The Bulgarian issue

Day 1,087, 06:54 • Published in Bulgaria Bulgaria • by eDarkAngel

It has become apparent to me that in light of the current events some light need to be shown on a problem that has mushroomed from a merely internal political discussion to world headlines of late.

Some of you may know me, most probably not, others would know me as stoich. In any case I'm not one that likes to write often, but when I do, people usually need to take day off to read it all 😃. So be warned this is one of those walls of text, not for the feint at heart.

The reason I'm writing this in English is because it is aimed at the international community who is interested in getting a different point of view, one coming from inside Bulgaria and not morphed by the political or diplomatic situation. I've been the president for Bulgaria for all of V2 and have been the Minister of Economics the last and current term, still this article will not reflect an official position, but my own opinion and reading on the matter.

I'll not make pretenses that my views are the only ones that are right or should be taken for god given truth, but I always try to separate myself from the issue at hand when I try to analyze it in detail as I will attempt to do here.

I apologize for the lack of pics, but they never were my strong part, so whoever is brave enough to bare with me, I'll begin without any more delay.

To begin to understand the current situation, we need to go back 1 year in time. At that time Bulgaria was a neutral country after the dissolution of Peace GC, which it had been a founding member of. It was not a member of the newly formed Phoenix alliance, which formed on the basses of the old Peace GC.

Bulgaria has a very strategic geographical position on the map, it is the door to Asia and in being between two pairs of fairly older and stronger countries (Greece and Romania, and Serbia and Turkey), it would have a hard time to keep it's neutrality. It did however, denying both Serbia and Romania passage through it's territory for months. In December Romania decided to try and force it's way through to Asia and declared war on Bulgaria and attacked. This prompted a reaction and so Bulgaria quickly was accepted into Phoenix as a member. Romanian onslaught did not succeed in full even though they managed to brake through Bulgaria and even take Marmara for 1 day. Eventually Bulgaria regained the initiative (good old times when there was such thing as strategy in the game) and together with it's active MPPs (strategy again?), managed to retake Marmara the next day, as well as push back Romania to it's cage.

In the meantime a moderate baby boom that had started already before the Romanian attack was gaining strength, and Bulgaria had grown from 200 to nearly 2000 people. We know well that those numbers do not represent real active people, still this can be considered the begging of the modern Bulgarian country, as for the first time it would not be one of the smaller countries which are just colors on the map.

First national catastrophe. Later Hungary and Phoenix attempted an ill advised operation against Romania. Ill advised because of the liability to such operations that HK was at the time. As part of that alliance operation, and because of tactics (miss them anyone?), Bulgaria had to block Romania to keep the initiative on the Hungarian side. This however activated the Romanian MPPs against Bulgaria and would ultimately cost Bulgaria dearly. To make a long story short, USA attacked HK, and forced Hungary on the defensive, Romania regained it's territory but now had activated MPPs against Bulgaria, which it used to delete the country off the map.

In the meantime, Bulgaria had let through it's territory Serbia which made it's way to Asia, and this was the decisive moment for the future to be number 1 power in Phoenix and the world. At the focal point of the resulting Romanian campaign was a battle for Sofia which coincided with the battle for Germany's last region. Since Bulgaria had 1 province under the control of an allied nation, and despite it's natural inclination to defend it's territory to the last, Bulgaria understood the alliance choice and the importance of the battle in Germany, and even fought for Germany while it was getting deleted from the map.

During that time started the big baby boom, which culminated in Bulgaria having a population of 16 000 and being the 8th most populous country. Of course it was only 16 000, because of the utter incompetence of the administration of the game, which we have kindly been observing up close for the past year. During the peak of the baby boom, when more than 3 000 players were signing up daily, the erep site was down for more than 10 hours a day and in the prime time.

That baby boom brought many problems to the youngest country in the game at the time, as it's population had grown from 200-300 to 16000 in less than 6 weeks. Those problems would mare internal politics for much of the early development of the country which would escalate into the formation of two distinct sides in direct opposition, the employment of all types of tricks to discredit and eliminate political opponents and generally a very unstable political scene. This would culminate at the end of May when the outgoing Bulgarian President, would attack Romania once again, on his own. This attack together with a similar one by Slovenia would gain Hungary the initiative (did I mention tactics?), and allow it to stop the offensive launched against it and regain it's lost territory.

This would lead however to the second deletion from the map of Bulgaria, this time voluntarily as Phoenix would judge that protecting BG in the long term would be too expensive. I myself was against that decision at the time, however Bulgaria played as the faithful (some would call it submissive) ally it was. In retrospective we can say this was a big mistake, however in retrospect it is easy to make judgments. The result of this was that the opposition which had rallied around the nationalists fraction in Bulgaria won the next elections, but did not have a clear idea how to rebuild the anew devastated Bulgarian economy which was still not big enough to support it's population. The result was a mass exodus of players from Bulgaria, so much so that at one point there was nearly 2000 Bulgarian players in Phoenix countries, mostly Russia and Serbia.

It's important to mention here that during the second deletion, most Bulgarians headed the call of the Serbians, Phoenix and the government of Bulgaria and relocated to LK, where they would be the 3rd most populous nation to fight for Serbia in the ensuing battles during the last month before V2.

In the middle June before we all knew V2 was imminently coming in just a couple of weeks, I set out with a goal to unite Bulgarians and rebuild our country in a strong country that can be a factor. The need for us to unite was recognized by all at this point, even the nationalists, which now for political reasons deny it, backed me up back then. As a result I was the only candidate at the ballot for presidential elections. My main goal was to unite Bulgarian players not politically but as a team, and to gain a high region so that we can build a viable economy.

V2 was a testing time for all nations, however Bulgaria came out of it better than most countries, not because it gained much, but because it lost the least (oh thank you admins). So much so that at the end of V2, just a week after it had lost it's most important battle in all of it's history and still reeling with feelings of being abandoned by it's allies, Bulgaria would do the most damage pound for pound in the battle of all battles for LK. To keep it in perspective I'll just say that Bulgarian players did more, fights, more damage and more kills than the US in that battle and the fight was during US prime time and middle of the night for Bulgaria.

The big disappointment of BIH. Really this is the focal point for all current problems, it all begins here. With the introduction of the consumption of bread, no country is able to last long without a high grain region. Consequently though I had been in negotiations with Iran for a long time already, but was respectful of their wishes and waiting for their internal discussion to come to it's natural conclusion, without applying pressure, I was forced to make a hard decision and a gamble. To go for BIH even though I was fully aware that Bulgaria cannot keep the region on it's own and rely on the faith that Phoenix will show up when needed to secure it for us. This was needed as the alternative would have been complete and utter economic ruin for one of the now top 10-12 countries in the game as it alone had no high grain at the time (thank you admin for all your love).

Eventually when BIH was contested, Phoenix did come, however it underestimated the battle and not enough was done. Consequently the region was lost and thus Bulgaria was plunged once again into economic uncertainty. In economic terms the economy had not lost from BIH, but the state coffers were almost empty. The bigger damage though was the lost of faith in the alliance among the general population. It had put it's hopes in their allies for whom they had been giving everything for the past 8 months and those hopes had been dashed. Still as I mentioned Bulgaria did more damage in LK than in BIH battle, so while disappointed it still remained the loyal ally and went beyond the call of duty for it's allies, in this case Serbia.

At that point in front of me stood only one possibility to keep the country from disintegrating and that was to strike a deal with Iran, which eventually happened, for which Bulgarians will be thankful to Iran. Of course Turkey was the honest ally in this case and allowed Bulgaria passage though it's territory, which even though not always readily apparent is very much appreciated by the sensible players.

After the loss of BIH, Slovenia fell in a bad situation after all it's gold was stolen and at the time I gave them a loan on my own as I believed that helping them out at that point was more important than any gold. Of course our ability was very limited so the loan was small. Later Slovenia would repay the favor and help Bulgaria in a crucial moment to finance it's path to Iran, for which we're grateful to them as well.

The deal for high grain with Iran was initially criticized, both internally and internationally, as throwing away money, developing a foreign region, paying too much and so on. With time though it has become apparent that it is a huge success and not only for Bulgaria, but has sparked a resurgence in Iran as well. The sharing of resources in this case has been beneficial for all, Iran got a fresh influx of capital for a resource they could not hope to develop themselves, Bulgaria got the resource needed to build up it's economy and phoenix got an increased military power form two of it's members.

However it brought another problem to the forefront, the maturing of the young country into a stable one which now started to have more needs than just a high region and the preservation of it's territory. Some call this selfishness, greed, betrayal and what not, I call it evolution. The small fledgling country nestled between giants had grown into a nation able and daring to measure to the rest. With the new economy and after 1 year of fighting diligently and many times beyond the call of duty for it's allies, the Bulgarian players felt the need for their own battle. This need started arising before even Macedonia was announced that it will be added. It was an internal discussion, which at the time was not of interest to anyone outside Bulgaria. Namely, where do we go from here, now that we have the high grain region, and the economy is not the main problem now?

Of course Bulgaria is not yet a power that can dictate anything on the international front, so all possibilities remain strictly connected to a willingness from it's alliance to back it in any endeavor. With the changes of the MPP rules this has become even more trough, as now defacto all battles are Phoenix vs EDEN. With the announcement that Macedonia will be added to the game, the discussion started to include the question, how do we proceed from here. Still this was an internal discussion, and many different opinions were there, mostly there was no single view that was prevailing, except a general tendency that Bulgarian players preferred no conflict with Macedonian players.

I wanna make it clear that I'm separating conflict and war, as the discussion at the start was about our own war in terms of getting something new into the playing of the game, and against a conflict where we would be ground into a long-term war of hate. Of course there are people both in Bulgaria and Macedonia that would like to see a long-term war of hate and they have been overly active on this, however it is the strong hand diplomacy that was employed on the matter that has radicalized the position of most players in Bulgaria.

So we finally come to the core of the current problem. An internal discussion of how we should proceed in terms of our diplomacy and playing towards Macedonia was received as a threat and thus diplomatic pressure started to be applied on Bulgaria. This middling in the internal matters caused a strong reaction, which was to adopt the position that Bulgaria would post a veto on Macedonia's membership to Phoenix, until it decided for itself weather it wants a possibility to wage war on the country in the future or not. This was exploited by the more radical political forces in BG and mostly under the guise of nationalistic ideas both in Bulgaria and Macedonia (no one is innocent here) an increasingly more radical opinion started forming into the general Bulgarian population. The reaction however was stronger against the attempts to meddle into the internal matters of the country and transform the internal issue for Bulgaria into a Phoenix one, and consequently coerce Bulgaria into accepting a logical decision.

Currently the opinion is quite polarized and it is in favor of a war with Macedonia. The increasing diplomatic and other pressure on the country, mainly from Serbia which has been doing most of the lobbying for the Macedonians has started to create strong anti-Serbian sentiment as well. Most of all though what has been the most damaging is attempts to portray Bulgaria as an unfaithful ally, backstabbers and a country that betrays it's allies. I have to object to that and cannot accept it, not for a minute. The truth of the matter is that almost always Bulgaria has been one of the few countries in both mega alliances that has committed the most to the important battles. We were there and pound for pound did more than most in London, NOB, RA, CH, LK, in the German RWs, in the current Russian RWs, FER and many other places. We have fought to the limitations of our resources often spending a higher % of our income than most for our allies. So any allegations about unfaithfulness and betrayal are a slap in the face which only radicalizes the opinions of Bulgarian players of Phoenix as an alliance and the countries which have started to make such allegations.

Anyone alive still 🙂, after giving this retrospect to the current Bulgarian dilemma I'd like to analyze the situation a little more and to pinpoint the different possibilities. Again this is my opinion and I do not force it upon anyone. To begin I have to say that Phoenix has internal problems it needs to solve, they have crystallized in this case, but are not a result of it. Not long ago France was a candidate for membership to Phoenix, and was initially turned down. It had to clear up some issues with Hungary and Indonesia before in a second voting was accepted. What is significant about this is the way the actual situation was handled, while there was still lobbying for France by other countries in Phoenix it was never ultimate. France sat down and resolved it's differences with the countries which initially denied it membership, and consequently it became a member. To me this is the way to go about it and as the history shows, it has been done already. What is more significant here is that the special treatment Macedonia is receiving is not only damaging to Bulgaria which has been a long time member of the alliance but also to all current members. France has every right to be unhappy since they had to "pay their dues" to become members of the alliance. Also for a long time France cooperated with Phoenix without it being a full member.

This means that Macedonia can be protected and cooperation with it is possible even if it does not become a member of Phoenix right away. Currently diplomacy has gone on the scale of decide Macedonia or Bulgaria, even on the basis of Phoenix or Bulgaria. This of course should be evident to all that is not good for the alliance, and can only result into it's death, because if this becomes a precedent then there is nothing stopping the exclusion under some pretext of another "opinionated member". The only winner is EDEN and that should be clear to all.

The position of many players in this dispute are understandable, however I have to say that this matter no matter who tries to intervene can only and will only be decided internally in Bulgaria. The choosing of sides that has started is only weakening Phoenix and alienating Bulgaria. I like to think that is not the aim, however with the current politics this is the result.

Putting Bulgaria in a corner is only going to force it to either leave the alliance and keep the respect it has earned as a dependable and independent nation, or succumb to pressure and give up on it's diplomatic sovereignty.

By radicalizing the problem it no longer has a simple solution, it is in the paramount interest of Macedonia they have an ally in the face of Bulgaria, yet most their effort has been to seek lobbying from other Phoenix members to push through their interests. Weather a way out for Macedonia can be found is a matter that will become clear in the near future, because the Bulgarian problem has now transformed into a Macedonian one, and it's fate rests squarely into Bulgaria's hands. The reality of it all is that Macedonia can only hope for long term success with a neutral or allied Bulgaria, and if Bulgaria is forced out of Phoenix, this will not be possible, thus the balance of power may drastically change in the region.

There may still be a solution, but it now depends on a change in the attitude within Phoenix, the way it chooses it's priorities and most importantly internal diplomacy. Finding a common goal for the alliance, both short term and long term that can suffice for all it's members needs and wishes, not only Bulgaria's or Serbia's. It needs to start making concrete plans that include and involve all countries and prioritize the development not of the countries itself but the people within these countries. Because no matter how much gold and resources you have if you do not have the heart and souls of the people you'll not have anything. Numbers on paper can transform into reality only after people put their faith into a common cause, a common cause that the common people can recognize as their own. The Bulgarian problem, which was how to find a solution for the new needs of it's people in a new situation as the country has evolved over time, has become a Phoenix leadership problem, of how to unite the common players and prioritize them over secular national interests. Because in the new reality of the game in the flawed bi-polar model, the only way forward is through common goals and interest rather than national ones. This however has to happen through dialogue and not shotgun diplomacy.

I personally would prefer to see a strong Phoenix, however not at the expense of a humbled or weak Bulgaria, just as I would not want a humbled or weakened allies, but strong ones that I can rely on.

Congrats to all that have survived to the end of it all, I hope it has been worth the reading and remember, be different be yourself.

eDarkAngel (Stoich)

PS. I've changed the name of the article, as I inadvertently used the same name as an article published a little while back by another author. This was not intentional by any means.