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The idea of war has usually been on the back burner for a social society such as eJapan, an irony for a web browser game based off of conflict in its present stage. A society marked by casual IRC chats of random happenings and of the latest gossip, forming one's rising political career, and setting up newspapers and businesses to spread ideals and commerce in the nation. eLife usually drags on as usual, citizens work and train, companies pay wages/taxes and collect profits, newspapers bloviate and articulate, and politicians squabble over the latest law stating a person should be prohibited to walk backwards and chew gum while wearing a paper hat on Tuesdays (see Chapter 3 Article 18 Subarticle 175 Paragraph 478 Bullet List 844 Line 2029 Subscript 85417 of said law). All while doing this the unforeseen forces of diplomacy work their magic to protect the values of eLife that we hold dear to.

However, there has been one institution that eJapan has held dear since its founding (or at least tried to given the circumstances 🙂



PEACE: Good, bad and ugly all at the same time.

"People of Earth Associated under Common Excellence" or PEACE, the largest and at the moment most powerful alliance on the face of the eWorld, give or take a few EDEN/Neutral nations. It all started out as an idea that combined FIST, PANAM, and the Mediterranean Alliance that would “pursue peace in good faith”. Yet the alliance as a whole has started to take large stumbles in what was once a cohesive force of nations assaulting the forces of ATLANTIS. This was not a very flimsy move, by being apart of this alliance the fledgling nation could be shielded and protected from the bordering state of eUSA, an ATLANTIS member. eJapan was a founding member of PEACE, and in signing the charter that established PEACE, our hopes and beliefs that the alliance would live up to its fullest achievements and expectations was entrusted into the organization. Public opinion in support of PEACE at the time had continued to develop.

Sadly, it has slowly withered away….and the fine line we have walked has shrunk

Earlier in the year of 2009, eJapan had signed a peaceful union with South Korea (see current eRepublik map or [url=”http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/the-war-for-a-name-1026168/1/20”]eGobba map[/url]), forming the lasting JanSKo union which protected the predictable Political Take-Over cycles of the small South Korean community. During this period eJapan was in a stable and continuingly growing country, and welcoming the South Korean community with open arms. This was not a move that eJapan should regret, however:



This would be a lasting mistake when the subject of Article 4 Clause 8 Section 1 of the PEACE charter came up which rea😛 “I. Member Nations shall not make military, economic, or political agreements with non-Member Nations without approval of a simple majority of the Security Council.” A move that eJapan at the time failed to present. This would later be a major weapon in a most devastating controversy…



The Kyushu Incident: The first regret

(Secondary Sources: [url=”http://wiki.erepublik.com/index.php/Kyushu_controversy”]here[/url] and [url=”http://wiki.erepublik.com/index.php/Great_War_of_2009’]here[/url].)

Coined “The Gateway to Asia” by several eJapanese citizens and politicians, the Kyushu region resourcefully is not very valuable with only one high grain, and its population is relatively small compared to the much larger capital region of Kanto, thereby not generating as much in taxes. However, the region is a strategic point: it links the eUSA region of Hawaii with the 3 Chinese regions of Shanghai, Zhejiang, and Fujian; of these three Chinese regions Fujian is currently controlled by eIndo, only weeks ago did eIndo also control Zhejiang. In this geopolitical climate that surrounded eJapan, being bordered by two of the largest superpowers in the world was not an easy situation to cope with, this was only worsened by the Great War of 2009.
In the Great War, PEACE nations of eHungary, eIran, eRussia, ePortugal, eUK, eIndo, and eventually eColombia, created a very large scale plan to attack and crush the eUSA and eCanada in the process to sweep away Fortis (an alliance which disputably did or did not exist). One of these tasks involved eIndo to move through Kyushu instead of having to do painful landswaps with Russia to go through Alaska.



eIndo and PEACE presented before the eDeit its proposal, this was an assault by PEACE on the eUSA, and this opportunity would be used to revive eIndo’s slowly declining activity and population. The initial offer was for one Q5 hospital and one Q5 Defense System (thinking that eJapan’s regions could be simply “bought” like Scotland was), and that companies in the period of 17 days residing in Kyushu would be reimbursed for the losses they suffered. The eDeit responded with a heated furry, defeating the proposed plan by a huge 1-16 vote; large complaints were against damaging the fragile relationship with the eUSA, to economic damage, to a overall worse reputation with the world.
This dumbfounded the PEACE and eIndo leadership, which changed their tone drastically on eJapan:

-The proposed invasion was a PEACE operation with approval of the Security Council.
-Japan's union with South Korea was in violation with PEACE charter.
-The first proposed Defense System was now changed to a Hospital.

Now it was eJapan’s turn to be dumbfounded by a rather harsh and threatening tone from its fellow ally eIndo, and the PEACE representatives present in the negotiations. This was particularly shocking; although it was not intended to be a threat by the delegates present, this stunt was horrifying to the eJapanese and eSouth Korean people. The public in eJapan viewed this as a threat to tearing apart people who did not want to be ‘liberated’ by a supposedly ‘violatory’ move by the host nation; figuratively speaking in the eyes of the nation, the gun was not pointed at the father, but the child. [url=”http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/personal-apologies-to-ejapan-965736/1/20”]Even Arthk, PEACE SG at the time of the incident, was unaware of the mood and tone in Kyoto.[/url] In a swift revote, the motion was completely overturned and the eDiet accepted eIndonesia’s proposal. After all was said and done, eJapan placed the Q5 hospital in Kyushu to symbolize the reluctance to ever again give away one of its regions.

And all those who voted for the resolution in the end, even as the nation faced such a crisis, were not found to be sitting in the same congressional halls the next term, as the electorate regardless was outraged over the move.

Why we can no longer “Just reform it”

(Italy Leaving: [url] http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/adieu-peace-goodbye-peace-adios-peace-addio-peace-auf-wiedersehen-peace-1028412/1/20 [/url]
France’s Frustration: http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/peacegc-and-hatred-1014059/1/20
eIndo: [url] http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-with-pride-honor-and-tears-indonesia-to-say-goodbye-from-peacegc--1030808/1/20 [/url])

Ever since the incident, the personal respect of the charter by the larger members of the alliance has been completely destructive, with the smaller and middle population states such as eJapan being silent at almost every turn. In North America, the “spoils of war” were left only to the most powerful empires and kept their territories all to themselves, while the name “defensive alliance” is completely ignored as nations such as Serbia continue to lobby catapult after catapult of attack against Croatia with no objections whatsoever. The out of control power and revenge of the block nations: (Hungary, Serbia, Russia, Iran, formally eIndo) has not been kept in check by the values and principles of the charter the original nations signed. As ATLANTIS fell by the wayside, the values of PEACE evaporated into nothingness and instead now only were for revenge against these former alliance members, turning against values of eJapan’s Righteous Nation Philosophy.

The similar applies to the so-called Theocrats in their attempts to turn eSK into a mini-factory for their own profit and fun. While normally this would not be bad under any circumstances, the fact that these people ignored and disengaged from those already planning to rebuild the eSouth Korean state into a nation of prosperity was disprespectful and draconian. While eJapan pleaded for help on the international level, successfuly obtaining help from nations as close as the ePhilippines and eAustralia for tanking walls; to as far as Peru and Paraguay for extra voters in the elections. Bottom line though is that the PEACE bureaucracy remained quiet thorough the entire ordeal and not one effort to lift a finger was made by the alliance. Granted, the alliance as a whole was fighting in a savage war in North America, but at the very least the intelligence agencies of eHungary-PEACE (which were able to swipe 16k gold from Spain in an “epic lolz fail by Spain”) had failed to notice the “Theocratic Party” pop up in a nation that was protected by an alliance member.
A different comparable example is the relation the eNK has had with the eUSA, the two nations have constantly been allied even as eNK was found no longer to be on the map. Whenever eNK needed votes, they always found people automatically willing to help them across the Pacific, same as tanks in the eIran invasion.

Never has eJapan been as close to another nation in PEACE (besides Germany, who joined later on), and the alliance PEACE has only been proven to be effective at shielding our nation….not helping eJapan.

Yet all through the conflicts that have plagued all continents (except South America currently), the public and the leadership has simply shrugged its shoulders and shuffled on, citing “oh we can simply reform PEACE from the inside”. Yet the corruption and pox has continued to spiral out of control, our window of reform has left us, the alliance will never become what it aspired to be, our reformists need to realize what has happened.



We never stood up like eFrance (ironically the cowards are the eUK, supposedly opposite in real life) and its president:

“This single case shows everything that's going wrong in our alliance. A small number of big, powerful, greedy, wealthy nations tries to enforce their agressive policy to the whole alliance, through private meetings and opaque decisions. They say : "PEACEgc changed, you have to deal with it", but our alliance hasn't changed, they are enforcing us to do it.
The PEACEgc members' populations, and even most of the congressmen, are unaware of most of these talks. I fear that half of PEACE presidents are unable to explain why some countries are currently attacking, but do they even know who are our SGs and SCs ?”

This is how vocal we should have been, we pointed out the obvious ways that the charter was being bypassed in order to purse large nation’s benefits and to satisfy revenge against other countries around the globe…..but nothing came out of us. The Righteous Nation Philosophy is one of peace and prosperity, not one that is overshadowed by war and corruption. eItaly saw it, France continues to see it….yet why can’t we? Do we fear to be punished for speaking openly about an alliance that our nation may no longer believe in?


The Decision that eJapan will have to make

What lies ahead is not exactly easy, but there are a few things that may happen in the future:

1)We stay in PEACE and look at the new charter that is being drafted, obviously repeating past scenarios over again.

Many on the official PEACE forums are declaring the alliance “dead” due to the new provisions and rules being added into the ‘new’ charter. The calls include stripping the charter of all mentions of a “defensive alliance”, which opens the doors for “just invasions of nations” and other terms to be thrown around. eJapan is a nation which trusts its fellow counterparts and is in alliances that promote peace before the sword….but this alliance will turn out to be one that will not be so “PEACEful”

One character in my opinion, who seemed to be prophetic at the time was the writer Arjay Phoenician….who over 2 months ago [url=”http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/three-different-platforms-for-invading-america-three-different-stories-941424/1/all”]describing eJapan’s particular situation,[/url] looked at PEACE “[becoming] like the Mafia taking over a Mom and Pop convenient store; they offer their “protection” for a slice of the profits”. Although remaining controversial in the minds of a few people, Arjay possibly may have predicted a stunt the larger PEACE nations have decided to pull in the current charter redraft. An idea being thrown around includes invoking a “caste system of members” in which the nations on top offer military services and protection and in exchange make all the decisions for the alliance. However, the smaller nations will have no say in the decisions of the council and will instead have to pay taxes (aka tribute) to larger nations to pay for protecting them….sound familiar?

As Arjay put it, the alliance is an “Orwellian nightmare”, and if this is to materialize, eJapan will be a part of it.


2)We quit PEACE and join the “Broalliance” of eUSA-eCanada or EDEN

There have been a few calls for such an option, PEACE as it is is not an alliance they claim will continue to live on in its present state….and as such it is wiser to become a part of an alliance that will protect eJapan from the Cossacks to the north or the eIndonesians (pray not that day will ever come) to the south. PEACE is already weak in Far Asia, only made up of the nations of eJapan and ePhilippines now, and relying on an alliance half a world away will due us no good.
However, there will come a time somewhere in the future in which EDEN will be the biggest alliance on the block, and no doubt if they do not learn from the mistakes of PEACE, they will do the same thing and implode on themselves. eJapan’s stake in international relations relies on its immediate superpower neighbors of eUSA a eRussia, and picking one over the other too soon could be a disaster for our small buffer nation for a while to come. If anything, our decision should be gradual and not completely immediate, and we should be able to look at all the options before we do something terribly drastic and dangerous in the Pacific region. No doubt that due to the likes of Emerick (who is Kosovo btw) and other eJapan-eUSA envoys, we have become closer together, but this may be one step too fast for our nation.


3)We bid goodbye to PEACE and the “PEACE Jr.” charter and set ourselves onto a road of neutrality in the Asian region…. Relying on the principals of the Righteous Nation Philosophy, continuing to be a nation of crossroads where affiliations of all colors fight for all sides---yet live in harmony, and walk a bigger line in the future with a calm demeanor, a open outlook at the possibilities and host diplomats of all nations (including our supposed “enemies”). Then, only when we can be absolutely sure of possibly of our own relations and diplomacy, join a Trans-Asian Pacific block in the future made up of nations we know and trust.

A time of choice rapidly approaches our nation….and that is why we are at a crossroads.