Is our Government willing to make peace?

Day 400, 05:01 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Peter Steven

I think it can be safely said that our war against PEACE has been unsuccessful. Yes, we've learnt a lot. Yes, our military has been completely reorganised and yes, we are much stronger now than we were at the beginning of this war. But we have been repeatedly beaten on the battlefield and lost the only territory we occupied. Thousands of words have been written about why we lost, and how unfair it is, and how the French are only winning because of the help of huge numbers of Indonesian players using decoders.

But in terms of our future foreign policy, none of this matters. We no longer control any French territory and neither do any other ATLANTIS nations, except Sweden, who it looks like will soon be losing theirs. And with the current way MPPs work, and the resolve of the PEACE members to keep all of France french, it doesn't look likely that we'll be able to retake and hold any. It's possible our military leaders have a brilliant secret plan that nobody has told me about and that by this time tomorrow we'll have occupied all of France. If so, I'll take back everything. But it seems unlikely. I think my hat will remain uneaten.

My question is, what will be gained from continuing the war? We must look back to the reasons for starting the war to begin with. As far as I know, there are 3 possibilities here:

The official reason was to stop the French occupation of Switzerland. A protest, if you will. Well, I think we've made our point there. I can't imagine that many french citizens think it was worth all this to annex Switzerland. And if they haven't learnt yet, I don't think continuing this way will convince them.

Another reason may have been to gain control of more raw materials - Iron in particular. I mean, it'd be cheaper than having to import them. The reason it'd be cheaper is because then we wouldn't have to pay the import tax imposed by our government, but let's gloss over that for now. Conquering parts of France would also provide more jobs for our workers. Well, to me none of this seems like a good reason to go to war, and now that the prospect of continued territorial acquisitions seems out of the question it sounds like a pretty bad reason to stay at war.

The third reason for having a war, and this seems to be to me both the most likely and the most insidious, is because we can. I mean, it's a computer game, after all, and a computer game that lets you go to war with France! Bonus!
Yes, it's just a game. Yes, maybe we all take it too seriously. The admins added a war module, and we're English, so perhaps war with France was inevitable. But, according to the name of this game, it's supposed to be a new world. My hope, when I started playing this game, was that perhaps we could make it better than the old world. No poverty. No hatred. No war. Hmm. Not working out too well, is it? Especially since a lot of people seem to think we should be beating the French because they eat garlic and frogs' legs, and we drink tea. I mean, how could a people who wear berets and go on strike so much possibly repel a foreign invader? Well, they have.
The war has given a players a chance to fight. To explore a new part of the game. So it hasn't been all bad. But can we stop now? The people who still want to fight can find plenty of places to fight and causes to fight for, and they can do it without putting the eUK at risk of invasion and economic strain. Personally, I'd like to put all the gold going into attacks towards providing houses for homeless people and gifts for NHS clinics. But that's just me, I'm a pansy.

So what reason do we have to continue this war? Are there secret government reasons which, for security reasons, we're not allowed to know? Well, I'm afraid without knowing them I can't very well write about them in my newspaper.

If anyone can give me a good reason (one not based on greed or casual racism) to continue this war, I'd like to know. If it's good enough, I may even write an article about it.

But if not, I'd like to know if and when our government will be putting an end to this war (which, by the way, President Elvea seems perfectly willing to do, according to her newspaper).

Wow, that article went on so much longer than I'd planned...
Pete.