Join the new world

"You are now officially known as a Hard Worker. Dreams create realities, through hard work."
I looked forward to this award since I joined eRepublik and it's one of the few things Plato said that didn't make me laugh out loud (no, I'm not running for President and no, I can't buy 40 wellness packs a day). It might seem an inevitable accomplishment but RL (power outages for instance nearly made me miss a day) as well as in game concerns can derail even this.

For a game that revolves primarily around two clicks a day, there is a lot of work to be done here and a lot to reward the hard worker. In the last 24 hours I became a citizen of eSouth Africa, voted (for an actual eSA candidate), started an org, bought a company (to replace the awesome job I had to quit to go vote, to help the Greek economy and our allied war effort, and to provide a place for my RL friends to work together where we could share the profits and fire each other whenever we need to travel), reached the next 'military' rank (lieutenant), and am now posting my first article.

The real fun of erep though isn't in the stats, it's in the community. It's a genuine but unquantifiable pleasure when someone new and eager actually benefits from your help. I know I've enjoyed the few times I've been helpful and I hope I have expressed well enough how much I appreciate the many who have helped me. There's also something about identifying with your fellow countrymen and allies that can transform a video of our final minutes in Alberta into something both riveting and inspirational (that and the music). 🙂

I consider myself very lucky in game to have begun in a country with a real government and a real community. You might not like every decision by every administration/congress, you may not be friends with every single one of the thousands of eMericans out there, but even in the darkest of times when we were arguing and huddled in a single state or spread in diaspora across the globe, we had an identity, a community, and at least our own officials--even when many of us hated them, they were ours. People who begin the game in a smaller country or a new one are players just like us and they, imho, deserve to experience that part of eRep. It's the real game, whatever else we might do in the meanwhile, 99% of us don't just come here to play in the MM or fight anonymously or actually just click work/train every day with no intention of ever reading an article, making a friend, or running for congress. You can find ways to have fun even in the worst of circumstances but when you've been working for something for months (a looooooooooong time by eRep standards) and have it snatched from you because you don't have numbers.

I followed three elections yesterday. The first was the eUS. I assumed the "total" was a bug and kept watching Florida. Bug or not, the total one seemed accurate. Among the highlights, 25 of our 36 congressmen received zero votes. Half of the 36 were AAP; Tormod would have been their only congressman I believe with the 11 winners I expected. Habraka (our PEACEful friend), won even after a massive effort to keep him off the ballot. That effort was organized by Cujo Mayo, a hardworking Texan, who finished *1 vote* behind the final wildcard GoBucks with 132 and was locked out of congress as it currently appears. Whether left as is or reversed; there are good people being affected. The good news though is that many of those who've clearly won in either case are people I have great respect for and faith in.

Hmmm....Florida + elections = ?!?!?. Maybe RL does = eRep ...J/K 😉

I won't bore anyone by rehashing Ajay's attempt; it's been discussed elsewhere at length. I'll just add that I voted there and brought 2 RL friends with me...less than I hoped but it felt good to do it anyhow. We were 5 well-placed votes away from completely blocking the CDA from even a single seat; their President (the real one, not the one from Ajay's shouts) was content with 9 seats although I hope Ajay decides to vote the proposals they need and earn some of the respect he seems to want. Travis Granger earned a lot (from me at least) by stepping aside.

eSouth Korea was in the same boat as eSA; one region, no congress. Just as in eSA, the occupying nation was a subject of PEACE and their independence was a negotiated one although the details of eJapan and eSK's merger are far beyond my ehistory. The PTO party here was actually the Holy Army of the Theocracy and by the will of Dio they succeeded in claiming the land by the slimmest of margins. They cannot impeach the President with 60% (not sure if they want to) but they did earn a majority. I say slimmest because nobody received more than 21 votes and the 2 runners-up had 20 each just as 8 of the winners did. Both sides seemed to have military precision in their voting but the difference came to a single vote. If one more person had voted for no1kevlin they would have split 50/50. I'm a newb but assume Presidents are the tiebreaker on proposals or something? Or someone would have to compromise. Much more interesting was with the same voters if one of the 21 voters who chose Dubster of the KNP had instead voted for no1kevlin they both would have won as Dubster had more xp than Tetsuo's Camy; who with the votes as they were beat no1kevlin in the xp tie. no1kevlin from my limited understanding was among their most popular candidates and had worked hard to spread his early lead to the rest of the party and discourage voting for him.

Well, that was it for my first/practice article. If anyone read it, I hope you enjoyed it. Those who know me from the forums or RL will attest this is the shortest wall of text I can produce. I know most will go "tl;dr" if they ever even notice this, so if anyone read through it, you have my appreciation. Thank you.

Yours
S Harper

PS I tried to be accurate but there's a lot I don't know so correct me please if you notice anything.