Join the new world

This is a bit hard for me to do - on both sides of this issue are a large number of people I respect, and whose opinions count a lot for me. But more than that, I love eIndia. And I speak as a loyal eIndian, a patriotic eIndian, in the hope that this situation is resolved in a manner that works out best for us all.

I am willing to accept all of Samnomix's Uv ajeD's argument. As he said himself - he is my eBrother, and we are both stubborn beings - but there is no one I know who is as unabashedly intellectual as he is, and I know he cares for eIndia as much as I, if not more. I hope he can accept that I speak with the same intentions, though I suspect never even half as persuasively as he.

But enough with the preliminaries. Let's get down to it.

eIndia is dying. This game is dying. Let's not fool ourselves - we're going through a small period of relative calm and activity, but we can see signs of things going wrong - many of our citizens are leaving, planning to leave, or have done so already. The community is all that keeps people together, but it won't be enough by itself. I know I wish I could do without the game and just chill in IRC all the time; but I feel like participating because discussing it in IRC or in articles is fun. But as people leave, and you have all seen me desperately plead and abase myself in attempts to make them change their minds, the tide will slowly turn and the eIndian chapter in eRepublik's history will close.

Survival is the strongest instinct in any living creature - and in any entity composed of it. eIndia's mighty heart continues to beat and we, it's citizens, guard our eNation zealously, as we should. We have a kind of siege mentality - caught on the map, caught in a little cul-de-sac of our own, somewhat removed from affairs. But happy - and stagnating. If this were real life, if we were talking about India, the mere threat of a PTO would have me reacting exactly like Samnomix Uv Ajed is. But in the real world, survival is a stepping stone to other things that we can do; there is no conception of boredom having anything to do with it. In this game, it's the opposite - it's a game, and we need to keep it interesting. We need new blood, we need new people, we need them to think differently.

I urge you to find any appreciable differences in political philosophies and ideals across party lines. I urge you to find arguments not about how we accomplish ends, but what those ends ought to be. We have nothing in eIndia but a shallow continuance of survival - boring, humdrum survival, that is ironically our doom. There is nothing here to fight about - and we are most active only around the time there is a PTO, or there is a war - but I know all of us write articles or comments asking for votes for our parties. Do we have any basis? When was the last time you felt strongly about the direction we were going in?

Our eNation might be threatened by a PTO. Our community is not. Our community and eIndia are a notion, an idea portrayed by some pixels. eIndia will live, PTOed or not, as long as we stay together, evolve, and grow. That will not happen if we remain stuck here, as we are. We will not grow but decay and grow stagnant.

These are good people, with every appearance of being amenable to integration. We're taking a big risk - but the worst case scenario is a PTO fight. The worst case scenario if we continue down this path of pure caution is a dead eNation. And - I will miss it.

I'm sorry if this is something you disagree with. But we're arguing about this! We're seeing more life in eIndia just in TALKING ABOUT THESE NEW PEOPLE. Why can we not altogether see that this is what we need? A sense of belonging to something bigger, a sense of being here and doing what's needed?

I urge you - let these people in. Let eIndia be a home for people who think alike and progress and grow, not remain contented with what they have long after what they have has decayed beyond recognition.