Let It Be

Day 978, 23:23 • Published in USA USA • by Bradley Reala

Recently there have been a lot of rumblings about problems in my cabinet, or with my military strategy, or with our allies. I’d like to respond to those rumblings, each in turn, and then talk about what’s next for us.

My Cabinet

There have been statements that my cabinet was too young, too immature, too inexperienced to do the jobs that they need to do. The idea that young players cannot do these jobs is naive. America needs leaders to continue on into later V2. V2 was a whole new world, and nobody really knew what to expect. Who better, then, to learn the new module, then players who aren’t already jaded by memories of Beta or V1? Players that are or are near the tops of their fields already, and are fresh to learn the ways of eRepublik Rising?

Some people have said that Laurenbug’s resignation was an example why newer/younger players shouldn’t be brought into positions like that. First of all, Laurenbug did a great job, but ultimately got taken out by Real Life issues. It is my opinion that real life always trumps this game, and if someone is having problems in real life, they deserve to be able to focus on that. Laurenbug’s successor is Harrison Richardson. Harrison Richardson is an experienced and intelligent individual. He has been PotUS three times, once during the V1 implementation, once during the Invasion of the eUSA, and once since then. I mention the V1 implementation and Invasion because those are scenarios that my entire cabinet faced with him as advisor. With him taking a more active role, I’m even more sure that the problems we faced can be over come. With him has come a great staff, including Alexander Hamilton and St Krems, two Americans who put aside political differences and worked with us to make sure that the eUSA has everything it needs. All three of these men deserve our respect, because when others decided that the best thing they could do was try and attack my every move, they came in with a plan to get stuff done. Rather than looking at their own political aims, they worked for the betterment of the eUSA, regardless of who was in charge.

My Military Strategy

So far I have had to deal with a major invasion of America, and the all out invasion of Croatia. During this time I worked closely with my JCS and EDEN to try and neutralize the threats. At first it was assumed that we could repel these invasions simply by winning a few battles, and that’s the concept EDEN and the eUSA followed until getting trounced repeatedly. After rethinking our strategy, a more unorthdox method was agreed upon. This, unfortunately, was part of the reason for the loss of the Southern Dalmatia battle. EDEN told us the night before the battle to focus on an RW in Croatia, and that they would take care of the battle in California. The idea was that we could RW Croatia before the problem of open citizenship, then they would come back without MPPs open against themselves.

As that happened an idea was brought up with my cabinet about attacking Far East Russia (FER). While that very well might have helped with Croatia’s situation, the JCS and EDEN officials were not available to council me on the intelligence of such an attack. Without that, I was not comfortable pushing the button myself. I made this mistake, but to err is human. Luckily, we have amazing allies and have done everything to try to fix this error.

Due to a bug in the game, Croatia’s RW’s closed prematurely and were reopened at a time that meant we could not avoid open citizenship. We did our part, but unfortunately EDEN was not able to secure California. This is not the fault of our allies, this was a problem with how the military module works now. Battles that end in a timezone favorable to our enemies, and unfavorable to America tend to end in American losses. That is simply how the module works, and we cannot help it. So California was lost, but we still owe our allies a great deal for their help, regardless of loss or win.

Before California was lost, I and the JCS talked about another unorthodox tactic for fighting off the invasion. This tactic included swapping Ireland, and then Poland, into position to attack Russia, and using Poland to block off any pushes further East. As we can all see, this tactic worked. We have repelled the Russian invasion, in no small part to our allies in Poland. They deserve our thanks, not our ire. They have done all they could to help us.

Our Allies

Our allies have had it rough. EDEN has suffered defeat after defeat, but after a meeting I had today, I am confident that EDEN is going in the right direction to fix this problem. At the beginning of V2 neither we nor EDEN had any specific goals, and Phoenix obviously did. Phoenix has pursued those goals, with the ultimate intention of damaging EDEN irreparably. With the repulsion of the Russian invasion, we have taken the first step of thwarting these plans. Now our allies are working with us to continue against Phoenix. Don’t listen to a few people who would like to think that we have failed our allies or they have failed us. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Just a few hours ago the Spanish agreed to renew our MPP. Why? It is my belief that it was not out of necessity, rather it was because Spain is willing to work with us and we are with them, as friends, not as colleagues. This is the same story with Croatia and Poland too. For the first time in a few months we have all taken a step back, evaluated the situation, and realized that fighting amongst ourselves gains nothing. We have all agreed to start focusing on our real enemies, Phoenix, rather than each other.

Where we stand

We’ve gone through a difficult time. We dealt with an invasion of American soil, the likes of which haven’t been seen in months. We dealt with the implementation of a new version of eRepublik. In all, my staff has done admirably. Over the next few days we intend to continue working, doing every thing we can to make America succeed. Make no mistake, Americans, this is not my name that I’m worried about. I’ve never been one who cares what people think of me. The fact is that if a President fails, the country fails. While it is the duty of every American to keep the President from doing stupid things, it is also the duty of every American to help that President succeed. By working against him, by sabotaging his work, by attempting to disrupt everything he attempts to do, it isn't him you're hurting. You're hurting America.