[MoFA] I know you got Sol - Rise and Fall?

Day 943, 10:13 Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom by coram_boy
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Recently, new information has come to light over the fate of the Sol alliance. What? Who? If that’s what you’re thinking, I wouldn’t be surprised – Sol has been overshadowed by EDEN and Phoenix(formerly PEACE GC) for the most part of its life and is unknown to many of those both in and outside it. But problems have grown recently, and frustration amongst its members (and it’s worth noting here that we were an observer member until February this year) has reached a peak such that there is speculation that the alliance is nearing a collapse similarly to the decline of PEACE GC – a reform seems inevitable following the climax of one of their recent conferences. I thought I’d write an in depth article about Sol, one of the lesser known alliances of the eWorld, as well as a few updates on World Affairs (scroll down to the bottom of the article)



The alliance’s roots came from mid-2009, when the Charter of Sol, their defining document, was, after much discussion and debate, released by its member states in August. The document, which has become one of the main reasons that members are in favour of reforming Sol, detailed Sol’s purpose and philosophy; to be a neutral, non-aggressive alliance of predominantly South-eastern Asian countries. The alliance was divided into Member nations – Bolivia, China, Israel, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand being the current members – and observer nations, who joined to express their support for the ethos of Sol and solidarity with the alliance. The first observer nation to join was South Africa, followed by countries as varied as the UK, Hungary, Japan, and the USA.


One of Sol's key achievements comes from the Sol war games. These were the largest training war battles in the history of eRepublik, consisting of well over 20 countries at their peak (this was back in the day when an MPP cost only 30 gold). 86 battles took place, with the Philippines fighting against Malaysia. The situation only drew to a close when, the Philippines realised a crucial fact – that they were beginning to suffer from the trade embargos compulsorily imposed upon them due to their allies being at war with them; The eventual result of this was that in November, the war ended; yet it remains one of the keystones in people’s memories of Sol.

There have been two problems that have contributed to the current situation; withdrawals, and flaws in the actual charter, which has come to be seen as far too restrictive by many Sol members. The alliance’s first blow came in October 2009, when Japan left. After being attacked by the Theocrats, a Dioist group who specialise in taking over nations for the Dioist cause (as they did to Switzerland) targeted South Korea, winning a majority in congress, allowing them to effectively control the country. Trying to counter them, the Japanese attacked. However, an inefficient military and last-minute tanking by the Theocrats meant that they lost a crucial Resistance War; from then on, they gradually ceded control to the Theocrats, hoping that they could isolate them diplomatically. However, when Sol let the Theocrats join the Sol war games, the Japanese were incensed; and, in protest, they left the Alliance in October.

The next blow to the alliance came with the expulsion of Pakistan in January. The reasons for this expulsion came from the action of Pakistan in letting Serbia cross them and enter Asia in search of high resources. This was followed by the ending of the ‘observer status’ in February, removing any affiliation the alliance had with many of the major countries from both main alliances at that time, such as Hungary and the USA, and weakening it further. Then, the (taken-over) South Africa withdrew in March, shortly followed by Australia later that month.

This has left the alliance in a situation where they are bound by a charter that is seen by many of the key leaders and members of the alliance as outdated, misplaced, and irrelevant to the modern needs. The feeling of the alliance can be shown from a meeting that they recently had on IRC. In this conversation (which, if I recieve permission, will print here) the discussion resulted in a solid conviction to change the alliance, which was unanimously seen to be rotten at the core, dominated by squabbles over the charter.

The general atmosphere in Sol seems to be similar to that of the people (all important figures in Sol) portrayed here, and, in my opinion, there are only two tracks that Sol can consider going down – continuing on their current path will do no more than precipitate their downfall. Either they can scrap their current charter, and reform their alliance, much as PEACE GC did to become PHOENIX, or alternatively, they can bring an end to their alliance officially, and merely retain friendly connotations. I’ll be interested to see the outcome of the situation in Sol; I’ll tell you about updates as time goes on.

I hope that this hasn’t been a bit tl;dr, and that it’s been an interesting read.

Current Affairs

I couldn’t write an article without mentioning the most important current affairs issue in the eWorld at the moment – the successes of Phoenix and Entente in France and in Liaoning. The battle for Liaoning was the biggest by far in the history of eRepublik, going into overtime, with the total damage being in excess of 35 million points (and this was a battle between Serbia and China alone, evidence of the power of mobile troops today). Phoenix triumphed here through a mixture of good organisation on our part, and a bad mistake on the timing of the battle, which has cost both alliances thousands of gold. The battle was made at the same time as Hungary had just seized the region of Rhone Alps, and when France had re-attacked Aquitaine.

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The graph of the Liaoning battle

The result of this was that EDEN damage was subverted to these two regions (which were seized back, stranding thousands of EDEN land workers in these high wood regions, two of the most profitable in eRepublik, in the process). The second was the way in which the armies were supplied for the final, after-dawn attack: unlike EDEN, Phoenix supplied its troops in anticipation of overtime; this meant that the were able to attack while EDEN troops were still being supplied, and drive the wall upwards to the point where they secured the region.

Thanks for reading!