Join the new world

To break a bad habit I'm actually going to continue my series of articles while they're still rather active. If you haven't read the previous article you might want to do that now. Before I begin I'd just like to begin with thanking everyone who voted for my last article, it received an astonishing 91 votes which is an incredible number for a semi-large, privately owned, non-politic, historic magazine.

The Northern Alliance

Now where were we? Oh yes, after the Great Immigration which resulted in Sweden becoming the ecountry with the greatest population. But what was going to occupy all these people? Remember this was still in the Beta period and even before the war module. Which leads me excellently to the first point; Swedophobia (a term I just created, thank you).

Before anyone had heard of the war module Sweden was mostly feared in a theatrical manner to spice things up a bit. Back in those days international conflicts mostly consisted of presidents calling each other poopypants. But then rumors of an engine which would enable the eSweden to fulfill its plans of world domination started echoing across the New World and when it was confirmed that it was to be released in March Europe started shaking in its wellington boots.


These guys hated us.

Now that the countries of Europe were filled with some good ol' paranoia they decided to create an alliance that would be able to tackle a full on attack from Sweden or alternatively attack and destroy the threat of the homicidal swedes. This alliance was called the Northern Alliance (NA). Most of Europe were a part of this alliance but I will only mention a few prominent members (this because the pre-V1 era is horribly documented and it's nearly impossible to find a info on which countries were members, also I don't want to make a list), the "leader" of the alliance was the United Kingdom which in retrospect seems strange since Sweden and the UK have been long time allies until recently. Norway was an early member which wasn't very surprising at the time since Norway and Finland were prime targets for the planned Swedish Empire.


This is the second picture that pops up if you google "Northern Alliance"

Filled with blind pride and bravery Sweden thought they could erase the Northern Alliance from the face of the New World without really trying (the rules of battle weren't widely spread). Now I know you think you know where this is leading, an epic war between the collected strength of Europe against Sweden's armed forces but I'm going to have dissappoint you, the war never took place. That's right, the Northern Alliance never engaged in battle against Sweden, this is because of the simple fact that the alliance dissolved before the war module.

This didn't happen because of one specific event but rather many different bundled together; the New World had started to grow and Sweden started to understand they couldn't take on all of Europe alone, countries started realising it would be smarter to join Sweden's side instead of continuing their anti-Sweden policy and probably the most important; Sweden and Norway created Sötebrorspakten (an alliance). In those days Norway was a rather big country and they both had pretty good relations (both RL and in game). Sötebrorspakten didn't last long though, it changed name to the Nordic Alliance after the UK joined. A few of you might have heard of this alliance (if not, check the wiki or one of my previous articles "A trio of alliances").

Öresundskriget

As the release date of the war module drew closer the belief that Sweden would be the ones that threw the first rock grew bigger in the New World and the world stood still and observed Sweden on April 7th 2008, the opening of Pandora's box, the release of WAR. Who would they attack first? Finland? Norway? Denmark (this was the general opinion of the swedes)? All at once? The answer is; no one. Ziggyzag (the Swedish president at the time) went against the will of the masses and didn't invade Denmark or any other country. The Riksdag (swedish government) decided to wait and see how warring worked. A wise choice indeed. As the world exploded in petty bug filled wars Sweden viewed and learnt. The best example for a war gone totally wrong for the attackers is the US-Canadian war where the US surprised the whole world by losing due to bugs and mercenaries fighting for Canada.



But Ziggyzag could only postpone the inevitable and on April 21st Sweden invaded Denmark and started the Öresund's War. The main reason for the invasion was that the danes had been taunting Sweden calling them "homoswedes" (coined by then danish president Grev Per) and such, the fact that Denmark and Sweden are long time rivals in RL didn't really help. The besmirching of swedes were with all probability just a desperate way for the danes to go with pride into the abyss of annexation, this is clearly seen in this quotation of Grev Per "If we're going to get invaded, we might as well deserve it". But most swedes were probably not very disturbed by the danes and used the insults as a scapegoat for invading Denmark. The Öresund's War was won quickly by Sweden but it's still a major milestone for the swedish people.

Woah, that article turned out longer than I thought it would, hope it wasn't too long.