[EDEN] A Farewell From Sweden

Day 1,238, 18:12 • Published in Sweden Sweden • by Valnad
Fellow Homonavians; Swedes, Danes and everyone else who this may concern,

Back in 2009, Sweden founded a Brotherhood of nations together with Finland, Norway, Poland, Romania and Croatia. It was named EDEN and we've been part of this coaliation of nations ever since that day.

But not anymore.

This is a time of both sorrow and joy.

Many still remember the days of old, when we fought and won World Wars together with our allies from EDEN. When our Swedish paratroppers made a glorious stand with the resistance forces at the Battle of Hello Kitty. But we've come a long way since then, and new memories have been added to the old ones; both good and bad.



How did this happen; why are we leaving?

There's a long story to this. Much too long to be covered in a single article. I will merely outline some of the important events that moved us in this direction.

Towards the end of 2009, Sweden had already lost many of her old beta giants. The game and the eSwedish community had simply evolved in different directions. Other countries had stepped forward, eager to take our place in the world charts and replace our leaders in the military and political headquarters. Scandinavia was no longer in focus and the world had it's eyes set on the challenging wars in Eastern Europe.

The world continued to move on, meanwhile more of our beta giants went into a slumber and started dreaming of epic wars between Snow and Sand. Even Dio - may Snow have mercy on his tormented and twisted soul - left the world and took the glory of Pigistan with him. A new generation fought hard to live up to the name and reputation of their predecessors, but had much less to offer and struggled to find their rightful place in The New World.

This marked the setting of 2010; the year when we started to drift away from eachother.

After our former President, shoot, got "impeached" as Suprme Commander of EDEN i January last year, Sweden would never again hold a high ranked position in EDEN HQ. During the first 3 quarters of the year, Sweden was torn apart by political struggles and plague by rather inactive presidents. This, together with undecisive military decisions, made some of our allies lose faith in our country. Whenever we would ask for a green light to launch a campaign against our former enemies from Germany, something got in the way and HQ set other priorities. When we were attacked by aforementioned germs, we saw very little support coming our way.

Who knows what came first; the chicken or the egg?



All I can say is that there has been a compact feeling of dissapointment and mistreatment within our community long before I became President. I've done what I could to unify our nation and move us forward, make us a formidable force again and put an end to our inner turmoil. I succeeded in some aspects, but I obviously failed when it came to soothing the wound that had been inflicted by previous leaders of this nation and EDEN.

It doesn't really matter who deserted who. What matters is that this new generation of eSwedes (as in all members of the Homonavian union) felt more secure and had more trust in the bonds between our nation and Poland/Spain than it had in the other founding members. Poland has been very eager to show its love in our wars and conflicts and without the support from Spanish and Polish soldiers, we would probably not have won our war against Lithuania. Such things matters more to a new player than ancient stories of fame and glory.

Ever since Poland left EDEN, everyone knew that Sweden would eventually have to make a difficult choice: stay or leave.



In fact, all members had to make that choice. And while most of us decided to stay, some also tried to maintain their friendship with Poland. This divided the Brotherhood and the discussions that followed could only lead up to one thing; either you're in or you're out.

Being forced to choose between friends is never easy. You may try, but either way, you're going to end up hurting someone. I'd like to remind everyone that this is, afterall, just a game. Eventually we all knew that Sweden had choose between mainly Poland and Spain on one side, and Croatia and Romania on the other. These were our strongest bonds, aside from the Nordic countries which we've always had and always will have a special relationship with.

Alhough I expect many players to feel offended by our current course of action, I sincerely hope that they may also see the gray areas inbetween the drapes of black and white and realize that this choice was based on the rational thinking and perception of our current generation of players.

Those eSwedes and eDanes who were born into the world during late 2009 and up until now have no memories of grand, epic battles. They know little of what took place prior to their own birth. Instead they base their reasoning on what they've experienced, what they've read and what they've been told. They've never seen EDEN as a brotherhood of equal peers; they've seen it as a group with its main interests in other parts of the world. There are no hard feelings involved - they have chosen those who have stood by them in their own struggles and not just when they paratrooped into far away regions.



But there are those of us who still remember. There are those of us who have most of their friends in EDEN countries. And to those who we now leave behind; we say thank you.

Thank you for the time we've had as allies and all of the struggles we've went through together. It's been a rocky road, but we've had our fair share of laughter and frustration. Even though we might face eachother on opposing sides of the future battlefields, I want you to know this: you're not forgotten. We might have to kick eachothers butts, sure, but you'll always be welcome to sit by our table afterwards, have a beer or ten and laugh about it.

And to those who are still left in the Beta cryosleep: everything was better back in the old days. Nowdays, all your base are belong to newfags.


Yours truly,

Valnad
President of Sweden
High-Commander of Homonavia