A Whale of a Tale: The Rise of eUS' Hayden Christiansen

Day 3,088, 13:25 Published in USA USA by Cerb
A Whale of a Tale: The Rise of eUS' Hayden Christiansen

One name has circulated in regards to suspect events of late. If you are active on the eUSA Forums, you probably know the long and short of these events. What you may or may not know is who this fellow is....

Oblige's eRep career began in the State Department, as an eager deputy looking to make his mark. He demonstrated an aptitude toward foreign affairs and diplomacy, in that he remained calm in the face of mudslinging on the Internet. (Ironically, many of those individuals chosen for Minister of Foreign Affairs or Secretary of State lack this skill.) Although he tends toward Cromania appeasement (as contrasted with the FP of Frost/Cerb/Vanek styles), I found him to be an effective negotiator.



Because of Oblige's demonstrated interest and competency in international diplomacy, he was an obvious candidate for Secretary of State during my first CP term. This term went quite well, and Oblige used it as a launching platform for his own POTUS ambitions. He ran for POTUS and won a few months later, and had 2 very successful terms. However, even then, years ago, he was already over-delegating the workload (especially military matters), to the point where it became a running joke that Vanek26 was the actual President.

At that time, the eUSA had been observing a two-term limit tradition mirroring the RL American tradition. Perhaps to try and prove his doubters wrong, or perhaps out of bitterness about the 'President Vanek' remarks, Oblige ran for more terms and stonewalled his friends' attempts to try out the big chair. I warned him that holding onto the big chair would cost him in the long run, in terms of community reputation. I am sure others warned him of this as well. This moment was really the point in which I observed Oblige's narcissism blossoming, in that his self-interest clearly trumped community interests or supposed friends' goals.



In the years since, Oblige has used his RL wallet to stay relevant in the Military Unit world and periodically offered to finance various eUS projects, such that the community felt obliged (pun intended) to bestow PDB and other access upon him. However, I struggle to conjure up a time wherein Oblige did something that did not benefit him in any way. Even his financial support of eNPR translated to Oblige occasionally awkwardly forcing himself onto the shows.

(I'm reminded of the Battlestar Galactica character Gaius Baltar, and the scene wherein Lee Adama confronts him and demands to know of an event where Baltar made a selfless act, and Baltar was unable to present one. In many ways, Baltar is a lot like Oblige.)



Now, Oblige has entrenched himself into the WTP, which serves as a hub of anti-Pfeiffer sentiment, and wherein Oblige has once again financed programs to buy personal goodwill. He recently attempted to get back into the world of Military relevance, by buying the USAF. However, he did it by acquiring the USAF's reserve currency and then offering up that money as the purchase price. Regardless of whether you think Oblige needed the Cash On Hand or whether the leveraged assets were acceptable securities, Oblige admitted to Israel Stevens that he could have used his own money, but he just couldn't be bothered. As most of you know, Oblige was fired by President Melissa Rose less than 2 weeks after being appointed as USAF Commander for the same sort of apathy toward the role and its reporting requirements.

Now we get to the tragic fall. You'll recall the WTP program Oblige finances. It is operated with automation that is admittedly not uncommon. Oblige is not the only person who uses scripts to automate certain functions of his account even though it is prohibited by the eRepublik Terms of Service.

For ease of use, several WTP party leaders were given admin level access to this system. One of those persons, presumably disenchanted with Oblige after his recent behavior, adjusted the conversion rate such that he withdrew 1.5 million dollars in eUS currency using this system. This person then donated that money to the eUS national treasury.



Feeling wronged, Oblige contacted the eRepublik admins and used the influence he has bought to not only convince the admins to withdraw the funds from the national treasury, but also to ban the WTP member in question AND simultaneously convince them not to take action against him for running automation in violation of Section 5 of the eRepublik Terms of Service. This behavior is the sort of vindictive wrath Oblige usually conceals, but wherein he reveals his evolving role as eUS villain. Not ironically, Oblige strongly despises Pfeiffer, but over time, Oblige's eBiography actually represents the characteristics he injects into his caricature of Pfeiffer, and Oblige has unfortunately morphed into the villain of recent eUSA events.