Review of 2010
Entry posted by Bob Janova
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2010 was bookended by wars that almost blew up: at the end, NEW's botched raid on the disbanded Dark Fist (protected from escalation by the policy of their allies), and at the beginning, the TPF war, initiated over claims of a black-ops plant alliance (Zero Hour) during Karma (Athens's DoW contains the contemporary declaration of CB), which was prevented from escalating by the unwillingness of TPF's allies and their coalition to actually declare real wars, as summed up by this declaration from coalition coordinator LiquidMercury.
The middle eleven months of the year have been relatively quiet, with only a small number of political events of any significance and one military one.
The military one that leaves the largest mark on the annual history is, of course, the Bipolar War, named for the actions of the New Polar Order, which ended up fighting on both sides of the war, though not at the same time. It also set one precedent that is likely to resonate through the next few years of CN: pre-emptive attacks are not acceptable. The war started by NpO taking \m/'s bait and declaring war, which quickly resulted in an escalation to include PC and FOK. Detailed analysis of various parts of the early phase of the war can be found in previous entries.
What later became the main focus of the war was started when a sub-coalition led by TOP and IRON declared war (TOP's DoW is used as it contains the full reasoning) on C&G, pre-empting what they believed to be an inevitable declaration in the opposite direction once they had entered the war in a more traditional fashion. This was met with a peacing out of the previous main front of the war, extended war, and eventually NpO switching sides and declaring on them, not to mention the loss of several important allies (notably MHA, Grämlins and Umbrella) and the large reparation payments. The sure outcome of that is that no-one will be trying a pre-emptive attack for a long time.
There are two political events that will make a difference. The second is the formation of Pandora's Box in October, a large bloc that pulls together alliances from various of the previous power clusters. As we go into the new year, it's the single largest bloc, and the one around which politics is polarising. The first, just a week before, was MK leaving C&G as part of the cancellation of all their treaties. While some of those treaties have subsequently been re-signed, MK have not rejoined the bloc, and that has reduced the political weight of the bloc. (Fark leaving Superfriends is superficially a similar event, but they remain firmly tied to most of the members and it hasn't made such a difference.)
Within Viridia, it's been a year of largely incremental change since the Bipolar War, which we played an important role in during the early phase. We played a small part in the Six Million Dollar War, but other than that we have been streamlining internals and maintaining our political relationships and friendships.
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