OpenGeofiction
As my main project is in my mind a former colony of Commonia, I have been putting together a rough sketch of Commonian history, mostly focusing on the 1900s to now, along with the rumored Great War. I’ve put it up as a sandbox article on the wiki here.
As Commonia is ‘public property’, I don’t want to make anything official without letting the community look things over, so please look things over and let me know what you think about things.
-Reece
Discussion
Comment from Yuanls on 22 December 2015 at 15:12
Yes, I like it! A very detailed history indeed. I think it’s very good and I approve of it. I too had been thinking that Commonia was a powerful state until after the Great War, when it was devastated and reduced. The problem is, this draws many parallels to the aftermath of WWI, when Germany was punished severely and eventually ended up under Nazi control, which didn’t really solve any problems, as it lead to another world war. Perhaps we could move the timeline back a bit, to accommodate another war, or perhaps we could say that the OGF world was luckier than ours and didn’t get a Hitler-like figure.
However, I think the largest problem is that Commonia is a free territory that beginners come to and are able to edit. As it belongs to everyone, questions must be asked about whether it is wise to set out and ‘official’ history for the country that everyone has to abide by. After all, it is a sandbox open to everyone, and newcomers may not even be aware of the wiki page. The wiki page you’ve written is great, but unfortunately, it may have been too detailed for its own good.
Comment from Reece202 on 22 December 2015 at 19:18
As I have just completed a semester in uni on the World Wars, I did have the Treaty of Versailles/rise of Nazi-ism situation in mind, and tried my best to write such a situation out. Whether I was successful in that, I’m not entirely sure.
As for the ‘officialness’ of the history, I intended the presentation as a suggestion moreso than a hard-line factual account. I think that a proper history for the community territories should be a proper community effort, not just a one person thing.
Comment from isleño on 22 December 2015 at 23:06
I really like this history, but at the same time I think the mapping in Commonia is so incoherent and so chaotic that it’s not really possible to write a good background for the country right now. I feel like Commonia will need a huge amount of repair, reorganization and rethinking from the ground up before we can really plan out a good history for it.
That said, I think Reece202’s efforts are great, and I wouldn’t want them to go to waste. I’d be happy to put all this history in AR008 or some other nearby open country, to serve as a home for the Five Kingdoms to exist, to unify under McGarverson, to rule Calliesanyo as a colony, etc. In other words, preserving much of this history, but having it play out on a smaller scale, and leaving Commonia to be organized at a later date. (?)
Comment from Reece202 on 23 December 2015 at 15:59
@isleño
Perhaps AR054? I’m not sure if the use of ‘colony’ would be appropriate for having the colonising nation right next door–having grown up in the USA education system, colony implies some maritime distance between the home country and the colony. Perhaps that era could be reformed as some sort of Hundred Years War-like narrative of the Five Kingdoms and what would become modern Calliesanyo swapping territory through protracted warring periods, such that large swaths of now-Calliesanyan territory would have a ‘foreign’ flavor to them from years of being subjects to the other Kingdoms. The way I’ve mapped the Nolarra Possession and Tranadystrie on the west side of Calliesanyo, they’re geographically more connected to AR054 than the rest of Calliesanyo. Perhaps their inclusion as Calliesanyan territory is a relic a more recent war, fueling the (still in development) Nolarran separatist narrative.
Comment from deltanz on 24 December 2015 at 04:51
Great work, Reece202! I’d really be sad to see this history go to waste!
Comment from isleño on 24 December 2015 at 16:22
@reece202 Yeah, I think AR054 would work too. At the same time, I’m not sure whether others would agree/disagree with what I said about Commonia, so it would definitely be worth waiting to see if anyone else shares their opinions here.
Comment from Reece202 on 24 December 2015 at 20:02
I agree that waiting for more community input is the right course. I’m going to take a break from writing for a bit (probably until the first of the year or so) to get some more content down on the map and so that a consensus can be reached and I don’t end up writing a bunch that becomes invalidated.
Comment from No Way on 30 December 2015 at 01:42
That may put a damper of sorts on my State of Reagan project.
Comment from Reece202 on 30 December 2015 at 16:17
@No Way, When I did the write-up, I was working under the assumption that the contemporary State of Reagan was the successor to the Kingdom of Reagan in the modern confederation. No harm to your project was intended, and I wrote with the assumption that individual users in the regions would work on the individual regional histories. Of course, It may end up that the events I’ve described may move to a different country all together and not affect Commonia. Some form of community poll might be useful, although I guess it would be up to the admin team to orchestrate that.