Opening notes on the Ulster Campaign

Day 4,136, 15:06 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Sir Humphrey Appleby












Good afternoon gents o/,

This article focuses primarily on the current and historic dynamic of relations between the eUK and eIreland. If you haven’t already done so first, have a quick read of Huey’s update and take a moment to fill in his Forces Coordination survey.


Why is eIreland invading?

I can think of three immediate reasons. The first and obvious is our geographical location. Neighbours have always had a (decent) fight at one point but as a rule of thumb, unless aided by alcohol, smaller countries tend not to pick fights with larger ones.

However with smaller nations like ours, at this stage of the game, allied support counts for a lot more than local contribution. So it will be interesting to wager whether it was several pints and St Patrick, or foreign promised support, that led to the Irish finally voting yes.

Historic enmity. You would have to live under a rock not to be dimly aware of this. Even though there are very few actual Irish players left in the game, eIreland’s foreign community have admirably embraced their adopted eNational culture.

One of the keystones of that perceived culture is an understandable hatred for all things English, with an almost religious-like belief in their United Island. Thus contention over Ulster mirrors historic real life troubles in the region and can be relied upon to rally the masses (with alternating enthusiasm).

The third - boredom. Both communities are desperately avoiding the main death of other non-medium communities. There are old friendships on either side of the Irish sea that are happy to confirm this is mostly the case. Unending ‘training wars’ and lack of real conflicts necessarily demand artificial ones take their place. For this need, Ulster and Empire have been useful on both sides several times over the years.


The opening of the war

The first few campaigns should be interesting. At the time of writing the first is 22/94 all in favour of Ire. For any of their citizens reading I salute your continued tight-knit organisation over the years demonstrated again today.

I must admit that my analysis here is very rough at best, but the balance of power (hopefully) will slowly shift to the eUK’s various strategic, local and importantly ‘training’ allies whose threatened interests this unilateral invasion could be encouraged to become a focus.

I hopefully expect however we will be in for a very good fight with our neighbours and look forward to heroes on either side. Perhaps even we smaller nations can remember how to enjoy each others’ company again, even with a gun…


The conduct of the war

We should honestly be grateful for what Slua and his country have done for us here. We have been mutually in need of some reason to be mildly interested and they have unilaterally solved our endless debate over it.

Whilst the possession of Ulster is a highly contentious issue in our actual lives, I hope to hell not to see it genuinely pressed beyond humour in this artificial game.

I hope we will keep an entertaining banter with our neighbours and enjoy the good common fun of it together.

Appleby o7,


A dram of scotch to every man, either side - a reward for still playing erep...