What now for Stalin-chan and the Bretons?

Day 835, 20:05 • Published in South Korea Bolivia • by Arjay Phoenician

Here’s a question for my readers to ponder tonight:

What does a PTO group do when they’re found out?

In my past experience, mercenary groups who come to a country to take it over, install themselves as kings, drain the treasury, whatever they wish, when they’re found out by the public of that country, they puff out their chests. They stroke their egos. They get loud and obnoxious in the media. They’ll tell you, yeah, we’re here to take over, what are you gonna do about it? I’ve seen it all over the world, from South America to Africa to Asia. They’ll tell you they’re doing a small country a favor by taking over, you can’t possibly survive without their protection. They’ll insist it’s them that makes this world go round, churns things up, makes eRepublik interesting and worth playing.

It’s been a while since the aptly-named Goons—I prefer to call them the Bretons, considering how they were in France in December with some cockamamie scheme to take Brittany for themselves and proclaim autonomy on some level, and also because the term goon can describe any thug or criminal out there—were discovered by members of the South Korean community. I’ve been caught up on events since concerning the Party In My Pants, that’s why I write articles like the one I wrote last night, when I get a funny feeling about something, if I step up and say Hey, there’s something wrong here, there’s always someone who will fill in the gaps for me.

In the PIMP, there are good guys, and there are bad guys, and allow me to apologize to the good guys, the FacePunchers, for lumping them in with the bad guys, the Bretons. I leapt to the conclusion that the party was a monolith, completely run by a single group, led by their Party President, Stalin-chan. I know the FP is here to assist, not to take over, and I know the Bretons were not just looking for a home, but a country to rule. I’m sorry.

The saga of the Bretons in South Korea is available for your reading pleasure on the Forum, it’s actually interesting reading.

But the question before the Bretons remains. What does a PTO group do when they’re found out?

The days of the tsunami-like PTO waves are becoming rare, the admins haven’t created any new countries in almost a year, and nations re-emerging without installed governments don’t happen every day. Apparently, the new PTO is the slow PTO, where one or two members of the group come to a country, get into Congress, use their privileges to get a few of their buddies citizenship, a few more get into Congress, and so on, until, before you know it, they’ve taken Congress and the presidency. That’s how it was done in Peru, for instance, members of the AFK (now the PTMF) went there after their failed attempt in Brazil, and when the new citizenship module took effect, they just waited it out, bided their time, slowly consolidated power until they were the majority in Congress, and then, when he acted outside their wishes, impeached the President for the sake of their own guy taking over. It took from July to October for the process to happen, but ever since, Peru has been a “protectorate” of Poland.

The AFK, however, had dozens of adherents, previously adept at swarming into a country, taking what they wanted, and leaving at their leisure. It remains to be seen if the Bretons can muster those kind of numbers.

The Bretons need to come up with a new game plan, and rather fast. This isn’t the South Korea from January, perceived to be vulnerable after the departure of the Theocrats. We have a community looking out for one another, we have decisive leadership, and we’re starting to build a population large enough to perhaps pull us out of the PTO hell so many countries fall into, but never pull themselves out of, mostly because their population remains small.

The Bretons are not the first such plan we’ve foiled, and most assuredly, considering how many citizenship requests we’re getting from folks in China and Serbia, it may not be the last.

But where do you go from here? You’ve been pointed, you’ve had the spotlight put on you, countermeasures have been put in place to diminish your abilities, where do you go from here?

One thing you could do is quit what you’re doing, realizing your presence here is pernicious in nature, and that most of those who live here, who have worked their tails off to build this country into something decent, want to chase you out faster than you came in. They could leave, chalk this up as a learning experience, and try again in another country. That’s one option.

Another option is to do what every other PTO group does, and that’s to puff your chests out, talk a lot of trash, try to strike fear in the hearts of the natives, and dare us to knock the battery off your shoulder. I’m not sure the sort of numbers the Bretons can bring to bear, but then again, you only need to win an election by one vote. So far, within South Korea, they’re pretty quiet, maybe they’re thinking we’ll forget about them, maybe we’ll underestimate them and ignore them after awhile; in both cases, considering our history, I doubt we’ll do that.

A third option, and in my opinion the only option a real man would choose, is to own up to it. Yes, South Korea, we came here with the intention of taking power for ourselves, we have our reasons, but you won’t agree with them, so suffice it to say, we’re here, and we’re who you thought we were. I would stand up and applaud anyone who did that. The next time I see it will be the first time I see it.

Option #4 would be to disband the group and get real jobs. This is probably the least likely proposition, such groups don’t come to a country in order to build its economy or strength its community. They come to rule, to steal, to command, and why would a man who would be king be content working at a Q3 grain company?

The ball is in the Bretons’ court.

There are some who will complain about this, call me Arjay McCarthy, accuse the South Korean community of conducting witchhunts and acting on paranoia. To those who seek to explain away the tactics of groups seeking to seize the power they refuse to work for themselves, I tell you to save it. PTO groups live a parasitic nature, sucking their host dry, then leaving the empty husk on the dirt as they move on. No one wants a PTO group embedded in their country, and the smaller the population, the higher the worry. I am all for a balanced approach to citizenship, I don’t subscribe to either extreme, either to deny all applicants unless they jump through a set of hoops of our choosing, or to let the floodgates open and let everyone in. But I’ve also seen too much in this world, not just in South Korea, but elsewhere in my travels. South Korea doesn’t need to apologize for anything when it comes to protecting its sovereignty against invaders, whether it’s a military invasion or a PTO; the only thing this country needs to do is to continue to repel such attempts, and maybe, just maybe, these groups will stop looking at us as the next stop on their PTO tour.