The True Dutch Voice

Day 1,370, 08:33 • Published in Belgium Switzerland • by Monsieur Guillontine


Salut madams and monsieurs,

A Belgian and Dutch merge. Yes or no? Good idea or bad idea? Pros and cons? These are all questions that have been circulating our debates in Belgium lately. And yet, I felt that sometimes people just assume that through negotiations, the officials from the Netherlands will be satisfied with a merge. That’s exactly why I decided to interview some of the most influential people in their community to see their opinion on such a topic. Here is the message I sent all of them:

Hello there!

I am going to write an article analyzing what eNetherlands' opinion is on merging under the Belgian Banner. I know that you are a prominent figure in the community over there, so I would like to ask you to answer a few questions for me.

1. Do you support a merge under the eBelgian banner? Why?

2. What do you think made the union fall apart last time?

3. Do you think the eNetherlands community trusts eBelgians with a merge?

4. What do you think would be the advantages of having a merge?

5. What do you think would be the disadvantages of having a merge?

Thank you for your time!

Yours Truly,
Monsieur Guillontine







Responses



Former President Antiko

hey,
well i indeed have my opinion upon this situation.
personally i was and am a big fan of merging, however current game mechanics make it very hard. (so at this moment i think its not wise to merge)
1. not with current game mechanics, but i like an union between belgium and NL.

2. the union fell apart last time because EDEN freed a region of belgium in RW. at that time it costed alot of money to declare war and therefore it fell apart.

3. it always depends who u ask, there will always be people who distrust another.

4. better economy, less spending, so better army and supplies. More dmg so more influence on world politics.

5. more people will leave if they join (because of nationalistic stuff), the whole cp elections is troubling, then there is a problem with giving citizenship. and then we dont even talk about problems about keeping regions (getting RW medal is a nice way to make money).

eNL Airforce Military Unit Leader epix

1. Not really, I think that it go wrong again. I personally see us (eBE & eNL) rather cooperate with eUK and/or eGer.

2. There was a babyboom of Belgium players who did not know what has happened before in the history of eBe. Lots of them where nationalistic (what I understand) and by that we got more and more separated. Eventually there were other countries that interfere and found be needed to liberated eBe.

3. I think the community from now on will entrust eBe with lot of things as long we can be part of the congress and government. But new players should be well informed about what is going on and why we are merged.

4. The benefits... more regions are a better economic because of more production. And of course we get a bigger and stronger army that way.

5. We are an easy target for RW's, for that we need to be prepared.
Epix

Congress Member broersje

Hi Monsieur Guillontine,

It will be my pleasure to answer your questions 🙂.

1. I don't support a merge under the eBelgian banner. This has absolutely nothing to do with the banner in question, because it would be only reasonable to merge under Belgium this time. I just don't see how the benefits, of which there are some, would outweigh the downsides, not even considering the various (nearly) unsolvable game technical difficulties.

2. Well, I wasn't there last time, but I've heard the direct cause was a RW by some Romanians... or something like it. Of course, a truly united community shouldn't be fractured by such a challenge, which leads me to think the community wasn't, in fact, united at all. I don't know if that was because of language differences or nationalist feelings, but it is clear the eUNL community couldn't live up to the challenge at hand.

3. I don't think so. Over the past months, we've had a rather powerful nationalist movement, primarily fueled by younger players. I don't see how they would support a merge under the flag of another country. Then there's the people who don't care about nationalism - I like to call those the 'normal' people - of which some are opposed to a merge, but for various other reasons, including the mixed results of the past.

4. Bigger community, bigger economy, more media activity, a fresh start for the communities involved.

5. I guess a lot of opposed players would leave the country or even the game, there will be a clash of the communities, for sure, and the difficulties of establishing the merged country in the first place are truly staggering. It would take months to give everyone citizenship, not counting the transfer of national currency. And I doubt if this merge would be big enough to make a real, decisive and satisfying difference.

If you have any more questions, please, do not hesitate to ask. And good luck in your presidential bid!

Kind regards,

broersje



Based on these results, I have concluded that everyone can agree that a merge would bring about great economic success as well as a stronger military. And yet, in both cases, the Belgian and the Dutch populations are split on the idea of a union. However, one thing is clear: the Dutch who do support the merge know that such a unification will never be possible due to various reasons, including constant resistance wars as well as the new issue of game-mechanics, such as having 2 country presidents. In addition to that the Dutch warn that there will be internal problems which consist of a division between the two nations, the loss of many nationalistic players, the time needed for currency and citizenship transfers, as well as the change in the new union’s foreign affairs. And so, in the end, according to these experience Dutch players I have interviewed, it is clear that yes, some people do want a merge, but the focus is that there will be impossible problems that cannot be easily taken care of, which will always exist as a threat to the merge.

Yours Truly,
Monsieur Guillontine