N-Day 6: Bikini Bottom go Boom

This year, South Pacific set a new regional record in N-Day: fastest time nuked into oblivion. As the day was dominated by the incomprehensibly large factions of 'Crabs of the Apocalypse' and 'The Potato Alliance', with many medium-large factions not reforming for the event, Bikini Bottom found itself in the awkward position of being one of the largest factions, yet coming nowhere near the size of the mega-super-factions. Accordingly, it was made short work of by a coordinated assault from the demonic Crabs, who overwhelmed the South Pacifican defences within hours. Panther, Johan, and Maowi bravely stood their ground for as long as possible, yet in the face of the hordes of Hell, they stood little chance.

The region ended the day with a grand total of -8757 points, proving once and for all that the Ducktator is an entirely ineffective leader.

N-Day 5: Bikini Bottom ends day 7th

South Pacific naturally entered N-Day completely unprepared, under the exquisite leadership of Panther. The region's faction, Bikini Bottom, spent the first part of the day being bombarded by the malicious and devious Densaner, who had joined the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, last year's winners, in an attempt to ignite nuclear war between the armies of Hell and the valiant South Pacificans. Happily, armageddon was delayed by Panther's swift diplomacy, sending envoys with all speed to the palace of Lucifer where they explained how the wicked Densaner was scheming to use the Hellite arsenal as a tool in the local conflicts endemic to our glittering shores. Hell acknowledged this, and although Densaner continued his bombardment of the South Pacifican nations, war between the Horsemen and Bikini Bottom was, for a time, averted - in large part due to the Horsemen's preoccupation with a bitter struggle between themselves and the legions led by Potato Command.

The first real action came when the Augustin Alliance began a concerted campaign against Bikini, causing Panther and Johan to both launch their entire nuclear arsenals at the Alliance's leader, August - though due to spectacular organisation and manpower, no missiles managed to strike that most august of commanders. Thankfully, due to a prior stockpiling effort, Bikini Bottom too emerged almost unscathed from the first wave. Infernal unintentional assistance arrived just in time, as the Horsemen - having obliterated the Potato Alliance, set their sights on the Augustins. Due to this new threat, the enemies of Bikini Bottom ceased their assault, and the South Pacific was again spared annihilation.

Although Bikini's score had taken a minor blow due to the Ducktator's temporary departure from the Johanneslandian command for a grand luncheon with his allies, the prestige of Bikini Bottom was restored by the destruction of a minor faction - a measly two nations, neither of which had thought to invest in SDI defences - which reaped enough points to regain a grand score of zero.

It was then that Bikini's commanders had the wonderful idea of assaulting the Shadow Cult, official faction of the Confederation of Corrupt Dictators, in a moral fight against the dark forces inhabiting that region. This proved both easy and rewarding, as the Cult was already on the brink of collapse due to their demonstrably terrible foreign relations during peacetime - through pounding the remains of the Cult into radioactive particles, Bikini's score began to rocket. Particularly notable victories were the destruction of Jocospor II and the Confederation's newspaper, destroyed by Panther and Johan respectively. This came just as a new and wholly unexpected adversary appeared - the school regions of NationStates.

These factions, with the imaginative names of "UFM - SCHOOL CLASS REGION - DON'T NUKE" and "Benigtopia - SCHOOL REGION - DON'T NUKE" proved almost as wonderful in terms of reaping points as the Shadow Cult, though Benigtopia had the audacity to claim the conflict had been initiated by a member of Bikini Bottom. High Command considered contacting them regarding their pitiful mistake, but it was decided that - due to the restrictions placed on class regions - it would be far too complex an undertaking, and so Bikini Bottom commenced a campaign that saw the complete collapse of human civilisation in both class factions.

And so it was that, with twelve hours of N-Day remaining, Bikini Bottom found itself ranked 9th in NationStates. There followed a period of relative calm, broken only by the joining of Bikini by a rogue nation, Freelemburg, who began firing missiles at the resurgeant Potatoes, who by now had formed an alliance with the Augustins and were steadily destroying the Horsemen - a casualty of this alliance was Densaner. Freelemburg was accordingly subjected to a stern lecture by the magnificent Ducktator, and though initially apparently misunderstanding the situation: "I will not attack you or other members of your faction, i [sic] have a fight with Desibia not with your alliance," Freelemburg was eventually compelled to leave the faction.

The peace was broken by the sudden appearence on the eastern horizon of the Horsemen, out for blood and seeking an easy victory. However, the determination of Bikini Bottom proved unshakable, and their first assault was deftly turned aside. A second wave was prepared, and this time threatened to prove catastrophic, as Bikini had too few shields to defend against this new attack. Yet the faction's luck held, as just when the Horsemen seemed about to fire, the Augustin Alliance launched a huge wave of missiles against them, destroying many of the launching stations aimed at Bikini, and causing the others to refocus their efforts on the AA.

Alas, Bikini was prevented from joining the grand alliance against the Horsemen by the re-emergence of the rabid schoolchildren, prompting a renewed interest in their demise from Bikini High Command, a sentiment masterfully captured by Vice Delegate Johan: "I'm fine with murdering schoolchildren." This was also the moment that Ambassador Toerana chose to join the faction, bringing with him over a dozen nations. The campaign against the schoolchildren grew progressively easier as the night deepened, and they began to go to sleep, leaving their posts unmanned, allowing Bikini to regain 8th place.

Unfortunately, Panther - who had now been leading the faction for around 20 hours - decided at this point that it was time for his departure, and so he left - leaving the valorous Ducktator in command. One final attack on the Shadow Cult and the class regions was mounted, which resulted in the total destruction of all Bikini's adversaries.

N-Day was now entering its final deadly phase, and the Ducktator was still organising the obliteration of the last few pockets of schoolkids, when Llo of Potato Command called in at the Ducktatorial Palace, requesting that Bikini join with the Potatoes for the last hours of N-Day. This the ducktator accepted:

Okay, peeps. Potato Command has requested that we join their faction for the last few hours of N-Day, and I said we'd do what we can - not because their faction is better than Bikini Bottom, but because most, if not all, our faction has now gone to sleep, and anyone left awake will likely get a much fuller experience of N-Day by moving to their faction.

Not sure how many peeps we've still got, but those of you who can should probs consider switching over. We've done about all we can in Bikini.

That moment, when the remaining active members of Bikini moved into "An Alliance of Potatoes," is where Bikini Bottom ceased to become a viable faction. The next half hour saw the ducktator retire, as Panther before them, to bed; Bikini then lay without protection or guardian, and was swiftly demolished by the AA and their allies. But until the official dissolution of Bikini, the faction remained on the scoreboard, and ended its run in 7th. We shall refrain from mentioning how, once defenceless, it sank to 446th.

South Pacific raided, liberation prevented by new raider technology

For around nine days, from the 2nd to 11th of August, the Ducktatorial Palace - built during the reign of delegate Johanneslanden, and official residence of the Delegates of South Pacific - was occupied by an invading army led by Dashworie Aedorse of The Black Hawks. The Palatine Guard held the raiders off long enough for delegate Panther and his government to escape by the postern gate, but ultimately failed to prevent the raiders breaking through, plunging the region into two weeks of uncertainty.

Beside the standard of The Black Hawks, displayed from the Ducktatorial battlements, could be seen the banners of many infamous and feared raiding armies: Balder, Caer Sidi, Europeia, Karma, Lone Wolves United, the Social Technocratic Union, The Land of Kings and Emperors, and the United Kingdom. Suspicion was raised immediately by the presence of the Europeian Republican Navy, which represents a region in which former Customs Minister Maowi holds citizenship - naturally, a committee was established by the government-in-exile under the auspices of the World Assembly Minister, Maowi, to investigate rumours of Maowi's involvement in the raid. The reports published by the Committee are unclear, but the President of the Committee has assured South Pacific News that there appears no reason to suspect Maowi of corruption.

Initially, delegate-in-exile Panther ordered that no loyalist should interact in any way with the invaders, but as the long hours passed it became apparent that this approach threatened what little cohesion remained in the region; on the third, Panther issued a government order through secret channels beyond the raiders' control that "Everyone can go about things in the region in as normal a manner as they can manage."

Although the region was by now firmly under the control of the raiders, neighbouring regions and allies of South Pacific made repeated attempts to mount liberations, of which the most notable were those accompanied by Panther from Artificial Solar System. To list some of those armies which attempted to come to South Pacific's aid: the South Pacific Special Forces (from TSP), the North Pacific Army, the Rejected Realms Army, the Grey Wardens, TITO, the East Pacific Sovereign Army, the Free Nations Defense Association, and Thaecia - among others. Unfortunately, despite the bravery of those troops, they ultimately failed to dislodge the raiders from any key positions.

The blame for this failure lies with no person or organisation, but with the new usage of game mechanics. Alas, I am not well enough versed in the intricasies of the subject, but quoted below is prominant defender and TSPer Roavin, explaining the issue of Update Bending, and the challenges of this liberation, on the NationStates forum:

What happened now is the following: Defenders have, for two updates in a row, assembled the largest updater force in history, at 90 and 86 updaters, respectively (the previous record was 82 with The NSIA back in late 2016; usually a force of 30-40 is considered large). We were aware that the invaders had been update bending hard, so we took precautions. At the last minor update, they moved a lot of nations but ultimately our 3 separate triggers failed due to bad luck and human error. At this last major update, however, Defenders prepared by making a script on short notice that could accurately pinpoint suitable nations for triggering. The script takes about 15-25 seconds, as it pulls the data fresh from the server to calculate it. The script was run at the calculated 2 minute warning, but then the raider started moving and ejecting at that point too. Coupled with some ridiculous variance that threw off my linear calculation (I did not have time on short notice to add the more accurate statistical approach, though the difference here would be marginal), and by the time the people had opened the page to call the trigger it had already updated.

Thus, there was little chance of a successful liberation. The region settled down to wait out the storm, having been promised previously by The Black Hawks General Jakker, and by the Europeian Grand Admiral, that the occupation would only last a week or two - after that, they would run out of riches to plunder, and thus would need to seek new prizes to pay their troops.

The occupation ended in the early hours of the 11th (GMT), and Panther was welcomed back to the Capital in the midst of great celebration. But once the festivities were over, the region entered a period of mourning, for among the dead lay former delegate The Lepearchauns, who holds the record as the longest-reigning delegate the region has known.