doctrine. Ancient faiths survive, rather, primarily in the form of oral traditions, cultural practices, and certain institutional customs. The majority of the non-Christian population are largely lapsing in their faith, with their religious practices falling into the grey area between true belief and a way of life. They seek to have their new ventures blessed by the gods and celebrate their ancient Nordic holidays not because they devoutly believe in the great spirits, although they will profess a nominal belief if surveyed, but because that's what their fathers and their fathers' fathers have always done.

Economic Ideologies: Like many other liberal polities, the Northern States generally maintains a free approach to international trade, with relatively little in the way of import controls or tariffs except as retaliatory measures towards protectionist countries that themselves maintain high barriers to trade. The Associated States' foreign policy is extremely assertive with regards to finance, with diplomats around the world working to open up trade and protect Nordic foreign investments. Internally, the Northern States maintain a broadly interventionist-capitalist economy, which does vary somewhat between its constituent republics. The Association does guarantees the right of its citizenry to primary and some secondary education. Many areas of public economic policy including minimum wages, public health insurance, working conditions, and even unemployment benefits are, however, maintained mostly by the efforts of labour unions with little input from the government.
Major Production: The Northern States maintains a diverse and efficient industrial economy, exporting chemicals, machine parts, consumer products, pharmaceutical products, and more. Due to its expansive albeit sparsely-populated northern provinces and colonies, it is also a major producer of forestry products and base metals, most notably steel. The Northern States is, however, notably lacking in energy and is a major importer of coal.
Economic Description: The Northern States is a highly developed, broadly market-liberalised, export-focused economy aided by its generous provisions of natural resources. It is geographically quite dispersed, with its many smaller industrial cities tied together into a coherent national economy by a strong commercial fleet and shipbuilding industries.

Development: Modern
Development Description: Due to the geographical expands of the Associated States, its level of infrastructural and industrial development varies considerably between its provinces, with many villages in the north and the east still maintaining a fundamentally agrarian lifestyle served by dirt roads, if even that, and Sami tribes in the far north still maintaining their traditional herding economy. Most of the population of the Associated States, however, live in the southern provinces and along the coasts, which feature sophisticated railway, harbour, sanitation, and telegraph infrastructure. The great cities of the Northern States - Copenhagen, Stockholm, Gothenburg - are as developed, if not necessarily as large, as any other great city of Western Europe.

Army Description: The Army of the Northern States is mostly organised in a modern divisional structure, with divisions of 12,000 divided into four brigades of 3,000, each three regiments of 1,000. The Army has as its core four infantry divisions, consisting of one artillery brigade and three infantry brigades (which also contains some supporting artillery), and two rifle divisions consisting of four infantry brigades. This core is supported by one guards brigade serving mostly in ceremonial or diplomatic roles but also trained to fight as elite assault infantry if necessary, three ranger regiments of light infantry specialising in reconnaissance and infiltration, three garrison regiments guarding the nation's coast and cities, two cavalry regiments, and a dragoon regiment for a total paper strength of 84,000. There are no dedicated reserve units, but the Army does maintain another 35,000 to 40,000 reservists to replace casualties on the front. The military leadership of the Northern States very much believes in meeting neighbouring threats by making each soldier count for more. The Nordic Army is technologically sophisticated, extremely heavy in automatic weapons, and, as can be seen from the above-mentioned order-of-battle, similarly heavy in artillery. The Army is also a highly professional force, with personnel excellently trained, particularly in delivering supplies through rough terrain, combat under poor weather and harsh terrain conditions, strategic deception, and delaying/ambushing tactics.
Army Weakness: The downside of maintaining an excellently-trained, excellently-armed army is, of course, sheer expense. For a nation of its population and stature, the army of the Northern States is definitely on the small side, with a lacklustre army budget struggling to keep even a percent of its already small population armed. It is not an army capable of standing strong on a set-piece field of battle, and will struggle to replace losses in any serious war of attrition. Furthermore, the reliance on a defensive doctrine and tactics that rely on familiar grounds makes the army rather ineffective at combat amid hostile populations or unfamiliar terrain, making offensive operations against an organisationally sophisticated enemy, even one which is smaller or poorer than the Northern Association, a daunting prospect.

Naval Description: The Navy of the Associated States is by far the branch of pride in the Nordic Armed Forces. Having absorbed the majority of the country's defence budget - to the detriment of the small army - the Navy fields 5 battleships, 9 battlecruisers, 14 heavy cruisers, 32 light cruisers, 45 destroyers, 49 torpedo boats, and 21 submarines divided into three fleets: the North Sea Fleet, the Baltic Fleet, and the North Atlantic Fleet. All considered the Navy fields 125,000 personnel, including both personnel on board and ashore, of which about one-half are reservists. As is perhaps hinted at by the strong prominence of battlecruisers and submarines compared to equivalent navies in other countries, it is a fleet very much focused on rapid response with ships being designed for speed, range, and survivability, able to quickly react to incursions on its coastline, to find and chase down isolated enemy task forces or damaged ships, shell civilian targets on hostile coastlines, raid convoys, maintain its fighting strength while under fire, or bind itself to an allied navy even thousands of kilometres away. Much like the Army, the Navy is a force designed to be able to punch above its size, with crew well trained to respond efficiently to new demands and excellent technological and engineering competence.
Naval Weakness: The downside of a navy focused on versatility is that it is relatively lacking in sheer power. The Nordic navy cannot stand up in a traditional battle-of-the-line against a hostile navy of equivalent strength, counting on its speed to avoid and make unnecessary such engagements or at least, if it is to have any chance of success, resort to tactics relying on mobility for such open battles. Furthermore, unlike Army equipment, ships of the Navy can and often do stay in service for long periods with limited capacity for refits and as a result the presence of many outdated, decades-old ships largely blunts the Navy's technological edge. This problem is further compounded by the high cost of Nordic Navy ships, the price of quality, and thus limited resources for the replacement of aging vessels.

Further Military Description: The doctrine of the Armed Forces in general is heavily dictated by the realities of being surrounded by much larger, more militarily powerful states. The military leadership of the Associated States sees little point in trying to go ship-to-ship with the British and the French, or in trying to fight soldier-to-soldier with the Russians. The focus is not on holding the field of battle and winning by conventional definitions of victory, for such is not considered a viable strategy, but rather deterring an invasion in the first place by turning any invasions into a costly, protracted, and bloody affair that would be unattractive to any would-be invader. Northern officers and generals are also distinct from the Continental model of drawing military leadership from social elites. NCOs, commissioned officers, and higher command in both the Northern army and navy are almost entirely pulled from the ranks after several years of service, with the exception of a handful of strategic or technical experts assigned by the state. As such, the military is often seen as a path to social advancement by many youths from more impoverished families and sees many volunteers from the lower classes.

National Goals: The Northern States Association seeks to defend itself from external threats, develop its internal economy, protect its democratic liberties, promote free international trade around the world, and maintain its status as a major power at least in the scientific arena.
National Issues: Possibly the largest issue facing the Northern Association is that of national security. Russia, a far larger power with a stronger military, has territorial ambitions into the Association's territory, Vinland borders a radical-socialist state to its south, and while the Central European Empire officially has no designs on Scandinavian territory, significant German minorities in the south nonetheless raise questions of German nationalism and German unity. The nation's economic and cultural potentials are also inherently constrained by the region's small population, with the Association struggling to make up for this inherent disadvantage by developing strong overseas economic and academic ties and by cultivating a well-educated, capable populace.

History:
I. Prehistory
The areas that would later develop into the Northern States Association was at the dawn of history in this era inhabited by Scandinavians and Finns. Scandinavians are a northern branch of the Germanic peoples, which is itself a cultural branch stemming from the great Indo-European migrations of the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE. It is thought that the people who carried the material culture that would later develop into Scandinavian Norse arrived at what is now eastern Denmark and southern Sweden from across the Baltic Sea. By the first systematic historical record-keeping in the region, c. 600~700 CE, the Scandinavians had spread themselves throughout Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, with some ties both cultural and economic influence to the Roman Empire and its successor states. The Finns have a more ancient presence in Northern Europe and, by the dawn of history and the first systematic historical record-keeping in the Finnish languages c. 1300~1400, was spread throughout Northern Fennoscandia, Finland, and the northern parts of what is now Russia.

II. The Viking Age and Early Scandinavian History
The first centuries of written Scandinavian history leading to the viking age paint a rather grim picture of life in Scandinavia. The scattered tribes of the area consolidated themselves into larger and more centralised kingdoms undermining the traditional freeholder-peasantry of the region, as the region's ability to support itself started to be heavily strained probably from population growth. These factors, combined with increasingly sophisticated maritime customs from the recovery of European trade after the dark age following the partial collapse of the Roman Empire, increasing hostile pressure from the proselytising Christian kingdoms of the south in the 7th and 8th Centuries, as well as a perceived weakness of the scattered European kingdoms that succeeded the Romans, resulted in a wave of Scandinavian seafarers across Europe starting from late 8th Century onwards. People took to the seas for peaceful commerce, exploration and settlement, violent raids, or conquests. This period saw a wide spread of Scandinavian culture. Scandinavians settled across the European Continent. While many of these new settlements would assimilate into local cultures or be forcibly integrated into local powers, the North Atlantic islands remain to this day culturally Norse and under the control of the Northern States Association. The northern border of Holsten was also established as the boundary that separates Christian Saxony from Norse Jylland during this time, a boundary that still forms the basis of the border between the Northern Association and the Central European Empire today. The growth in maritime activities and overseas settlements produced a profound change in Norse society. With the influx of overseas wealth, independent pirate or merchant captains grew into increasing prominence in Scandinavian leadership, reversing the slow trend towards monarchial centralisation of the centuries prior. Tthe absorption of smaller polities by larger ones, however, continued. By 1050 CE, by which point the consolidation of powerful, fortified, and militarily centralised kingdoms in western Europe largely put an end to large-scale raids or conquests, the region had consolidated itself into four merchant principalities: Denmark, Geatland, Sweden, and Norway. Geatland would be absorbed into Sweden in the late 13th Century, leaving the three Scandinavian principalities that are the direct successors of the Scandinavian constituent republics of the Association today. While the viking age also saw strong Christian influences and proselytisation efforts from the south and these efforts did succeed in converting a few principalities in the 10th and early 11th Centuries, the inability of regional jarls to impose their religions over the constantly unstable and restless society of the viking age and the inability of Christian families to keep themselves in power in a predominantly polytheist society doomed these efforts to failure. The death of Magnus the Good in 1047 and the nomination of a Norse successor as Prince of Norway would re-convert the last Christian state in the region back into Norse.

III. The Northern Crusades and Scandinavian Unification
Constant religious tension between the Chalcedonian minority and the Norse polytheist majority in Scandinavia and the constant violence suffered by the Christian kingdoms of the south at the hands of Norse Scandinavians prompted the degradation of relations between the Norse principalities and the Christian kingdoms throughout the 10th and 11th Centuries. While some small-scale efforts aimed at the conversion of Scandinavia by arms thus took place throughout the high middle ages, including a notable series of minor border wars in the early 11th Century, the creation of an independent German branch of the Chalcedonian church in 1155 and the beginning of the German Northern Crusades in the 13th Century ignited this background religious turmoil. The First Scandinavian Crusade of 1239-40 and the Second Scandinavian Crusade of 1251 saw the conquest of Gotland by the Teutonic Order, but it did also see the Norse principalities united by common cause for perhaps the first time in history. A tentative agreement in 1240 created an organisation known by modern historians as the Scandinavian Alliance, aimed at resisting Christian imperialism from the south, with the new alliance taking the initiative to reclaim Gotland and raze several villages on the German Baltic coast in the Baltic Retaliatory War of 1266-1271. A period of diplomatic and military tensions between the German Crusader Orders and the Scandinavian Alliance defined regional politics in the 13th and 14th Centuries, with the continuation of the Teuton and Livonian Northern Crusades into Estonia and Finland bringing these regions into the fray. The waning interest of mainland Germans in these Baltic wars and the increasing organisational sophistication of their Scandinavian enemies tilted the balance of power in this region towards the Scandinavians as the decades passed. A decisive Swedish victory over joint Teuton-Livonian forces in the Siege of Viborg in 1410 CE largely ended these struggles with the supremacy of the Scandinavian Alliance firmly established over both the open waters of the Baltic and over the Finnish tribes. Due to the association of Christians with the Christian states against whom the principalities of the Scandinavian Alliance was at war, this period also saw the harshest persecutions of Christians in Scandinavian history, with a few hundred killed in mass executions and a few thousand more converted both voluntarily and by force, permanently diminishing the fledgling Chalcedonian minority of the region. Throughout this age of religious wars and even thereafter, furthermore, Scandinavian merchant seafarers were in heavy competition with their Continental counterparts. Much wealthier and more populous than the colder lands of Scandinavia, wealthy and influential German merchants began exerting large influences in Scandinavian trade in the 14th and early 15th Centuries. The rather plutocratic and maritime Scandinavian principalities, whose leaders were seriously concerned over the prospects of losing their former dominance in North Sea and Baltic trade, began to feel that a closer basis for cooperation than the purely military was necessary, and as a result arranged for a series of marriages and pacts of honour between the great families of all three principalities, slowly tying their respective states together. This was culminated in 1422 when a single Prince was nominated to the thrones of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. The Northern Principality thus created is considered to be the direct predecessor of the Northern States Association that exists today.

IV. Scandinavian Golden Age
The discovery of the New World and the expansion of European commerce across Africa and Asia in the late 15th and 16th Centuries saw this united Northern Principality, based firmly on maritime foundations with healthy mercantile and banking societies, participate in this push outwards with as much vigour as any Christian kingdom. While it largely failed at building a vast American colonial empire as other colonial powers did, the Northern Principality did manage to re-settle Greenland and establish a small colony on the North American coast by 1600, accompanied by an extensive global network of outposts and forts. With a state-sanctioned monopoly on trade between the Northern Principality and the vaguely and expansively defined "Orient," the Northern Oriental Company established trade routes across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, established port facilities and trade depots to facilitate these routes, built forts with agreement of local powers in order to defend these expensive facilities, and in many cases expanded these forts into entirely new towns and cities. The Northern Principality also saw territorial expansion in its European homeland. When neighbouring Novgorod collapsed into civil war in 1599, the Northern Principality moved to finally secure a Baltic Sea free of meddlesome Russian interference, earning a crushing and decisive victory while the Russians were concerned with matters at home and unable to mount a hard-fought defence, seizing some Karelian territories and the entire Russian Baltic coast. This was not, however, an age merely of Scandinavian generals and Scandinavian merchants. This age of prosperity, almost unmatched elsewhere in Europe, produced a strong renaissance of Scandinavian culture and, with the global influence of the colonial empire, disseminated it to nations far and wide. This was especially prominent in Britain, where many aristocratic or wealthy descendants of the Danelaw or the Norwegian settlers of the Southern Isles suddenly found, in the 1600s, great significance in their family heritage and strong interest in Scandinavian styles of art, music, and architecture were raised.

V. The Aftermath of Empire
By the early 1700s, however, it was becoming clear that the Northern Principality was hopelessly overextended. A global empire meant global threats, and not even the wealth of holding a prominent position in global trade could buy off all of them. There was increasingly draining, constant strife against native powers in Africa and southern Asia that felt disinclined to honour agreements and concessions made by their predecessors. Things were especially grim in Indochina, where brush wars and border struggles between the outposts of the Northern Oriental Company and the Korean colonisers of the region continued to mount expense after expense on the Company's budget with the hire of expensive mercenary armies to defend its isolated and disparate commercial outposts as well as the loss of both combat and merchant ships. By the 1740s, the situation in Southeast Asia was completely untenable, with the Oriental Company finding itself with enormous debt repayments and, thanks to the loss of almost all key trade outposts in the region to the Koreans, a much-reduced trade revenue to pay them with. In 1746 the Northern Principality was finally forced to step in and assume the Company's obligations and assets in order to salvage what remained of Scandinavian influence in the Indian Ocean. A resurgent and stabilised Russia emerging out of a period of intermittent civil war invaded the Principality in 1749 and, after a short but decisive victory, reclaimed Neva and Ingermanland from the Northern Principality. With Swedish interests heavily weakened by the military situation in the east, Dano-Norwegian resistance against what western interests saw as Swedish dominance in the Principality's affairs flared up. These events and the decline of Scandinavian prosperity greatly weakened the stability of the Northern Principality, which soon found itself overwhelmed by the Enlightenment sweeping across Europe fueling demands for reform from below. In this turmoil, the 1750s and 1760s saw a series of completely ineffective attempts at reform and government reorganisation. This weakness was immediately taken advantage of by the Northern Principality's rivals, with the French seizing the Northern Indian possessions at Tranquebar and Serampore in 1759 and the Russians marching into Estonia and Northern Livonia the year after.

VI. The Revolution of 1766 and the Northern States Association
A bloodless coup in 1766 and the establishment of a new, decisive, and, most important of all, popular administration would finally see the conclusion of this period of domestic turmoil and with it, the end of the Northern Principality. The revolutionaries of '66 consisted mostly of the urban middle class of the Scandinavian coasts led by a handful of prominent workshop owners and craftsmen's guilds, and as a result the coup saw the implementation of broad-reaching liberal demands. There was, first and foremost, a formal change in regime - the title of Prince of the North was abolished, the Estates General was reformed into a general parliamentary authority, and the electorate was redefined from landed vote to propertied vote. While there were some reforms in favour of rights called for by the enlightenment movement - freedom of expression, of public demonstrations, etc. - these did not reflect a large shift in public policy. The trend over the 1700s was certainly towards greater liberalisation, but the coup itself had a relatively small effect; the late Principality era already saw significant liberalisation reforms, while many basic freedoms taken for granted today were not established until decades after the '66 coup. The key change, rather, was in international policy. The 1766 Northern Constitution explicitly specified the maintenance of a cordial peace as one of the functions of the State, ending the longstanding policy of using foreign military interventions as a means for the assertion of commercial interests, while the first parliament elected under the new Constitution repealed the protectionist measures and the official monopolies imposed by the Principality, embracing the freedom of international trade. Although it is today remembered mostly as a liberalisation movement, a viewpoint that certainly does hold some merit, what the '66 coup really represented most of all was the end of mercantilism in Scandinavia. The new regime styled itself the Northern States Association, recognising the ancient and separate traditions of the disparate people that together make up the Scandinavian cultural group and affirming the autonomy of the same.

VII. The Industrial Revolution and Mass Politics
Naturally, this new regime was a boon to the manufacturing and agricultural interests of the country and a strong detriment to the commercial, expediting the dismantlement of what remained of the Northern colonial empire but also inducing a strong growth in light industry. When the technological innovations of coal power, precision manufacturing, and mass production started to spread throughout Europe, it was swept up by the budding industrialists-to-be of the great cities of southern Scandinavia, resulting in a relatively early industrial revolution despite not entirely favourable geographical conditions. Asides from the seismic economic shift from an agrarian economy to a modernised, industrial one, the industrial revolution also caused sweeping cultural changes in Scandinavian society. Isolated from the influences of the Christian churches, Scandinavian customs were already one of the most progressive in the world and with the atomisation of the extended clans that defined rural, agrarian life into the nuclear families and individual vagrants that filled low-income neighbourhoods of urban centres, social mores opened up yet further. The demand for educated clerks and trainable workers led to a surge in literacy and education, with a universal public primary education scheme being implemented as early as 1842 by an administration that saw national glory and national prestige increasingly in terms of how futuristic and technologically advanced a country is as opposed to how many military victories are emblazoned on its standards. Furthermore, while universal male suffrage was not enacted until as late as 1886, rising incomes pushed more and more of the lower middle class and even the working class over the property barriers to voter eligibility. Industrialisation thus created a faceless mass of an atomised working class, guaranteed them their right to an education, concentrated them into convenient centres of population suitable for newspaper distribution or public rallies, and gave them a vote. The stage was very much set, in other words, for the development of new political ideas. The socialists, in particular, benefited enormously. After rapid growth after their initial establishments in the mid-19th Century, the disparate socialist parties of the northern republics largely consolidated into the NSAP, the Nordic Socialist Labour Party, in 1871. This new unified socialist party emerged as the largest party in parliament for the first time after the 1888 parliamentary elections, which were also the first held under universal male suffrage. Since then, Northern politics has been defined by the dispute of a firm alliance of the NSAP and the country's labour unions whose voices grow larger every year against a broad coalition of conservatives and liberals on the other side of the aisle seeking to contain their influence, appeasing their electoral base where necessary. But with the largest party in parliament being locked out of government positions for 18 years in the running, it is becoming clear that the current arrangement is highly tenuous...

RP Sample: Time of Monsters


#AltDiv (do not delete this, it's for keeping track of the apps)

[Remnants of Exilvania]

I mentioned several other countries represented here in the history for the country I am applying for. If you are representing one of the following countries, please give my history a brief skim and let me know if anything looks terribly objectionable:

Central Europe/Germany (Section III), Russia (Section IV and V), Anglelond/Britain (Section IV), Korea (Section V), France (Section V).

All fine here.

[Plzen]

Just ignore the confiscation and near forced labour that can be imposed upon you.

sigh

So we have an empire where the rule of law is not firmly established and a republican federation where the unions heavily influence economic policy as the bastions of laissez-faire economics and free trade.

Economic liberalism is so doomed.

Are you sure about that?

I can see Scandinavia handily smacking the Germans.

In any Great War-style total war, no. The Nordic Army would struggle to shatter the Imperial Army except on Scandinavia's own territory. Pull in a couple of the more substantial state armies and the situation on the ground doesn't look too favourable for the north.

On the other hand, in a limited war with limited participation of the German States and limited political willpower in the Reichstag, I can see the superior Nordic Navy shatter those little excuses for "fleets" that Germany has and just shell coastal cities until Central Europe gives up.

Depends on the circumstance, really.

*literally just broke Germany and Austria into 13 tiny pieces*

I, for one, have absolutely no problems with it... except maybe the issue of who exactly is going to contain that ahistorically large Russia without a strong Germany in the centre of Europe.

[Remnants of Exilvania]

Are you sure about that?

I can see Scandinavia handily smacking the Germans.

In any Great War-style total war, no. The Nordic Army would struggle to shatter the Imperial Army except on Scandinavia's own territory. Pull in a couple of the more substantial state armies and the situation on the ground doesn't look too favourable for the north.

On the other hand, in a limited war with limited participation of the German States and limited political willpower in the Reichstag, I can see the superior Nordic Navy shatter those little excuses for "fleets" that Germany has and just shell coastal cities until Central Europe gives up.

Depends on the circumstance, really.

Well, navally the Germans can't hold a candle to you and they know it.

That leaves you with a highly defensible, short border along the Eider.

Given your well equipped army with high artillery and machinegun density, as well as the ability to support with additional, naval artillery from the sea along the coasts, you'd be looking at very favourable odds. Considering that the german armies suffer from poor morale, fragmented command, s###-Tier command, low artillery and machinegun density (if they have machineguns at all) and often enough only mediocre weaponry.

If the Germans actually manage to mobilise their entire nation to war against you, the Nordic Infantryman only has to trade his life for 6,5 german lives to completely wipe out the German Armies.

In reality any army will break well before that and the Germans will never manage to amass all their forces against you. Not even if all their other borders were secure. So the Nordic Infantryman would probably have to trade 1 to 1 or 1 to 2 at worst.

*literally just broke Germany and Austria into 13 tiny pieces*

I, for one, have absolutely no problems with it... except maybe the issue of who exactly is going to contain that ahistorically large Russia without a strong Germany in the centre of Europe.

Why Scandinavia of course. Maybe with some allies somewhere along the Russian borders perhaps.

Also, bruh, more like ahistorically small Russia. They've gained Posen/Poznan as well as East and West Prussia. In return they lost Finland, all of it, as well as Bessarabia, Crimea and Northern Sakhalin.

I'm surprised you don't own Petsamo btw.

[Reverend Norv]

I know I asked for a few days. But I also know that days of uncertainty can be bad for an RP at this stage in its development, and having slept on the question, I believe I can give my answer now.

Unfortunately, I believe I should bow out. I certainly owe you all a brief explanation why.

In part, it is because my application here was based upon a misunderstanding. I was under the impression that any app that was accepted in the last iteration of this RP was automatically acceptable in this iteration. I did not foresee having to make any adjustments to France beyond those additional, new changes related to its relationship to India. I believed that those features of France that had been acceptable in the last RP would, perforce, be equally acceptable in this one. This is important, because my app in the last iteration was already a painstakingly negotiated compromise. I did not expect to have to further compromise on that compromise.

I realize now that this assumption was not fully justified: an app is not acceptable now just because it was accepted in the last Alt-Div. While that assumption seems to have been true for every other returning player from the last iteration, it was never guaranteed to me explicitly, and I had no right to rely upon it. It is now clear that this assumption was wrong, and had I known that last week, I would never have chosen to join this new iteration in the first place. That would have saved me a lot of work, and all of us a lot of headache. So I'd like to apologize for having failed to clarify the terms of my reapplication in time to prevent the disruption that I now have to cause.

There is a second reason for my departure as well. It will no doubt be observed that the changes I've been asked to make are not extreme. This is true enough. But I take more serious issue with the reasons that I've been asked to make those changes. My firmly held view is that RPs work well when players see themselves as partners engaged in a shared, cooperative storytelling project. Even if their IC characters or nations are rivals, the players are all on the same team in telling a single story. Thus, it does not matter whether one character or nation is more powerful than another: because we are not really competing against each other. We are working together toward a common goal: telling the best possible story.

The changes I've been asked to make, by contrast, are based on an idea of balancing different nations' power in order to ensure fair competition. As I've discussed, I simply don't see the need to do that: if all the players trust each other, and work together to tell a single story, then IC differences of power should not translate to bullying in the storytelling process - because we are not competitors in the first place. The safeguard against French bullying should not be weakening France; it should be trusting me to work with all of you to tell a respectful, shared story. That, after all, is what I applied to this RP hoping to do, and it's what I trust all of you to do in return.

Because of all of that, it seems to me that these requested changes are reflective of a fundamental disagreement about what this sort of writing is about, and how we ought to do it. Such a disagreement will not end at this stage of the writing process. It is guaranteed to recur, again and again, and to spoil both my enjoyment of the RP, and quite possibly other players' enjoyment as well. That's why this issue is dispositive: at the end of the day, we do this to have fun. That sort of endless meta-level argument does not sound like fun to me.

I wish to be clear: I regard this as a good-faith disagreement, honestly held, without personal bitterness on either side. I have the highest respect for Thrac, and think he's a talented writer and a good OP. I sincerely regret the disruption my departure is likely to cause, both to accepted nations and to apps in process. In particular, I really want to apologize to Krugmar. We did good brainstorming together, and I'm truly sorry to oblige you to start over. Were it not for my misunderstanding about the reapplication process, I promise that I would not have put you in this position.

I am grateful to have had the chance to refine my ideas, read up on obscure European history, and imagine a different world with all of you folks. I leave you knowing that you will continue doing all of those things, and in the complete confidence that the results will be just as rich and creative without my presence as they would have been with me. Take care.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

I have to agree with Norv, and just to add to the points he made from a more general perspective: it’s impossible to have a competitive RP with free-form writing, because everything we do has been made up. Our entire countries, our histories, our strengths and weaknesses... In that kind of environment, where you can just make your country better by writing that it is, there is no accomplishment in ‘beating’ others. There is only accomplishment in the writing, and the quality of the story.

Competitive free-form writing devolves into metagaming, powergaming and powercreep almost immediately, just because you can write your way into anything. It becomes a game of one-upmanship where every player has to outsmart others simply by stating that they are, somehow, more powerful. This combines quite poorly with the fact that none of us are experts in warfare, so we take our own misconceptions about history and politics, and whoever shares their misconceptions with the OP wins. Being intelligent, doing research, writing well, planning, strategising... All of these are unimportant attributes. The only attribute you need is that you can one-up your opponent, and that the OP chooses your side.

This creates a perverse incentive that drives out good players. Good players in an RP are very happy to lose, because that just gives new opportunities for stories. If Germany somehow managed to install a monarchy on the French throne, I am sure that Norv would be happy to play along, because it would grant new and interesting writing opportunities. However, a bad player always wants to win, and makes sure that they are set up in a way that allows them to succeed in every conflict. Put these together, and bad players will always win over good players, giving bad players a false sense of accomplishment.

Throughout the 18th and 19th century, France singlehandedly beat the rest of Europe to a pulp. With little allies and all the major powers arrayed against it, France dominated the continent. If the Napoleonic Wars were a competitive free-form writing RP, the France player would have been ‘balanced’, so to make its armies on par with the half-feudal armies of Austria and Prussia. No shock, no rapid and haphazard modernisation after Austerlitz (there would be no Austerlitz), no invasion of Russia in the winter, no retreat and defeat at Leipzig, no return and eventual defeat at Waterloo... knowing when to be defeated creates true history and stories, and insisting you are the best creates boring ‘games’ of lazy number-wanking.

This all just to say that the concept of a ‘balanced’ historical RP is at its core a mistake, and that players should know that winning does not mean painting the map your colour, it means creating a heartfelt emotional story.

[Tracian Empire]

I know I asked for a few days. But I also know that days of uncertainty can be bad for an RP at this stage in its development, and having slept on the question, I believe I can give my answer now.

Unfortunately, I believe I should bow out. I certainly owe you all a brief explanation why.

In part, it is because my application here was based upon a misunderstanding. I was under the impression that any app that was accepted in the last iteration of this RP was automatically acceptable in this iteration. I did not foresee having to make any adjustments to France beyond those additional, new changes related to its relationship to India. I believed that those features of France that had been acceptable in the last RP would, perforce, be equally acceptable in this one. This is important, because my app in the last iteration was already a painstakingly negotiated compromise. I did not expect to have to further compromise on that compromise.

I realize now that this assumption was not fully justified: an app is not acceptable now just because it was accepted in the last Alt-Div. While that assumption seems to have been true for every other returning player from the last iteration, it was never guaranteed to me explicitly, and I had no right to rely upon it. It is now clear that this assumption was wrong, and had I known that last week, I would never have chosen to join this new iteration in the first place. That would have saved me a lot of work, and all of us a lot of headache. So I'd like to apologize for having failed to clarify the terms of my reapplication in time to prevent the disruption that I now have to cause.

There is a second reason for my departure as well. It will no doubt be observed that the changes I've been asked to make are not extreme. This is true enough. But I take more serious issue with the reasons that I've been asked to make those changes. My firmly held view is that RPs work well when players see themselves as partners engaged in a shared, cooperative storytelling project. Even if their IC characters or nations are rivals, the players are all on the same team in telling a single story. Thus, it does not matter whether one character or nation is more powerful than another: because we are not really competing against each other. We are working together toward a common goal: telling the best possible story.

The changes I've been asked to make, by contrast, are based on an idea of balancing different nations' power in order to ensure fair competition. As I've discussed, I simply don't see the need to do that: if all the players trust each other, and work together to tell a single story, then IC differences of power should not translate to bullying in the storytelling process - because we are not competitors in the first place. The safeguard against French bullying should not be weakening France; it should be trusting me to work with all of you to tell a respectful, shared story. That, after all, is what I applied to this RP hoping to do, and it's what I trust all of you to do in return.

Because of all of that, it seems to me that these requested changes are reflective of a fundamental disagreement about what this sort of writing is about, and how we ought to do it. Such a disagreement will not end at this stage of the writing process. It is guaranteed to recur, again and again, and to spoil both my enjoyment of the RP, and quite possibly other players' enjoyment as well. That's why this issue is dispositive: at the end of the day, we do this to have fun. That sort of endless meta-level argument does not sound like fun to me.

I wish to be clear: I regard this as a good-faith disagreement, honestly held, without personal bitterness on either side. I have the highest respect for Thrac, and think he's a talented writer and a good OP. I sincerely regret the disruption my departure is likely to cause, both to accepted nations and to apps in process. In particular, I really want to apologize to Krugmar. We did good brainstorming together, and I'm truly sorry to oblige you to start over. Were it not for my misunderstanding about the reapplication process, I promise that I would not have put you in this position.

I am grateful to have had the chance to refine my ideas, read up on obscure European history, and imagine a different world with all of you folks. I leave you knowing that you will continue doing all of those things, and in the complete confidence that the results will be just as rich and creative without my presence as they would have been with me. Take care.

I am really not sure what to say here.

There was never any guarantee that apps that were accepted in the previous iteration would be automatically guaranteed here. I personally reviewed all the returning apps and asked for changes were I felt that changes were needed - it might not have been obvious since in the case of Exil and Kai as an example, I asked for the changes to be made through Discord, where I found that it was easier to discuss things. So it most certainly wasn't true for every other returning player from the previous iteration, and even my own app is going to be submitted to the review of others once it is ready, so I really don't believe that you were treated unfairly or unequally in any way.

I realize that having to work on what you thought was an already acceptable was frustrating, and this is from a certain perspective our and my fault, and I am accepting it. During the last iteration, the OP Board was kind of defective and inefficient. Most of the issues that I presented to you here were the same issues that I was worried about last time around, but since members of the board were busy and I had to ability to make such decisions by myself, we compromised. I realize that trying to change that compromise this time around might seem to be a little unfair, but I was just trying to do what I thought was fair and just for everyone as the OP.

And here, it seems that we have a different view on how roleplayers work. I sadly have a lot of experience with roleplayers that were too chaotic and unorganized, were the rivalries of players were too strong and degenerated into conflicts. I personally do trust you to work nicely with us all ICly, but my personal belief is that the IC should be as balanced as possible. It is for this reason that I was trying to convince the Persian player to create a powerful rival for my ERE, it is for this reason that I asked Elerian to make changes to his military, it is for this reason that I asked Exil to add forts, it is for this reason that I further downplayed my naval ability in the app that I am working on. You also weren't around here when in one of the early iterations of this roleplay where we had a vaguely unrealistic proto-NATO alliance that dominated the IC, which is why I was also trying to make sure that no nation would be in an impossible situation.

So I certainly do not my believe that my balancing actions were unfair in any way. We simply seem to have a difference in philosophy here - the safeguard against France bullying others should indeed be trusting you, but I tend to believe that there should be no reason to have a safeguard at all. I believe that balance, as much as possible, is important for any roleplaying project.

But while we seem to disagree on certain issues, I do believe that I have been as compromising and understandable as possible. I never tried to weaken France, and the point of our discussions was to make sure that France would still remain powerful, but powerful enough to guarantee that any potential conflict between it and its neighbors would still be interesting. I haven't asked you to make important changes to your concept, and I do believe that my proposal was more than acceptable.

And let's agree to disagree there. Even if there would be a fundamental disagreement there, I do not believe that it would further affect the IC. I generally do not interfere with the players are doing in the IC at all, and I am also not the type of person to react to everything that is happening there. Once the changes that I asked for in your app would have been done, I would have been more than alright with accepting your app, and I highly doubt that we would have ever had any sort of discussion again.

So from that perspective I really do think that you shouldn't leave. Yesterday you were saying that you were more than happy to discuss this and to find a compromise, and when I announced the reboot of this you said that you were excited about it, so I don't think that it is impossible for all of us here to get this roleplay going and to have fun in the IC. I'm still more than alright with further discussing those points until we find something acceptable, and because of that I do feel a little sad - because my objective from the beginning was to get your app accepted.

But of course, in the end, this is your decision.

[Tracian Empire]

I have to agree with Norv, and just to add to the points he made from a more general perspective: it’s impossible to have a competitive RP with free-form writing, because everything we do has been made up. Our entire countries, our histories, our strengths and weaknesses... In that kind of environment, where you can just make your country better by writing that it is, there is no accomplishment in ‘beating’ others. There is only accomplishment in the writing, and the quality of the story.

Competitive free-form writing devolves into metagaming, powergaming and powercreep almost immediately, just because you can write your way into anything. It becomes a game of one-upmanship where every player has to outsmart others simply by stating that they are, somehow, more powerful. This combines quite poorly with the fact that none of us are experts in warfare, so we take our own misconceptions about history and politics, and whoever shares their misconceptions with the OP wins. Being intelligent, doing research, writing well, planning, strategising... All of these are unimportant attributes. The only attribute you need is that you can one-up your opponent, and that the OP chooses your side.

This creates a perverse incentive that drives out good players. Good players in an RP are very happy to lose, because that just gives new opportunities for stories. If Germany somehow managed to install a monarchy on the French throne, I am sure that Norv would be happy to play along, because it would grant new and interesting writing opportunities. However, a bad player always wants to win, and makes sure that they are set up in a way that allows them to succeed in every conflict. Put these together, and bad players will always win over good players, giving bad players a false sense of accomplishment.

Throughout the 18th and 19th century, France singlehandedly beat the rest of Europe to a pulp. With little allies and all the major powers arrayed against it, France dominated the continent. If the Napoleonic Wars were a competitive free-form writing RP, the France player would have been ‘balanced’, so to make its armies on par with the half-feudal armies of Austria and Prussia. No shock, no rapid and haphazard modernisation after Austerlitz (there would be no Austerlitz), no invasion of Russia in the winter, no retreat and defeat at Leipzig, no return and eventual defeat at Waterloo... knowing when to be defeated creates true history and stories, and insisting you are the best creates boring ‘games’ of lazy number-wanking.

This all just to say that the concept of a ‘balanced’ historical RP is at its core a mistake, and that players should know that winning does not mean painting the map your colour, it means creating a heartfelt emotional story.

And yet this roleplay has never actually had any important wars between players. The concept of winning has never been at the core of this particular roleplay, and yet we have been persevering despite it. It is true that most of our iterations lately have not had the activity we would have wanted, but I've seen this issue with other, more competitive roleplays too. I don't believe that our model is wrong, people wouldn't be returning to it five years after the first iteration was created if they hadn't enjoyed it. What happens in the IC is just a lot more free-form. If there are players who want to focus on intrigues and interactions between characters, that always happened. If characters wanted to focus on war and conflicts, that was never forbidden either. It is this thing that I am trying to protect, and so from that perspective I'm not sure if it could even be argued that I am trying to create a proper balanced historical RP here - I've been more than alright with letting a weak Germany exist, and I would have also been more than alright with letting a strong France exist.

As for the rest of your post, I'm honestly not sure if this is meant to further expand the points that Norv made because I wholeheartedly agree with everything that you say here. And I don't believe that I've worked against any of these concepts here. I've intervened to fix one or two historical details that players couldn't agree about. I've intervened to refuse the existence of technology and strategies that were accurately only used a few years after 1906, something that in previous iterations here used to be a firm rule about technology. And the reason I proposed that Norv another national issue was to try to help his app get rid of the feeling that it was too perfect and too powerful, a feeling that many people had while reading it. So from that perspective, I never intended to be controlling, and I am also not going to be controlling player actions in the IC either - I'm simply trying to provide all players with a fair start.

[Reverend Norv]

As I said, with the greatest respect and affection for you and the other players here, I've made my decision. I have given my reasons for that, and am willing to let them speak for themselves. I wish you all possible success and enjoyment, but I will not be changing my mind. You should feel free to remove my app from the reservations list and map.

[Akkaga]

~~Snip~~

[Elerian]

I mentioned several other countries represented here in the history for the country I am applying for. If you are representing one of the following countries, please give my history a brief skim and let me know if anything looks terribly objectionable:

Central Europe/Germany (Section III), Russia (Section IV and V), Anglelond/Britain (Section IV), Korea (Section V), France (Section V).

All fine here.

Same here.

[Nouveau Quebecois]

I dunno what's going on but if France is getting nerfed im all for that

[Plzen]

Okee. It's been 14 hours, no significant controversies were raised, and Tracian is online, so here is my application for review.

[Tracian Empire]

I dunno what's going on but if France is getting nerfed im all for that

Well, it seems that France is gone, so you might have to edit your app I'm afraid.

For everyone who is still here, I am sorry that things ended like that, the point of a roleplay should be for everyone to have fun. It's sad to lose Norv and France, but the roleplay will be going forward, and I will try to review most of if not all of the remaining finished apps tonight.

[Nouveau Quebecois]

I dunno what's going on but if France is getting nerfed im all for that

Well, it seems that France is gone, so you might have to edit your app I'm afraid.

For everyone who is still here, I am sorry that things ended like that, the point of a roleplay should be for everyone to have fun. It's sad to lose Norv and France, but the roleplay will be going forward, and I will try to review most of if not all of the remaining finished apps tonight.

wait what

Ok can I take wallonia then

[Kazarogkai]

Break the British Isles into pieces and make Scandinavia the premier naval power of the north?

I'd not be upset with this.

Having an absolutist Britain plays into why their north American possessions have gone full-on leftist...so it presents a problem to suddenly disappear.

I can work with it still. My guys reasoning for rebelling is more or less a mix of Nationalist and Religious reasons rather than raw ideological concerns. Prior to being a colony they were an independent settlement established by Protestant Dissidents wishing to establish a christian city on the hill away from the corruption and evils of the old world in what they saw as a virgin and more pure land. After a certain point they got conquered by the same guys they were attempting to escape from leading to... a less than satisfactory situation with the people on the ground chafing under British Chalcedonian rule. Eventually this would boil over into a War of independence lasting from 1775-1800. So long as the basic conditions of a Chalcedonian and expansionist power existing in the British isles are maintained I should be alright.

Also one probably argue my guys aren't really leftist having much more in common with the far right withe primary ideological strains of my society(National Syndicalism, State Capitalism) being rather heavily associated with fascism than anything else. Albeit more of the more "left wing" radical varieties like phalangism and Straserism rather than the more moderate strains ala Italian Corporatism. The deeply nationalistic and hyper militarized society, the strict puritanical top down iron clad state fixated on law and order, greater focus on rural areas as being the key elements, etc. All this and more kinda add onto that and provide a rather important backdrop for ideological opposition and hostility both nations would have upon each other especially in their current states. Kinda like Stalin vs Mao, in many ways similar but in important areas they are opposed hence the split and rivalry.

[Tracian Empire]

Well, it seems that France is gone, so you might have to edit your app I'm afraid.

For everyone who is still here, I am sorry that things ended like that, the point of a roleplay should be for everyone to have fun. It's sad to lose Norv and France, but the roleplay will be going forward, and I will try to review most of if not all of the remaining finished apps tonight.

wait what

Ok can I take wallonia then

Certainly, but France not conquering Wallonia sort of makes your job of collapsing the monarchies a little more difficult. Since it's not your fault that the situation changed like that however, I am alright with overlooking the issue for the time being.

[Nouveau Quebecois]

wait what

Ok can I take wallonia then

Certainly, but France not conquering Wallonia sort of makes your job of collapsing the monarchies a little more difficult. Since it's not your fault that the situation changed like that however, I am alright with overlooking the issue for the time being.

I'll adjust my app. Any updates on the Antwerp situation?

[Kargintina the Third]

I could switch to France if you’d like