NS Data Studio: The Pacific (History)

The Pacific, commonly referred to as Pacifica by its members, is the first of five Feeder regions created by NationStates administrator [violet] upon the game’s founding in earlier 2003. It serves as a founding ground for newly created nations and has been under the direction of the New Pacific Order (NPO) — and its variations — for over ten years. The current New Pacific Order presents itself as a meritocracy, rewarding loyal and hard-working individuals to serve as its leading officials. Serving as the most senior official, the Emperor exercises total authority over regional affairs and is responsible for maintaining the in-game delegate seat, representing Pacificans in the World Assembly. Directly below the Emperor, a Regent is selected amongst Senate members to serve at the Emperors discretion and represent him or her in their absents. The Senate, ranted below the Emperor and Regent in authority, is composed of individuals that have been promoted personally by the Emperor to serve as advisors and head certain regional affairs. Below the Senate, there are a number of departments, such as the Praetorian Guard, the Pacific News Network (PNN) etc. with their respected community leaders and members that contribute to department causes. All Pacificans, both in-game and forum based, must adhere to the Civil Code, a set of laws that help maintain community standards and security from which the justice department operates.

Early history

In 2002, the Pacific was the only feeder region. It would soon be joined by four others of its kind, each a Pacific. But the Pacific remained The Pacific.

Sudetenland was the earliest known delegate of the Pacific and the first nation to use the Regional Controls to eject another nation from any feeder region. He was succeeded by InfernoIce, whose rule was seen as autocratic but not too intrusive. Later, after the August Revolution, InfernoIce would become a member of the New Pacific Order and a Pacific Senator. Olongapo followed InfernoIce; little is known about his reign. Many of these early delegates were tiny newly-founded nations: Sudetenland perished with a population only 493 million people, and Olongapo with only 914 million.

Olongapo’s reign was followed by a period when the delegacy repeatedly passed back and forth between The Savage Lands and Thedoc, who were allies at the head of the Pacific and its Pacific Army. Thedoc was the first delegate to create an offsite forum for the region, once located at [1]; the forum, though dead, is still partially viewable at the Internet Archive: [2]. It is from this forum that much of the early history of the Pacific is known. At the time the Pacific was commonly known as the Pacific Region. Modern Pacifican ideology claims that Thedoc was inactive, corrupt, and exploitative of Pacificans, thus setting the foundations for the regional philosophy that would become known as Francoism in memory of Francos Spain's leadership during the August Revolution; this account is not particularly borne out by the written records of the time. The old Pacific community flourished in its new forum, blissfully unaware of the coming storm.

The August Revolution
Several Pacifican accounts, such as Emperor Unlimited's essay Five Days that Shook the World, claim that the old regime was “based on cronyism and subservience to foreign powers” and that “leading officials would pass power around amongst themselves, occasionally throwing up illusions of Pacifican participation, but invariably serving only their own narrow interests and those of their masters.” Emperor Unlimited goes on to state that Thedoc and the individuals within his administration did not even consider themselves Pacificans, but rather “their state apparatus stood as a separate entity to the people — endeavouring always to exist above and out of reach.”

Contrasting accounts of the time, such as Unistrut’s essay The Great Pacifican Lie, claim instead that the native Pacific community was free to speak, act, and trade endorsements as they pleased before the Revolution, with a ​“very open political structure”, and that Thedoc’s overthrow marked the destruction of the native Feederite community and its replacement with a handful of foreign conspirators who had largely had no previous part in the Pacific community at all (most notably Francos Spain himself).

Regardless of the true nature of Thedoc’s regime, it was in this environment that the revolution that created the New Pacific Order was fostered. A nation called Francos Spain, formerly the founder of the regions of Spain and Ukraine, came to the Pacific Region only three weeks before the end of August alongside his friend Poskrebyshev, who had introduced him to the game. On 28 August 2003 at 4 AM, Francos Spain, together with his co-revolutionaries, suddenly seized the delegacy of the Pacific Region and quickly moved to establish his power. He ejected anyone affiliated with the old administration as well as anyone who had a certain number of endorsements, reaching 295 ejections. This raised the ire of the old regime’s Pacific Army and drew the attention of many powers around the NS world, who had previously been focused on the “Great Villain” of the day, the Farker 1 Infinite Loop. The Alliance Defence Network (ADN) stirred to life and allied with the Pacific Army. They collected themselves and attempted to create a counter-revolution to spur Thedoc back to power.

On 1 September, 2003 — a few days into the revolution — the New Pacific Order was announced. However, the newly created institution was not classified as a meritocracy but rather an autocratic democracy in the simplest of forms, taking the will and spirit typically associated with democracy and channeling it through an autocratic structure, which allowed for more direct and timely action against those seeking to prevent the continuation of the revolution. Sir Paul reported at the time, “The government appeared to be totalitarian, with its civil code and frequent banishments, but in general, the code was only selectively enforced against dissidents and spies, which appeared frequently in the government.” Meritocracy within the New Pacific Order was born more out of necessity rather than ideals; the Pacific was facing a wave of opposition from outside forces and the need for unmatched leadership and skill become a central part within the revolution in order for it to survive. The meritocracy system allowed for such development.

Aftermath
The New Pacific Order quickly gathered its forces, repelled the Pacific Army and their allies, and began to undertake a conquest of the rest of the Feeder regions. Only the East Pacific, ruled by 1 Infinite Loop, was spared their invasion. Loop was spared because he was sympathetic to the Francoist regime, noting, “Have any of the anti Francos crowd ever considered that they are part of the problem? Sure FS is a Dictator, but the constant attacks on him, the constant flames, the constant spam against him. Perhaps, Just Perhaps, he has to be that way in order to protect himself from You People.” Some regions, like Wysteria, initially refused to attack the NPO but joined the fight against it when it began its mass ejections and wars of conquest (Wysteria and its allies went to war on 26 October, an ill-fated attack; see below).

On 7 September 2003, there was a power outage in San Francisco and the NationStates servers crashed, causing Francos Spain to temporarily lose the delegacy. The mods, ruling that this was unfair, reinstated him and ordered the ADN and Pacific Army to leave temporarily or risk deletion. On 26 October, just as a huge attack on the NPO was launched by Wysteria, The Heartland, and the South Pacific, there was another system crash, and large numbers of delegates across the world were removed from their positions, including Franco. Crazy girl temporarily took power in the Pacific, but her victory was short-lived. The mods again stepped in to reinstate Franco and ordered his enemies to leave for reasons of fairness. Mod Reploid Productions recalls, “Again, Neutered Sputniks ordered the would-be liberators out. This was later overturned by [violet], citing that in this glitch, the endorsements were not lost as they had been in the prior event. Of course, by then it was too late to fix, though Neutered Sputniks resigned a few months after the [censored] gameplayers kicked up over the event.”

The Bruce, founder of Wysteria, reported at the time in more detail: “Unfortunately, this liberation effort coincided with a bug that removed many of the Nation States Delegates from their position, before being fixed again on Monday. The System Moderators were faced with a difficult ethical dilemma: to stop a group of Invaders to take advantage of the bug to seize control of a Region or to allow a benign group of Invaders to take advantage of a system error to dethrone a monster. As the Liberators, led by Corinthe, reached their goal of attaining more endorsements before the coming system update, the Moderators decided in favour of Francos Spain. It was decided that Corinthe should leave and that nobody should be able to steal the Delegateship of a Region, because of a game glitch. Later that night, after momentum had turned to resignation and bitterness amongst the Liberation Camp, Violet overturned the decision of the Moderators, but by then it was too late. Many of those involved had long since turned in for the night and precious little time was left before the system update took effect, for Corinthe or any others to restage the Liberation. Shortly after the System Update did occur, the mass purge of all enemies of Francos Spain took place in the Pacific. All who opposed them or endorsed those who opposed them were summarily ejected and banned. There was a whole lot of bitterness resulting across the Nation States World and many have vowed to renew the struggle to overthrow Francos Spain. Corinthe, regarded as the leader of the Pacific Resistance, has announced that she is through with Nation States, because of the way things went down.”

The war between the NPO and the ADN, PA, ALL, and their allies raged for a year (and nominally for three more). The Pacific formed the Union of Sovereigns Alliance with several other regions to counter the ADN. In May 2004, the East Pacific officially recognized the delegacy of Francos Spain as legitimate, as he surpassed 500 endorsements. The North Pacific under The twoslit experiment repeatedly threatened to depose the NPO and demanded that the Pacific hold elections for a new Pacific delegate on the NationStates forums. In the next month, the Pacific invaded, and the North Pacific fell to the NPO agent UPS Rail. Governance of the North Pacific was short-lived, as it was passed off to Great Bight’s ALSO regime later that month. On 10 July, Francos Spain himself left the Pacific for the North Pacific to reconquer it in the wake of the fall of Great Bight, who had been ejected from the UN by the mods. Great Bight, however, was restored to the UN before update, and Franco stayed behind in the North Pacific and ceased all activity. One of Free4All’s nations ( Better Times) took control of the North Pacific and ejected both Great Bight and Francos Spain to the Rejected Realms, where they CTE’d. BlackAdder goes Forth, Chosen Men, and Sixguns went to the Rejected Realms to hold a vigil for Franco as he faded. Franco’s old friend Poskrebyshev CTE’d at almost the same time. Rumors of unclear origin emerged that Franco had committed suicide in real life.