A Report from Blue Sphere

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Entry posted by Bob Janova November 19, 2008

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I'm here today amid the overgrown and bomb cratered lost city of Unistrut, formerly the capital of not only the country of the same name but one of the most important nations in the world. The borders of Polarian nations are now several hundred miles to the west, leaving this former grand imperial capital and its hinterland under the control of nomadic tribes, small nascent nations and nuclear scientists with radiation meters.

(The radiation in this former suburb of the capital has finally reduced to safe levels, although several areas of the city are still too dangerous to enter.)

But it's not just the nation of Unistrut that no longer exists. The vast empire that was once ruled from the buildings behind me (gestures at the distant ruins of the city centre) has fallen from grace along with Unistrut and the late Emperor Sponge. Within modern Polar nations (and Vidian ones and other former allies) the only mention of BLEU will be in history books and faded pre-war murals on old walls. (And the flag flying defiantly from the trenches of war that cover the whole of remaining OcUK territory.) But in this broken and dead city, you can still find the remains of the grand buildings where BLEU War Councils were held, the line of embassies from important alliances to Polaris where BLEU's business was conducted, the old BLEU Government building. Several of these have counterparts in the capitals of other nations and other alliances, but none was used as often as the ones here.

I've come here to show that even the grandest of empires can be brought low by war and politics. Emperor Sponge once commanded the combined allied forces of hundreds of nations and won famous victories, still marked here by triumphal arches and statues in parks where the bombs missed. He died commanding a ragtag group of ex-soldiers and Vox Populi revolutionaries amid the ruins of his own capital city. And today we have seen even the vast alliance of BLEU, that Unistrut and Sponge's Polaris was such an important part of, fall – although, unlike this city, in its member nations, buildings are still standing and people still living there.

No former members of BLEU were available for comment, so the cause of the disbanding is the subject of much speculation. The recent signing of the Agora economic treaty – with several ex-BLEU members or ex-BLEU economic treaty signatories – will certainly have caused internal issues within the bloc, and rumours circulate about members of BLEU being pressured or incentivised to join Agora, or a member of BLEU attempting to disrupt Agora and causing the other members to distance themselves from them. The ongoing war between OcUK and Ragnarok may simply have become too much of a strain to maintain.

But while we look over the physical and political consequences of failure, we should make a mention of the Union of Grub. Twice almost levelled in war, and once on the vicious frontier between the NAAC and Polaris, cranes now spring up all around the capital as bomb sites are turned into building sites. Having become the political centre of Polaris just pre-war, it is now the centre of a remarkable recovery. Only two months after being soundly defeated, people are already talking about 'when', not 'if', Polaris regains its sanction. The ruins of a grand city here are a reminder of how wrong it can go, but across the border is a reminder of how fast recovery can take place.

OOC: Sorry Sponge if I RP'd the name of your capital or other features wrong <_<