Evolving Politics

History and Politics

Entry posted by Delta1212 December 24, 2008

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Most people complain about the state of the current treaty web. For those of you living under a rock (although I don't know how you found this blog if you are) the current web could best be described as less of a web and more of a giant wad of twine. Essentially everyone with aspirations of political relevance is connected to it and most people are so tangled they can't seem to move. It has been charged for some time that this political landscape, such as it is, is stifling the game. I'm not going to talk about that. The subject is dead and the horse beaten into glue. Maybe I'll try breathing life back into it at a later time, but right now I'd rather focus on something more interesting, namely, how and why things developed to this point.

At its root, the current situation is an outgrowth of some very basic drivers and is almost certainly an inevitable result of this drive being left unchecked. To gain an understanding of what I'm talking about, let's look back to the dawn of time. All that exists is a scattering of small nations. No alliances or treaties of any kind. Now, let's take a look at one very special nation. We'll call it Smithtopia and its ruler's name will be Jack. All of the nations around Smithtopia are constantly getting into small battles as either the attacker or victim. Most nations that remain peaceful wind up victims and most attackers will fall prey to opportunists or a not quite victimy enough victim. There really is no secure strategy to guarantee the safety of his people.

But Jack is an innovator, he reaches out to a neighbor and they agree to protect each other. Now there is no single nation that can destroy either one. They begin bringing in more neighbors to strengthen their security and the first alliance is born. Jack is no longer just leader of Smithtopia, but the head of The Alliance with unprecedented strength set to defend him. Seeing this success, others follow suit and alliances begin to dot the landscape.

Of course, now Jack has a problem. The Alliance is no longer indominable. There are other entities with the strength to challenge them. It requires more skill and a mentality more inclined to cooperation to build an alliance than it does a nation, so wars between alliances are fewer but much larger and more destructive than the simple one on one skirmishing. Now the number of alliances is significantly less than the number of nations. Peace treaties can be shopped around to individual alliances to help deter conflict as a fairly efficient tactic. Unfortunately, this only moitigates threats and does not secure against new or future opposition. Once again, Jack reaches out, this time to a neighboring alliance and an ageement to defend each other is reached. The Alliance now has an ally, and cannot be conquered by any single opposing alliance. Once again, others play catch up and begin pulling together allies.

The process continues building upon itself and Jack brings in a group of allies to form The Bloc. His enemies, unwilling to be left behind and exposed, quickly do the same. We're now back to square one of the cycle but on a much higher plane. Wars between allied blocs of alliances become truly massive and unbelievably deveststing in their effects. Individual blocs begin to overlap and become tied together in an effort to keep from losing such devestating battles.

Now, this cycle could go on indefinitely. In CN, however, the resources ran out at the Superbloc level. There are only enough players and alliances in the game for a single Superbloc the size of the current web to exist. At this stage, the fictional Jack would now be sitting on top of the world, all but having ensured the security of Smithtopia for generations to come. Any future struggles would simply be directed at remaining on top and preventing it all from collapsing by weeding out any structural weaknesses, a much simpler task than building it from scratch.

Jack does not, of course, exist in CN. His role is encompassed by dozens of individuals from as many alliances over the course of the game. The pattern is still the same. Each stage makes wars larger and less frequent. Each stage collects more of the world's resources into collective groupings. Unfortunately, the resources are finite, and the competition which drives this process begins to die when there are no longer enough resources left to feed competing entities. Because humanity thrives on strife, the death of this arms races between separate entities brought about the end of what so many viewed as their entertainment, the public drama of opposing sides.