The Demise of Sirius

Day 2,564, 05:20 • Published in USA Poland • by Wild Owl



In this article, I will attempt to present my thoughts regarding the foreign policy adopted by several countries in 2014, with emphasis on Sirius, its formation, its flaws and its failures.

TWO was still the dominant alliance, on paper, at the start of 2014. Its flaws, which would lead to its fatality were not a secret and were known by pretty much everyone- Spain backed by Poland were following an agenda that was simply not compatible with the rest of the alliance. This would lead to Poland, followed by Spain and the UK, to quit the alliance on January 15, 2014 and “officially” start the process of a new world order.

America’s former alliance, CoT, which featured almost the entirety of Aurora, had already been defeated by that point, and many EDEN countries were without an alliance, including China, Romania, Argentina, Croatia and Turkey. Essentially, as Poland and Serbia started to finally consider engaging each other as the two big boys of eRepublik, there were a lot of countries to be won over by both sides to be truly dominant.

Spain, by association, was of course, on the Polish side of events, while Slovenia was among the first to commit to Serbia. Anti-Serb countries like the USA and Croatia, who had been separately in negotiation with Poland for months, were also pro-Poland in this, while Romania and Argentina went for Serbia due to their dislike of Spain. Three main bell-weathers, Hungary, China and Greece were extremely important in this. All three eventually went for Asteria, although the process in Greece was extremely messy with allegations of rigging and China basically swung from pro-Sirius to pro-Asteria due to an alleged PTO attempt by the Croatians there. However, with Greece going on the other side, Aurora - a continuation of CoT but without USA or Russia, ended up on the same side as Sirius due to the ever-present Greece-FYROM issue.

Due to the alliance of necessity between Aurora and Sirius, the two emerged as the bigger side (by a fraction) against Asteria. It needs to be said, that Aurius coordination, initially, was extremely good, and the two sides worked beautifully to ensure that Hungary exitted Asteria. However, problems emerged after that. Chile’s refusal to help Brazil and USA/Croatia/Turkey’s refusal to help FYROM increased the cracks between the two alliances, leading to several harsh exchanges between leaderships and players. Sirius’ inability to organise its smaller/medium sized members was also exploited by Aurora, with countries like Venezuela, Mexico and Italy who were originally in the pro-Sirius sphere, eventually joining Aurora.

Things took a turn for the worse soon afterwards when Brazil left Sirius, after signing a NAP with Argentina. The admins had recently added new countries at that point, and Argentina could get many of its Brazillian bonuses from Nigeria. This was followed by the USA’s ejection from Sirius, a move coordinated between SG of Sirius, Iain Keers and Poland’s CP at the time, magic. This, combined with several rumours of a “silent-NAP” between Poland and several key Asteria countries did not help matters.

The United States was quick to make its own alliance with the Russians, named as Pacifica. Latvia would be the first country to join, although this led to a fair bit of rage from pro-Sirius which was finally starting to organise itself into the consortium known as ‘Root’ which is little more than Poland’s sphere of influence and Georgia now.

Croatia’s removal from India, which was achieved by Argentina using their x2 determination bonus against them, essentially forced the Croats hand to sign a NAP with Serbia. Personally, I believe that the Croat-Serb NAP was an excellent move which enables Croatia to stay in the map in its core regions and collect its tax income. This move freed up a massive amount of Serb damage which would be used against other countries later on.

Argentina attempted to share its Indian holdings with other LETO countries to help them achieve a Congress, which was unsuccessful in the long term. That being said, these countries did beat off the first Aurora strike against them, which in all fairness, was terribly coordinated. However, the second strike in India by Croatia (Croatia actually landed in the Philippines first and expanded from there), Turkey and Chile would be successful and would allow them to attack, and defeat China. The Republic of China, meanwhile, would leave LETO (Asteria’s sister alliance) and join Pacifica. I would like to thank zdlemmy, the Croat CP at the time, for his cooperation with the USA in helping us to achieve this.

While Chile, alongside Croatia and Turkey (and even Paraguay initially), enjoyed regions in China, and generally good bonuses due to its pragmatic deal with Argentina, the rest of Aurora was quickly tamed by Asteria. A Bulgarian attempt to free FYROM using its own NE and several airstrikes was disastrous and Bulgaria has not had a Congress since. It is worth noting that Aurora’s only real victory in the past two months, Mexico defeating Argentina, was largely the result of US Government Combat Orders.

This month, Poland once again, attempted to join Asteria. Poland didn’t demand for Spain to enter alongside them which helped their prospects, and the Poles were quick to use propaganda against Croatia-Turkey, namely that these two countries had tried to join Asteria too. Bulgaria’s troll proposal which eventually led to them leaving Aurora, did not help stability in general in the e-world. However, Poland’s attempt to play both sides - an application alongside their NE to Brazil, led to disaster, as Croatia and Turkey were quick to seize the opportunity to leave the alliance, leaving Poland by themselves. Asteria’s need for Poland was also reduced, as the alliance now has an official NAP with the USA. It is also worth noting that there are no direct conflicts between Asteria and Pacifica, which helps both sides. Aurora has essentially failed, similar to how CoT did, due to its inability to play the game in the diplomatic chambers and the erratic behaviour by certain members combined with the ‘FYROM factor’.

Plenty of configurations exist, and a lot can happen now. I’m not going to sit here and predict the future or show my cards in an article, because frankly, a lot is variable at this point and I’m not one to show my hand anyway. Right now, its safe to say that Poland has allowed Spain to dictate its foreign policy to such an extent that it finds itself alone and friendless in the upper echelons of power outside its sphere of influence. Serbia, which did not do this mistake with Hungary, is still in an extremely strong spot and may march on to show its victory to the e-world. Whatever happens, I think its safe to say that the USA intends to stay loyal to its alliance, Pacifica, and its traditional ally, Croatia.

I hope you guys enjoyed reading my musings. This was an excellent way to pass around half an hour.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving America,
Wild Owl