(1) Interview with eDarkAngel

Day 1,702, 06:12 Published in Germany Germany by Skalg von Tuari


I used to do interviews back in the days. With the recent alliance stuff happening, I thought it'd be nice to do a series of interviews about the state of international politics. Who else could answer the questions we're all facing better but ePhilosophers and former or current politicians? Today it's Bulgaria's eDarkAngel. If you like walls of text and are interested in general thoughts about politics from a bulgarian view, I can recommend his newspaper, he regularly writes in english.

Skalg von Tuari: First things first: Can you introduce yourself? Just a few things you think people should know about you.

Stoich: Well I'm nowadays what you would consider one of the old players, though I'm not part of the "old fag" generation. Mostly have been active in Bulgaria, a masochist who was 5 times president of the country. I have been a minister in almost all important ministries in the past and an advisor to a number of presidents. Currently am back to being a freelance intellectual and have taken a back seat from politics or things connected with the governing of Bulgaria.

Skalg von Tuari: So, have you heard about the CTRL alliance? What do you think about it?

Stoich: Yes, I followed the drama. It was a decent soap opera, but only 1 season. I think the alliance itself didn't have much chance from the start, the simple reason for it is that all the countries involved have very strong dependance connections to other countries which were not going to allow them to make the move. In the end that is what happened, while what transpired in ONE was not as apparent, because of all the noise EDEN made in the media, both Poland and USA didn't have the ability to move far enough away from their dependance to move towards this alliance. As for the actual alliance I think there was a paradox in it's inception to begin with. The idea to change the status quo by creating another power based alliance like the rest is paradoxical. EDEN, TERRA and ONE are all built on that basis, so CTRL was not going to be an alternative, just reshuffling of the pieces. That in itself would have brought some freshness to the game for a while, but the status quo would have been preserved. There is a heavy ideological war going on out there between ONE and EDEN, at which currently EDEN is by far the better at, which anyone wanting a change would have to be able to withstand and fight through first. The looser of the whole situation is USA. They have been slapped on the wrist for doing anything without "consulting" with EDEN and have no option but to follow EDEN HQ until they can find an alternative as it became apparent that EDEN has enough influence to model internal and foreign policy of the USA as it pleases it. All of Poland, Spain and Brazil are where they were before. Brazil is shaded as long as it is at peace with Spain and will be focusing on South America as they were going to do anyway. Poland will keep their colonies in Europe and Spain will be manhandling Portugal.

Well that's about it, the actual "moral/ideological" war which was fought is not interesting I think and it was evident to all. Also when we're talking of ideological wars, people belonging to one side or the other are incapable of being objective as everything gets viewed through the prism of the actual ideology. The basic pattern is: Someone is doing something not in your interest so damage control is employed through preaching. If preaching to join/stay with the righteous does not work, then we move on to threat of damnation and revealing the devil incarnate with which one is playing. If damnation is unsuccessful, then move on to vilification and expulsion from the righteous of those who have sold their soul to the devil. After that stage, the last is becoming the devil incarnate itself (revenge, teaching a lesson and so on). USA got to the damnation stage and was turned back, Bulgaria before that walked the whole 9 yards.

Skalg von Tuari: You were talking about the status quo. How would you describe it?

Stoich: Well the status quo is the existence of the two main power blocks. They were originally formed around the strong of the day 4 years ago, but nowadays have nothing to do with the actual countries but certain elites who stay in power by using their positions in the alliance HQ. Hence why most HQ eventually become incompetent and most countries have problems with them, yet the people rarely change, unless they're keeping the party line. The HQs of the big alliances are mostly made of the same players, who are there with years and represent small compact groups of players, the rest for them are followers, who need to be told what to do. Hence why there is no communication coming from the HQs but only indoctrination, propaganda and orders. EDEN is built around an elite of players from Romania, Croatia and Greece, though Greece is added later to replace Poland in the equation after the divorce there. The rest are always in a secondary position. Still those players do not represent their countries or all the players in their countries, but have domination on the internal political scene, much of it because they're the "connection" of those countries to EDEN. So if you want the alliance then you need them, and if you don't have the alliance the evil ONE will come and get you. Same thing can be said for ONE, though there you have more politics on alliance level. The reason for it is that it didn't have such a dominating core collusion between countries, though it might be moving in that direction now if Poland and Serbia indeed have become the core "allied" in the alliance. Traditionally it is Poland, Serbia and Hungary which are the main players there. If we trace it further back it stems from the original Romania vs Hungary war and has not changed much since then, all international foreign policy has been subject to this main divide directly or indirectly in the last 4 years. In Hungary we've seen some change of the guard as of late but in Romania not much. As long as EDEN and ONE exist they will be centric to those countries and anything falling outside the sphere of influence or interest will be regarded as irrelevant and everything coming at odds will be evil. The only way to recruit others to fight for their cause when there is nothing they can offer in return is ideological indoctrination and hence why as time passes and more and more players and countries grow disillusioned, that has become the only method of creating "loyalty". The only way to move away from that status quo and transform the relations between countries on the map is for an alternative alliance or alliances to grow which become eventually independent of the two main ones. It is a risky proposition and will cost anyone trying a lot in the short term. But unless other power bases are created and this does not mean necessarily geographically, those two elites will dominate us all for a long time still.

Skalg von Tuari: You talk a lot about ideology. In RL, ideology means certain values and ideas about how the world is working, not only propaganda - what is the ideology of ONE and EDEN?

Stoich: That is a good question, I bet there are few people who can answer it. In general EDEN is built on anti-ONE and ONE is evil ideologythen you can add any type of negative qualifications to it ONE is more interest based, with resources being top valuefor both alliances damage has very high value. To some degree ONE is more honest as it admits to wanting to "dominate" and is "resource" oriented while EDEN preaches brotherhood, but trades countries according to damage and interest. I think that is the basic, there is more to be delved into if one wants to, but this will become into a scholarly essay rather then an interview. [edit: I'm p sure this has not become scholarly at all]

Skalg von Tuari: although I doubt you'll ever have an alliance without damage as a central "value"

Stoich: Dmage will always be valuable to some extent, as that is the main interaction model, but it can be a secondary and not leading value.

Skalg von Tuari: So, what do you think will happen to Terra, or should I say, to the remaining members of Terra?

Stoich: TERRA in essence exists only on paper and through a beurocratic machine. When Brazil left to pursue it's interests in South America and USA signed a NAP with Poland, TERRA lost it's ability to function as an alliance. France and Germany are colonial damage which is being used by EDEN right now. Russia is isolated and has for a long time has been part of TERRA but not an integral part, mostly it has donated damage when it can. Though with the non-existence of a cause it has no real reason to donate it's damage to EDEN which has been focusing on crushing Bulgaria and CoT in the last weeks until the recent campaign against Serbia. Worst of all it does not have the ability to "recruit" new members to stabilize it, so it will die off with time. This is more in the interest of EDEN then ONE as it will still get the damage, but will not have to defend those countries if it doesn't want to as they will not be able to present a common front. For ONE that is actually bad as in terms of damage nothing is changing, but now there is a much bigger meat shield in-front of EDEN which they need to go through to get to EDEN. So for the countries in TERRA right now, the only way left is to either join EDEN under some subservient form or form a new alliance and try to incorporate other countries in it to make it viable. This is what USA tried with CTRL but unsuccessfully.

Skalg von Tuari: Could CoT benefit from this, for example by getting Russia to join?

Stoich: Not really, Russia has even now good relations with CoT and will in the future as well. It will most probably at some point consider joining the alliance with a good chance of it happening, but again nothing is changing right now in that essence. CoT will benefit from it as becoming the only other alliance alternative to the 2 big ones and in time as it becomes more stable and self-sufficient to become a viable alternative of them. However at this point it is unable to act as a true alternative as it is still embroiled in a fight for it's existence with EDEN hence it has to keep closer relations with ONE. CoT and USA would be a good mach as USA has excess capacity in 4th division but is weak in the lower divisions, where Cot is slowly becoming a strong power. However in the current situation that is very unlikely to happen. But I guess in the long term the falling of TERRA will open space for CoT to exist, Canada has had good relations with Bulgaria in the past and India would be welcomed as soon as they decide that 5 years of trial in GEA are enough for them. Most countries in TERRA are unlikely to join CoT because of their dependance on EDEN. France and Germany could have if CoT was able to stand on it's own, but as of right now, the alliance would be unable to do anything for them even if it wanted to.

Skalg von Tuari: The evil question at this point would be to ask what GEA is, but I think I'll pretend most people know.

Stoich: The evil answer would be, it's the slave quarters of EDEN. It was basically created to keep smaller countries in the sphere of EDEN without letting them in indefinately. Just as ONE created EPIC for the same reason.

Skalg von Tuari: So, what do you think about the recent babybooms in south america?

Stoich: It's the best thing that could have happened to the game. It means more countries become bigger and stronger and diversifies the power base more. This will ultimately be the reason for the break up of the current status quo. Mostly it was Chile that has made the big baby boom, but Argentina has gained some players as well. The rest of the countries are having their initial baby booms, the ones that can set the basis for a break out baby boom. This means that from here on, all countries in the region have the potential to make a big baby boom and become something more then a resource base for Argentina and Brazil. Along with the bbs however I think most of the botmasters moved their operations in the region as well, especially Argentina, where the rate of new registrations to new active players is about 5-6 times lower then Chile. Most importantly though the time of domination in the non EU hours will be gone as with time at least two competing fractions will evolve which will oppose each other. Chile has the bonus of being the first big country once it grows up to oppose the dominance of Argentina and Brazil in the region, which will give it much bigger importance on the international stage. It will also mean that the importance of Argentina, Brazil and USA as "night" damage will go down as they will have less to donate. This is assuming the current division of of countries holds on, it is not unlikely to see some changes in the future as it is more likely for Argentina to leave GEA then for Brazil to join GEA or EDEN and the two will not separate. USA I have no idea what they will do, but in any case while they're in the EDEN sphere of influence it has no chance at proactive "own" foreign policy, it will be entirely dependent on the whims of EDEN.

Skalg von Tuari: But won't that only lead to a new deathlock? Where is the change when all Sout American country end up in an endless war with no winning side, like the Balkans?

Stoich: That is the natural state of a game like this, if one side dominates there is nothing to play for for either side. I doubt they will have the same dodged wars like Romania and Hungary or Croatia and Serbiaor Poland and Germany because despite the propaganda, those are the ones that are perpetual, though the Poland vs Germany one is not really a war because of the difference of power and the Serbia vs Croatia has a chance to become similar in the future as well. Bulgaria for example has warred at one time or another with about all of it's neighbours and all top countries around, so the perpetual wars are the ones that Croatia, Romania, Serbia and Hungary wage....maybe the Macedonia vs Greek one would be added to those in time we will see how long the current peace will last. But the Chile vs Argentina one, does have the smell of it becoming perpetual especially if Argentina continues to try to stifle the Chilean baby boom.

Skalg von Tuari: Thanks a lot for the interview!

Favorite beer

Hmmm I used to be a beer drinker, now I'm a whiskey connoisseur. Favourite whiskey is Te Bheag.

Favorite color

Favorite colour is red as I'm a passionate guy.

Favorite ice cream

Favourite ice cream would be vanilla I guess, nothing interesting there.

Favorite city

Favourite city is a hard one, Sofia has a high sentimental value, but there are a number of cities I like as well, London, Thessaloniki, Rome and Toronto, but I want to visit Auckland in New Zealand, though I'm afraid I might not want to leave after that.



not gonna kill anyone today
Skalg von Tuari