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Today Kria Erikson, commanding officer of the U.S. Army, agreed to sit down for an interview. Kria is one of the most respected players in the eUSA; a calm and intelligent presence in leadership channels, a long-term senior officer of the JCSF, and a go-to advisor for multiple presidential administrations. She answers some questions below about herself, the Army and some of her views and the entire large staff at the Ephemera newspaper thank her very much for lending us some of her valuable time! (Ok, there’s no staff.) Thanks Kria!

Hi Kria! Tell us about yourself. How long have you been CO? Have you always been in the Army? What other positions in eRep have you held?

Hiya Avruch! I’ve been playing eRep for almost 3 years now (Oh gosh, I swear it doesn’t feel that long). I started out just playing along without much direction until I got into the Training Corps. It was brand new when I got in it and it took about a month to hear back from my application. I spent about a month there and went to the Home Guard for a couple months until I had enough strength for the Army. From there I worked my way up to being a senior officer, but about a year ago I needed some time off for RL. I headed back to the National Guard (renamed version of the Home Guard), which was an easy transition for me since I stayed in touch with the branch and some of the members there are among my closest friends. I came back to the Army about a year ago, moved back up through the ranks fairly quickly, and I’ve been XO since last November and CO for about two weeks.

Other than Army stuff, I’ve been a deputy in the DoD/NSC for a few months, Vice President and Secretary of the Interior under Alexander_Auctoritas, CIA director for a month under Oblige, and a few months as IES director. Oh, and congresscritter 3 times, but I try to forget about that because congress is boring, except for that one time when people got angry over some laws 😐
OH, and party stuff. I was PAC director for the AMP a few times and PP twice and CoS and legal director.



How would you describe the status of the U.S. Army in 2012?

Today we’re on the small side compared to the historic Army, but we have a strong internal community and we’re growing 😃 We also have a very large MU, which is both a source of pride and occasional frustration for the members since we’re not as used to new players asking for help, but everyone’s willing to help out and talk with them as well in the MU feed.
We obviously can’t offer as many supplies as fully funded military units, but we offer food to those that need it as well as a complement of q6 tanks that we make through communing. We even give out extra tanks from time to time for large battles or just for some extra fun.

Can you tell us a little bit about its history? How long has the Army been around? Was it always called the Army?

Oh man, you’re making me look at the wiki for this.
There’s been an Army since the beginning of the war module, though you could barely call it the same unit as it is today. It’s been around longer than there’s been the JCS and gone through many reorganizations. Part of the Army once split off into the Airborne and in V1 the Army was split into two groups, East and West (There were 300+ people in it then!). The East eventually became the Cavalry and the West remained the Army until the Cavalry was re-merged with the Army. A lot of the old generals still remain a part of the Army, and the wiki article is super detailed regarding the past but not so great on the current structure if anyone wants to know more.

In March and April of 2011, the U.S. Army changed from being an official branch of the United States military to a private group managed by its own members. How did that affect you and your colleagues? How are things different now?

It affected me a lot differently than a lot of my colleagues since I was participating in congress at the time. I understand why people chose to leave. A lot of their concerns have been addressed internally since, but as far as I can tell, the culture of the community between the USAF and the eUS Military remain a lot different and each fit certain players better. Some people would never have been content within one group or the other, and it’s OK that there’s two groups.

I would have to say that the main difference now is that there’s a lot more tension among the eUS as a whole and it’s hard to just play the game and not be affected by it.



As a former Ranger in the Army (when part of it was known as Army Group East), I remember lots of interesting traditions and fun events. Can you tell us about some of the things the Army does to keep its players so dedicated?

I think the main thing that keeps people dedicated to the Army (or any group really) is the community. If someone doesn’t like some of the other members or whatever it is, they won’t be dedicated to the group. We try to have semi-occasional game nights where we play games on IRC or on a different website as a group for extra weapons. There’s also almost always someone on IRC just to chat with and we have a forum so that you can get to know people that aren’t on IRC at the same time as you as well.

What does the CO of the Army do on a normal day? What about days that aren’t so normal?

On a normal day, it really doesn’t feel that much different from being a senior officer. Those are the easy, fun days when I get to talk a lot with the Army members on IRC and get caught up on my forum reading and even help some newfriends out in the MU. The days that aren’t normal are usually interesting. Deployments require a lot more communication and coordination that the ‘normal’ days don’t, and if there’s some national issue that affects the Army or the eUS Military I need to deal with that or offer input. Those days are rare, but they’re what keeps the job interesting.

Kria, why haven’t you run for president yet? KRIA IS OUR KWEEN is a perfect slogan for a presidential campaign!

But I don’t wanna be demoted to PotUS!

In all seriousness I probably will someday, but that’ll be after I’m done running the Army and get bored again.



We heard you’re close to a certain retired Army officer with a grudge against pants. Is it true? No pants? Isn’t it COLD where you live?

We’ve been dating for about 3.5 years. We met IRL at school and he told me about the game when I chewed him out for paying more attention to IRC than me.
It’s true. You see, Ralph, being male, has the magical ability to stay warm under nearly all conditions. He’s been spotted a time or two in shorts, which I’ve been informed are VERY DISTINCT from pants. Also, despite the fact that I’ve been told I live in ‘basically Canada’, it’s actually warm here at times.

You’ve been a member of the National Security Council for a long time, in various roles. What can you tell us about what goes on there, and what it’s like to be a member?

Most of my experience there is actually nothing that complex. A lot of the battles come from the alliances the US is a part of and the NSC just gets the orders out to all the military units. Occasionally there’s some decision making when the US has an active campaign on whether or not to give out supplies (or how much) or when exactly to attack. A lot of chat about future plans and organization takes place there too, so it’s often less of a surprise to the members of the council when something is announced because they were involved in the planning to get it to the point where an announcement was possible.

What do you think about the discussions recently on possible changes in our alliances? Do you think alliances on eRepublik revolve too closely around conflicts in the Balkans? Is the current “go-it-alone” strategy a good one?

I don’t really like the “go-it-alone” strategy. It’s way too easy to be conspired against without having any clue like in-alliance tension. I know the Balkan countries dominate a lot of the wars just because of the social tension and the number of players in that region, but I would certainly not mind not having to fight over Southern Great Plain (or any other region with hundreds of battles over it) again. I’m undecided if it’s best to refuse to ally with any Balkan countries yet since they do have a lot of hit strength, particularly when most of the US is asleep.



What do you think about a war with Canada and the recent natural enemy declarations? (This interview was conducted before the peace proposal)

I don’t like the war and so far haven’t fought in it. There’s so many rumors going around over what really happened with the NE declarations themselves that I’m not sure we’ll ever know what actually happened, which makes it fairly difficult to make an opinion on the matter. Not all the pieces seem to fit together quite right, which makes me think that something is being covered up yet. I think a lot of trust could be restored in the government if a really comprehensive statement was released explaining what happened.

What else should we know about you and the Army that our readers may not know?

Our IRC channel is probably best qualified as semi-public. You need a registered nick to join, but otherwise we welcome people to come visit at #usa-army
Our application link is here. We tend to accept only fighters in the in-game divisions 2-4 that can do over 200 influence per 10 wellness, but if you have previous experience in a different military group we’re a bit more lenient on the requirements since we’ve found that those players tend fit into the community easier.
If anyone has other questions about the Army, just PM and ask me and I’ll do my best to answer them. 😃

Thanks Kria for agreeing to this interview!