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(WARNING: This article is considered EPIC. It is massively long and it could not be prevented.)

Click on Images to Enlarge them.


-Conspiracy Theory or Fact?
-Congress
-NAU & Trivia
-The Interview
-Final Thoughts


Welcome one and all to yet another Edition of Hephaestus' Anvil! This is a very special as noted in the title, why is it so special? Well….that would spoil the surprise if I just told you here wouldn’t it? In a place of war and little peace, we must remember that while we are all simply raindrops in this world called eRepublik, we can all make a difference, be it a hard push or a gentle nudge in the right direction. Get involved in eRepublik, in your government, in the events of the eWorld.

Speaking of the events in the eWorld, it has chaos for the past few weeks I want to talk about something. With Russia’s failure to impeach its banned President yet again EDEN forces have been given another chance to turn the current Asian Campaign around. The slew of failures, have only been enhanced by the impending deadline to finally allow Russia to remove their perma-banned President removing their self imposed block.

Everyone knows the targets of the Asian Campaign; it is simply a matter of time at this point till these battles are waged. But the second Russian Failure to impeach their President left me wondering, why? EVERYONE knows that he has been banned and EVERYONE knows that while he is President, Russia is no more than a dead lump of coal in the stocking. There is no reason at all that is should have failed a second time, so why did it?





Conspiracy Theory or Fact?

This next bit is entirely my personal thought process, I might be wrong, but this is the only conclusion I could come to without calling the entire Russian Government’s intellect into question…. Which sadly (Because I have Russian ancestry IRL) I can not entirely rule out at this point. Many people have said that this was an “EPIC FAIL” on Russia’s behalf like in Lieutenant Scheisskopf's Stars and Stripes Journal. But I’m not sure that’s the case, here is what I came up with.

I thought to myself, what would Russia have to gain by this? The immediate thought most people come up with is noting, in fact it hurts them. When you think about Russia as a whole you say nothing as well. Now think of Russia in the global sense, not much at just first glance but look closer. I made a map for this section click on it to make it larger.





This map marks all the High Iron regions all over the Globe by alliance and by nation. This is up to date as of 20:00 Server Time December 26th 2009. Now look at Phoenix, they have Six High Irons the majority of the eleven worldwide. Three times the amount EDEN has. Now look at who owns them and we get to the bottom of this, until recently Phoenix had seven but with the fall and subsequent return of Lioning to China that number dropped to what it is now.

Only four of the six are national regions, now you see where I’m going here. If Hungary and Indonesia lose their one high iron region each then there are four left. The two Russia has and the two in Brazil. This makes Russia and Brazil the economic powerhouses in Phoenix and gives them the upper hand in the Alliance. Without their high iron region, Hungary would slowly die and pass into a two clicking coma.

The two nations that would benefit are ‘bizarrely’ otherwise occupied while America prepares to make Runs on Heilongjiang and Karnataka. Brazil is no doubt trying to secure the rights to use KwaZulu Natal, South Africa again to re-invade Australia. They may or may not just decide to simply try and force their way through, to be honest it’s not like South Africa could stop them. It will be interesting to see the timing of this if it does happen. Say it coincides with the eUS’s attempt to take one of the two High Irons?

Then there is Russia. In real life I am part Russian and proud of my heritage but I am 100% American. Failing to impeach your banned President once is a simple mistake to make; dozens of countries have made this mistake in eRepublik, but twice… no that was unprecedented until Russia did it. Now most would pass this off as stupidity or incompetence, but I can’t immediately accept that. I think what we are seeing is some of these eighteen people who voted no realizing that Russia would profit from Hungary and Indonesia losing their high irons.





In other world news France is actually doing decently against Spain, which is surprising to say the least. The last attack was a failure but their offensive about a week ago meet with some success, the fact they are on the offense at all is interesting. France has a long and distinguished history of many things but one of the better known and that they are made fun of worldwide for is as follows.





The war in Asia has taken a few hits for EDEN as the American advance on NK was stopped cold and pushed backwards by some game glitches and fouled region swaps. America’s chance to turn this around has come with the Russian failure to impeach their banned President again. The move is no longer up to Phoenix, its America’s turn, who will prevail in the end? Who knows for sure, but it will be an EPIC battle, that is for sure. Now we move onto some other topics.

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Congress

I want to thank those who voted for me even though I have no clue who you are, having send my voters elsewhere this election to help out other worthy candidates. I will continue to do my best serving our country in Congress. If you ever have a question for me feel free to ask. If you are not living in either Florida or California please message me about receiving a moving ticket so you can take advantage of the Q5 hospitals there. I’m keeping this short sweet and to the point because next edition I’m doing a political article in which I’ll expand on this.




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NAU & Trivia





NAU is now open for sign ups once again, it’s a place for you to learn about eRepublik and the History of this eWorld that we all in habit. If you’re interested in signing up for classes or have a question about it, contact Fionia, the Dean of NAU. If you are one of my many international readers people PM your Congressman or check your Forums. Most nations have one of these set up for their citizens. It is to everyone’s advantage that people are educated in how eRepublik works. You can sign up for the NAU here.

NAU Sign Up Sheet

Fionia is also hosting a Trivia Competition as seen in her Latest Article. The last winner Iasov won the final round, surprisingly both contestants missed the final eRepublik Question, “What eRepublik holiday falls on the 18th of each month?” The answer was “Banhammer Day” which Fionia told them after closing the question, which was shortly followed by a curse word and a facepalm from both finalists.





Sign up for the Next competition now! You must be a citizen of an EDEN member and for obvious reasons… speak English.

USWP Trivia Competition Sign Ups

Now ladies and gentleman it’s time for that all important part that you all have been waiting for…

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This time we have a very interesting situation. I originally had planned to have a particular guest, but when Shoot came to me with an opportunity I couldn’t pass up the chance. So here we go. I have TWO guests this time with a slightly different format. I allowed each guest to ask the other six questions of their choosing; my first four questions are mine and are fairly similar to each other. I will list them as The guests name “[X]1.” For example. I will do this as best as I can; though color coding would have been useful eRepublik does not allow color text any more for some reason. What makes this interview very special is my two guest’s affiliations. One is from EDEN, the other is from Phoenix.

Now to introduce my two guests…

I will decide who will go first by virtue of a coin toss.



*Flips*
It came up Tails.

My first guest is a very well known and very active Beta Giant. He is the former two term President of Turkey, a seven term Congressman, at the current time (00:20 eRepST, December 28th 2009) he has 101 Medals, and is currently the Supreme Commander of the Armies of Phoenix, ladies and gentleman! Let me introduce….




BattalGazi


My second guest is the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland, former Spokesman (Spokeswoman 😉) of Polish Government, Former Congresswoman, and the Foreign Affairs Organizer of EDEN. Ladies and gentleman! I introduce to you…




Vingaer


(These Types of Marks will indicate who the question was asked to.)
[BattalGazi]2.
[Vingaer]2.

(These indicate who answered what for the final six questions each.)
BattalGazi:
Vingaer:


(Author's Note: I will be adding random images to break up the wall of text.)


1. How did you first join eRepublik and why?

BattalGazi: One of my real life friends wanted me to join, I liked the game a lot and I am still here 🙂

Vingaer: In the beginning of June a friend of mine pasted the link to eRep and told me: "Look at the map". IRL I'm a student of the international relations, so I had troubles accepting the fact that an alliance consisting of Indonesia and Hungary owns the world. Oh, and I felt inspired by Polish President's nickname, Fartman (also known as crc).

I stayed mostly due to the fact that Kraków, the city in which I live, has a wonderful eRep community. That's how after a week of playing I met some really experienced Polish players, like Coledon, MiladyChaosu, miudyk, aryss and adios_pl. They talked about selling iron and Q5 weapons with so much enthusiasm, that it was simply impossible to resist all wonders of this game.

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[BattalGazi]2. So what is it like being the Supreme Commander of the Army of Phoenix?

It is a difficult job of course. But since I am interested in wars, I love my job 🙂

[Vingaer]2. So what is it like being the EDEN Foreign Affairs Organizer?

I guess I finally found a good job for me and my personality, as being FAO requires mostly being open to talk to various kinds of people. It's also a completely new position inside EDEN HQ, so it's up to me, my ideas and the Supreme Commander's approval which direction it'll take. FAO's responsibility is mostly helping SC's to take care of EDEN's relations with neutral and hostile countries. Personally I'd like to improve the contacts inside EDEN itself and bound the Brotherhood even closer by achieving better standards of communication between MoFA's. I have some thoughts and conceptions here and there, however starting anything during holidays period seems to be quite pointless, as not everyone is even around 😉.

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3. During your time here, who would you say has been your closest friend in eRepublik?

BattalGazi: I have a lot of friends in eRepublik, I have even met some of them in real life. But I will say Poker if I had to choose just one- but in reality I have many close friends.

Vingaer: I can't name only one person, as I got close with a bunch of people during my time spent in eRep.

First and foremost I'd point out Cerber, the current President of ePoland. We met during Andrew6w6's first term as a government's spokesman and deputy Minister of Finance. At first we didn't really like each other, but as the sleepless nights were passing, we developed a really unique relationship just as two persons with quite similar life experiences. In October we even had a chance to meet outside the game, as Cerber stayed at my place for a whole week. From that point, we frequently visit each other IRL and work together in game as the President and MoFA of ePoland. It sometimes annoys people when we click from the same room 😉 The next true friend I met is surely Martinoz, who traumatized me and Cerber by the mere fact of living with us for few days.

The other players I'd like to name in here are: adios_pl, Vinniczek, Szkodniq, cameleeck, and on a more international level shoot, who is a really great guy to hang out with, not nearly as scary as the rumors present him.

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[BattalGazi]4. So personally what do you think of the United States and the EDEN countries?

Despite being enemies in game I respect both USA and other EDEN countries. Without them game would be boring, after all we need someone to beat ^_~


[Vingaer]4. So personally what do you think of the Phoenix countries?

Personally? Well, I'm Polish, so at first I couldn't understand why the heck are we fighting against eHungary. In real life Poland and Hungary are the best pals and share a common history. If we looked at eRepublik only from RL point of view, it'd be natural to play together as allies. Sadly, it can't happen, as there's no way that ePoland will leave eCroatia or eHungary – eSerbia.
To be honest, I like eHungarians. I may not agree with their policy in eRep (eg. the attack on neutral at the time eSlovakia) or even fight against them on the battlefield (ad we are in EDEN/PH😵, but I don't think of them as my enemies – they're just opponents, who I respect.
As for the rest, a friend of all is a friend to none. You oughta have some conflicts in order to make this game worth playing, eh?

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(Authors Note: From this point Forward I allowed each to ask the other questions. None of this is me. I will add “Question asked by…” to the questions to help clarify.)

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5. Question asked by Vingaer, Why did the former PEACE members of this new alliance decide to call it Phoenix? Isn't that just ripping off Harry Potter? What other names were considered?

BattalGazi: Haha nope! You seem to like Harry Potter, something normal for girls, but I can assure you it had nothing to do with fantasy fiction. Phoenix means 'reborn from ashes' for us. Only the strongest alliance will survive, and that is why Phoenix is still alive ^_~


5. Question asked by BattalGazi, When we look at Polish babies, carefully, we see that more than 9000 Polish babies are dead (have 0 exp) and a lot of others are also inactive. What do you think about this? Another fail on a baby boom? ;P

Vingaer: It happens to every single baby boom, average numbers are like that 😉. And well, considering that at the very moment of writing this answer ePoland has over 35.3k citizens, only 9k of dead bodies make a very good result. I also like seeing the white-red flag by the words "top 1".

Even when those dead citizens will be buried by admins, I shall remember forever that a single attack on all six worthless (no high resources etc.) Polish core regions costed about 9k gold. Lowering down the walls, especially the one in Great Poland (1.4kk dmg points) requires heavy tanking. By all means, BRING IT ON, guys 😉 !

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6. Question asked by Vingaer, As far as I know you're the head boy in PHX and I would like to know what your current military goals are, like: expanding the alliance of Phoenix, win against your opponents or just try and hold the current forts while reaping the benefits of high resources?

BattalGazi: Let me rephrase that question for you: What is EDEN doing? 😉 Let's just say we are going to have fun 🙂


6. Question asked by BattalGazi, According to numbers, we have only a small number of women players. What do you feel as a woman citizen of eRepublik?

Vingaer: I feel happiness ;p. My nickname doesn't really indicate my sex, so actually I'm used to being considered a man at first. I've never had any troubles regarding being female, apart from troll texts like 'TITS OR GTFO' or some guys claiming that I'm being given responsibility only because of my breasts.[sic]

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7. Question asked by Vingaer, Do you think eRepublik medals are important? Would you ever sacrifice something in real life, eg. a date, just to have an opportunity to score another BH?

BattalGazi: Sure, getting medals is one of the most important parts of the game for a lot of players. But real life comes first for me, I even lost a lot of BH medals because of real life events 🙁


7. Question asked by BattalGazi, What is your opinion about the Spain-Poland fights in Peru?
Vingaer: It was one big misunderstanding, which is already solved between all parties involved. I regret that due to communication failure we all became exposed to some heavy propaganda and some of our citizens lost the sense of reality for a few moments. Let's hope we all learned our lesson and there won't be another event like that one.

Right now everyone thinking that ePoland and eSpain don't love each other madly should read Durruti's article and all the wonderful comments under it. See you soon, Spanish friends!


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8. Question asked by Vingaer, If you could, would you like to be Polish? (+ explain your answer)

BattalGazi: In real life I am proud of being Turkish. In eRepublik I don't mind being citizens of other countries. But I don't think I would like to be Polish; after all we play this game to win, not to lose all the time, so being Polish isn't what I want...


8. Question asked by BattalGazi, I always think of Greece attacks on Turkey as kind of war games. Thanks to EDEN, Phoenix gets free war games every day, I take them as gift. But since Christmas is over, do you think EDEN will stop giving free war games as a gift to Phoenix?

Vingaer: Yes, Turkey-Greece war is indeed a wonderful opportunity to train during Christmas. I'm more fond of German attacks on Saxony, which provided ePoland this big yadda baby boom and yet another free training war. It also looks like trainings on both New Year's Eve and the New Year are going to be covered by Italy.

I'm glad that we share costs of TW's between 3 alliances!

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9. Question asked by Vingaer, That's a question from Polish community, so feel the pressure of 32k citizens: what's your opinion on donner kebab?

BattalGazi: I am proud of donner kebab :>

A lot of people think Turkey when they hear "donner kebab", just like they think of Poland when they hear "failure" :3

Pressure? What pressure? Babies pressure? Sounds funny 😉


9. Question asked by BattalGazi, Have you ever spent real money on eRepublik? And are you planning to spend more because of personal trainers, especially?

Vingaer: I never spent ANY real money on eRep, moreover I never intend to. It's a game which eats a lot of my time, why then should it eat my real money as well? No point in that. Besides, I never tank or anything like that and my citizen is painfully weak anyway 😉

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10. Question asked by Vingaer, Would you give a Christmas gift to a girl -- full WB during an attack on HelloKitty? 😃

BattalGazi: Although I don't celebrate Christmas, and I am done with Christmas gifts- I sent my gifts to Stanci 🙂

So sorry, maybe next year, I am sure you will be still trying to get Hello Kitty at that time ^_~


10. Question asked by BattalGazi, Do you think will USA be able to win in Asia? And even if they win, can they hold it? (PS:We both remember Jilin and Liaoning 😉 )
Have faith in the US, Battal. Always. http://www.erepublik.com/en/battles/show/8380 😉

Take Care!
Thank you for the interview. And thank you Battal for your questions 😉!

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I would like to thank you both for taking the time to answer my and each others questions! I hope my readers enjoyed that I know I did 😛

Final Thoughts

I have one or two more things to say before I mercifully release you all from this massive article. I want to say thank you to my subscriber and voters to my articles. They take a lot of work and effort, but I enjoy every second of it. Since meeting my last goal of 500 before the New Year, I have set a new personal goal for myself, since I am almost at 600 I have decided to, yes why not, make my next mark 1,000 subscribers. Thank You all very much.

My next article won’t have an interview sadly but it will be entertaining none the less! With that I bid thee farewell and exit with my traditional quote.

“Let us resolve to be masters, not the victims, of our history, controlling our own destiny without giving way to blind suspicions and emotions.”
- John F. Kennedy


Your Friend, Devan Kronos
Proud USWP Member



P.S. Vote and Subscribe Today!

This Article is dedicated to my eWife, Fionia, who is a constant companion at my side and friend who means the world to me. <3