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ACT I – A party girl.

I started playing this game in 2009. When I joined, the Feds were a teeny tiny party with a couple of respected players, but really not much going on. The country was run by a handful of players from the USWP (basically) and everyone else was just along for the ride.

Pfeiffer and I were up for PP of the Feds. We had very different ideas about how to run that party. I won. He joined the Libs, and later the USWP where I think he always belonged in the first place. He was well on his way to becoming a prominent national figure. He understood that game and he desired to be ‘one of them.’

Meanwhile I was focused almost completely on the party. My thinking here was that there are only so many seats at the national table. I wanted this game to be fun for everyone and give people an option for success that didn’t necessarily include becoming one of the elitist puppet-masters on the national level- rigging elections (they call it ‘playing the game mechanics’) and pissing in everyone’s cereal. The goal wasn’t to build the party in order to have power nationally, the goal was to build the party so we would have a super fun party. Power was a mostly unintended but welcomed perk. The only power we really wielded, though, was being viewed as the ‘mostly impartial 5th/6th party with no higher ambition.’ That had its benefits, but that wasn’t sustainable.

I spent ACT I branding the Feds, boosting activity through party infrastructure, including the establishment of EZC, and being generally a really fun person to be around. I remained mostly unaware of what was happening on the national level during this time. It wasn’t especially relevant to my goals and narrative, which to this day I think certain players struggle to understand. They can’t conceptualize the idea that you can have fun in this game without playing their way. But everything was falling into place for the Feds and I was confident they would carry on. RL came up and it seemed like a good time to step down as we seemed dangerously close to making me PP for life, which would fly in the face of everything we had built. I walked away p/h, confident that what we had made was built to last.

Aaaaand scene.

I came back in 2012. The Feds were a top 5 party, but things were tense. There was no real power to speak of for the party, so while we had the strength of numbers and activity, we didn’t seem to have any idea what to do with it. We were being given appointments here and there in national offices to win our support, but we were hitting a glass ceiling and people were getting mad. With the dawn of Unity elections as a way to stave off a huge PTO threat, it was easier than ever to rig an election. The same handful of people who were in power when I left were still basically in power. Feds had numbers and activity, but that made us a target and security became a big issue.

Imagine my surprise when I got a message out of nowhere from Pfeiffer asking me to be his running mate as he wanted to become President (and I guess needed the Fed vote). I hesitated because…ew. But it seemed like a really good opportunity to help with this issue the Feds were faced with. What I had learned about my time away from the game was that Pfeiffer was a big deal. He decided who the President was. You could disagree with him all you wanted, but at the end of the day, he was always ‘right’. I wasn’t surprised to learn this. His reaction to losing the party presidency was still fresh in my mind. He always struck me as a future supervillain and he seemed to have come into his own whilst I was away.

I said yes to being his VP, and so began ACT II – a self-described kingslayer.

I don’t remember the exact moment I decided I had to destroy Pfeiffer and everything he stood for, but he appeared to be an obstacle that had to be moved for the sake of the Feds. This realization didn’t come in that first election. He didn’t trust me or even think of me at all, probably. I was only there to secure the Fed vote and while he did offer me the chance to ‘do whatever I want’ he was clearly not concerned about what that might be. It was another meaningless pat on the head for the Feds. I didn’t see behind the curtain until the end of his term. You know, he wrote part 1 of his memoirs a while back and mentions the first time he looked behind the curtain. It clearly delighted him and set him on his course. I, on the other hand, was kind of grossed out. It was so much worse than I had imagined. And that set me on my course.

I must confess to you right now, the national political stuff never interested me. Reflecting back on this time where I served in national politics for months on end, even becoming the President at one point, I don’t remember many of the details. My game is and always has been purely social, and not everyone and everything from that time was worth locking away in my brains for posterity. Laws were passed. Wars were fought. Stuff happened. On the party level stuff got really interesting. I was honored to be the one who was at the helm when the decision was made to part ways with EZC. That felt poetic.

What dominated ACT II for me was this epic chess match I found myself in with Pfeiffer. It’s what I remember clearly and what I found the most fun. Why he tolerated my repeated attempts to thwart him and make shit difficult, I don’t exactly know. I think maybe he just didn’t take me seriously? That’s probably why we had so much fun together. In my mind, I was playing this high-stakes game with a master strategist. To him, surely I was just some little sideshow amusement. I was okay with him not feeling threatened. That worked out beautifully.

It all came to a head when he proposed to me, in-game, offering the opportunity to become the greatest power couple on the planet. I politely declined. By politely declined, of course, I mean I ripped his heart out through his butthole and made him eat it. In public.

This had ramifications. I knew I couldn’t stick around after that kind of thing, so I began inching my way toward the door, trying to catch a glimpse of the fallout before an extended hiatus. I knew I’d miss the bulk of it, but I was hoping that I set things on a solid course.

3 years have gone by and now I am back. A lot has happened since then. Unity elections stopped as the PTO was defeated. New alliances have been formed. The mechanics have changed. New modules have been introduced and the global population has dwindled significantly. The Feds have stood as the #1 party and served respectably on the national level for quite some time, although I admit I’ve had to clear out some cobwebs in the forgotten corners of the forum. Similarly, Pfeiffer is described by many as ‘still important, but a shell of his former-self.’ eRepublik is clearly in the twilight years.

And this is how ACT III begins, and fingerguns’ story ends…


Now seeking supporting players for ACT III.