The most powerful man in eCanada

Day 1,572, 12:56 • Published in USA Canada • by Rigour6

Imagine an entire nation about to have a referendum over just one person.

It may sound absurd, but that’s what eCanada is about to do.
At issue is whether the nation should grant an unconditional pardon to a former CP who used his position to steal between 5000 and 6000 gold from the nation.

An outsider might assume that this pardon is being considered because the individual has reformed and everyone deserves a second chance. In fact, almost the precise opposite is true. The thief has consistently rejected all attempts of reconciliation, including an offer of a fellow citizen to reduce the restitution to the nation to only 480 gold – less than a tenth of the amount stolen. The thief has used his ill-gotten gains to build influence, and has recently embarked on domestic terrorism to take over other political parties, thus reducing the democratic choice given to his fellow citizens and leaving the nation vulnerable to PTO attempts from outside.

His excuses are almost textbook sociopathy. We apparently “want” him to be the villain because he makes things “interesting”.

When Congress recently decided to grant this individual an unconditional pardon, many of those who had tolerated this barnacle of a teammate reached their breaking point. A number of the nation’s very top players began voting with their feet, abandoning the society in which they had for years become deserving pillars.

After originally suggesting that a referendum was an appropriate response if the Congress rejected a pardon but NOT if they approved one, the CP has been forced to beat a retreat and has now called for a referendum on the issue. Not surprisingly, those who have emigrated will be disenfranchised.

It is of no matter. Despite his attempts to buy votes, the thief’s pardon will struggle to exceed 40% of the votes cast, as the silent majority has made it clear for some time they really don’t want to exonerate this sort of behaviour, much less encourage it. That has become doubly clear now that the true cost of such a stand in terms of lost teammates has been tangibly demonstrated.

In the referendum, it is not even clear to me for which side the thief himself will vote. He has become so enamoured of his role as a domestic terrorist, I doubt he would want to give it up. In the past, there have been many appeals to his “better nature” – all have been sharply, snidely rebuffed.

The sad fact is that, even now, as the team faces a wide vote without trappings or roleplay on the issue, the thief continues to threaten his supposed teammates. eCanada thus faces two choices: it can give this guy a free pass and he will continue to act the villain albeit in a smaller team because of the many emigrants, or they can continue to hold to the position that stealing from the team is not to be excused and he will continue to accelerate his domestic terrorist activities. The obvious third option, that there would be a rapprochement and that the thief would at least agree to stop being a nuisance, is not even on the table. The thief makes no promises to alter his behaviour in the slightest.

And so even now, the one man who actually has the power to heal a nation through even the smallest act of contrition and reform refuses to budge. Not one inch.

There is a saying in eCanada: A nation at peace – there had to be a sacrifice.
The sacrifice in this case would be just a small amount of a single player’s pride. A simple “you guys were wrong to impeach me, but I shouldn’t have stolen the gold – my bad” would probably do. Or an indication that enough’s enough, and from here forward the player will seek to turn over another leaf and follow Wheaton’s Law.

I predict no such reassurance, as tiny and as inexpensive as it would be to offer, will be forthcoming.
The entire nation is rift, and in some cases it has descended into civil war, with former eCanadians even taking up arms against their old teammates.

And so a nation of two thousand players will burn.
All in the service of one man’s petty vanity.
A man who, even now, could end it all with little more than a single sentence.
A sentence he will not utter.

And so eCanada has become a Greek tragedy. And those of us who left, not in anger but in sadness, gaze back and can only shake our heads at what our beloved enation has become.



N by NE Volume 2, Number 1

UPDATE: The eCanadian CP has now rescinded his call for a referendum, in effect returning to his original pro-pardon position. Expect a hardening of positions on both sides now, and further emigration as some choose to wage a de facto civil war.