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

[Goobergunchia]

Someone needs to take a class in NS history.

Someone needs to write NS History the hell down. >.>

The problem with writing NationStates history down is that there's an awful lot of it. Complicating the problem for new players, many of the primary sources (the old forums, many old offsite forums) have disappeared and many of the others are disorganized enough that it's hard to figure out what's going on without a guide. So I thought a good way to educate newer players (and I use that term very broadly—there's some history that I'd like to know more about) would be a Q&A thread. Basically, ask your questions about NationStates history and hopefully somebody that was around for whatever you asked about will tell you what happened! Or disagree with somebody else's answer—most of the more interesting events have at least two sides to them.

My personal specialty is the Alliance Defense Network and related global events (including the rise of the New Pacific Order) from late 2003 to late 2005, although I'm sure that the NPO types may disagree with my interpretation of some of those events.

Without further ado, bring on the questions!

NOTE: As this is the Gameplay forum, this thread's for asking questions related to, well, Gameplay. Questions related to roleplay should be asked here.

[New Rogernomics]

What was the New Pacific order?
^Easy questions first, and I wasn't around then, thus would be slightly interested to know.

[The Republic of Lanos]

Goober, you have won NS. Oh wait, you already have.

Did you ever interact with Maxtopia?

[Nightkill the Emperor]

Who was the first of the Great Old Mods?

[The Weegies]

Mmm, tasty, tasty history.

[Toddsville]

Who was the first of the Great Old Mods?

Pretty sure it was Melkor but I might be wrong (I wasn't around then)

[Goobergunchia]

What was the New Pacific order?
^Easy questions first, and I wasn't around then, thus would be slightly interested to know.

Well, I'm going to be lazy and quote my own statement from August 2007:

On August 28, 2003, Francos Spain became delegate of the region of the Pacific, ejected Thedoc, delegate of the Pacific, and became delegate forthwith. In the words of [violet], "Francos Spain, like many before, [was] ruthless in the quest for power and bump[ed] off any potential threats. This is appalling and undemocratic behavior. . . "

On September 15, 2003, moderator Neutered Sputniks ruled that the actions of Francos Spain were legal, at which time approximately 300 nations were banned. The bannings done by Francos Spain were sufficiently large that a limit of 200 nations on any one region's banlist was imposed.

On October 27, 2003, a fire at the United Nations Headquarters removed Francos Spain's delegate powers for a 24-hour period, thereby permitting a liberation force led by Corinthe to enter the Pacific, but such liberation force failed to remove Francos Spain by two endorsements, largely due to a temporary Moderator ruling declaring such liberation force to be the exploitation of a glitch. Whereas this temporary Moderator ruling was subsequently overturned by [violet], but the portion of the aforementioned ruling providing for the recreation of the glitch was also overturned.

On January 29, 2004, Max Barry described the rule of Francos Spain as that of a "ruthless dictator presiding over a region and telling everyone that he's democratic and caring".

On August 8, 2004, Francos Spain left the game due to Real Life occurrences, leading to the assumption of the delegacy of the Pacific by Unlimited.

On September 13, 2004, the Stabilizing Force of Francos Spain ceased to exist, with many (including a Goobergunchian emissary) standing vigil in the Rejected Realms. Under Unlimited's delegacy, on September 1, 2004, the name of the New Pacific Order was changed to the People's Republic of the Pacific. The name of the People's Republic of the Pacific was changed back to the New Pacific Order on August 13, 2006, under BlackAdder goes Forth's delegacy.

That's a top-level (and admittedly biased) overview of the timeline. For more details about the early days of the NPO, Kandarin, former delegate of the Rejected Realms, posted an excellent discussion of the attempts to dislodge Francos Spain from power as part of his series on NationStates Military Blunders. (That entire series is highly recommended reading if you're interested in NationStates history.) You can also browse the original New Pacific Order forum.

If you've got any more specific questions, ask away!

Who was the first of the Great Old Mods?

That's actually even before my time (I want to say the first Mods were appointed in April '03), but I believe the first Mods were Melkor Unchained, Demoness (Feoras), Amerigo, and ... I want to say either Ineptia or Menelmacar.

[Antariel]

Wow, something from my thread having pertinence!

Based on where this came from - aside from the fictionalised account on TP's forums, does anyone know what was going on with 'Ivan's' great purge?

Thanks.

[New Sark]

So Franco Spain died irl? Did we know anything about who he was outside NS?

[Punk Reloaded]

Wow, something from my thread having pertinence!

Based on where this came from - aside from the fictionalised account on TP's forums, does anyone know what was going on with 'Ivan's' great purge?

Thanks.

See this post here
http://twp.nosync.org/forums/index.php? ... t&p=169656
[The entire topic gives you some ADN-NPO stuff mostly from the NPO side...very interesting read though]

"That Called The Vlagh" is Ivan in his TWP incarnation. Doesn't necessarily give you his exact reasoning but I'm not sure of other public areas that would have it.

I think the Kandy man summed it up best regarding the NPO-ADN war:

I stand by my original assessment of the ADN-NPO conflict as the Cold War, in the sense of a dictatorship with appeal to the most intelligent ten and least intelligent ten percent of the population versus an ostensibly democratic alliance of dubious moral character.

What I miss about this game is that the people then respected those on the other side. Perhaps not overtly but there was mutual respect. In today's game I don't see it, and I wonder why.

A question I've aways wondered about is this - was Goddessness a puppet for someone? I have some suspicions but I wonder if anyone knows.

EDIT:

So Franco Spain died irl? Did we know anything about who he was outside NS?

Looks like Kandarin's post is from '06...I want to say sometime recently '09 or '10 I was told that FS did not die IRL but that he just wanted to leave the game, and so he did. But there are other much closer to the source than I am who could answer it.

[Blackbird]

What I miss about this game is that the people then respected those on the other side. Perhaps not overtly but there was mutual respect. In today's game I don't see it, and I wonder why.

A question I've aways wondered about is this - was Goddessness a puppet for someone? I have some suspicions but I wonder if anyone knows.

I believe so, yes.

[Tim-Opolis]

Question:

When did Raiders and Defenders stop respecting each other

[New New York]

Were the Farkers ever respected?

[Blackbird]

Were the Farkers ever respected?

As respected as they have been/are whenever they invade a world. High volume, and a couple decent players. Loop was a farker back in the day, as I recall.

[Crushing Our Enemies]

Question:

When did Raiders and Defenders stop respecting each other

I don't think there has ever been a time where every raider respected every other defender, and vice versa. Hell, you can't even say that every raider respects every other raider, or every defender respects every other defender. In a game where we are so often working against each other, twice a day now, sometimes it's hard to find common ground. It really comes down to a matter of personality. Some people are gonna like each other, and some aren't.

My general rule is I respect those who will return it. DYP, Naivetry, and Numero Capitan, among others, are/were fantastic players in my opinion. They see the raider/defender dynamic as I do: it's just a contest. We each have our roles, and the fun is in seeing who's better at what they do. Sometimes they win, sometimes we win, and we all trash talk each other knowing full well that it might bite us in the ass come next update.

Then there are players who see me and my friends as bullies, thugs, and general ne'er-do-wells. Not just players on the opposite side, but actually bad people. Those players tend to come across to me as arrogant and short-sighted, and I find it hard to connect with them outside the battlefield.

Naturally there are folks like that on the raider side of things too, who see defenders as snobbish spoilsports whose only goal is to cheat the rules and ruin our fun. They tend to spout off nonsense about "moderator conspiracies" and the like. We all have our crazy relatives, and we don't have to agree with everything someone says to work with them and get the job done.

In short, Tim, the answer is that some of us have never stopped respecting those who deserve our respect. Others have never started.

EDIT: This is my hundredth post. I like it.

[Ballotonia]

Question:

When did Raiders and Defenders stop respecting each other

I don't think there has ever been a time where every raider respected every other defender, and vice versa. Hell, you can't even say that every raider respects every other raider, or every defender respects every other defender. In a game where we are so often working against each other, twice a day now, sometimes it's hard to find common ground. It really comes down to a matter of personality. Some people are gonna like each other, and some aren't.

Considering some of the highly negative opinions in my direction (mixed up with false claims of fact) in the thread Punk Reloaded linked to a few posts back, I would have to concur here. Then again, I never much cared for the folks who posted those things, them being the evil enemies and such.

Then there are players who see me and my friends as bullies, thugs, and general ne'er-do-wells. Not just players on the opposite side, but actually bad people.

Then stop doing bad things^tm!

Ballotonia

[Jeux II]

Can you give me as much info or links on the ADN as you can. I know little history about it.

[Pyshoria]

Hm... questions... let's see.

Oh, I know. What exactly is/was ACCEL? I've heard it referenced briefly, but don't know much about it.

[Diol]

I have wondered about ns history, however, I do not know really of any spacific things that I would like to know.

The only parts of the old forums that are still accessible, even with my database download of web crawl directories, are the few threads that were found on the most recent forum posts. From this, all I have really managed to piece together is the fact that people were a lot more immaginative with roleplays, and fantasy tech was much bigger.
Now, the only fantasy tech nations we seem to get are people obsessed with mlp.
Everyone seems to use a normal human nation now.

Questions I can think of:
What was the great slavery war? I have heard it mentioned but I don't know what it is, and my wayback machine research has not uncovered this (yet.) Also, if it does, I may not look, because when I see a god thread that has been locked, I get a burning desire to try and post in it. Extremely frustrating.
2. What has been the largest war between invaders and defenders in ns history?
3. Why the hell do the pacific seem to really like non-democratic delegates?
4. Has there ever been a major incedent of actual mod bias, that wasn't some n00bs yelling and hitting things because they got deleeted for "Only a small hack!"
5. What were the most high-profile cases of controvercial mod decissions?
6. Have fascists/nazis ever been respected as much as other ideologies?
7. Why the facepalm smiley?

[Bears Armed]

Everyone seems to use a normal human nation now.

"Ahem!"

4. Has there ever been a major incident of actual mod bias, that wasn't some n00bs yelling and hitting things because they got deleted for "Only a small hack!"

I'm fairly sure that I recall reading about how one of the early Mods actually had to resign or was fired, for going too far in some way, but that the incident in question took place before I got involved in NS...

[Mahaj]

Everyone seems to use a normal human nation now.

"Ahem!"

4. Has there ever been a major incident of actual mod bias, that wasn't some n00bs yelling and hitting things because they got deleted for "Only a small hack!"

I'm fairly sure that I recall reading about how one of the early Mods actually had to resign or was fired, for going too far in some way, but that the incident in question took place before I got involved in NS...

Stephistan?

[Bears Armed]

"Ahem!"

I'm fairly sure that I recall reading about how one of the early Mods actually had to resign or was fired, for going too far in some way, but that the incident in question took place before I got involved in NS...

Stephistan?

I think so.

[Crazy girl]

Since this is the Gameplay forum, lets stick to Gameplay history here.

[Omigodtheykilledkenny]

I'm sorry; are moderators no longer part of Gameplay, or is it strictly Feeder/defender politics now?

[Crazy girl]

Moderators can be related to gameplay history, but that doesn't mean everything involving mods is relevant to GP history. Also, if you'd read the entire thread, you'd see a question on roleplay history as well.

Now, back to the topic at hand.