The Empire of Mare Nostrum Closes Down
Written by Maowi
Five days ago, the founder of The Empire of Mare Nostrum (EMN), a nation called the Legacy of Rome, password-protected the region due to issues with lack of activity in its government. The region's emperor, Atrony Detonis, posted an announcement shortly afterwards on the world factbook entry explaining that "the leadership here no longer has the time to commit to this region effectively. So with heavy hearts, we have decided to put an end to the Empire of Mare Nostrum." No more nations will be able to enter the region, and its leaders have been encouraging its residents to find new homes elsewhere in NationStates.
EMN was founded in August 2018 by a group of nations originating from a close ally of Europeia's, The Land of Kings and Emperors (LKE); it was initially greeted with a measure of hostility by some of gameplay's most important regions, including Europeia - in September that year, then-President Drexlore Greyjoy released a statement announcing that Europeia would avoid forming diplomatic relations with EMN on account of its founders' behaviour towards prominent members of the LKE. This decision was reversed by Sopo, who had then ascended to the presidency, under two months later. After that point, Europeia did open an embassy with EMN, and participated in some of their interregional cultural events, such as the Feriae Anniversariae.
The region was themed around ancient Rome with an executive government and Senate, as well as being active in terms of roleplay and also as raiders, which led to a fairly close military partnership with sinker region Osiris. One notable raid in which it played a part was the controversial raid of Politics Amino led by the Osiran Sekhmet Legion, a refound operation that beat a World Assembly Security Council liberation attempt and destroyed the target's Regional Message Board. However, it was latterly involved in controversy when it formed an embassy with a region whose members had just vandalised LKE's offsite forums. This led to significant diplomatic backlash as regions expressed their support for LKE and their disgust at EMN's actions - Osiris, for example, repealed their treaty of friendship, citing in addition several other instances of negative out-of-character conduct on EMN's part. Europeia also ceased diplomatic relations with EMN.
In its fairly short history, EMN saw decent activity levels for a newly-founded user-created region, reaching well over 300 nations a few times and maintaining a relatively consistent presence in gameplay (without, as shown above, quite managing to remain above the fray of dispute). Of course, this appears to have died down towards its end, as the stated reason for its closing-down. There is a possibility that the community will transfer to another region with new leadership - or perhaps its members will end up scattered around NationStates. It is still too early to know which of the two is the case, and to what degree.
