Atlantis - From a Father's Perspective

Day 467, 17:56 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Dishmcds
I'm going to offer an honest opinion of Atlantis, whether you like it or not, from a founder's point of view. It's not going to be extremely nice, but isn't all bad either. I think, however, it's better that you heard it from someone who knows what Atlantis is supposed to be, rather than some power hungry teen trying to earn respect he can't do in other situations.

The Past - A Foundation

Atlantis was initially developed in June of 2008, which most people don't know. There were several main principles involved. It all started one night on MSN, with myself, Forconin (President of Norway), and the President of Romania. At that moment, Romania was considering joining the NA, but we were looking to expand on a more global level. The current alliances, as they stood, were the NA, MA, and FIST. The MA had begun to unravel, with it's membership being put on hold in July for all members while they "re-worked" their contract and alliance terms, and Spain, among others chose to begin negotiating with other alliances.

The theory behind it was simple. Norway had the NA countries, Romania became part of the NA, and it was my duty to contact and talk to the President's from the other PANAM countries, along with Spain. Spain was interesting because in talking with Bolonia (in all honesty, the best MoFA's I ever encountered were Meiko and Bolonia from Spain, followed closely by Skinny Bones Jones from the eUK), because we had to tread lightly in the beginning. "Theoretical" discussions and emails were more likely, as it couldnt actually be proposed until the MA officially fell apart. Even discussions with Canada began with myself and then President Adam Sutler.

When it all started to come together was around mid July. Skinny had a temporary hidden forum set up for it, and all the countries interested sent representatives. At the time, membership was supposed to include the US, Sweden, Norway, the UK, Spain, Brazil, Romania, Ireland, Argentina, Venezuela, and Brazil. It would have put the newly forming PEACE GC to shame at that point.

The turning point for Venezuela and Brazil was the attack on Hungary. Those two countries had ties to PEACE for some months, and the Romanian invasion of Hungary pushed them out of the alliance. Mexico wasn't accepted for some odd reason (I think it was their inconsistency at the time), and Ireland was only turned down temporarily due to Petrescu's takeover (which actually strained relations so bad with Romania they chose to not enter once back in power in September). So it was born. An alliance with 3 of the top 5 countries in Erepublik, and 6 out of the top 10 (at the time).

But it was more than that. It was an alliance among old friends. It was an alliance that actually gave two shits about every other member. It was an alliance made to withstand the test of time, based on trust and friendship rather than strict, lengthy contracts.

The Present - A Current State of Affairs

Call me disenfranchised with it, but it's in a pretty piss poor state of affairs. Every member has it's own initiatives. Every member cares more for itself and nothing for it's allies. I'll give credit to several people for holding it together.

First, Meiko did very well trying to hold the strings together tightly. She has redefined and babysat every terms PM's for some time now. She was the second SG of Atlantis (with whatshisname as the first, although he decided to keep that job for something close to a week before wussing out to responsibility), and currently has been the glue trying to organise countries, no small task for sure.

Second, there are several Generals who did a fairly decent job, and some who stick up for Atlantis daily. For starters, Misho, Astro, Hattor, and some of the others are the more outspoken people in Atlantis. Also, Shadowukcs from the UK is very supportive and tries hard to keep Atlantis functional. It's due to their efforts mainly that countries like Romania, Sweden, and Norway were so successful for quite some time. Romania is still considered the most powerful Atlantian country, and even with quite a sizeable difference in population I'd say Sweden's military is probably a number 2.

And lastly, the founding fathers of the Treaty itself. It took over 2 months to formulate, plan, and execute Atlantis. It took over two months of late night conversations, sometimes lasting well over two hours discussing what the Treaty needed to succeed. And for quite some time, it did.

The Future - The crumbling has started

Over the last three months, Atlantis has started to fall apart, really. There have been some new additions, which have helped, certainly. Finland and Croatia, as well as Poland are solid members, who can contribute very well to Atlantis structure and dominance.

Dominance, there's a word Atlantis hasnt been able to use very often anymore.

I'm not going to write about Romania's imperialistic views, because at least they're honest and open about it. They don't like PEACE, they want to grow, and they're not afraid to hide it. THAT, I can respect, at the very least. I may not like it, but the Romanians have at least been open and honest about their intent from day 1. We may not like it, we may not like their tactics sometimes, but they're more than willing to admit they use them.

I'm not going to write about the 10 open war zones Spain has. They're open about their dislikes. In fact, most of their wars they actually tried to start were more based on RL views than Erepublikan views. But they're good militarily, and that's that. Their political landscape is probably the most volatile in Erepublik, changing left to right and back almost monthly.

I'm not going to talk about France. It wasnt a UK invasion or Swedish Invasion or whatever. It was an Atlantis Invasion, and while successful at first, France fought back along with Indonesia, Italy, etc and everything seemed to be fine. Yes, the war failed to an extent, but that was that. It was what it was, and honestly I think almost everyone had moved on.

Until Now.

These days I find myself wondering what good Atlantis did, actually. The US, which has long been the most populated, statistics wise, has allowed Atlantis to grow it's ego. It thinks it's the "best" country in the eWorld. It thinks it's above the Alliance, can do as it pleases, and so on. It's not even necessarily the country it attacked.

It's the fact that Uncle Sham has publicly admitted he chose not to inform the Alliance. If you do not have your allies in Erepublik, you have nothing more or less. Some months ago, we thought we were big and bad in the US too.

Until Canada showed us just how inactive that population number actually is.

Ask the Pakistani's that fought for the US during the US/Canadian war. They'll tell you how many "American's" there were on those battlefields.

To improve your economy, it's not about being directly involved in a war. It's about being INDIRECTLY involved, ie MPP's. THATS how you stimulate your economy.

Being directly involved in a war is like playing Russian roulette. How's your currency value doing? Wasn't it the war with France that completely threw that in the crapper to begin with? Do you ever actually LEARN from mistakes, or simply make poor ones all the time?

To be honest, I'm not sure about Atlantis anymore. I'd be more than happy to side with Sweden, Spain, Romania, and almost all of the other countries in Atlantis, but frankly I'm not sure I'm comfortable siding with a country which doesn't know the true meaning of the word loyalty.

Thanks for throwing away all the hard work of all the Presidents before you, and I hope Mexico annexes you on the second wave.

Dishmcds