Operation Swift Fury: Friendship, Trust, and Sacrifice

Day 1,498, 09:07 • Published in USA USA • by Sir Gulden Draak

If you are a huge erep dork, or you were perhaps bored one day you may have scrolled through the different CP elections we have had seeing who won which election and by how much they won it by. If you happened to stumble upon the August 2010 election, you may have noticed something strange. First, is that less than a 1000 votes were cast, second is that St. Kerms took in over 75% of them, and third is that only a few parties endorsed candidates. If you have ever wondered what the f*** happened, just sit back and relax because I got a story to tell you. It is a story of friendship, trust, and sacrifice, all centered around something known as Operation: Swift Fury

Background

It all started late in July of 2010 when Croatia was wiped from the map. Bradley Reala was CP at the time, and he faced some heavy criticism for not doing enough to help Croatia in their time of need. Impeachment was discussed, the Secretary of State LaurenBug quit, and Harrison Richardson took over as the new Secretary of State publishing this article as an apology. Needless to say, tensions were high between us and one of our oldest allies in Croatia. Something needed to be done, to show that we still cared for them.



Things were not good

Introduction, Operation: Swift Fury

Though Croatia being wiped from the map was terrible, we had a chance to redeem ourselves on August 5th 2010. Before the CP elections, Croatia came back on the map and at the time the erep rules stated that they had open citizenship. This means that any citizen could show up on election day and vote for the candidate of their choice. Naturally, PHOENIX (remember them?) viewed this as the perfect opportunity to PTO Croatia and from there they could pretty much ruin them. Something needed to be done, so Operation: Swift Fury spearheaded by Harrison Richardson was put into place. You can read the article by following that link, but the gist was that we would hold a off-site election on August 2nd 2010. That election would determine the winner, and therefore we could all go to Croatia on the 5th to ensure that they were not PTO’d. The plan sounded great to me, but it was obviously met with resistance. People believed that those in power were buying the election, or that their votes were not going to be counted. Though there was some dissent, most citizens agreed this was the best solution in order for us to pay back Croatia for screwing them over.

The Aftermath

On August the 2nd, the off site election did indeed take place. St. Krems won handily, but there were several problems. The API crashed earlier in the day preventing a great deal of people from voting, but it was clear that Krems was the favorite candidate amongst people in the eUSA. There was a lot of outrage, as people felt cheated. However, during the next few days people realized that something bigger was at play and people calmed down. The election on the 5th was a great success, Krems was elected CP and ended up being an excellent one. Several of our citizens moved to Croatia to vote, and we were successful in electing Fabius thus preventing the PHOENIX PTO.

Friendship, Trust, Sacrifice, and the Future

I remember when the election was over on the 5th feeling a great deal of pride in myself and in the eUSA. Croatia has always been a great ally to us, and it felt good to pay them back for all they have done. I have never really met a Croatian player that I did not like, and it felt great to repair our relationship. Though I remember some anger from them, most citizens were reasonable, understanding that we would come to help them. For that I am grateful, because it would have been easy for them to write us off as weak allies. So their friendship and trust in us will resonate with me as long as I play this game. There was also a great deal of sacrifice made, particularly by our citizens. It was not easy for many to grasp this off site election, but they did it because they knew it was the right thing to do. Sacrifice was also made on the part of Fionia. Even though the Reala administration was rough, she was seen by many as a front runner for the August election. She would have in all likelihood received the USWP nomination, and most of the time the candidate that receives that nomination wins the election. She could have protested the situation, but she did not and she let things play out. For that, we should also be grateful. I was also pleased that we could unite as a nation recognizing that something bigger was at play.



United we stood, and united we still stand

Now my question to you, as we move on to the future, as many of you probably don’t even remember this happening. As a leader, could you pull something off like this? As a citizen, would you make the sacrifice for our allies? I suppose only time will tell as we may one day be faced with a situation such as this. Until then....

Stay thirsty my friends,

Sir Gulden Draak