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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/revengeisspecialty on 2024-10-02 22:50:40+00:00.

I cannot conceivably provide the full extent to what occurred, because it’s such a breathtakingly insane story of lying and manipulation that doesn’t seem possible due to the time required to maintain it. Regardless, I will do my best. Attached at the bottom is the original article which exposed the wrongdoings of Averra, as well as a video essay by the same author, which goes more in-depth into the investigation and drama. This is my personal recounting of everything at surface level, with information from other people who were personally involved, as someone who was fooled by his lies.

Background: What is NationStates, and What is Alcris?

NationStates (or NS) is a political simulation web game created in 2002 by author Max Barry, as an ad for his book Jennifer Government. He probably didn’t realize to what extent his game would become popular, however, as it’s persisted all these years and still has a thriving community - as of now, over 300,000 accounts, or nations, exist on NationStates.

People govern these nations, but they can also move their nation to communities called regions. Regions can consist of tens of thousands of nations, to single digits. These regions are basically like communities, with different themes, oftentimes with vastly different focuses on different aspects of the game. The vast majority of respected regions, however, all share one element - they almost always have some form of regional government.

Regional governments range in size, scope, and structure, but they’re usually made up of a dozen elected officials who decide how the region, or the community, is run. They establish constitutions, write and vote on laws, and maintain foreign relations and embassies with other regions. This aspect of NationStates can be called simulated government.

Alcris was one of these respected regional governments. Founded on April 6th, 2021, Alcris had, at its peak, 129 nations, as well as embassies, or relations, with upwards of 30 regions, including big names you might recognize if you play NationStates such as The South Pacific, Conch Kingdom, Forest, and others.

Alcris was supposedly founded by three childhood friends who grew up in Switzerland, named Averra, Wintermoore, and Gelenia, so it made sense that Alcris had a Swiss-style government, featuring a directorate and direct-democracy - while other regions had UK parliamentary or American presidential systems, Alcrisian government was centered around a singular executive council, called the governmental council.

Each member of this governmental council was tasked with controlling a different aspect of Alcris - the Foreign Affairs Councillor controlled relations with other regions and managed diplomats, the Security Councillor controlled moderation, the Council Chair organized voting, etcetera. They also voted on laws, called acts - while other legislative systems might need a simple majority, for an act to be passed in Alcris, it required all councillors to come to a consensus. If one councilor voted against the act, or if two abstained, the act would not pass.

Theoretically, this meant it would force the executive council to come to a consensus if any act were to be passed, meaning that any flawed legislation would have to be reworked to appeal to everyone. In reality, it was designed to benefit one man and maintain his control over the Alcrisian government, as he systematically lied and manipulated people for years, suppressing opposition, guilt-tripping and harassing anyone who criticized him, with an extensive network of alt-accounts who voted in his favor, occupied seats in government, and maintained his image.

Secession

On August 3rd, 2024 (so about 2 months ago, at the time of this writing), 14 people signed a secession document titled A New Dawn. The contents of the secession document started with the termination of a merger agreement which had happened a year earlier, and proclaimed the founding of a new government called New West Conifer, or NWC.

The document pointed to culture clash, disagreements in government, and failure by the Alcrisian government to preserve the culture of the New West Indies and Evergreen Conifer, the two regions which had been merged into Alcris as per the merger agreement.

Discontent had been brewing for months. It wasn’t until a channel in the previously locked New West Indies Discord server was opened, that talks about secession began to emerge. When the secession document was released, it was posted in the Alcris Discord server.

Immediately, Averra, one of the co-founders of Alcris, took action. He declared a state of emergency, and nearly 30 people, many of whom hadn’t publicly signed the document, were kicked from the server.

Now that the eventual outcome of this has been established, we’re going to start with what led to this.

The Alt-Accounts

As noted earlier, the secession of New West Conifer included the termination of a merger agreement between Alcris, and two other regions, the New West Indies and Evergreen Conifer (Evergreen Conifer was included as it had been merged into the New West Indies a while earlier).

The New West Indies had originally been in favor of the merger with Alcris due to concerns around the region’s longevity and activity. Before the merger, the NWI was suffering through a bout of inactivity, so the decision was made to merge with a region they had close relations, and even a dual-citizenship agreement with. That region would be Alcris.

But why did Alcris want to merge with other regions?

Besides the New West Indies and Evergreen Conifer, multiple other communities were merged into Alcris around the same time. Laraniem, and Mithra, two other regions, both agreed to merge with Alcris due to concerns with longevity and activity. The mergers, combined, doubled the Alcrisian citizenry, strengthening the preexisting Alcris community with new people.

Except there was no preexisting Alcris community.

The three original co-founders of Alcris, that being Averra, Wintermoore, and Gelenia, were the same people. Their nations were controlled by one person, using Averra as his main account. He possessed multiple Discord accounts for them, and as the sole founder masquerading as three, he had unlimited control over Alcris.

But that wasn’t the full extent of his alt-accounts, because the entirety of the Alcrisian citizenry were puppets. Averra possessed 35 alt-accounts, posing as different people. Alcris masqueraded as a lively community of multiple people, pursuing relations with other regions, before merging them into Alcris. He negotiated dual-citizenship agreements, and, in the case of the New West Indies, managed to vote in favor of secession with his own alt-accounts. He preyed on small regions suffering from inactivity, pressuring them into mergers. Because, without these mergers, there’d be no real people in Alcris. Averra somehow maintained this veil long enough to ensure the success of these mergers, bringing in new people who had no idea what they were getting into.

Corruption

With these 35 alt-accounts, Averra could rig every single election. Every single administration included at least two of his alts on the governmental council, and always himself. With two alt-accounts on the governmental council, he could block any legislation from passing simply by abstaining twice.

With such a large number of accounts voting fraudulently, it isn’t a surprise that Averra placed first every election - in fact, his vote count, alongside one of his other alts, was inflated by almost 400 percent.

There were three major political parties - the Progressives, the Moderates, and the Protectorates, although their names would differ over time. Averra utilized them to display a theater of competition in elections, fielding different candidates. In reality, all three political parties were controlled by him, and they fielded candidates that happened to be alt accounts, entering office only because he would vote for himself.

Opposition parties, made up of actual people, were suppressed. The first major opposition party was formed shortly after the New West Indies-Alcris merger, named the NAPP, made up of former members of the NWI.

Each political party had a supposedly private Discord channel so they could communicate. It just so happened that Averra owned the server and thus could see every channel. When he spotted NAPP members criticizing recent legislation he had written in their private channel, Averra proceeded to use one of his alt-accounts to apply for NAPP membership.

When the alt-account, named Hsui gained access to the channel, he accused NAPP members of personally hating Averra, before pinging Averra’s main account, inviting him into the channel.

The NAPP was dissolved shortly after, although further opposition parties would be formed by NAPP members in the future. All would be suppressed just like the NAPP. Averra would continuously hold a grudge against former NAPP members and went out of his way to make sure they never entered office. With his mass amount of his alt accounts, he utilized Alcris’ ranked choice voting to inflate the vote counts of himself and his alts, all while placing oppo...

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/1futb9o/nationstates_how_one_man_faked_democracy_for_years/