Organizations, Persian mercenaries and the United States

Day 3,048, 08:36 • Published in Finland Finland • by TheJuliusCaesar

The president of the United States, Israel Stevens, published an article a while back, sparking an international debate about the purported theft and about, well, the statuses of organizations themselves in the modern eRepublik. The backlash has already led to a revolution in the US. This article aims to clarify a few ambiguities about organizations in general and the particular matter in question. As organizations are perhaps a rather unknown aspect of the game for the majority of the players, it might be good to start with revising their origins, mechanics and purpose to understand what has unfolded.

I myself decided to write about the subject as I feel it is in the end beneficial for both counterparts to find mutual agreement and common course for the future. Finland wishes no ill to either nation, which both are friends of ours.

Organizations were introduced in V1, second phase of eRepublik after the beta testing ended in October 2008. Each citizen could create as many organizations as he wanted and their function was to work as a management tool for companies, as an additional storage and as a way to buy goods from abroad. It should be noted that the contemporary eRepublik in general looked and behaved substantially differently than the modern game.


Nay, luckily it’s not that complex

Later, when the game administration decided that only national organizations would be preserved, a handful of private organizations were ‘handed over’ to the state - in order to prevent them from dissolution. A large proportion of the owners of these ‘private organizations’ have later left the game, rendering their assets inactive and often re-nationalized by the government. But these are not of prime concern here, as you’re soon to find out. Of course, from that day on the vast majority of organizations have been owned by the government. As mentioned, only a few are private. This all leads to the fact that in principle (and, well, in practice) the current country president (or dictator) is the owner of each organization of that nation - in the eyes of game mechanics. Many countries have, though, respected the private nature of certain organizations to date.

The current role of organizations has significantly been diminished since the days of V1, nowadays their primary use is to speculate in monetary market as they do not have the daily limit of 10g as citizens have. Ofttimes they are also used to store funds by the governments - as the Country Treasury is rather inflexible when it comes to urgent expenses.

Now, as has been stated in the comment section of the aforementioned article, the Iranian military unit Black Academi obtained their organization - which was at the time under possession of Rogue Squadron - from a citizen with Iranian ties. As it happens, the organization gifted to Black Academi by Brave Fighter was in fact a national organization given to Rogue Squadron by the United States’ government for their use. That does not imply that the unit, least its contemporary (now permanently banned) commander(?) may gift the organization to a third party as it or he wishes. Should Rogue Squadron no longer use the organization, it by default should be returned to the hands of the government where it originated from. The Iranian military unit in question - Black Academi - should probably know that there are no organizations under ownership of military units - save for the few elite MU’s who have received one from competitions. Granted, albeit the US government waited a week for contact by Iranians after changing the credentials of the organization, it would have been a sound move to drop a message about it in addition of it. Doesn’t change or affect the ownership of the organization, though. One analogy I read about the matter went somewhat along the lines of ‘play with the matches, you get burned’. Oh the endless wisdom of Pulp Fiction.

The funds in the organization, then, are a matter to discuss too. The argument presented by the Americans has been that whereas the organization was rightfully theirs and whereas Black Academi was aware of the status of the organization they had obtained, therefore it should not come as a surprise that the funds on a illegitimately obtained organization might be taken by the rightful owner. In short, the argument contends that the events are on a par with a person A somehow getting an access into a bank account of person B, depositing funds there, then being upset when the original owner, person B, gets his bank account back and withdraws the funds person A deposited there.


Muh dollarz

However, at least in certain nations (e.g. Finland) there exists a legal principle called Condictio indebiti: should the situation unfold as described above, person A would be qualified for the returning of his funds as the person B has not done anything to earn the funds and person A has not intended to give them.. Gifts are of a different matter and done in purpose by the gifter. I don’t know if a similar legal principle exists in the US.

As the organization was indeed property of the American president, at least some sort of rent and compensation would be in order, though the three million currency taken are greatly exceeding the number those would amount.

In short, according to one perspective there was nothing wrong in taking the millions residing in their own organization. That, however, seems to be contradicting with the perspectives of another group of players. While in strict eRepublik sense nothing was done wrong as the organizations belong to the president, it indeed could be contended that the three millions were taken illegitimately. Welcome to the world of interpretations.

Now that the Iranian Black Academi has burned its fingers, perhaps it would be reasonable to hand them back the money (minus rent and compensation). Or well, would have been. The hot-headed revolution cost a substantial amount of cash for the US. That will be affecting the American willingness to return anything, believe me. Nevertheless, I believe that Black Academi has learned their lesson about the wise and not so wise ways of obtaining an organization. The global backlash against the United States was rather outsized and somewhat misinformed, though - worldwide opinion seemed not to be aware of the nature and status of the organization in question. One counterpart obtained an organization with ambiguous legitimacy, while the others took funds residing in there with ambiguous justification. Pots and kettles.

In the end, my friends feed is often filled with citizens complaining about lack of meaningful battles and about general boredom. Isn’t this what you wanted? Are you not entertained?


Yours truly,
Caesar