Act IV: All Bets "R" Off (at the dog-races)

Day 1,680, 23:12 • Published in Canada Canada • by Plugson

(a synopsis of Acts I, II, and III can be found by linking here)


...been a hard day's night, working like a dog...

Rippin' my heart was so easy, so easy
Launch your assault now, take it easily.
Raise your weapon, raise your weapon,
One word and it's over.

Themes for today’s article are Richard the III (Act 4, sc 3 particularly) and Deadmau5’s “Raise Your Weapon” from 4x4=12. The vids complement each other and suit eCanada both at this particular moment and in its long journey over the mountains and through the dark valleys towards some place where we may finally be rid of what has constantly plagued our players over the years.

But now we have ROCKETS!!! so things gotta be looking up, certainly the prices are…a shame I bought all that gold off the MM over the last week…damn deflation…just when things were feeling consistent, they throw us another curve ball. In eRep, inconsistency and the element of surprise are consistent, despite long periods of being lulled into a false sense of calm.


Hell freezes as Tyrrellian snowflakes fall


Rippin' through like a missile,
Rippin' through my heart,
Rob me of this love .
Raise your weapon, raise your weapon, and it's over.

As Tyrael Snow said a couple months ago, “Winter is coming”…and dare I say it is finally here, and I’m feeling a mighty chill bunkered deep in the snowbanks with nothing but our flimsy discount tent.

AFK’s rise over the last week is commendable, though it is more reactionary than progressive. Today’s surprise proposals of dropping taxes and the new citizen’s fee shows that Tyrael still needs to get it together to find ways to at least encourage people to agree with his position…or just admit he’s doing all this for the amusement of the disaffected and disinterested. Wouldn’t it have been better to save those limited proposals for some grand agenda that could actually pass.

But then when one fills a spot only for the sake of being Top 5, there’s not much reason to hold onto proposals. I’m sure AFK’s purpose as a placeholder will still be realized when it comes time to endorse CP candidates.


Dick-tact-tor, MDP gets three parties in a row


Love your ego, you won't feel a thing.
Always number one,
The pen with a bent wrist, crooked king.
Sign away our peace, for your war.
One word and it's over.

Rylde is rightfully proud that his plan to create a roleplay dictatorship in eRepublik has neared its fruition 18 months later. I’m sure he plotted it so carefully along the way when we stole off to Sweden to fight against eCanada when Rolo was elected CP last summer under the guise of OPC. Or, when he later joined up with EPC to further battle eCanada when Congress foolishly pardoned Rolo without a single condition (except a tacit understanding that PTOs were a ‘no-no’). Gotta say he kept that card up his sleeve rather well hidden, though I think I caught a glimpse of it when he deftly pulled a golden hatchet from his sleeve and waved it about in great display yet finding nowhere that anyone would let him bury it.


...good night sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest

I’ll quote Rylde’s own words as we move on to the topic of EPIC’s PTO today…or earlier this month when ehBizzle was planted (just subsitute the current CP with Addy and EPIC with the UN and it’ll all make perfect sense, I think…or not, depending on which card is being up what sleeve…ach, whatever):

“We all know the UN was PTO'd yesterday and my only question is why our president with his known buddy buddy scratchin each others backs relationship with Rolo chose not to act.

They've done multiple favours for each other and if Addy cared about a strong eCanada why not ask Rolo to not help PTO the UN. Seems like what any president would do to keep a strong united country under his leadership. Maybe Rolo would have ignored him but we'll never know.”

Seems like good advice worth playing back to the ear of our Dear Leader. Yeah, isn’t stopping a PTO what a CP would do keep a strong united country under his leadership? Or at least politely ask one’s Tyrrellian lapdog, “Hey there old chap…you wouldn’t be, you know, doing that thing, with the other parties…the one that involves destabilitizing the political structure in a power shake-up that solidifies my grasp for total domination of our dear strong and united country under my leadership?...Because that would be bad, as good as that may sound. So don’t get any ideas, buddy.”

I doubt that IRC convo was ever recorded, so if that discussion ever happened, we’ll never know. All we can do is wonder if preaching about healing the nation while alternatively tanking against it and noodling up next to the target of your forgiveness/rage isn’t just some form of unchaining the left hand to let it go to work while the right hand can claim no part of what it's counterpart did. Out, out damn spot. Lather. Rinse. Repeat?


Popcorn Intermission, preceding Act V


Dropping your bombs now, on all we've built
How does it feel now
To watch it burn, burn, burn?
Raise your weapons, raise your weapons, and its over.

I can bear that Rylde has been riding bareback with hatchet brandished as he galloped from OPC, to EPC, and now on to the Coalition as part of some nightmarish merry-go-round. I can be amused that Rylde has taken us for a ride and will tell us when we can or cannot get off. Sure, that’s part of playing a game as we build up and break down a strong and united eCanada so as to reshape it into whatever suits the current dictator’s fancy. I can appreciate when fascist roleplay laid out months and months in advance can finally be put to stage for all to see and applaud at. Yeah, on with the show.

But don’t loiter around when the crowd leaves the theatre. If on the way out you bump up against the chosen patron’s the wrong way like Ak3m did, you might get a rather rude reply. Didn’t they tell you that once you’re on the ryde, you don’t get off, at least not until the conductor says so.

See that’s where my problem comes in. All the bothersome runts who linger about this game when the others leave. In small numbers they do pissy things like get elected to Congress and quit the next day to chase patriot Gold elsewhere. Or throw up hasty impeachment votes when a valid one is being discussed for good reasons. Or they troll through Congress as if they own the joint…until the day they all in unison believe that they do. Then the piss-ants get downright obnoxious. Wasn’t this supposed to be a shared venue? Bad enough they do little to be helpful to begin with and do worse when they claim the lobby as their own. The forum is becoming a theatre of the absurd that I hardly want to visit anymore.


The Shepherd and all the other little hobos
"O Buckhingham, take heed of yonder dog!
Look, when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,
His venom tooth will rankle to the death:
Have not to do with him, beware of him;
Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him,
And all their ministers attend on him."


Rippin' my heart was so easy, so easy,
Launch your assault now, take it easy.
Raise your weapon, raise your weapon, one word and it's over.

So the Dictator plays it loud and big as the whelps fall into lockstep behind with a new sense of confidence and a seeming right to tell everyone off who thinks otherwise. Like I said, I can bear most of the dictatorial stuff when its geared towards something productive like winning us battles. But when left to fester in the political lobby, let’s just say the roleplay goes sour when the underlings egos get a little out of hand. Might want to give a yank on that leash there, Rylde, for the sake of our ‘strong and united Canada.’

I suggest doing that every now and then to remind who’s on which end of the leash. The thing about releasing the hounds for your PTO is that you’d better know when to rein them in. There’s a saying I heard that goes, “Two dogs is half a dog and three dogs is none.” How many have you got roaming about and how long until all that bait you laid down for them to gobble up is gone, leaving them to look for more? Addy was no Cesar for sure, though Rylde may fashion himself as a dog-whisperer extraordinaire. Just keep an eye on how many because after three, they get a bit tricky to heel.

Rippin' through like a missile,
Rippin' through my heart,
Rob me of this love .
Raise your weapon, raise your weapon, and it's over.

I don’t know what the long-range game plan will be. I hope it involves war and getting us more resource bonuses. We could use a little more incentive to build our guns and save up for those new-fangled rockets. Even though we noiw have Patriot Gold to chase after, it’ll get a bit old after some time and we’ll be shooting for bigger fun and more bonuses. Rockets are going to eat up a heck of a lot of WRM and lower Q guns, so getting and keeping that precious oil and saltpeter and rubber will be the next thing the pack begins howling after. I know I’m getting the itch already. All that extra expenditure will be quite handy to refill the treasury, just in time for doubling the funding our most glorious MUs and deepening that Mercenary honeypot.


“I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable,
That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them,—
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun.”

All this drama makes for a very good story. I enjoy following along and tracing the rising crescendo and falling arcs that play out in this online opera. One main issue that should be addressed in future performances would be the inconsistency of some character motivations.

So he’s a badboy like the other badboys, wants to be badder but secretly wishes to metamorphise as a hero towards the end. So he finds reason to break away from the gang and like a true patriotic rebel, strikes back at the injustice of the marauding gang. Though his Hatchet of Forgiveness +3 fails to hit the right mark, he does return to his old hood hoping to do right. Yet, when he realizes just how easy it would be to rob the weary of their false sense of peace, he sees a way to make good on his dream of being the biggest badass hero around.

Okay, I got it all so far and am getting into the script. The part I don’t get is why people believe he says it like it is and plays it straight up with no bullcrap when he’s flipflopped several times on the biggest issue in the drama. Is he with them or against them? The anti-hero can’t play both sides of the fence forever. Act 5 approacheth. Will he be riding the merry-go-round to greater glory or giving up his kingdom for one last ride on the plaster horse?

I’m still holding on that he does clean house and sets all in order, gets those big production bonuses after cracking a few eggs to bake up a true dictatorship. Feed the scraps to the dogs and get on with accomplishing something we can all win at. Those rockets aren’t going to be building themselves.

"Conscience is but a word that cowards use,
Devised at first to keep the strong in awe:
Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.
March on, join bravely, let us to't pell-mell
If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell."


Love your ego, you won't feel a thing
Always number one,
The pen with a bent wrist, crooked king
Sign away our peace, for your war.
One word and it's over.