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No other party structure, event, war or internal controversy has ever changed Finland so much in so little time as Anonyymit Herrasmiehet did. During the timespan of roughly 10 months, from October 2011 onwards, Finland experienced its first large scale treasury theft, was targeted by EDENite intervention on her presidential elections, underwent a drastic change in (attitude towards) laws and procedures, and left the EDEN alliance for Asgard. None of these events would have happened, at least in such a short timespan, without Anonyymit Herrasmiehet. Without the Finnish baby boom, history of Finland would have taken a radically different course.

In my earlier article of the series I mentioned Anonyymit Herrasmiehet (Anonymous Gentlemen, henceforth AH) as the main supporting group of zRTx, a presidential candidate during the fateful elections of February 5th 2012. I consciously dodged large swathes of the important background of AH as it would have in no way fitted to the already monstrous wall of text. Digging in deeper to the origins of the party helps us to, among other things, understand why the events of 5.2. unfolded as they did. Yet I couldn't write this piece before the one concerning aforementioned elections, as helpful as it would have been, because the climax of this story took place well after the elections - in May and partially in June of the same year. This article was scheduled to be published in May primarily for historical reasons but also because the schedule of article series was planned that way. I didn't make it back then and now it's September, so yeah. Thanks Otus Leucotis for using the stick and carrot (absence of the stick) to poke me forward and finally get this finished.

So grab your bottle of beer, glass of wine, cup of coffee or whatever and clear your schedule for the next ten minutes. In this (again, long) article I aim to outline the origins, birth, development, peak and the short but brutal downfall of Anonyymit Herrasmiehet. After that it is in order to dwell in the definite and lasting heritage it left, implications of which can still be seen and felt in the Finnish community and its politics.

In the summer of 2011 Finland was relatively small and established nation consisting of a few hundred players. We had broke ourselves free from the firm grip of the already degenerating Norwegian empire and created a small society of meta laws, rules and procedures. Sure, there were disputes, hot topics and (pages after pages long) arguments as any nation at any time has, but all of it was relatively small bickering about the little things - at least in perspective.

Small and big nations alike, of course, seek (or at least back then sought) actively to broaden the player base of their nation and Finland was not an exception. An excellent opportunity for a larger baby boom emerged when we “fought” against our eastern neighbours, Russians, in September 2011. (This was mostly for propaganda purposes, in fact we had an ongoing war against Estonia, not Russia, back then.) A plea to defend the homeland from “evil Russians” (this particularly is one of the more effective ways to recruit in Finland, as it provokes almost an automatic reaction due to history.) was posted on a myriad of Finnish forums across the interwebs, but only in one place did it generate any wider streams of new citizens. In a place called Ylilauta.fi, a local message and image board resembling 4chan.

And not just a trickle of newbies but over a thousand of them. Within a span of few weeks the population of Finland had quadrupled, from a bit over 500 to nearly 2000. The incumbent president who bombarded various boards and forums with the message at the time, Erius, let alone the wider public, had not anticipated such a drastic change in demographics. At issue, however, was not merely the sheer size of the newcomer group, but the type of it.

The group of these new citizens shouldn't be really called a group, as they practically speaking never were one. The precise nature of the movement was disorganised, even anarchical. As it became apparent, the purpose driving them forward (if they ever had one, it wasn't a conscious or agreed one) was to cause as much mayhem as possible. To ditch metagame, established procedures in forums and to just generally “trigger oldies”.


The first few months were relatively quiet on the political front. Late in the autumn, however, the movement was tried to streamline into a single system, into a party called Anonyymit Herrasmiehet. Not everyone born in the baby boom, however, chose to join the party. Some individuals opted to move abroad from the increasing turmoil of Finnish politics, some joined the old established parties, some wished to remain unaffiliated. For the purposes of this article we’ll concentrate on the party that was created, Anonyymit Herrasmiehet.

Initially the party was welcomed (at least publicly) relatively compassionately, as a chance to make Finland significantly stronger. By the January 2012, however, the qualms were rife between Anonyymit Herrasmiehet and especially the Liberaali Edistyspuolue (Liberal Progressive Party, LEP), which was viewed as the epitome of “establishment, elite and older players”. At certain point even the national elite military unit, Pohjoinen Prikaati, took over Anonyymit Herrasmiehet, though it is debatable whether this happened as a legit takeover or as a reaction of some sort to the “for lulz” mentality, as was predominant among babyboomers.

At the peak of its strength the party consisted of perhaps 400-500 players, 300 of which were regularly voting. This was a major component in the events of February 2012, when Finnish sovereignty was breached by the now long deceased alliance. It is instrumental for the buildup of the spring to understand the events of those days, so I strongly recommend to at least skim through the (long) article if you haven’t read it earlier.

Longer congressional censures were handed to the main two perpetrators of the February rigging, but the repercussions were seen as insufficient and lenient by AH members. It was seen as hypocritical to sentence AH members to (even short) congressional censures for troll NE’s and such during the winter, while majority of the players participating in organising and executing the February plan received a mere slap on the wrist.


After the uproar and disillusionment of the February elections, the relations between Anonyymit Herrasmiehet and establishment parties, LEP in particular, were extremely sour - but there were also signs of hope. The leadership of AH was still determined to make the party mainstream and their efforts were subsequently rewarded in March, when the first AH party member obtained a ministry position in internal affairs.

The older parties were trying to contain the sheer dominant numbers of newcomers by courting for their support in elections with offered ministry positions and other concessions during the early spring. For a time this was successful, but the rising animosity in the ranks of AH members forced the party leadership to change course. In May 2012, after months of supporting the nominees of Wanhat Parrat party or not endorsing anyone, Anonyymit Herrasmiehet decided to run their own candidate - for the shock of other parties. This time messages were sent to the whole body of members in which they were encouraged to vote on fifth - something that wasn't done earlier.

In internal survey (350 messages sent manually, that was painful) the members of Anonyymit Herrasmiehet overwhelmingly wished to support Latezki as a candidate for presidency over supporting another party or not endorsing anyone. Initially the nomination led to worried discussions in public and private, but the tone grew more anguished come the election day, as the votes started rolling out. The tense atmosphere was covered accurately in earlier article of the series (in Finnish only, sorry). The events (and the aftermath) of February were still in recent memory and affected the discussion surrounding the May elections. At least partially due to this, the proposal to order the Finnish Army to vote against Latezki was subsequently discarded by the incumbent government. In the end Latezki won by around 40 votes, and Finland was in a whole new situation.

Initially things looked to work out fine - Latezki, who himself hadn’t really prepared for the election victory, seemed to want to cooperate and learn about the post he had just ascended onto. Ministers were gathered, advisors recruited and the regime change chugged on, albeit a bit late. However, by May 7th Latezki had received the credentials of country organizations and, apparently, the temptation was too great to handle. Finland lost 4 170 000cc’s that day, of which around two millions were later donated back by private citizens.


Latezki was quickly impeached and banned by Plato, after which the dethroned AH president vanished from eRepublik for good. Latezki pulled Anonyymit Herrasmiehet down with him. The credibility of party members was gone, instant association from that day forward when thinking about AH was the party of thieves and 4channers, now conveniently tied together. The work of six months had evaporated overnight.

May 2012 marked the rapid downfall of Anonyymit Herrasmiehet, but its legacy was to be felt in Finland for years to come. The party gave a thrust to a development which would during the summer of 2012 lead to the Finnish departure from the EDEN alliance and possibly to another treasury theft in August 2012 even after the party's downfall, though the latter is highly disputable.

In my earlier article (I'm repetitive with my self-advertising, I know) of the series I explored in length the happenings of February 2012. The events of those days are tightly intertwined with the overall development of Anonyymit Herrasmiehet. Primarily from September-October 2011 to May 2012, the effect AH had can be roughly divided into three categories: military, economic and political.

Perhaps the most drastic change was seen in military alignation. Anonyymit Herrasmiehet members were not the only ones disillusioned by the February 2012, it can be seen as a significant tipping point when it comes to attitude towards EDEN. Even though AH disappeared as a party, a portion its members sought and secured places in other, older parties, further exacerbating the animosity towards the dominant alliance.

Aligning with ONE, however, was never really a realistic option. For sure, the second pole of the bipolar world, EDEN’s foe, had its supporters, as had had PEACE before it, but Finland didn't really want to completely burn bridges with would-be former allies by doing such a U-turn.

Instead, increasing attention was directed towards the older-than-time idea of Nordic Alliance, between Sweden (at the time in ONE), Norway (EDEN) and Finland. The idea was welcomed with enthusiasm on the western shores of Baltic Sea too, and so the tentative work to lay the base of the alliance was started during Spring-Summer of 2012.

The upcoming shift, or at least the work towards it, wasn't viewed favourably within especially the core members of LEP party, who were well connected to the EDEN HQ and representatives of other member nations, oftentimes even members of the said HQ. Arguments were tossed back and forth regarding the alliance shift. I won't dwell in them, but suffices to say that arguments for the Nordic Alliance (would-be Asgard) concentrated on the decline of and disillusionment towards EDEN, as well as “doing something fresh and new”, while the backers of EDEN advocated for the stability and continuity the alliance had brought, as well as mentioned the Finnish status as a founding member of the alliance.

Finland left EDEN and formed Asgard together with Sweden in August 2012, which can be seen, at least partially, as a consequence of the Anonyymit Herrasmiehet influence and the happenings of February 2012.


Possibly easiest of groupings to see, then, might be the economic one. As I covered above, the first Anonyymit Herrasmiehet president conducted the first large scale treasury theft of Finland, but it wasn't the only one within our timespan.

The Finnish treasury was again stolen in August 2012, coincidentally exactly when Finland officially left EDEN and formed Asgard. It is still a matter of controversy and the perpetrator(s) remain a mystery. Otus Leucotis covered the events in his brilliant article a few weeks back (unfortunately in Finnish) and develops a few possible scenarios ranging from the return of Latezki (via an unchanged security question of the presidential gmail-account) to a revenge of an EDEN-minded clique (and a RL group of friends) known as Norsunluutorni (Ivory Tower) in Finland.

Either of those theories suggests that the acts of Anonyymit Herrasmiehet played a part influencing the event chain leading to the theft. However, perhaps the most probable explanation is that the incumbent administration had a hand in it. I was in it, shh.

After the thefts, it was customary for years to keep all public funds in the in-game country treasury and only donate the congressionally approved budget for governmential use. This greatly hindered our ability to respond to emergencies - during the time when we were perhaps in the most vulnerable situation militarily and politically in Finnish history.

Political effects, then, are bit harder to quantify, as the way congress organises itself didn't change considerably during the time of Anonyymit Herrasmiehet. The ideas and attitudes sown - or at least amplified - by AH members regarding constitutional meta-rules bore fruit in early 2013 when WP Attak discarded separate forums as a congressional discussion place during his presidency and moved it to ingame message lists. I could go on pages upon pages about the negative effects it had, but that is not of concern in this article.

Even though WP Attak was a long time member of the “establishment” Wanhat Parrat party and even though the change can be partially connected to the dwindling player base of Finland, played the events of early 2012 a significant role in moulding the general atmosphere more favourable for the later transformation. One known writer in Finland has lately referred the era of forums as the ancient Rome and what came after it as the dark middle ages. Even though it is now known the middle ages weren't as “dark” as previously thought, I find the reference insightful and fairly accurate in terms of transparency, efficiency and coverage.


Anonyymit Herrasmiehet affected Finland economically, militarily and politically more than any entity before or after in such a short timeframe. It all happened rather unconsciously, without a coherent, detailed plan to execute. In 2012 Finnish elections were intervened in, our treasury robbed twice and we jumped from arguably the most organised alliance ever formed to the unknown - all, if not because of, at least significantly affected by Anonyymit Herrasmiehet.

The party may be long gone, but the legacy lives.



- Caesar