Story Time, Children

Day 1,154, 10:32 • Published in Canada Canada • by Dominik

"Come gather 'round people, wherever you roam..."


This one is the story of two parties during two very different, but also very similar times. Now, let us call the first party, oh, I don't know, the Canadian Social Democrats (CSD) for example. Now, the first party was started as a reaction to the dominance of a small group of NorseFire and Canadian Paradox Party oligarchs. It was the people's party. How triumphant it was at the peak of its glory when Cottus Arci and later Zanalan ascended into the office of the presidency. It is under Zanalan that our story begins.

You see, Zanalan was a wise leader for the country. After months of turmoil, Zanalan assumed office with his trusted sidekick, yours truly. At the time, I was a youthful, ambitious politician who worked his way through the CSD hierarchy. Being put into the office of Vice-president with a plausible shot at the highest office was a blessing. Forced I was to watch as the Zanalan presidency lost its spirit along with the CSD. Our great plans for social services had to be scrapped because of practicality. Our economic policy was thrown out of the window as Zanalan appointed an ideological opposite to the office of Finance Minister for the sake of pragmatism. Zanalan himself was rarely on the forum or IRC and a certain up-and-coming politician began doing all of Zanalan's PR work. I defended the man and the party with all my might against the efforts of Augustus Baldwin and his cronies.

The time came when even I, however, had to turn my back on Zanalan. There are a lot of key words in politics and they fall into two categories: private and public. Public key words are words like "change" and "vision". Private words include "compromise" and "pragmatic". The word of importance here was private and it was the word "ambition". I still had ambition and began feeling stifled by Zanalan and the CSD, so I approached him requesting to be let go so I can start my own party, with the air of requesting the Captain to abandon a sinking ship. He reluctantly agreed.

The CSD was in ruins. I was among the last of the loyal members. However, as I left, I found out that most of the remaining loyal members were loyal not to Zanalan, but to myself. You'll recognise at least one of them: Scorpius is still among us. So they all left with me, leaving our first party, the CSD, the inactive bastion of despotism, in complete ruins. We started a brilliant new party- this is the second party in our story, the Royal Feudalist Party. Now, Canadian politics were so stale literally anybody who was anybody flocked over to the RFP. All of the major figures of the day went over: Alexander Rearden, John Wilkmot, Tom Hagen, Phineas Gage, you name them, they were there. And the new members that came over! Brilliant new players like Josh Taggart and Plugson, some long forgotten, some now pillars of the community.

Yes, the RFP was something- the antithesis of the dying DAL. With some 30 members we were as influential as any top 5 party. Ambition continued- the party soon took on a serious face and a proposal was made to rename it with a new name being suggested by a rising young star named Jacobi that you may recognise. You may also recognise our second little party, the renamed RFP. Today, you know it under the name "Democratic Action League".

Let's take a look at the DAL today: most of its membership is inactive. It is perceived as oligarchic and stale. Looks like our second little party sounds a lot like our first party at the greatest magnitude of its plummet, does it not? The DAL, a party founded upon the principles of uniting the country to fight the oligarchy of massive, mostly inactive, elitist parties. Has the second party become the first in disguise? "Whoever fights with monsters should take care lest he become a monster; and if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."

What is the moral of the story? That we need a new RFP? Absolutely not. The consequences of that were disastrous. No, we do not need a new RFP in the physical sense. The RFP/DAL was an idea and a spirit: it was sacred. To criticise it at the height of its glory (that is, the height of its creative and intellectual glory, not the 700-member monstrosity created later) was untouchable; to criticise it was blasphemy and made you a CEP sheep. Today, we are in a similar situation we were when the CSD was falling. Back then, the CEP and DAL rose. Today, who will arise? The MDP is selling itself as a new RFP. Now, Powerown and Rylde are good guys- I like them a lot. But they're no me, if I can put it that way. Similarly, the MDP is no RFP. And neither is any other party currently on the political scene. None has the spirit, energy and creativity to spark a revolution. The DAL idea may no longer be alive within the DAL, but it can be restored. Ideas can't die- they're bulletproof, as V tells us.

You see, there are two types of political players in this game: one picks a faction and sticks with it. They have a clique, they have an ambition and they are loyal. I am not loyal to people or parties. I am loyal to ideas. And I remain loyal to the DAL idea. This is the second type of player: one that uses the game as a platform for creativity and continually attempts to mould it into something grand. eRepublik is only as good as the citizens make it. This is a key value of this ideal. The answer isn't to try and form a new faction to come up the middle. No matter how brilliant it is, it will shrivel and die at best and become another CSD/DAL fortress of oligarchy at worst. My love for the DAL ideal has been rekindled. When I last returned, I found the DAL reluctant to change. That has changed. The party can now be restored to its former glory and its former values. I am hereby recommitting myself to this change. Resistance is feudal as we used to say in the RFP.

VIVA DAL!