A History of Boston

At nearly five years old, Boston's founder CTEd. With only one RMB post and two other residents, how on earth did this uninteresting region become the subject of a Security Council Liberation resolution?

Red Sux Socks

The existing region wasn't the first incarnation of Boston. The WFE Index shows one existing as early as 6 Jun 2010, the date the index started recording region WFEs.

In early August 2018, Yelda explained by telegram:
"I had several city and state themed regions back then. I believe Boston was founded in 2010 and likely CTEd that same year or maybe in 2011. As far as the "under the protection of Yelda" thing it's not all that interesting. I was just playing at being an imperialist by refounding all these regions named for cities and states. I can't remember how many I had now but I soon got bored with it and let them all CTE, except for Arkansas. I still have Arkansas, but it doesn't say "under the protection of Yelda" anymore."

So it seems likely there was an older version of Boston. There was certainly a later version, founded 16 Jan 2012. Two weeks later, formatting was added to the original WFE text:

That incarnation of Boston lasted at most two months longer. On 22 March 2012, the player behind Guardian network founded puppet Red socks, and used that to refound Boston on the same day. The new region's WFE read simply:

As discussed in a Gameplay thread, Guardian Network made it their mission to refound recently CTEd regions, then build embassies with their home region, also named Guardian Network. Unlike Yelda, Guardian Network didn't have a theme for their collection. Also unlike Yelda, they never got bored of region collecting.

They apparently kept the regions unpassworded, and the delegacies as non-executive. This allowed others to move in, but denied them any autonomy. Despite the restrictions, Alpha centerui became delegate for 27 days, over Christmas season 2012 / 2013. On 30 Dec 2012, the WFE was set to read:

Welcome to Boston!
Our regional forums

---

News: relations established with The American Colonies.

Five embassies were opened in that first year, four during this delgacy. All but the one with Guardian Network were closed before Boston reached two years old.

The only RMB post in the first five years of Boston's existence was made on 4 Jan 2013, the day before Alpha Centerui's delegacy ended.

With nearly 2000 regions, the Guardian Network player used a script to log into their nations and keep the regions from CTEing. This turned out to be their downfall. When NationStates changed their URLs from beginning "http" to "https", this script failed. (If anyone can provide a link confirming the date of the change, I'd be grateful). Unaware that the script was no longer logging in their nations, Guardian Network continued using it. They CTEd on the same day as Red Socks, 18 Jan 2017. This left two nations remaining in Boston. Three days later, this newly founderless and passwordless region became the target for an attempted raid.

The Boston Beagles, Stratagem

By the second raid attempt two months later, the region had grown from two nations to 16. With no-one recruiting for this founderless region, why did they move in?

Some of the new nations arrived at the time of raid attempts. Others arrived in between. Four nations arrived in a single day, including Gul Paultoph. When asked by telegram in July 2018 if these were all their puppets, Gul Paultoph revealed:
"I brought a few more than 4, was when the Guardian Network CTEd and wanted to stop people refounding them [regions] like they were before, passworded and dead. Was the only name on the mass CTEs that I saw and thought was worth protecting, a good portion fell into random hands or CTEd then. I pretty much hate people founding regions (and nations) with RL significance and then just leaving them passworded. Hence putting a few nations in to stop others from refounding Boston, as always hate coming across those sort of regions on the region list."

Gul Paultoph revealed that Seanes Rudernous was one of their puppets. But other arrival "BONOG wasn't mine though." BONOG did not respond to a telegram asking for comment.

After 18 Gameplay (raider / defender) delegates in the seven months to 13 Aug 2017, the first ever conversation started on the RMB. Beaglistan said:
"Since the link up there is broken, I made a new Forum
http://s15.zetaboards.com/Boston_Forum/index/
Can someone endorse me so that I can update the World Factbook Entry?"

On 22 Aug, he became delegate, and set the WFE to read:

Welcome to Boston!
Our regional forums

---

+++News: New WA-Delegate Beaglistan+++

However Beaglistan made no posts on the forum, and after three days, never logged in to it again. He remained the sole forum member for some time.

On 24 Aug, Stratagem first posted on the RMB, saying "This region is targeted for re-founding by the black hawks. Put up a password immediately!". Stratagem says this was after being warned by a friend from The Black Hawks. However, Beaglistan had lost their endorsement(s), and a few hours later was no longer delegate. No-one (including Stratagem) endorsed him again.

On 11 Sep, there is indeed a raid by The Black Hawks:

The Black Hawks soared across the sky tonight, leaving their mark on some regions. Come join us

Participating Hawks:
Serboro, SGT (trigger)
Captain alexander, CPL (trigger)
Hired contractor ii, SGT (trigger)
Moneynessii, SGT
Maleficaerum, SGT
Libertatem-, CPL
Cyzon Galactic, PFC

Although Strategem posts "Well I hate to tell you I told you so…", this is just a tag raid. Given the delay between Stratagem's warning and this raid by The Black Hawks, this looks like coincidence rather than insightful intelligence.

In the next eight days, there were five further Gameplay delegates. With no-one else in Boston stepping up, Stratagem decided to take charge. She joined the forum as its second member on the same day. She was endorsed as delegate on 25 Sep:
"Thank you for Electing me Delegate! I will try and get things sorted out here. I ejected nations affiliated with the most recent invasion we suffered under that were not cleaned out yet.

When I get home from School I will set up a discord server! That way we can have some fun offsite.

Also I will try and start recruiting but I am still reading up on all of that api stuff. If any of you has experience in that area it would be most welcome to appoint you as a recruiting officer!

Finally, we do have a lot of issues players here, so if none of this interests you, that's cool, do your thing. There are also a couple defender folks hanging in there to make sure we do not get over run but invader/raider/whatever types. I consider them welcome here, I hope you do too!

If there is something you want to see happen please let me know I will respond as best I can. I am open to helping hands so dont be shy!"

Stratagem proved herself a decent delegate. In two months, she set up 40 new embassies. She created polls, chatted, greeted new nations on the RMB, and set up the regional Discord. But the first few posts on the Discord are almost as if they're from a mystery novel.

South Asians joined the Discord, saying "Hello".
Siege joined the Discord, and said nothing.
Lenlyvit joined the Discord and said "Thought so".
Gem (Strategem) asked Lenlyvit, "do you have a nation in Boston or are you a visitor?"
They replied "Nah, I'm a defender. The question here really is, who are you Stratagem?"

Stratagem's promising delegacy was not without incident. From 19 Oct 2017, Boston was occupied by a joint force from TNP, TEP, TWP and Europeia. Understandably concerned, Strategem posted on The Grey Wardens (a defender group) Gameplay forum thread, asking for help. Meanwhile the occupying raiders gave assurance that the raiding party "will not destroy the region or do ejections". The Grey Wardens advised that the raiders could be believed. True to their word, the raiders started to leave on 23 Oct.

To keep safe from further raids, the region needed either password protection, or refounding. On 3 Nov Stratagem posted on the RMB: "Ok folks read your telegrams! Very important". Two days later, on the Discord, she asks: "So, what's everyone thinking about the refound?". On 14 Nov, it became clear on the RMB too that Stratagem planned to refound. During those nine days, the population grew from 27 to 35 nations. The new nations were from "an organization called (at the time) the ITDA/ The Elysian Fields. Run by Crystalsummer." They moved in to help with the refound. The plan went into effect, and nations started to get ejected. All seemed to be going well. The population dropped to 22. Then the defenders moved in.

In the space of two days, Boston's population ballooned from 22 to 68 nations. After the defenders took over, five embassies were closed. This seems an unusual step. Often, raiders will open embassies with their own region, and later, defenders will close these. This is not what happened here. It's also not clear why these five embassies are closed, and the other 35 remain open. The embassy regions don't know why either.
Sattwikstan, from The Republic of India says: "Hello. I am foreign minister of The Republic of India. I am here to ask why you are withdrawing embassy with us."
Indera Kayangan, from the Council of Islamic States says: "This disgusting action of the so-called defenders will be remembered forever."

Massachusetts Witch Trials

Stratagem didn't understand why her delegacy was usurped. She tried to engage with the usurpers by telegram, and also started a Gameplay Forum thread, asking for advice. Amongst the tangential thread-locking sh!tstorm that ensued, there are some posts worthy of note.

Defender Roavin said:
"Stratagem, you moved your nation (without WA) into the region in April, didn't participate at all until you one day in August randomly claimed TBH was trying to refound it. When asked how you know this, you then said (in your second ever RMB post) that "[you] know bc [you] know".Then, your WA membership appeared out of nowhere, you got Crystalsummer's peeps to pile on you, and started purging the region."

Stratagem had no need to be a WA member until she made the bid for the delegacy, so Roavin's focus on this seems misguided. And nobody in the region participated until August. It's also worth noting that Stratagem kept her WA in Boston for two months before she "got Crystalsummer's peeps to pile". Stratagem's unsubstantiated claims of a TBH refound threat are very curious though.

Roavin added: "I'm not buying your claim to nativity."

Kanglia agreed: Yeah, you're not a native.

Defender Vincent Drake said:
"This is really about native status and support, without which, the region isn't "yours" to refound in the first place.

Nations have been in Boston for far longer than you have, clearly content to just answer issues. A region like that should be left alone in peace, regardless of whether outsiders feel the region is being underutilized, unless you have native support."

But who in Boston was a "native"? The term has never had a satisfactory definition in the history of Gameplay (In fact, "influence" was introduced to the game to circumvent the need for a definition). The two original Boston residents (if they had still been present at this point) would highly likely be considered native. But like Stratagem, all the other nations chose to join this founderless, delegateless region after 21 Jan 2017.

Gul Paultoph (who controlled most of the oldest, issue-answering nations in Boston), said in the July 2018 telegram, "I still don't really think of myself as a native, as like, I've got no RL connection to Boston, nor is this my main region, and I think you can really only be native only to really 1 or maybe 2 at a push regions."

He said as much to Lenlyvit in a private conversation, which he thought happened in Dec 2017. In the conversation, Lenlyvit also asked if Gul Paultoph was a raider. It would be odd to ask if he was a raider after intervening, so it's conceivable that the conversation actually took place in Nov 2017, when Gul Paultoph asked the defenders to intervene. Lenlyvit (Terra Voltera) avoided using the word "native" to describe Gul Paultoph in a June 2018 forum post: "We were approached by one of the people who had nations in Boston and asked us to save the region from Stratagem".

Knowingly or unknowingly, the defenders had put the interests of a self-declared non-native above those of Stratagem and her two-month old community.

Stratagem’s attempts to engage with the defenders via telegram didn't fare better. She shared a snapshot of her telegram inbox on the Boston Discord. After being removed as delegate, she had a TG, from Zoom-16, that simply read "bye". This may have been a response to a TG from Stratagem. If not, it's rather provocative. We only see part of the ensuing conversation, but we can tell that these defenders think her whole persona is a fraud. Zoom-16 says "You're not fooling anyone". Asuna 1 (the new delegate) says "You are a phony Stratagem".

From Asuna 1's telegram, we can see that Stratagem tried to confirm her identity. (Quite why she should do this is unclear). She apparently has admitted that her main nation is part of an independent military composed of known raiders. Yet she still is not believed. She is also accused of "trying to refound Boston for unjust reasons".

Lenlyvit adds detail months later: "Stratagem was in the independent military of Merridel, a military willing to attack other regions and make them trophies".

By 11 Dec 2017, when it was obvious the refound was not going to happen. Strategem, expressing her anger, made the only post on the Boston forum:
"Yes, the united losers from TITO, TWP, TEP, TSP and all the others that pretend to help regions attacked Boston, just as Boston was turning a corner from stale dry issue answering inactivity towards a new era of propserity. All natives that are not defender sleeper puppets were kicked banned and mis labelled invaders. All posts were banned.

The true invaders are of course the TITO TGW and TWP best buddy alliance.

Now Boston is doomed to its original activity. None, except raiders and defenders. The forum is as dead as their lifeless rhetoric, and the hard work put in by a few decent folks has been ruined.

All because TITO, TGW and TWP DO NOT LIKE NSDIC/ITDA.

This was an invasion pretexted on popularity. These people are the worse kind of liars. Do not believe anything they say its pure spin lies and hypocrisy."

On 8 Feb 2018, she writes a dispatch, still standing by her version of events:

And on 26 Jun 2018, she still stuck to her version in a Gameplay forum thread.

But the defenders are never going to be convinced by Stratagem. There is no way for her to prove what her intention was.

Meanwhile, on 12 Jan 2018, Apostate from KAISERREICH has claimed to be Stratagem in a Discord direct message to Siege (New ex patria). This isn't made public until June. Apostate said much later that Siege was known to be a spy.

For Lenlyvit, this is proof of their long held suspicions. Speaking to Stratagem she says:
"Right from the get-go your delegacy in Boston was deemed suspicious. Like I said before Apostate, I had to dig into stuff to get records about you to convince defenders you weren't trustworthy. As to the screenshot, why don't you ask yourself what in the world Apostate would gain by saying they were you or what would New Ex Patria gain by faking a screenshot? I trust Siege a million times more than I would ever trust you, and I never once saw any evidence of who you really were until Siege revealed that screenshot."

But this screenshot isn't really proof. We see Apostate claiming to be Stratagem. We don't see Stratagem acknowledging that she's Apostate. In fact, she claims the opposite after the screenshot is released: "no, I am not Apostate."

Stratagem and Apostate have different Discord accounts:

This again is inconclusive. It doesn't show them being the same person. But as it's possible for one person to have multiple Discord accounts, it doesn't prove otherwise either.

Would someone go to such lengths to hide that they were the same player? For so many months? Why? Surely Stratagem has nothing left to gain from a charade like this. Is Lenlyvit just determined to see what they want to see?

Apostate and Stratagem both post on a Boston-related thread, and are quoted below. It's not the content, but the style of these posts that is interesting. Note that both authors use quote marks around individual words. Note that both authors use italics to emphasize particular pairs of words.

Stratagem:
"They are accurate accusations. Any response other than a re-founding by a beneficent sort that is active enough to repel the hypocritical "defenders" or the virulent "raiders" will fail. The password, or lack of one, will result in continued wrestling and eventual death of a region I do care about (since I was born and raised there, it started as a completely innocent project of mine, after responding to a recruitment telegram when I started the game, from Merridel. It was boring there."

Apostate:
"Your conclusions are invalid. I do not masquerade as something that I am not. I understand that is very difficult for you specifically, and other of your pals to understand, but what you see is what you get."

And:
"I do not know nor care who that person is with the screen shot. I am sure if I did speak to them it was of an inconsequential nature. And we are all familiar with doctored and "selective" propaganda that has been used against Kaiserreich in the past, in your desperation to personally label us Nazi. Oddly enough, "A lie told often enough becomes the truth." Seems to fit your politics as well as your approach to gameplay."

Is this coincidence? Very possibly. But it's curious to see this in the same thread. Is Stratagem Apostate? Like in witch trials of old, unless she "confesses", she will never be believed by her accusers.

Did Strategem intend to keep Boston as a trophy? Nobody but Gul Paultoph would have cared - until Stratagem built a community. Would she betray them, and destroy what she'd built, just to have a trophy? As a member of an NS military, surely she could have found an easier way to do that. But there is no way for her to prove her intentions.

The Siege of Boston

The delegacy changed hands a few times as the defence operation wound down. Another 19 Gameplay delegacies followed, as tag raiders came and went. The community that existed in Boston disintegrated.

"On the tenth of June, two honorable oppressors went out hunting for democratic native scum. They stumbled across Boston; a region known for its history of resisting British oppression and being...democratic? Heck, this region is even run by the democrats! Anyway, the two troopers sacked the region, sweeping through it and destroying every shred of democracy there was. Now this once famed and democratic region is clenched in the iron fist of The Dictatorial Paradise and will serve as a trophy and a warning to those who dare impose democracy in our world.

HAIL THE COMMANDANT!

The troops:
Captain Boston Republic
Chairman The Fish Worshippers"

Boston’s remaining embassies were instructed to be closed. Over the next two days more than twenty nations moved to Boston as The Invaders backed up E3treszrgsergst from new raider organisation The Dictatorial Paradise. At some point, uninvited, a few pilers from Kaiserreich also joined in.

The region was still under occupation by 21 Jun, with defenders apparently unable or unwilling to move the pile. TDP (The Dictatorial Paradise) had tag raided in the past. But it looked like their first occupation would end with Boston being taken as a trophy - exactly what Gul Paultoph had hoped to avoid. Then Lenlyvit proposed a Security Council Liberation resolution.

Beside their role as defender, Lenlyvit had taken on a role as Nazi hunter. Earlier in the year, believing Kaiserreich to be a Nazi region, Lenlyvit started looking for ways to strike at them. Their "Liberate Kaiserreich" resolution was passed on 19 Mar 2018 by the Security Council. The intention of that resolution was to ensure that if Kaiserreich ever became founderless, it would remain open to be raided by anti-fascist forces. With Kaiserreich having joined the occupation of Boston, Lenlyvit now set their sights on TDP. Their new SC proposal painted TDP as being Nazi collaborators. The aim was to deter anyone else from ever working with Kaiserreich.

Nerintuewneane was the first from TDP to respond to the proposal. "Well... can't bring much to it, besides the KREICH pilers being there by accident (long and weird story). Besides, the piling isnt that bad, we dont have that big piling numbers."

The nice commandant didn't understand why the resolution focused on Nazism: "Also, your antifa agenda has just about no meaning here. NSGP is about r/d and regional politics, not rl politics. If you want to voice your antifa views, then you can do it somewhere else, not here. Also, KAISERREICH is here because of piling. We do not care for each other's political beliefs. After all, NSGP is about gameplay, not rl politics."

Lenlyvit replied: "Hate to break it to you, but NSGP is a lot about politics. Not to mention that pretty much all of GP is against Nazism and Fascism, so there ya go. Nice to see you so proudly proclaiming you're willing to work with Nazis to complete your agenda".

Determined to attack TDP on every available front, minutes earlier, Lenlyvit had posted on the fledgling TDP Gameplay recruitment thread:
"Oh look, the Nazis collaborators made a GP thread. Maybe you shouldn't work with Kaiserreich?"

Realising the long-term damage this accusation would bring, The commandant caved to the pressure: "I’m not going to waste influence banning pilers, but I will ask them to leave." He later explains: "I'm only getting 30 influence an update and the natives have a lot of influence. I myself am not a Nazi and neither is my region. TDP does not want to be seen as Nazi collaborators and does not wish to work with Nazis. However, we will not sacrifice an update or two banning them as we need all the influence we can get."

Lenlyvit gave an ultimatum: "If they leave before I submit the proposal, ill remove the Nazi content. If not, that will stay a part of the proposal. I'm looking to submit this tonight, so make it snappy lol."

Eventually The Commandant took direct action: "They came on their own accord but we didn't want to waste influence kicking them; all we were willing to do was tell them to leave. However we eventually DID kick them all."

Presumably this came too late, as Unibot III noted to Lenlyvit: "I've seen you've submitted now, so good luck."

Kaiserreich's Apostate added: "They left. They being us. And yet your proposal continues. More socialist propaganda against our Imperialist region. We are neither Nazi nor Fascist as a region.

The piling was a spontaneous act of raider support.

We have withdrawn, and a shame that a fellow raiding group caved to the sheep so quickly."

The proposal was now at vote. Many WA members would have been unaware of Lenlyvit's creative use of Liberations as weapons in their war on Nazis. Historically, Liberations had been used to protect communities. Most will have assumed that this was also the case here. With the line that the SC should "prevent innocent regions from becoming trophies", it takes careful reading of the resolution to realise that Lenlyvit did not include any suggestion that it would protect natives or a community.

For example, Forestavia posted: "I commend the Security Council for looking after native rights and properly using the liberation. The occupying government of Boston is ejecting people. This is clearly a situation the requires intervention by the world government. I'm voting in favor."

Hessere questioned Forestavia's understanding: "I do hope you understand the reasons and motives behind these liberations."

Apparently not. Having read the proposal, but possibly not the thread, Forestavia replied: "I would hope that the motives for this particular liberation are for the best interests of the native residents of the region known as Boston. That's my only motivation. Therefore, I am in favor of the resolution before us. I feel that the Security Council has acted wisely in this instance."

Almonaster Nuevo tried to get more clarity, asking his "usual question : Is there any native support for this?"

Gul Paultoph made their first forum post: "Guess I count as the closest to a native bar BONOG (who was just ejected). I'm for the lib for the record."

Although this is actually public evidence that Gul Paultoph does not consider themself a native, this post gave Almonaster Nuevo enough reason to try and get the Canada vote on-side.

Further down the thread, Kurnugia spelled out the thinking behind the proposal:
"Fashies should find no grounds on NS on which they can flourish. And since the rules permit this ideology, it's on us the players to shun the fashies and anyone that has no problems to work with them. Even if its only pile support.

This is the red line. Do not work with them in any way."

Uncastania seemed to understand that this was the purpose:
"To tell you the truth, I'm still a bit confused about why Boston should or shouldn't be liberated. As far as I understood the "owner" left and thus the realm came to be free loot. And by this I, at least think, mean is that it wasn't hijacked FROM the rulers. In those cases I've voted yes, but in this case I seem to be.. indecisive. Citing that nazi/fascist regionism isn't cool in a game where we play out our fantasies (to a certain point), I fail to see why Boston should be liberated. The way I see it is like Poland would have said "screw it" and let anyone to take charge instead of becoming a target for hostile forces.

I mean, English isn't my native language and all that. Am I missing something important here?"

Stratagem reappeared, and asked "The question no one cares about": "Where will Boston be after this liberation should it pass? The mushroom Gul Patoth you dragged out from the region, with his first post ever, is clearly just a raider or defender (same thing to me) that squats there for influence purposes.
Will any attempt be made to bring life to the region? Or is this particular pissing contest over once no one is delegate and it sits unused, and dead to all but these influence driftwood?
Come ON! Do something, someone, make it completely unraidable by either side so a community can start here!"

Soon, it was all over. On 29 Jun, Lenlyvit posted the decisive results: "Liberate Boston was passed 13,494 votes to 1,552."

Most of the raiders drifted off to other things, and Boston's population dropped from a peak of 84 to 31 by 14 Jul. Next day, defenders took control.

Reflecting on the raid, The Commandant said:
"Boston was TDP's first occupation. We've had tag raids in the past. The liberation would have been inevitable. I, however was quite impressed with how long TDP held onto the region. We chose to raid Boston at roughly that time because the defenders were busy in The Monarchist Entente. Concerning post liberation, we gave up long before that. The natives had way too much influence, so it would have taken ages to banject them. I just stayed because why not? Looking back, it was probably stupid to accept KREICH's help, as NSGP doesn't exactly look up to us now. I do believe the occupation went down quite well, as most of my people have never raided before."

Boston Legal

Behind the scenes, there will be other winners and losers in the history of Boston. But here are the more obvious ones.

With another Security Council badge, and what they feel is vindication of their persecution of Stratagem, Lenlyvit has profited from the recent history of Boston.

The Dictatorial Paradise's reputation is damaged, although they're not explicitly mentioned in the Security Council resolution. Their region still has a thriving roleplay. How their future Gameplay pans out remains to be seen.

Apostate’s reputation is damaged. Either they lied to Siege by claiming to be Stratagem (assuming the validity of the screen shot), or they lied to everyone else by being Stratagem and claiming not to be Apostate.

Stratagem's reputation has been damaged by the accusation that she is Apostate. Defenders usurped her two-month delegacy, banned her from Boston, and destroyed her community.

Gul Paultoph is content. He "Just wanted to leave it open to whoever - didn't plan a liberation, but overall that's pretty much ideal for the goal of leaving it open for everyone and not having someone refound it for their 'empire' or whatever they call it."

Boston is damaged. It's unlikely anyone will try to build another community there. Any delegacies would be prone to raids, just as Stratagem's was. It looks very much like this "decomposing playground" has a future of "stale dry issue answering inactivity". In between tag raids, of course.