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"The ideal citizen of a politically corrupt e-state, such as the one we now have, is a gullible dolt unable to tell truth from bullshit." -- the informed opinion of any smart citizen of any e-state, everywhere, from all levels and at all times since the inception of Beta




Though I always admired Cynic Grim, I am not a cynic. Not really. It's more like I have a very healthy sense of e-skepticism.

I like to imagine that I play eRepublik with eyes wide open. Fully aware of its absurdities. Willing both to mock the applesauce and to laugh at myself for mucking around in this flapdoodle in the first place.

There is so much delicious ambiguity and ridiculousness to explore. It's a never-ending treat.



Kind of like those WWI recruitment posters, right? Like...



...Join the Air Service and learn to fly a zeppelin! Earn while you learn to "give 'er the gun"!


(?)



Yeah. OK. I mean... What? The? ...?






Anyway, I thought it might be useful, given the recent little bursts of enthusiasm around identifying super-good writers (see, for example, Aramec's "Everything Was Beautiful"), to delve into a bit of PQology.


I figure I can milk this topic for a few articles. So I will start out this time just providing a few fascinating tidbits about my e-life and writing career for those not yet familiar with with my astounding autobiography.

For the full version, kindly refer to: "Portrait of the Citizen as a Young Ostrich", part one and part two.

Also please be warned that not every single piece of information in those published autobiographies may be entirely factual.




OK. So, here are some facts, or something resembling facts, about THE LIFE and TIMES of PHOENIX QUINN (PQ):



+ I am actually an ostrich who was bird-napped from the plains of Africa and brought to eRepublik Lab for experimental purposes.

+ Eventually I learned to speak humanish and have successfully passed as a regular humanoid player now for many, many moons.

+ My bird-brother Edenim was also bird-napped and, as far as I known, still resides in e-Russia.

+ I first started to build my illustrious e-reputation via purely violent means: by participating in and promoting one of the first independent, self-funded militias --> the legendary SFP Bear Cavalry. By the way, it is entirely correct to refer to the Bear Cavalry as "legendary" not only because we ride bears into battle (Ursa Fi!), but also because we were among the very first to even conceive of the idea of a militia separate from any government entity. The SFP also introduced the commune to the e-USA, but that's another story.




OK. Enough about the SFP. Back to me...






+ (Nostalgic sigh.) The days around "WW3" were a period that I prefer to call "The Great Resistance" (

+ Anyhoo, I strengthened my reputation as "that writer" by churning out a bunch of self-serving BS fun-loving agit-prop for the old Socialist Freedom Press (
It was also a time when all the women were strong and the all the men were good-looking.





+ I beefed up my reputation amongst the intellectual e-left by taking a pi... err, by doing a pastiche on an old stand-up bit by Mao Zedong that I reworked for an eRep crowd. This bracing bromide of Bogdanovian bombast was re-printed several times. Parts of it were even translated. Here's a version of "Analysis of Classes in e-Republik" that got published in l'Internationale, which iirc I happened to be editing at the time. (Two lessons here for those starting out: 1) Give the people what they need, not what they want. 2) It NEVER hurts to get yerself on an editorial board. 3) It's not stealing if it's art. 4) Math is not as important in eRep as some people make it out to be.)

+ Then, wanting to harvest some admirers amongst the non-marxoid e-literati too, I published a number of other "deep" works touching on a variety of philosophical, political, psychological, literary, social and musical themes. One my personal favorites was "The Will to Disappearance", which popularized the still crowd-pleasing cry of: "Morbid deathfreak nihilistic interpretations of revolutionary theory fail due to their over-fascination with Hegelian idealism!"






I would opine that, while being associated with ambiguously "radical" notions is helpful, it also helps to be perceived as independent of governmental shenanigans if you want to be a respected writer. Not saying one needs to be ultra-critical of everything and everybody, or behave like a flaming asshat (ahem! Mr. Bruno, imma lookin' atchoo). But it does help to maintain some critical distance from the elites, even if some of them are your friends, if you want to be taken as something like a "serious" writer.


To that end, not too long after the time of the "The Great Resistance" I got my wanderlust on and bopped around the e-world for a bit. Was even elected to the Czech parliament once. Not that getting elected to Czech parliament is very difficult mind you. But I've always thought that that gave my e-resume a nice whiff of slightly-eastern exoticism. You know, just a soupçon of Kafkaesque with a hearty dash of Good Soldier Švejk.


+ Upon returning from that forig sojourn which took me to Russia, the Czech Republic and New Zealand, I celebrated my return to Good Old Emericka by publishing a multi-part series of hilarious philosophy lessons served by the "The Free University". All of the lessons were basically stolen from a popular little book that was on the NY Times best-seller list at the time. I adapted them for eRepbulik and didn't get caught-out until nearly the end. That series was immensely popular (and, I would say, quite entertaining too). It won me a whole new set of friends and fans. My old pal Custer still refers to me as "Professor" as a result.

+ I later reprised that "Free University" approach with a much shorter series of articles on psychological topics. See, for example: "Oh, Mother!". But that was considerably less popular. Probably because it touched on somewhat more disturbing topics, as in certain kinds of standard fixations. Like for example the weird things that happen in players' minds when viewing simple, innocent photos of people and fruit...



and





Having established my reputation with every group of thinkers I could reach, I then took a bit of advice from friends like Uhriventis and others, and tried to ratchet down my discourse into something more accessible to the common players. That's when I changed the name of my rag to "Roar of the Lion". Then later I tried to ingratiate myself even more with the ordinary proletarian masses by changing the name to "Players Quarterly", which of course just HAPPENS to have the same initials as me: PQ.

I am still working on re-inventing myself into a voice that more folks can relate to. I feel like my stuff has gotten funnier and bit gentler as a result of these efforts, so I am happy with that, but know that I still have a long way to go.
















Next time ?: Maybe some thoughts on the importance of fiction, on what "revolutionary literature" might entail, and a few other goodies relevant to a thorough-going study of PQology, which can probably best be defined as writing fake, stupid crap in a time of fake, stupid violence and then churning it all into something tasty and good and wonderful.





As always, big hugs to all (except for the vile masters of course!)

XOXOXOOXOXX,
PQ