Join the new world

People write about chains of events in eRepublik often. How some decisions lead to other, how two clicks somewhere in the New World lead to devastating battles on the other side of the world, and so on, without ever thinking the philosophical implication of could some of those things have been evaded? Are there events in the New World which were bound to occur, to what extent and how so? Regardless of the answer, I wanted to write about the subject. And no, I'm not a religious zealot, I'm not going to try seek deities from eRepublik source code or make history of the New World sound like Bible stories.


Destiny, what is it


Let's start from the definition of fate. I'll try to define fate in pieces, so bear with me. As a generalized case, fate can be said to be one ruling force, which makes events lead to a pre-determined result.
The use of concepts 'force' and 'makes events lead' are not the keywords here, I won't refer to this definition in any detail or concentrate in semantics. Also, fate has to be absolute, because otherwise there'd be room for chance and coincidence, which are not part of general concept of fate. This leads me to conclude that fate in itself is perfect in its own definition, but that is irrelevant 🙂

I mean to steer you into something, so let's continue. When looking at events and factor between them, fate can be said to be the sum of different factors, but only as a whole it's fate, not as individual parts. As the relation between events is called causality, we clearly need to examine the relation between fate and causality. What relation do the two have?

I'll just skip into my own conclusion, and state the following definition: Causality is the relation between two events, fate is the relation between causalities. Now this is something that can be examined. Are there relations between events in the New World?


Destiny in historical events

When observing the known history of current conflicts, we can find relations between several events that now occur, and which occurred in the past. The currently occurring invasion of France and Germany have roots in the past, but can we say it was destined that Spain now invades France, or could we have said the opposite in the past when France invaded Spain? Without going into details, we clearly need to define the time frame and context we're looking at. Events that happen in one day won't most likely qualify as 'things destined to happen' in people's minds, so what is the accepted time frame? What factors do we need to take into account that affect events we're observing? All this makes it nearly impossible to give a full depiction of events, as even the smallest ones have several different factors affecting the whole so that no single person can know all of them. Instead of examining things that affect events, or trying to list them, I'd like to do the exact opposite, and see what do not affect them, and ponder how everything changes when you remove one factor.

All chains of events start from somewhere. As I stated in the beginning, destiny is something that leads events to a predetermined end-result, so this makes it important to note from where it all starts, as from there we can determine where everything leads, if everything is deterministic and follows the laws of causality. I'm going to define here that an event is another word for 'cause and effect'. First there is a cause, which creates an effect, and in real world, that is what creates motion. As a chain of event, an effect is always a cause for a new effect, so by going back in time, there has to have been a first cause. Some people stop here and claim this as a proof of god, but I won't go there (no, it's not a proof, maybe I'll write another essay about it, but not now).


How events lead to one another

So, if the first cause could not be part of causality, i.e. caused by another, prior event, then the 'cause' for the first cause has to be an external event, outside the realm of causality. This leads me to conclude, that the causality, and therefore known realm of existence, has to have been caused by a such external event. What could be such an event that is not part of causality? Do we have a word or definition for it? It turns out we have, it's called chance.


Chance and destiny: are they connected?

If we state that it was chance that made the foundation for causality, and destiny is a relation between causalities, then we can say that chance and destiny are somehow connected. Following on from the picture I painted above, we can say that chance is the first cause, which creates the web of causes and effects. Causality cannot however create anything new as such: everything that follows is caused by older events, like ripples in water. We therefore have to ask, referring to the initial definition of destiny, are chance and destiny the same?


Japanese stone garden: Someone else thought of the same earlier?

If we separate different chains of events, we see that the only relation between the two is the chance that creates them. However, as a definition, if chance is an external event outside of laws of causality, then all 'chances', (or you can use the word 'coincidence'), are discreet, i.e. separate from each other. Therefore, if destiny was defined to be the relation between causalities, and chance, the only real connection between causalities is discreet, we have to conclude there is no fate. QED.


Chains of events in the New World

Maybe the above conclusion is not fully relevant to the new World, so let's take a step back. The initial question in physical sense was, is there anything in the New World that can be said was bound to happen? Clearly we don't need to go back to the first cause in the New World, so I'll pick one part from the above-said philosophical observation. In it, I said that there is a chance, which creates the web of causes and effects, which are in effect called the chain of events, and that is what people affiliate with fate. Therefore, we only need to examine specific cases if we want to find destiny in New World's events.


How individuals cause things

I also stated, that the cause for these chains of events is an event outside the realm of causality, and named this event as chance. What is chance in this instance, what creates events and puts everything in motion in the world? I dare to say it is the person sitting behind computer screen, you. The person, individual, citizen of eRepublik. People create events, they are the only factors that affect events, so even in the generalized definition of destiny where destiny is the link between causalities, if there is fate, it is caused by people who put things in motion. In this sense, fate exists only when there is someone masterminding the chain of events, as when we look at the definition of destiny, it says that there is a cause, which after several chains of events, leads to a desired result.

I don't believe there is one person behind all events that happen in the New World, only behind some parts and campaigns. The Admins themselves cannot have masterminded the events of the New World, otherwise there'd already been an Erepublik Insider showing the chart of events so far, and a hint how everything's going to end up. However, it's the small events that matter. People plan military campaigns, create economic programmes, make sociological changes, affect people around them. They create history, they are part of destiny. They create destiny. It is what makes the world go around, it is why people live and play this game. Because they can, and because their lives matter.


Or is there a puppet master behind all this?

__________
Avec, the current Finnish Minister of Defence
...and most likely the next lunatic if these articles continue