The Effort Tapestry

The complete history of the quaint region of Effort, told from the perspective of The Alexstralian State. If you want more context you can (and really should, it's honestly a really entertaining read) look back at previous pages of the RMB for the rich history of Effort.

Chapter 1: In the Beginning, God Created Alexstralia and the Earth.

On the day Alexstralia registered and joined Nationstates, it was late, and I stayed in my frontier region until tomorrow. The next day, I stumbled across Effort, which has become my home till this day. Back then, being the middle of 2023, it was pretty much just Opkyo, and Aerikhia, who was later revealed to be some person from another region’s card-farming puppet. Once I arrived, I spent my first few weeks doing issues, until another person joined Effort.

Mec county is a nation that will long go down in Effort history. Notorious for creating puppet nations for no real reason in particular, the region soon artificially inflated in size. Mec County spoke in a crude voice, much like Greenorphia today. Effort flourished, for the first time since its inception. The first RMB message? (:

Indeed this was all that needed to be said.

At this time, polls and RMB were not as common among the nations of Effort, although still occurred. Mec County’s arrival also marks the beginning of the role of Effort Delegate, since both me and Mec County were in the WA, leading to my first term as delegate. But on the same day as my election, Mec County committed a coup, taking over the Delegate position. Their offical reasoning when questioned the next morning was ‘to see if I would notice’ but refused to hand back the position despite constant pressure.

I soon persuaded Opkyo to increase my power through a regional officer and remove the executive powers of the delegate, but not before Mec County got one of his lackeys as vice delegate. This position was quickly removed and deleted by Opkyo, wishing to keep an all powerful hold on the server.

And Effort returned to peace. Time passes, small events came and went, and everyone was minding their own business.

Chapter 2: New Arrivals, Friendly, or Not?

However one day, a nation by the name of Triniski joined Effort. At first believing this was the 7th alt account Mec County had made, this one to circumvent the banan ban in Effort imposed that day, I was suprised to find no evidence of Triniski being an alt account, and it quickly became apparent that they weren't. Me and Opkyo were online at the time, and quickly welcomed our new visitor, who is still a resident to this day. But since the issue came up about the puppet nations, and since we didn't want to be seen as puppet storage, the same night, all of Mec County's alts were kicked by Opkyo.

We were then informed that Mec County had forgotten the login for the majority of them, meaning that although the ban list was clear, they were gone for good.

At this time Effort was in one of it's highest community points. New (although shortlived) nations such as Impistal, Komi kinkers, and more. It was a region in its prime, with constant social interaction, as well as the several week constant polling, as I was asking the community about what should be featured on the Effort flag I was designing, as we didn't have one before this. The flag poll wars were vicious, especially pertaining to the colours of the flag, in which Opkyo restored their 2 old accounts, Nonexistence and Out there to help them win the poll war. Zday and Nday 2023 came and went, but eventually though, things changed even further...

Chapter 3: Hello Effortites. We Come From The Skys.

One seemingly normal day, I saw an RMB notification. Ooh, I wonder what it could be. To my surprise, a strange visitor or two awaited me. These notifications were in fact from the travelling merchant of Goblin, and their companion Faemirajh. They had come from the region of Ship to shortly stop in Effort. Being the first to see the messages, I greeted them and started up a conversation. Goblin was selling bits and bobs, trinkets and treasures, and anything else of the like. I obtained an East German coin, and Opkyo eyed up the 82 potatoes, or as Effort has come to affectionately refer to them as; potats.

Despite the visitors only staying for 2 short weeks, this was the time when the region was at its best. By now Mec County had long entered into inactivity, only logging in enough to keep the nation from ending. Goblin and Faemirajh were great talkers, and much got said, and much got done. By asking Goblin where he got the potats, we were lead toward a region devoted entirely to them: Ultimate Potato Republic.

I sent Alexzealand over to UPR to request potatoes for Effort. Potatoes were shipped over in droves, along with the delightful nation of Potato diplomat,and we had to find out what to do with them. A regional debate sparked up over whether we should eat the potatoes or bury them in holes to grow/conserve. We ended up comprising, but not before Goblin had buried a large portion of the potats and found/summoned/resurrected a sentiant playing card, due to the question about whether having more hearts would mean you would want more potats (hard to explain, check like page 5-7 of the RMB board) eventually I left to go on a short 3 day trip, and when I had returned, the both of them had left.

And so the best days of Effort had ended.

Chapter 4: RMB Limbo is Not Where to be after Dark.

The region fell into despair again. Mec County ceased to exist, along with half of the other region. Soon, it was just Me, Opkyo, Triniski, and an inactive Potato Diplomat. I tried to breath some life into the region, through collaborative projects like an Effort Dictionary, but unfortunately it was to no avail. A few new people joined, enough for me to update the welcome telegram again, but almost all of these quickly fell to the dark clouds of inactivity. This period of silence was long and dark, the lowest point in the history of the region so far.

Nearly nobody was logging on. I was cautiously watching Opkyo's nation activity, ready to act as successor and restore order if they ceased to exist. Potato Diplomat also ceased to exist, and hasn't come back since. Around the same time, UPR was raided for a couple days, resulting in Alexzealand being sent over to 10000 Islands to request the help of the stationed defender forces. Fortunately, United Desri logged in, saving UPR once more. Slowly, polls and new arrivals started to move Effort in the right direction. I started work on a regional map, currently not abandoned but simply unfinished, but I was too distracted with what was happening in the RMB.

Chapter 5: The Day Effort Breathed.

All of a sudden, one day in early March 2024, 2 anonymous nations joined Effort, their purpose unknown. These were Greenorphia and Colleitheloli. They could be the same person, they could be friends, they could have just happened to join within 45 minutes of each other.

Being in the same half of the world as me (and probably Opkyo), (or just insomniacs), a lot of conversation started up rapidly on the RMB.

They seemed friendly, and they were in the WA so I got them to endorse me to become delegate for the second time, in which I used the new executive powers to appoint Triniski as a regional officer to help manage the chaos on the RMB. I also began a system of representing non-WA members of Effort by letting them determine my/effort's vote through polls.

Soon, the newcomers started to socialise more, figure out their nations policies, and become members of the region.

But wait! Colleitheloli silently left the WA, sparking a disastrous chain of events. Coincidentally, Greenorphia was kicked by Opkyo from the server for Irish swearing at the same time! When I tried to clear the ban list, assuming it was some sort of misunderstanding and attempting to de-escalate the situation, executive delegate powers were re-revoked, with the WA update soon after spelling the end of my 2nd term as delegate due to Greenorphia's banning, the term being almost as brief as my first, all of those months ago.

The region was confused all throughout. Someone just got banned? Through telegrams and RMB posts we were able to figure out a compromise solution. 4 days in The Rejected Realms, then a poll to determine if they should be allowed back. During this fierce poll war, several expanded ideas were floated about letting Greenorphia back earlier with certain restrictions, but these ultimately failed fell into argument.

Then, action! Alexzealand was brought back from 10000 islands to vote, Opkyo responded by reviving their alts of Nonexistence and Out There to continue to control the poll from the no side! The not only revival but creation of new alts lead to the server being briefly password protected, until the dissolution of the poll, and the telegram string from Opkyo through me to Greenorphia that told them the password, letting them in to the region, finally resolving the issue.

Until, Greenorphia got banned again by Opkyo, trying to make banning them an inside joke. With the poll tied and the continual tie breaker rounds proving slow, we will see what happens to Efforts newest member yet.

Chapter 6: Slow days

Most nations in Effort just didn't vote in the poll, or the one after that. Opkyo took the opportunity to ban Greenorphia, to which no one really protested, but I felt was wrong. It was later discovered months later that Greenorphia had somehow reached out to Mec County, despite them being a deceased nation, to get them to join a new region Planet of Apes, one that quickly fell to inactivity, with Mec County ceasing to exist and Greenorphia rapidly approaching the timer, as well as the region getting tagged by raiders.

Back to Effort, it became clear that another slow period was approaching. Nationstates being down really pit the nail in this coffin, as activity sharply declined even after our beloved country rp came back. The polls started to become erratic and random, due to lack of ideas. Soon after this, Apees joined, but no one really took notice due to not much happening on the RMB. Suddenly, as I hopped on to do issues and check the message board when I saw that United Desri had put UPR into stasis, probably because only 1 other inactive nation existed there. I had been entrusted to telegram United Desri if anything interesting happened, but that was about it for UPR. A silent death, with potato diplomat as well having ceased to exist. The most I could do was announce potat was gone in Effort and add a short memorandum to the world factbook. And that brings us to today, where unless anything happens, nothing happens. You know how this goes though. Something will probably happen.

Chapter 7: Greenorphia

After Greenorphia was alerted to the tagging, he moved to another new region, Straya. Here he requested an embassy with Effort, which we accepted. A few days later, in the middle of July 2024, when Greenorphia gained access to our RMB, it only took a few messages for things to go south. Colleitheloli complained about how it was like nothing had happened now that Greenorphia was allowed back onto the RMB. In response to this, Greenorphia sent "shut alan im barely gonna talk here", revealing that it was not only a coincidence that they joined on the same day, but they knew each other, a fact pretty much confirmed by Colleitheloli and Greenorphia through related messages afterwards.

Pretty quickly, the embassy was withdrawn, but for the 3 days it stayed open, Greenorphia continued to protest the embassy shutdown, but it was to no avail. The embassy was shut. Out of the blue a day later, Apees revealed that Greenorphia is actually their brother. It has been a strange and confusing time for Effort, but fortunately no full names or other personal onfo were leaked, only a first name and a family connection.

Last updated on August 8th, 2024, 12:00am AEDT