Just who is TWO HQ working for?

Day 1,993, 13:04 • Published in Croatia Croatia • by Arrlo

I've had an article brewing in my mind for some time now. There has been so much I have wanted to comment on, but not wishing to add to speculation, and the fact that I knew much would change very rapidly meant I let these thoughts accumulate into a swirling mass of ideas. Consequently I suspect that this article will have a somewhat meandering style. I beg your pardon!

Now to begin. Since last I shared my thoughts with you, Romania has decisively moved to a pro-TWO position, at least politically. Mutual protection pacts have been signed with Poland, the UK and Slovenia, in addition to the initial, groundbreaking Serbian MPP. Things were going very smoothly, and I'm sure many people involved in the transition were beginning to believe themselves to have brought about EDEN's demise, and set the stage for a glorious conquest of CoT. "The world is ours!", they gleefully agreed with each other in their role playing basement headquarters, where their motto is "work in the dark because we're too ugly to have the lights on". Or something equally silly.

But then FAR's birthday happened.



Of course, the battle was not won by one military unit. Although FAR is one of the oldest, strongest units of Romania, they could not pull off such an emphatic victory against one of the strongest countries in the strongest alliance, and their “celebration” was joined by many other Romanians, and many former EDEN players, myself included.

Citizens of TWO, this stunning victory just served to show that at some point TWO HQ has been deceiving you. Romanians aren't all happy with TWO, and certainly we now know that Hungary, Spain and parts of Polish society aren't all thrilled about it. But they were all deceived into thinking that the others all wanted Romania's help- I do not for one moment believe that Serbians voting "yes" to the Romanian MPP would ever do so if they hadn't been led to believe that Hungary was happy with it. Hungary, your representatives to TWO are not working in YOUR interests.

Romania in TWO is far from a done deal. As expected, there is something of a generational divide, so to speak, in Romania. Older players tend to be devoted to their EDEN allies, which brings them into conflict with newer players, who have no such feeling of loyalty to EDEN, and look to Serbia and TWO for Romania’s future. Since these newer players formed a strong majority in congress, their say was officially final, but in terms of damage output, it seems that the older, EDEN-friendly players have the edge.




Now this is the part that fascinates me. Some of the TWO leadership seemed to be caught with their pants down by this. One, unusually for him, tanked in the battle, and wrote one of the most offensive, obscene shouts I have ever seen when it became clear that they were going to lose. That part was disappointing for me: to watch him lower his character in my eyes was very sad, as I hadn’t expected such disgusting behaviour from someone I thought was quiet and intelligent. Another published a prize winner of an article, utterly rotten with hypocrisy, suggesting that Romania and TWO not allow themselves to let the will and the actions of a few to direct the course of the alliance. No, really, he actually said that. He furthermore had the gall to sign the stomach-turning article off with the jaw dropping, eye popping, nauseating exhortation to his readers (his Romanian readers - he had taken Romanian CS some time before to push his agenda from inside) not to allow themselves to be manipulated. What he meant was, "only let yourselves be manipulated by my gang".

Their disappointment is understandable. TWO HQ has been plotting behind the backs of their "allies" in CoT for months to win Romania and Greece to their side, and grudgingly they seem to be comfortable with the idea of tolerating Turkey. Argentina and China are also on their shopping list, to counter USA and Brazil's night damage, although the main prizes were always Greece and Romania. Now, at this point you really have to ask yourselves "why?".

Why on earth did the cronies who swap seats at the head of TWO HQ decide that they needed to shake up the world map? Why did they need to sever ties with CoT in order to win over Greece and Romania? Just who benefits from forcing Hungary and Romania to be friendly? Was 100/100 not good enough for Poland, Spain and Serbia? Was crushing Ukraine's RWs 88-0 becoming bothersome for poor Hungary? No, TWO countries had enjoyed the longest period of uninterrupted prosperity I have ever, ever seen in my time in eRepublik, so their motive can’t have been dissatisfaction with their strategy of using CoT as meatshield. The problem with USA in CoT had to be trumped up as an excuse. It has been said a million times that this makes no sense, given the lack of a fuss shown towards the CTRL project of a few months ago, so you can only conclude that this was nothing more than a propaganda exercise to break CoTWO, and to attempt to absorb Greece and Romania. Why? Simply because they were bored, and they think they know best.

But this in itself raises issues. Poland and Spain left EDEN to get away from Romania, as anyone playing for a while will remember. The bitter fallout would have made you think that Romania was the devil incarnate, and weren't Spain and Poland fortunate to have got away from them? Either this is true, and they should not accept Romania so willingly, or there is a pattern of LYING in the countries who decide to change sides. You can decide which.

What is even more striking for me is that nobody in TWO HQ seems to have learned any lessons from EDEN. They're forcing hostile countries as friends on founding members, they're circumventing Spain and Hungary to pave the way for cooperation with Romania and, as we see today, Argentina (via Colombia). There is precedent for this. There is a warning scrawled in burning letters across the pages of eRepublik history. At the very hint of some of your members’ dissatisfaction, you drop your plans and you make sure that they know they are more important to you than any new friend. So if they have not learned any lesson, I must address the people of Hungary, Spain and Poland directly: If you feel you can work with Romania, Greece, Argentina, Turkey, and all the countries that your HQ is going to force on you, on an equal footing as friends and allies, then you have nothing to worry about. Sit back and enjoy.

But if part of you understands that at some point you will be unhappy with this arrangement, you need to make your voices heard now. The longer you let a problem like this fester, the uglier and more poisonous the inevitable breakup will be.

TWO HQ will have to listen to you. You are, after all, the dog and not the tail.

Yours,
Arrlo

PS If you think the power of EDENite Romanians is scary, get ready for the Greeks.