| abstract
| - The International had been a long time coming. In a sense, it had been coming ever since the Communist Party of Cybernations was founded in September of 2007, with the purpose of bridging the diplomatic gaps that at that time existed between the "libertarian socialist" and "authoritarian socialist" tendencies embodied by the Libertarian Socialist Federation and the Socialistic Empire. It had been foreshadowed by the signature of CADRE in November 2008, and by the signature of Mutual Defense and Optional Aggression pacts between the CPCN, SE, and TRF at around the same time. In a more immediate sense, its origins lie in several discussions and conversations that took place in mid-to-late November of 2008. Around that time, the CPCN had been discussing on their boards the possibility of a merger with SE. SE had been even more ambitious, discussing the possibility of a Grand Leftist Merger between SE, CPCN, and all the smaller alliances that were then members of the Warsaw Pact. Ironically, major elements in both CPCN and SE thought that the other would be resistant to the other's proposals, so resistant that the ventures would collapse altogether. These elements were overcome in a discussion that SE DipCom Ivanfed, as well as SE member StalinTrotsky had with CPCN CoFA Sovyet Gelibolu over MSN in late November. They shared the nature of the discussions their respective alliances had undertaken, and were utterly flabbergasted at their convergence (some disconnects remained; those will be examined in a moment). They rushed back to tell their alliances, and within two days the SE Commissariat had been opened to CPCN diplomats so that they might discuss the details of the merger. It was the ironing out of these details that occupied most of December. Should the merger be bilateral, or should it be open to all leftists who wanted to take part? Would the new alliance be a confederation, or would it have a unitary system of government (this question was tied to the previous question; it was felt by some that the more alliances involved, the more a confederation might be necessary)? How democratic or autocratic would the alliance be? What would be its symbolism, roleplay style, and name? Where would its forums be, and who would host them? How should the first government be chosen? Would any treaties carry over, and if so, which? On what team would the new alliance be? Some of these questions were more easily decided than others. The question of democracy versus autocracy was settled almost immediately in favor of democracy, as the CPCN had been a direct democracy with its Central Committee responsible to the membership from the first while SE had, over the course of its history, moved towards a system of consultative representative democracy. There might have been a flare-up over direct versus representative democracy, but this, along with the more troublesome issue of confederation versus unitarism, was settled when Sovyet Gelibolu proposed the first draft Constitution. This would undergo many superficial changes over the course of the next few weeks, but the principles of unitarism and of CPCN-style direct democracy were never altered. Nobody bothered to propose an alternative draft, and this Constitution became "the" Constitution over the course of the negotiations, despite never having been put to a formal vote (incidentally, this made it easier to make the minor corrections as the negotiations proceeded). These two burning issues having been laid quietly to rest, it remained to settle the others. It was decided within the first couple of days that other alliances should have the option to join in the project if they desired, and accordingly the CADRE and Warsaw Pact alliances were made aware of the negotiations on December 5. This event was important for several reasons: it made the merger essentially public knowledge, and set the precedent of informing other alliances before the announcement date, thus making the carrying-over of treaties possible; it set down the principles already agreed-upon by the CPCN and SE negotiators as non-negotiable, presenting the other leftist alliances with a fait accompli of either remaining seperate or joining a unitary, democratic alliance; and it marked TRF's enterence into the negotiations (LSF and the rest of the Warsaw Pact alliances declined to participate). From this point, the questions of team color, treaties, and name took prominence and, compared to the swift decisions of the earlier period, seemed to drag on and on. Team color was the subject of most of the actual wrangling, with the benefits and demerits of Orange, Black, and Multicolored-ness debated for most of December. Being a multicolored alliance had several serious demerits, namely the inability to be included in color-based economic treaties, and the difficulty of being able to arrange many intra-alliance trade sets, but it had the advantage of not making members change color and of appealing to the freedom-loving sensibilities of most of the negotiators, who recoiled from coercion. The Black Sphere, being larger, offered more trade opportunities, while the Orange Sphere, given CPCN's relative closenes with Orange powers compared to SE's and TRF's relations with the Black powers, offered more diplomatic opportunities. Eventually a combination of CPCN intransigence on the issue and the prospect of a spot in the Orange Senate rotation led to the decision that the new alliance would be Orange, though members would not be forced to change immediately. The name took so long because it was the only aspect of the negotiations to be submitted to membership votes, and because of the sheer number of options involved. During the CPCN-SE phase of the negotiations, the options had been whittled down to United Communist Party or The International. TRF, however, insisted on the name expressing a broader Leftist orientation given their largely non-Communist membership, and at the same time several new alternatives were proposed and some old ones dredged up again, leading to new discussions and new votes. Few of the negotiators really liked the The International, but it kept winning SE's votes and it satisfied TRF's demands. The issue of treaties was the issue that kept the merger from being announced in late December, and it was the issue that occupied most of January. It had been decided early that each alliance would attempt to carry over as many of its treaties as it possibly could (minus BPI because of INT's Orange affiliation), but over the course of their existence CPCN, SE, and TRF had accumulated a number of treaties. TRF split over this issue; one of their treaty partners deigned not to carry its treaty with TRF over to The International, and many TRFers did not want to lose the friendship of this partner. They announced that they would not be joining The International, but would continue as TRF even after the announcement. SE and CPCN experienced no such crises, carrying over most of their treaties (CPCN lost an MDP with Orion while by mutual agreement of the negotiators SE did not seek membership for The International in the Warsaw Pact). What took the most time was gaining the acceptence of twelve other alliances of The International's membership in the Orange Unity Treaty. It wasn't that they were reluctant, merely that there were twelve of them, and it took almost a month for the International to be accepted into OUT by the unanimous consent of OUT members. A few minor issues like forum location (CPCN's forums were to be retained and renamed so as to save the admins some trouble) and the composition of the government (4 CPCN, 3 SE, 3 TRF) took up comparatively less time and much less worry. The Constitution was finally approved by membership votes. All that remained was to set an announcement date, get a few people wearing The International as an alliance affiliation, get everyone masked on the forums, and announce. The announcement date was set for January 20, 2009, the pre-announcement NS target for The International was set at five hundred thousand, and an announcement was drawn up. However, there was one more surprise in store. On the first day of the pre-announcement transition, The International reached an NS of 604,076 and it kept rising. By the announcement date, The International had accumulated almost three million NS (2,984,873 NS, to be precise); almost all the members had switched over in the ten days of the transition period. The announcement was greeted warmly, but was locked as an anti-trolling precaution anyway.
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