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In the history of Empires, it is this considered writer's opinion that none ever equalled The British Empire. All Empires have their excesses, and none have ever been altruistic, but Great Britain still holds a unique place in history.

That place was earned with blood, sweat, and tears. Britain stood alone against all of Europe in the darkest days of WWII. America stood aside. Canada, a son of the Lion, stood with Britain, and we exerted our all for her.

As I have noted before, the eworld means different things for different people. Some of us enjoy the versimilitude, and we like to role-play as much as possible to increase it. We like the idea of creating a virtual world that reflects our wishes, our values, more perhaps than we are able to in the real world. And some of us are kids, who just enjoy messing about, and will do the opposite of what we are told.

In the real world, Britain can hold her head high, because she stared defeat in the eye and did not blink, rather than bow the knee to the aggressor. She expended herself in the cause of freedom. Eventually, after great struggle and sacrifice, her example an inspiration to others and a goad to the Americans to follow their better instincts, the allies of freedom won their victory. My town in Canada has a statue of Churchill, and he will always be regarded as the greatest leader the English-speaking world has ever produced by so many of us.

I know the eworld is not the real world, but my friends and brothers of Great Britain, how can this be? How can you have fallen so far as to give Hungary bonnie Scotland? How can Great Britain have become the Vichy France of this, the greatest War the eworld has ever seen? Has your anti-American bias so blinded you that you would cast your lot with those people and against the Canadas of this world?

Do not think Canadians are unaware of the faults of our great neighbour to the south, we live with the Yanks every day. But, the Nave's Toe Incident notwithstanding, we have existed in peace next to a nation which could have used its numbers to bully and annex us, and why? Because of the respect for freedom and friendship which is deep in the hearts of the American citizen. Does this make our relationship easy, or without stress? Of course not, but these are quarrels between friends.

Look across the history of the eworld, at what has occurred in Asia, in South Africa, in Germany, and tell me that is the Americans who have been imperialistic, expansionist, disrespectful of the international community. You cannot. Have they been immature? Sure, some have. This game is played in part by young boys whose testicles haven't dropped yet, of course they are idiots - we were too at their age. But honestly, the Hungarians, the Indonesians, these are the nations whose example you wish to follow, with whom you wish to cast your lots?

You have taken this course why? For survival. We understand your motivations. You feel it would be better to live as slaves than to fight as exiles. This same argument has been used to cow the Germans. It is the refrain of defeat, of complicity, of cowardice. Never in our wildest dreams did we think Britons would sing such a song.

It is a matter of great sadness for many of us to see how little greatness is evident in a nation we have always thought of as Great Britain, parent, friend, ally, and inspiration. And now, collaborator, betrayer, occupier of our lands, profiteer, coward. We weep for what you have become, and for the memory of what you once were to us, and we fear, can never be again. For some day this war will end, in defeat or victory for either side (and it's as you say, just a game, so who cares?), but long after that, the scars you are now placing across our backs will not heal. Our friendship will never be the same, because you valued it so little as to cast aside for that of your present "friends".

SR, Vol 2, number 2