[State] Interviews with Adversaries, Part 1
Department of State
As promised in my last article, we will be featuring an interview with former eSerbian CP, Stefan Mauzer. Stefan was part of the Asterian delegation that this Executive conducted negotiations with to set up our NAP a while back. The interview was conducted a few weeks ago by Toto Schillaci, our intrepid ambassador to eSerbia, and on behalf of the State Department I would like to thank Toto for his hard work and service to the nation. The nations of eSerbia and eUSA have often been at odds with each other over the history of the game, but it's still good to sit down with the enemy and find out who they are behind all of the noise. We find that there is more that connects us than separates us after all.
I would also like to say that it's been a pleasure serving as MoFA for the past three months. My thanks to Tyler Bubblar for bringing me on board. I didn't write as many articles as I would have hoped, but I did my best. There were some interesting times for sure and I don't regret it. It’s been fun chatting with foreign officials about the deal made with Asteria, the road ahead and the general state of the game and the eWorld. The human touch makes the experience worthwhile.
As far as our agreement with Asteria and pals goes, things are going according to script (pun intended). Yes, there have been a few hiccups so far, but nothing catastrophic. We are just counting down the days at this point. I would also like to thank my corps of ambassadors (you can check out the full list of them on this thread on the national forums) for signing up and representing the country. I meant to do a bit more on that front, but sometimes life has a habit of getting in the way.
Anyhow, without further ado, below is the interview between Toto and Stefan for your reading pleasure. The responses have been edited for clarity only. Enjoy
Toto: Thank you for accepting this interview. For starters, can you tell us something about who Stefan Mauzer is in real life and how you found out about eRepublik?
Stefan: Just an ordinary man, I found about eRepublik in Lipec's famous speech.
My note: Lipec was the first eSerbian CP from Serbia, a RL actor who used his connections in RL to make a few propaganda YouTube videos and newspaper articles in order to make a huge baby-boom in Serbia in 2009 and he was very successful at that. He is considered to be the 'father of the eSerbian nation' in eSerbia.
erepublik.com/en/citizen/profile/1323958
Toto: How Hard is to be CP of an eRepublik force such as eSerbia? How much time do you spend for that job?
Stefan: Pretty much. It takes me about 4-6 hours daily on average.
Toto: Asteria is dominant in the world in the last few months, a difference from the end of last year. How did you get from subaltern to dominant position?
Stefan: After almost 10 years of eSerbian domination, many of our players got bored and left the game. Others went to 'sleep' mode mainly. Getting erased from the map last year woke us all up and we retaliated fiercely. The results of our awakening we can see today.
Toto: CODE and proCODE alliances reasons for defeat allege that admin gave advantages to players from Asteria, especially from eSerbia. That is the reason for the boycott as well. What is your opinion about the boycott and is there any truth that token selling mechanisms help your country and alliance?
Stefan: Complete nonsense. But I understand that you must justify defeats on all fields somehow.
Toto: What is your personal relation towards the eUSA and what is the relation of eSerbia and Asteria towards the eUSA? How many similarities and differences are there between those points of view?
Stefan: In the game I have a neutral stance. The eUSA was never on our side but it was never too much against us. They have never occupied us directly, at least not that I remember. A similar stance stands for eSerbia and Asteria.
Toto: Are you familiar with the eUSA PTO attempts by a group of eSerbian players several years ago and what is your stance about it?
Stefan: I remember the 'Shoe people' and their PTO attempt. It was mainly inspired by RL relations (we all remember the NATO aggression from 1999 on Serbia, led by the USA). I have never supported them directly but I have also tried not to trouble them. Serbian governments from that time also have never officially supported the 'Shoe people' or participated in a PTO in any way.
Toto: In the eUSA there is a belief that players from Serbia cultivate intolerance, even hatred towards the eUSA. How true is that, and do you think that relations have connections with real life or the game exclusively? Or is the truth somewhere in between?
Stefan: It is true that many people here cultivate intolerance towards the eUSA, because of mentioned reasons. If you ask me, it is exclusively because of RL. Po meni to je isključivo zbog RL. For 78 days, the USA threw bombs with nuclear waste on our country. It's very hard to forget.
Toto: What is your opinion about the Asteria-eUSA NAP? How do you think it is going to influence further relations between the sides, as well as relations inside of CODE?
Stefan: I am one of the players who accepted that NAP, as President of eSerbia. From my point of view, we gave more than favorable conditions to Americans because we didn't want to destroy their community. I consider that this NAP will alienate them from the opposing alliance.
Toto: Do you think that eSerbia and eUSA can become allies in the future and what does that depend on?
Stefan: I don't believe in that scenario. There are too many things that separate us.
Toto: What do you think about the future of the game in general because of the situation we are in? Is the end of eRepublik close?
Stefan: Many predicted the end of this game even in 2014, yet we are still here. I don't know how long it is going to last but I know that they will not shut us down while we continue logging in. I hope Plato will start paying more attention to the gaming society and it's wishes.
Toto: What do you think about forthcoming changes in the war module, for instance RW mechanisms more precisely? How are they going to influence world relations?
Stefan: Most of the CODE players started a boycott because of the token market and I have already told my opinion about that. Admins made these substantial changes to the war module instead of it. When last year the same situation with Bulgaria and North Macedonia occurred (they were under enemy trains for months), we wrote hundreds of tickets asking that starting a RW to be enabled. Plato told us to fix our diplomacy and to fight on our own. And so we did. Now is only the first month that the biggest enemy countries are under total occupation from our side and the war module is changed instantly to their advantage. So, we won in this module and we go to the next one. Without any doubt, less stronger countries of our alliance won't be able to defend RWs, but others will try, so we will see how successful we will be.
That's all for now folks,
signing off and enjoying my summer
Minister of Foreign Affairs, PimpDollaz
Comments
Great work
thanks
The pleasure was ours. Apologies for the lateness
Издајник!
O7
Nice
... and informative.
Very interesting to see the perspective of eSerbia and how it is influenced by RL instead of what happens here in-game. I wish they would take more of a stance that what happens in RL doesn't have to be brought into this "sandbox" but I understand that it is easy not to see how that could be true.
Well, USA was helping Albanians a lot with their propaganda about independent Kosovo, even before pool about it in the game, so you are not the only one innocent in this relationship.
I just never knew. I don't pay attention much to RL USA politics. I just wish we could be better allies in-game, that's all.
This was in the game. I wish we could have better relations anyway, but I think that eUSA must confirm it's good will first.
Ah, I see. Well, hopefully our NAP leads to furthered better communication between our leadership and we can see about becoming more strategic allies in the nearer future. 🙂
Interesting about the real life take on things. I would 100% have to say the US was in the moral right with the bombings but that doesn't mean the subject of the bombings has to like it.
"moral right" bombing with depleted uranium. Please explain to me which moral right can justify that.
I don't know maybe the murder, genocide, and ethnic cleansing that the Bosnian Serbs were carrying out. Play dumb games win dumb prizes.
The bombing had nothing to do with Bosnian Serbs (there was already solved by an agreement (Dayton?). The bombing were about what was happening in Kosovo. That said the comitee looking what was happening in Kosovo wasn't blaming the Serbs only about the killings in Kosovo. The NATO-bombings were because Serbia didn't agree to give NATO access to all roads, waterways and air in Serbia. No UN resolution was made for the Kosivo war by NATO, only NATO decided to start the Kosovo war. Bad politics I would say.
Finally, someone who has a brain.
So in 1999 Bosnian Serbs did some murder, genocide, and ethnic cleansing and that is why USA bombed Serbia with depleted uranium. Is that what you are saying?
Since you are so well informed, please, do tell, how the hell is it that every time Serbs are committing genocide and ethnic cleansing etc. there are no more Serbs in that area?
Please, just use frecking logic/common sense before starting to shitpost...
And then, you wonder why 3/4 of the world celebrate 9/11 and hate US from the guts....
Lol Serbians were 100% the bad guys in this conflict.. I best suffered the occupation of his village by serbians sniper shooting at everything they couild for months.. Serbia was served exactly what ythey deserved.
My best friend**
how come your best friend is live to tell you that?
C O M M O N S E N S E!
if we were killing everything there was, how come that there are still people living there after the war?
Because he was saved in a rescue mission lead by the french special force military unit to rescus starving and wounded children who were under the serbian occupation. Serbia should have been erased from the map after what they did in Bosnia
Ouh, so he is from that war...there were never starving and wounded children under serbian occupation. They either fled with their families, or took arms and defended their homes. That is for the areas where there was conflict, otherwise, they all stayed unharmed. So your friend is obviously lying, as French were involved in Sarajevo peacekeeping operation, and Sarajevo was never occupied by Serbian forces...so if he was starved, that was because his leadership left him to starve, not because of Serbian forces...wounded cause of shelling of Sarajevo, but that is a very controversial topic as it was suggested by officers of the UN that the shelling of Sarajevo could be committed by muslem forces in order to get public opinion on their side. Which they got...
My friend is not a liar trust me. I have seen the scars .. Anyway, I didn't see any Bosnian leaders facing crime against humanity in Lahaie Tribual.. But many and many Serbians, military leaders and politicians..
Anyway, even today, you asked german and most of them will tell you they approved what Hitler did so.. Im not gonna change the ideas that was implanted in your brain that your people did only good..
There were plenty of them, but they were found not guilty...so obviously, you can kill a Serbian family and get away with it...
but there is one guy that will make them pay the price...when they come in front of God.
Just back to what you wrote there...did your friend tell you what Croats did to them? I don't see you shouting "erasing Croatia from the map" cause of what they did to your friends countrymen.
Where did i say my people did only good? I am only applying to common sense, not to trust everything that was around at the time, but now, from distance to look at it, what happened, who had the motive for what and how it played out...
Baby Groot I advise you to delete these comments of yours as well or I will be forced to explain to you which mistakes you've made in them.
Its fine if you want to hate the US I guess if I lost a war and wanted to blame someone the US is a good person to blame. However, you can't commit things like the Srebrenica massacre and then try to play the innocent victim. I prefer to leave the sins of the past in the past as should you.
Srebrenica is even bigger lie than 9/11...
That time when Americans "teach" you about war crimes. The nation which literary did and does the most war crimes in the world bringing "democracy" to countries which they attack. Not to mention that the most of that countries does not represent any danger to USA.
Just watch "fake news" and their propaganda and results of that is your writing about subjects that u dont know...
Very interesting interview. I am surprised that there is so much real life animosity that translates into the game for some eNations when for example for me, there is almost none.
Americans in the real world also don't even know we had a conflict with Serbia for the most part, or even really the extent of our involvement in the Balkans.
That's because Americans for the most part are ignorant.
I think it is more like it was so insignificant to most Americans. In comparison to past US involved wars, it is.
Most Americans can't find Iraq or Vietnam on map. Most don't know how many continents there are. For you to say that for Americans bombing some Balkan country is insignificant comparing to other US involved wars is an understatement. The truth is that you guys don't even care for that. Who cares for dropping tones of nuclear waste on some small country...
I can assure you, despite the stereotypes most Americans can correctly identify Iraq and Vietnam on a map. But the rest of what you said yeah. No one really even thinks about Serbia here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0TK_vk-XDM
Ah yes, some cherry picked individuals to make a comedy video.
Really good research you did here friend. I guess anything I see about Serbians being poor living in metal shacks must be true as well.
Of course it's cherry picked. This is just a funny video about stupid people. And we are economically poor but i reckon not that much ass some Americans are. I would like to say that we have more in common then differences but after all how can we be friends and with no bad blood between us when you don't even know what your country did to us and you don't care about it. CNN say Serbians are bad, Serbians are this and this and we are going to bomb them with nuclear waste and that gives you all the rights to do it. You have the rights to bomb hospitals , trains, bridges, factories, civilian buildings, homes of the people. It's easy to say how you are surprised to real life animosity that translates into the game when you don't know how deep the rabbit hole goes.
I am surprised that people carry that attitude into the game is what I am saying. I don't care what real life animosity you have towards Americans that don't think about Serbia. I don't take any aggravation I have about China and apply it to them here. I on a personal level did quite a bit of studying on the Balkans in college, fascinating subject. I have no ill will to anyone in that region, whether Serbian or otherwise.
It's hard not to have any animosity toward someone who bombed you with nuclear waste and demonized all of your people. You say you are surprised that this animosity is transferred to this game as well. If you are surprised about that, buddy, you are going to be surprised about a lot of obvious things in life.
It is a personal failure if you cannot separate these animosities. I am not surprised people have resentment, as I said previously. Just surprised people let it control them in game. It is sad.
I am perfectly capable separating any animosity from RL and some game. It's just a mater of if I want to or not. You too are ignorant if you think that something like resentment control me or anyone of my countryman in this game. There are friends and foes. There are wishes and real goals that can be accomplished. That is what drives our community here, not some resentments towards anyone.
Resentments, animosity... We use them as a fuel to motivate us to our goals. I would say that in this game a community which I am member of did pretty well in history of this game. To be frank with you our goal is to be the best in this game, and your is what? Maybe to get constantly surprised of someone having some animosity toward someone or something because of some RL events...
If something can be our legacy here in game is that we never betrayed our allies. We always stood by them. And that says a lot about us if you ask me.
You seem really hung up on the initial "surprised there is so much real life animosity" line. You focused in on it. Interesting.
Yes, it is interesting. It is also interesting that Americans in the real world don't even know that they had a conflict whit some country but they do presume that animosity that is born from that conflict is not not normal to transcend to all spheres of life. Well I say it's not normal to think that you are on a moral high ground and to give psychological analysis to those with animosity while your country bombed those same people with nuclear waste and while you are declaiming those analysis you also say that you don't care why some of them have animosity towards you. But you go ahead and tell me how much interesting and surprising is all this. You seems to enjoy in that.
Comment deleted
I was going to just leave a nasty comment but honestly I am going to just end the pettiness here. I hope you find peace in your life.
I hope you start to care and be less surprised on some obvious things in life. Black lives matter o/