Imperialism in NS Continued
Note: This is a continuation of my earlier essay, Imperialism in Nationstates: An Essay.
A few months ago I wrote an essay that I intended to lay some ideological foundations for imperialism and to reflect on what was the driving forces behind an imperialist region and foreign policy. Now I think it is a suitable time to reflect on where imperialism and Nationstates has gone during the interim, what the future holds and what the place of the imperialist sphere is.
First, arguably the most important difference has been the telegram system changes. By relieving the burden of manual recruitment it has opened up the recruitment game with the availability of scripts for anyone to use. The main impact this has had though is to open up the possibilities for colonies. Last time I spoke of colonies only being run by fringe groups. While they haven’t yet become mainstream once more they offer opportunities to massively increase a region’s reach as I will explore later.
The other key trend in my opinion has been the decline of R/D as the chief axis in Nationstates gameplay. While military actions still remain very important, it has not necessarily been simply raiders vs defenders. Instead various happenings in the feeders, and the rise of the anti-nazi crusade has blurred the old lines, and often seen opposing sides working together. Anti-nazi military actions have also seen many regions, traditionally not raiders, invading nazi regions for political ends, a key element of what I think an imperialist policy is. The process of blurring has been strengthened by the vastly increasing familiarity between those sides in Game-Created Regions, in the NS Gameplay forum itself and in various IRC channels. With increased contact, the element of the unknown between them has gone, with much information that would have previously required spies and advanced intel networks to gather, now being freely talked about, or if not, leaked not too long after. On the flip side the increased familiarity has strengthened the role of personal relationships and personal politics with cosmopolitan vs regionalist to some extent replacing the r/d divisions.
Let us now consider how the Imperialist sphere has come on too since I wrote my last essay. Looking at the five leading imperialist regions, The New Inquisition, The Land of Kings and Emperors, Albion, Kantrias and Ainur, they together stand, at the time of writing, at a total of 2066 nations. Among them the LKE was one of the earliest regions to go to automatic recruitment and was able to build on the massive growth brought about by manual recruitment since early March. Though later switching TNI has also been one of the fastest growing regions and Albion has also shown startling growth. Militarily each region has shown great strength. The unification of the militaries of The New Inquisition and the Land of Kings and Emperors into the United Imperial Armed Forces, has created a force that is quite possibly the largest regular updater force in NS and one capable of providing significant reinforcement capabilities while each of the other militaries has come on too. In activity terms too things the imperialist sphere remains one of the most dynamic and active areas of Nationstates. Over May so far, generally a month of reduced activity anyway, those five regions have seen around 17204 posts, with Albion leading the way with 5,184 posts.
So what does of all this mean moving into the future?
Well in an age of increasing flux, of shifting alignments and alliances and the increasing centrality of politics rather than r/d, the imperialist sphere is uniquely well placed as a like-minded bloc of regions, with similar objectives and visions going forward. Militarily they have large and professional forces that are able to provide significant support to allied regions, as well as to each other. With a long history of politics being the driving force behind their actions imperialists are capable of entering this new world of NS with confidence and with the ability to take a lead in constructing groupings and aiding regions that share similar objectives. Their strength culturally means they can explore new ways to build relationships removed from the military side of things that can still provide substantial benefits, for example, the innovative treaty between Albion and Balder that places them in the same RP world creating opportunities for expanding in breadth and depth the RPs of each region.
In terms of colonies too, imperialist regions stand ready ideologically and practically to utilise them to their full advantage. Both TNI and the LKE have a significant colonial pasts and experience and each is looking at how best to begin the first colonies in this auto-recruitment age. All of the imperialist regions I’ve mentioned have well developed recruitment cultures that can be redirected to recruit for subordinate colonial regions that can act as buttresses to the home region’s strength militarily and bring new members in that otherwise might not have been reached out to.
As other regions pursue imperialist agendas, in deed if not in name by raiding political targets, creating alliance networks and looking to increase their influence, clout and visibility, those regions that have pursued these policies since their creation are in a position where they can help shape the agenda and redefine NS politics and gameplay in new ways. We’re not quite at a position where we can call 2013 the year of the imperialists quite yet, but a little under half way through it would be hard to say any other group are in quite as strong a position.