The Decline
Entry posted by Homura
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Lately the overwhelming opinion of Digiterra has been one of overt hostility and even aggression towards the New Pacific Order and its allies. While there's always been some dislike of the NPO for various reasons, it's never been a movement quite as organised or powerful as what's been seen lately, not even in the days of Great Wars past. So what has changed?
A mantra often repeated by Pacificans is "Pacifica Prevails!" And for years it has. Nobody has successfully dealt any long term damage to Pacifica to date, even when the alliance seemed devestated after the Great War or Great Patriotic War as it's known to Pacificans. But there is a reason Pacifica has prevailed. The alliance was home to some of the most innovative people and was built on revolutionary ideals, which resulted in frequent success as the ability to adapt to changing conditions allowed an efficient and effective response to many challenging situations. There are still remnants of a formerly great culture of equality which existed in the hierarchical structure, where nobody was intended to be irreplacible or more important than another, even if in reality things cannot always work perfectly or as planned.
However in more recent months, the alliance has more often than not been resistant to new ideas even while openly courting them. NPO did not change the price paid for technology from 3 million for 150 tech until well into 2008, when the rest of the world found that rate to be inefficient since mid-2007, along with a few other significant internal matters which I'm not going to discuss in a public setting as they are more sensitive issues, but which generally were dismissed by alliance leadership, i.e. the Imperial Officers. In the case of the tech rate, it was primarily due to the insistence of the NPO Bank.
Part of the underlying reason for all of this relates to a near stagnation in leadership, with some retaining their positions for years. There is, of course, nothing wrong with retaining effective leaders, but it becomes easy to develop a fixed mindset regarding the manner of operations as time progresses, which is exactly what many people observed was occurring. One of the most ambitious proposals to combat this was that to create a third Order on Yellow, however this never came to fruition for various reasons.
In August 2007, it was announced that Ivan Moldavi was returning to the position of Emperor of the New Pacific Order, that TrotskysRevenge was resigning and would be Regent. Within NPO, the mood was that of both surprise and excitement. Days later we were informed that our forums were moving, and Ivan had staged a coup d'état. A very real possibility for continuing positive change had been stopped in favour of preserving the status quo, both internally and externally, although as history shows, it made little difference externally with the collapse of the Initiative a month later.
Over time, the alliance lost some of its most talented people who easily could have become the next generation of NPO leadership, such as Doitzel and Rebel Virginia. The dispute and disconnect with the New Polar Order further progressed this loss, and it could easily be argued that losing the NpO was losing half the Order and the talent that went with it. The network of allies surrounding Pacifica became easy to depend on, but they had their demands as well, creating a situation of primarily outside rather than self-reliance.
And now a large portion of that network is lost and a lot of former NPO talent is actively working against them. Once dependable allies like VE have become antagonists, others like MHA are withdrawing their support, and there's a very real chance that Pacifica could be facing a stronger and more well prepared opponent in war.
I can't predict the outcome, but if Pacifica wants to prevail again, it's going to require a hard look at the way they're currently doing things, making difficult changes, and a lot of dedication and will to stay on through trying times - a revival of revolutionary spirit. I can't easily get caught up in this argument of "karma", but in analysing the true situation, it's clear that the previous and current modus operandi of the New Pacific Order produced some rather undesirable results.
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