Memoirs of a Fish
Haliman
Many people have been telling me that I need to shed the dark shroud that January of 2011 left around me.
I have repeatedly told them that I don’t have to. That I will accomplish nothing by trying, since my detractors won’t be going away any time soon. Unfortunately, in this game, the vocal minority rules over all.
So time passed, and I continued to avoid addressing my presidential term. But, as I sat here, I realized that I was going to have to address it sooner or later. So this will serve as somewhat of my memorial in office. I won’t be adding pictures, and I won’t expect many to read this, and even fewer to care what I have to say. But, to my supporters, I love you all. To my detractors, you do not phase me. You never will.
Also, please keep in mind that I am writing this at three in the morning, and that I am not the best writer in the world. Thoughts will be thrown, sometimes at random. But everything within is true.
I guess I’ll start with the USWP.
I was a USWP member basically at birth. I had dual membership. Though I served multiple times as the Brolliance Party President, I was an active member in the USWP. There were very few members of the BP, and I needed something to occupy my time.
The ressurection of the USWP when it was still the APF was where I started my political rise. I had talked to Jude Connors and Fionia, the brains behind the rebirth, and I told them I supported them 100%. Jude’s term as PP was uneventful for me, since I didn’t really have a party job. But Fionia needed a Comms Director, and a Member Services director. Necros Xiaoban and I applied for both, and she decided to make me Comms, and him Member Services. As time passed, Fionia was getting ready to leave as PP to head for New Zealand.
The obvious replacement for her was Laxsnor. She handpicked him to run for party president the next month (October). No one really saw me as a real threat. Hell, no one even knew I wanted to run for PP until I announced.
We campaigned, and the election occured. Before I went to bed, I was ahead 28-27.
Then I experienced dirty politics for the first time in eRep. This was not done by Laxsnor. I don’t even think he knew what happened. There were only two people online on the forum before I went to bed. Myself, and Max Mcfarland 2.. Max was in Pakistan at the time, but had Emeritus forum access. I checked the poll.
28-28.
I made a promise to someone that voted for me that if the poll ended in a tie, I would drop out of the election. I was a man of my word, and Laxsnor was our next Party President.
I know now that this was one of the luckiest things that could have happened to me.
Fionia was extremely popular. And in leaving, she was bringing a lot of party members with her. The party began to decline, in a major way. When I finally became PP, the USWP had experienced membership losses in every PP since rebirth.former APF members were leaving for other parties. So we had to resume recruitment. We did so in a big way, and we experienced growth for the first month since rebirth.
Fast forward to my time as Acting Speaker of the House, and I continued to grow more and more friends. I got ranked highly in congress, and kept things orderly and active. PanAm discussions were picking up. I also began visiting the Canadian forums at this time. They gave me access to their private congress sections so I can read up on what they thought. A promise I made when I was running for President was the official beginning of PanAm. I followed through.
When I finally declared my intention to run for President, I used a similar strategy that CRoy used the month before. AKA the same one. Young > old. The difference was our opponents. He had a former president. Someone high profile. I was against Inwegen, who, for the most part, was a secretive fellow. Did a lot of backroom management. Was Chief of Staff of the eternity, or something.
He definitely won that first debate we had. I use mibbit for IRC, and when you close a PM with someone on mibbit, there’s like a 50/50 chance it won’t let you open another. That’s what happened when Kazeal tried to send me the debate questions. I had about 15 minutes beforehand to review the questions, and prepare an answer. That sucked major balls. Lax and I were scrambling to work something out.
Then the SEES debate came around. The fact that I didn’t lose that debate is fact enough that I won that debate
😃
At this point, I won the USWP, Federalist, and UIP primaries, and there was little doubt in anyone’s mind that I would win. “Halifag is going to win now!” as Emerick said many times :3
I would like to look at my presidency at statistical viewpoint.
I wanted to get Canada to ratify PanAm.
Aeriala, the Canadian president at the time can attest to this: I was the biggest pain in his butt. I was talking in the Canadian Closed Door Congress (their private congressional forum) and was PMing Aeriala everyday. I think I broke a few fingers trying to poke him.
We were talking, and I eventually convinced him to support the PanAm charter temporarily so Canada could see how the new alliance treated them. They stressed that they wished to obtain dual membership in PanAm and EDEN. I thought that was a small price to pay to get the alliance active finaly.
I showed Aeriala this section, and he said ”you can also throw in that emerick and st krems had failed miserably. Watching the formation of ONE at the time we knew that they would be a force and new well ahead of time that co-operation would be important in the future. Tensions were high at the time with PanAm's forming and EDEN was wary of losing members. I approached EDEN and secured permission for canada to remain in both alliances also and got it. Creating a condition for canada to join at the time regardless of how was a way to ease some tension and allow someone as a go between to say we are looking at the same thing, we can't be enemies”
I wanted to get PanAm operational.
My most important goal as president was to work on PanAm. I was in countless meetings with other foreign affairs officials from other countries.
No really, countless. Especially when the Greece/Turkey debates happened.
We had finally gotten everyone in PanAm on the same page. Each congress ratified the charter, and the presidents were ready to sign. That was an extremely exciting day. I had accomplished my most important goal.
And then something kind of cool happened.
I wanted to soothe nerves about our new alliance with Brazil, in both the US and in Brazil.
In my most voted article as President, I gave the finger to Spain. We, for the first time, did not waste 200G on an alliance with Brazil, and the MPP lasted the entire month.
And then a war erupted between Brazil and Spain. And so began my falling out with the members of the JCS.
I was never the most talkative person in their daily briefings to me. But I was active in their IRC chans and talked to Jankems every night of my presidency. We were forced to butt heads multiple times. I told him to send support to Brazil against Spain, and he continued to refuse time and time again.
Luckily for me, Admin had just implimented Campaign of the Day. I set it to Brazil every battle they had against Spain. I sent who I could to help Brazil with RWs, but the eUS Military leaders would not make it an official order.
This is the reason why I was so silent during the military implosion, and eUSAF founding. Becase I was part of the minority in the eUS Military that supported it. But, I digress.
A lot of people criticized me for canceling our MPP with Spain, but not Poland. Fact is, we weren’t ready to give the finger to Poland. They were still paying us rent for regions we swapped to them ages before, and had too strong of footing in the heartland to make them an enemy.
I wasn’t ready to risk our country’s future just to get a head start at starting the inevitable World War V. I think Glove doing it when he did was perfect timing, and he handled it well.
I wanted to do everything with the same attitude I had when I campaigned. A fair one.
I was approached multiple times with the idea of using bot farms to raise money. At this time, gold was becoming harder and harder to get. They assured me that all the other “superpowers” used these farms. And hell, they’re probably right. But I wasn’t going to put my name on something like that.
Armandez has told many times (during our time at the AMP together) that the most successful players play this game without morals, and that to succeed you had to do anything to get ahead. If that’s true, then I’m quite content with being less than successful.
I wanted to expand the eUS’s metagame base.
We MMed the entire nation with enough material to get anyone hooked on something
We sent party links and descriptions, military and militia recruitment messages, gave everyone my intern form link, and told them all to inquire about anything they want. We gave them plenty to get hooked on.
The Dept. of Interior came up with some great ideas, and worked in unison with the Department of Education to get recruitment and retention much, much higher.
My detractors say I was a terrible president. I accomplished everything I set out to in my campaign. Feel free to check out my articles.
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-potus-a-new-beginning--1628302/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-potus-clickaholics-is-a-go--1630555/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-potus-ask-the-president-week-1--1632852/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-potus-the-road-ahead-1635008/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-potus-the-search-is-on-1637417/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-potus-chaos-chaos-chaos--1639297/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-potus-usa-and-the-world-1642437/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-potus-operation-pork-barbeque-1648284/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-potus-on-track-and-looking-ahead-1649527/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-potus-panam-is-a-go--1652296/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-potus-the-trifecta-1655802/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-potus-haters-gonna-hate-1658030/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-potus-spanish-mpp-1659060/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-potus-some-new-friends-1663347/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-potus-hey-check-that-out-1664601/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-potus-the-economic-council-1666088/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-potus-thanks-and-goodnight-america-1667217/1/20
Look at the comments. Judge for yourself. Stop listening to the vocal few, and look at the silent majority.
If I was so terrible, why would there be so many positive comments? A better question is, if there are so many positive comments, why do people say I was terrible.
I’d like to talk to you about Iran, America.
When I took office, we were in no active wars, and there were no important battles around the world. Just the obligatory Southern Great Plains battle that happens like every other day.
My first day in office, I talked to Jankems. Someone on the JCS had told me he had some idea to keep things interesting in the month.
“I thought we could attack Turkey.”
I told him that was a terrible idea, Turkey was one of the countries we were trying very hard to get admitted into PanAm. I told him, so we agreed that we had to do something fun for the country.
The logical idea that we agreed on was to plan an attack on Serbia. Now, I know. Really ambitious idea. But hey, shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land amongst the stars.
Colin Lantrip and I went to talk to the three countries we needed to have on board for this plan to work. Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey. Pakistan and Turkey were on board pretty much right away. They were both pretty cool all term. But Iran didn’t want to go through the plan.
They told us this while we were mid-swap with Pakistan.
What we decided to do was to start a war with Iran and have a propaganda campaign to get people excited. It worked. We had people fighting, Arm America was online, and people were enjoying themselves.
The military named the Campaign Operation: Enduring Freedom (which is quite possibly troll of the year
😛), and we at the Executive reffered to it as Operation: Pork Barbeque (nope nevermind I think this one takes the cake
😉).
Naturally, the vocal few, CRoy, Inwegen, and Pfeiffer blew that completely out of proportion. Apparently when someone they dislike has a war to keep America interested, It’s totally bad and that president is a failure. But when Nave does it, he’s one of the coolest presidents ever!
Logical, right? Right.
Yeah, we lost some regions in Asia. Regions that, with Admin’s next game edit, were useless in our hands. Regions we would have given back.
I will always be in conflict with people like Pfeiffer. He is his top priority, and he will lie, cheat, and steal until he eliminates all threats to his power. I’m stubborn. Always have been, always will be. But I have morals that I stand by. Morals that govern my every action. People may see that as hindering in nature; this is a political module after all. It may be.
But I’m not going to sell out on my morals for personal gain.
~H
Comments
Pertamax o/
Very nice article
Finally.
Well written, informative, and bravo!
Thanks for serving this Nation, Haliman.
You were a terrible president, sorry. Just the truth. Interesting read regardless.
Nice read, but before my time here.
good times, not everything done is highly visible as it happens, CP sometimes is slight of hand, the joys
You wrote this like a year too late.
i dont think you were that bad, but youre still a butt... a halibutt
A very interesting article.
Everyone is a terrible president. Just ask anyone who wanted someone else in the seat.
And Haliman has proved, yes he did got this shit,
OMFG be very grateful that it took me so long to write a damn rebuff to this that it timed out when I hit submit, and pray I calm down before writing it again.
Think about what you just wrote before you point fingers at anyone else's ethics. I remember.
I enjoy reading these type of articles, thank you for a bit of your history.
I'm with Bia. When Josh, I and crew left office this country was rocking. We were all collectively shocked with how directionless it appeared during the month afterwards.
Nice to hear the what really happened.
I enjoyed the part where you "sat silently" supporting the military implosion while loudly building the AMP on the back of the military that you pretended to support 100%.
I'm not going to even go into the truth about your inactivity with the JCS, except to say hello and talk about your "legacy" while they tried time and time again to consult with you as a group.
After your term, watching your dedication I honestly believed you were better than this. I have considered you a friend and grew to respect you. Now I see that everything is all about what you need to do to get what you want. You led people to believe one thing when you really didn't believe it. That is called LYING.
Let those without sin cast the first stone. After reading this and KNOWING the truth about a few things you have no right to put anyone else down for shady behavior.
Haliman better get running, Bia's on the war path.
And yeah, I agree with Bia.
And from what I've heard from people that were important, not only was Haliman inactive, but he would also just agree with whoever he was talking with - CoS, CJCS, ect and not decide what to do until the last second. For example, IIRC correctly (I may not, it has been a while), when Haliman decided to end relations with Spain, he told his CoS one thing and the CJSC another thing, giving one or the other a rude surprise. Can't remember which.
And pretty sure I remember you posting support for Bradley and the JCS on the milf in Brad's thread about the split. So I guess that is what sitting quietly is.
WAY TO GO HALIMAN!!! I THINK YOU WERE A GOOD PRESIDENT, much better than some of the others the elites have annointed as so called Great presidents, Alexander Auctoritas was terrible, but popular and so no one calls him out on it. You were a good leader but didn't fit in their click so of course they've got the knives out for you, you were a challenge to their grip on power.
Mr. Wet was a great president.
For me personally, in 2011 Cerb was definitely the best President, but you Haliman were definitely a top 3.
Sidenote: Wasn't around for Obliges term so can't really include him on my list, he's a friend of mine and so I'm hoping he did good!
HAHAHAHAHA
>consulted with ANYONE on a daily basis
>was online maybe 3 hours a day
Anyone want to challenge that? I spent all of January listening to Laxsnor bitch about how terrible and unavailable Haliman was, and his own Vice President disavowed him mid-month rather loudly on IRC.
Don't talk about Nave, newfag. The war module was all of 10 seconds old and nobody knew what to do with it, so he made it fun, and it cost us nothing. Your term cost us the full resource bonuses the Frost Administration left you, and saw Colin and jankems doing most of your in game war button clicking.
I've copied this so that I can point by point it one day when I'm bored. You can't rewrite history, Haliman. You were horrific as President.
LOL omy
Wow, I actually agree with Bia on something.
Hal, there's a reason why even your own party didn't want you to have a second term. And to this day I still regret upholding my promise to you and letting you have that first one.
I always like to read history like this and what drives people to commit the actions they do, voted.
I defo gotta read this later. Voted.
Thanks for all the fish.
It's amazing how two people can look at the same thing and draw opposite conclusions. Thanks for all your hard work and your openness in this article!
PS: Best wall of text I've read in months 🙂
And here I was thinking the dark shroud of January of 2011 was just there to hide the failure..
I have to agree with Bia on this one. There is only one person in this game that I felt was constantly trying to bull shit me and this article reeks of it. I have not really interacted with Hal for months, and it's things like this that I'm not too worried about.
I hope Bia keeps going, ronsil. I can literally think of nobody who actually knew what was going on then that looks back at Haliman's term as anything but a failure.
Tales From The Fishbowl: Memoirs of a Fish
Former POTUS and respected oldfag Haliman reflects on his early eLife in this wall of text.
as seen in today's Pony Express: http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/1939520/1/20
that war with Iran... must have been my inspiration to use a photo which got the Army Times suspended for five days.
>respected oldfag?
no
just no
@Henry Arundel, you shouldn't talk, you ran for CP three times and failed every single time. America has already decided, your not Qualified for the job. So, go back to that puppet party and piss everyone off.
Good President? I don't know. As good as many I guess.
Natural politician? Yes most certainly! When ya see him coming, you now he wants something from ya.
Oh god, Whitehead derping.
Also....dear god, Hali, get over that PP run. It was not rigged against you. Laxsnor may have been my favorite candidate, but I play fair when it comes to primaries.
tl;dr
I found this article very informative and refreshing outside the typical rhetoric BS constantly shoveled that is feed to us by a select few that think they know best for everyone. Your response was long overdue and I am personally glad you are back in the game. Best of luck and I personally hope to see you run for POTUS again in the near future.
Responses like Talio's are why a response is needed to this.
Might have to dig up Frost for an article.
5 comments and counting from pfeiffer. I'm starting to feel spoiled 🙂
@Henry Arundel: LOL @ You. Really. I guess you have nothing to do but be a bitter would be troll who cant win a presidential election. More funny given who leaked the pictures of you bragging on the USWP Forms about your multi's and how to make them and how many you were running. Those pictures were worth a million words or more or in your case, a presidential run or two.
@Haliman: I am extremely Disappointed. During the whole time the military implosion was happening You talked to me about thoughts on how to make the military whole. You billed the AMP as a way for the JCS Military to take back power from your former party. You and I talked several times about what was wrong with this nation. Now I read this and see that the entire time you were gaming everyone. Doling out messages to get what ever you could from whomever you could while meaning almost nothing of it. Again I state, I am extremely disappointed.
I stand by my words. I think the split was necessary. The President should have the power to direct the damage. Now he does. The AMP was never a way to get the JCS back into power. You can ask the other founders. It was a way to ensure military candidates made it on the ballot, no matter what affiliation.
Even if I spoke up, what sway would a non-congressman, non-party leader have? I was neither at the time of the split.
I don't like HOW things went down, but a split was inevitable.
Man You should keep this silent. Romania with Poland and USA with Spain actually made NWO.
Later we was pummeled.
Forming PANAM and bringing Turkey and playing that eUSA is superpower like it is in RL bring us in very bad situation. Everyone knows what happens later.
Small group of elitist who rule with eUSA years play small Gods, destroy unity, try to destroy military...
Politics did terrible job.
People seem...what's the word? Pissed in comments.
Jesus. I never understood you and your politics....making an RL copy in game.tons and tons of bs administration and birocracy, army-politcs...
JCS refused to send army to brazil - REFUSED to president - that's enough.
From someone who took off for ten months from the game, I'd say that we all have personal agendas in this game. While we all know some left larger wakes of destruction than others on their way up to the top, it's clear, when agendas clash, there shall be blood.
It is nice hearing your side of this story. Since I wasn't around for your presidency,most of what I heard about it was anit-Haliman rhetoric mostly from a vocal few. Many of which I have grown to dislike or distrust due to their actions and words. I don't like knowing one side of a story so long as I can help it, and no one likes seeing their friend dragged through the mud time and time again. I respect Haliman because I've seen helpfulness, encouragement, support and kindness firsthand. Nobody is perfect, we all make mistakes, and everyone here is entitled to their opinion of how things happened. Honestly, I don't care how his presidency went down. I'm just glad to call Haliman my friend and I am glad to see the other side of your story.
Haliman, this article made me actually do a for real LOL. No one take that the wrong way please! The content of the article is not what I'm speaking of. I'm talking about the land mine you have stepped on. This is great and I'm sooooooooooooo enjoying reading the comments. I just hope you've not injured yourself by bringing this all up again. The skunks are coming out of the woodpile now, everyone run for it!
Interesting read for sure, but enjoyable. It's obvious different people have different reactions to Halibutt's article, as different people have different experiences with him. Still, an article worth posting to show what happened behind closed doors. Hopefully more people will write articles about their experiences and what not.
I'm still waiting for one from Deificus. That one should be gloooorious.
I am just kinda peeved at the claims about PANAM creation. St Krems did the vast majority of the work on that and it was spearheaded by the Frost admin that preceded you. Also your claims of activity by pointing to your articles, that's only part of the story. Behind the scenes you barely posted at all in the Presidential area of the forums, everyone went on working in your absence. IRC activity? nope.avi
I like you Haliman and have always given you a fair shot but this just seems a bit over the top for me.
I have no political axe to grind here, just the facts ma'am.