The Civil War

## Midnighter Civil War

(Clockwise from top left): Lonathan shoots Rain in a pro-Reformist propaganda poster • Pro-Reformist propaganda poster depicting a charge • Screenshot showing 'last gasp' advertising for Strategy Hub A G E • Enexpi's changed avatar after the Fall of the Banglereich • A caricature of Vain giving a speech against the Monarchy • A meme of Enexpi hanging himself • The icon of the Jakowski revolt before and after Black Wednesday, top and bottom respectively.

### Date:

11 June 2019 - 7 July 20192 weeks, 5 days

### Location:

11:59/AoC2 (Midnight), Strategy Hub 'A G E' (New Age), Portal To Reality (PTR)

### Results:

Reformist victory, Second Republic established.
• Deletion of Strategy Hub 'A G E'
• Angel (Enexpi), shulle, and Arksm3x retire from Discord.
• First Monarchy overthrown
• Second Republic founded
• Activity Wars begin

## Belligerents:

### Parties to the conflict:

**#### First (Hysteric) Phase:**

**Pro-AGE Forces:**
• A G E/New Age Staff
• Angel Loyalists
• Doodlate (temporary)
• A G E Diaspora

**Reformist Forces:**
• Reformists/Jakowski Rebellion
  • Doodlate
• Pro-Reformist factions
• Second-generation members

**Raiders:**
• Pornography bots

**#### Second (Revolutionary) Phase:**

**Pro-Monarchist Forces**
• Vis
• Chexier
**Republican Forces**
• Vladist Revolt/Revolution
  • Vlad
  • Lonathan
  • Omino Sentenzioso
  • Doodlate

**Raiders:**
• Pornography bots
• Turkish raiders

### Casualties:

~600-650+ members lost,
A G E diaspora begins, the Midnighter community takes 1 year to rebuild.

## Events leading to the Civil War

First Salmerian Crisis - Early 2018
Reformist Movement - 16 February 2019
First Reformist Crisis - 18 February 2019
Plan Jakowski
Second Salmerian Crisis - 22 April 2019
Second Reformist Crisis - 12 June 2019
Black Wednesday - 13 June 2019

*"Are you gonna let these dictators rule us?"*

    - Lonathan, Reformist Leader

The **Midnighter Civil War**, (also known by other names) was a civil war affecting the Midnighter community between the 11th of June, 2019 and the 7th of July, 2019. The war began due to the perception of rampant moderator abuse in the A G E community and declining activity, while others believe it was due to a sense of apathy on behalf of the old server owner. Contemporaneously known as the **Collapse of the Banglereich** and the **Jakowski Revolt**, the war is widely accepted as the most devastating civil conflict affecting the Midnighter community to date. The war is generally divided into two phases, the First 'Hysteric' phase, being fought between Loyalist and Reformist forces, and the later, less destructive, Second 'Revolutionary' phase between pro-Vis/monarchist forces and pro-Vlad/republican forces. It caused the 'A G E' diaspora and resulted in at least ~550-600+ lost members.

The war began on 11 June 2019 with the Second Reformist Crisis when Doodlate, a pivotal member of the reformist movement leaked the Reformist server after being gaoled shortly after the other three main Reformist members, Unity, Lonathan, and Vis had each managed to attain staff positions in Strategy Hub 'A G E'. A second staff shake-up followed shortly thereafter, resulting in the gaoling of Vis, Unity and Lonathan. Following this, all Reformists were sacked of key positions within Strategy Hub 'A G E', and demoted to the lowest possible rank, leading to Black Wednesday and the opening of hostilities between pro-Reformist and pro-Loyalist forces. Whilst no initial strategy by either side had been calculated prior to Black Wednesday, following events resulted in the mass exodus of most of the server's remaining active population.

After Black Wednesday, most of the remaining Refomists organised a mass evacuation. Hostilities were formally opened with the banning of all known Reformists, and a mass migration to Midnight was organised. Largely completed by the 17th, the daily message count on AGE had decreased from ~5.500 to 1.703 just 6 days into the conflict. The influx of new members, now often referred to as the first generation due to their affiliation with Strategy Hub 'A G E' lead to a wave of mass paranoia and hysteria across Midnight, with some members even positing that Loyalist spies were in its midst. Likely noticing the uptick in activity, mass pornography bots began to target Midnight, resulting in the Raids of 14 June and 16 June respectively, with scores of bots often swarming moderator defences for hours at a time.

Strategy Hub 'A G E' was dissolved on the 17th of June following the resignation of large parts of the staff team (leading to brief moderator appointments in the final days of what was termed rather sardonically as the 'Collapse of the Banglereich'). This collapse is often seen as ending the first phase of the war and beginning a new period of civil unrest within the community, which is often included in some definitions as being part of the Civil War. Midnight, which had already been a well-established server (albeit inactive) well before the Civil War began to take on a new role as a general community server, leading to the establishment of the short-lived First Republic. With the server owned by Vis, an attempt to transition to a 'constitutional monarchy' was made, resulting in the First Monarchy, and the subsequent Vladist Revolt. Dyno, which had been on the server since Anniversary Day began to cause mass unrest after an automatic swear-word filter was turned on. On holiday since the 14th, Vis arrived in Washington D.C. the same day whilst the domestic situation continued to deteriorate as allegations of Dyno's censorship and monarchical tyranny continued to mount, creating the conditions necessary for the Vladist revolution.

On the 17th of June, Dyno was banned from the server by moderators, and a brief staff coup was headed on the 26th of June, with various First Ministers taking the place of the 'legitimate government' headed by Vis and Chexier. Not wishing to provoke further conflict, Vis agreed to Prime Minister elections, resulting in the formation of the Second Republic. Sporadic incidents of unrest continued to plague Midnight, with the Raid of 29 June, largely being committed by multiple suspected alternate-accounts originating from Turkey. After the convention of the 2nd Parliament on the 7th of July, however, large-scale civil unrest largely began to die down, although a democratic power-struggle had begun between pro-Vis and pro-Vlad members in the form of the Activity Wars.

## Nomenclature:

Main Article: *Nomenclature of the Civil War*

The first instace of the usage of the term 'civil war' to first describe this conflict was coined by Ninetiethbeef08 on 19 July 2019, stating that there was a danger that the tensions built up during the Activity Wars could lead to a Second Civil War. The term only started coming into widespread usage after the Great Slump and the Moppet Crises led to a reconsideration of the potential of future civil unrest in the form of a full-scale civil war.

The war has also been known by other names including the **Great Midnight Civil War of 2019**, the **Jakowski Revolt/Rebellion**, the **Collapse of the Bangelreich**, with most common name simply being **The Civil War**.

**Controversies:**

The nomenclature of the Civil War has also been subject to several controversies, amongst which the most prominent allegation is that the Civil War represented more of a 'suppressed revolt' than an actual full-scale conflict. Allegations of this nature remain popular among certain ex-AGE loyalists, as well as foreign visitors or recent generations of members. Counterarguments to these allegations posit that the widespread cultural influence of the Civil War on Midnighter history for the next 2 years is still being felt today, and that far from being a suppressed revolt, the Reformist movement was actually successful in acheiving its aims at the time.

## Background:

Main Article: *Reformist Movement* & *Salmerian Crises*

#### **Reformist Movement**

    The situation of **Strategy Hub 'A G E'** had long been subject to growing discontent, with allegations of moderator abuse and secret rules having run rampant, leading to the formation of the Reformist Movement in late February of 2019. Originally founded by Unity and Doodlate (with the latter often being termed the 'Father of the Rebellion', the Jakowski Reform group. Attempts at mutual dialogue were made shortly thereafter whilst keeping the size and scope of the Reformist Movement secret, and a plan to slowly gain power and increase transparency on the main AGE server was initiated on the 16th of February.

#### **Salmerian Crises**

Shakeups among the upper staff team were also relatively common, creating discontent among some of its upper echelons. These shakeups were often characterised by staff 'firings' which would occur for near frivolous reasons, or ocassionally, no reason at all, leading to the No Reason Given meme. These are typically divided into the **First Salmerian Crisis** (which happened early-on in the server's history) and the **Second Salmerian Crisis** (which happened much later in the server's history).

The Second Salmerian Crisis, unlike the first, was made much more public and caused an elevated amount of unrest among members of the community, and contributed to its underlying discontent. It also helped give a much-needed morale boost to members of the Jakowski Revolt after their previous slow progress during Plan Jakowski and the First Reformist Crisis.

#### **Administrative apathy**

Administrative apathy has also been cited as a major cause of the Civil War, particularly by Marcello (also known as Rain), an ex-moderator of AGE and the only higher up during the war to survive it. His viewpoint suggests that Enexpi gradually became more tired of the community as the developer of the game upon which the community relied gradually stopped updating his game, and the maintenace of the Discord became greater and greater. According to Marcello, the owner later simply went inactive, and after seeing that the server was dying as well, decided to delete the old server, resulting in the Collapse of the Banglereich.

#### **Second Reformist Crisis**

On 12 June 2019, Vis and Unity, both members of the Reformist Movement, and following months of work regarding the execution of Plan Jakowski, each managed to attain moderator status of some sort, with Vis being promoted to a full moderator, and Unity being given Community Support. These events were further spurred on by Angel announcing a 'revolution' (which amounted to more of a staff shake-up than anything), leading to the near completion of Plan Jakowski and the Reformist goals of increasing transparency and having more of a say in server affairs.

These efforts were cut short by the gaoling of Doodlate, one of the four original Reformist members, leading some to speculate that the Reformist movement had been compromised from the start, and that the recent promotions were actually part of a larger string operation to root out Reformists from the server. These allegations, however, remain largely unproven. When being questioned, Doodlate leaked out the invite of the Reformist server, which Angel promptly joined. Immediately following, the remaining three most influential members of the Reformists, Vis, Lonathan, and Unity (the other three having gone inactive) were subsequently gaoled and stripped to the lowest default rank.

Main Article: *Black Wednesday*

#### **Black Wednesday**

The following day, the 13th of June 2019, saw a Reformist emergency conference and a flurry of DMs between senior Reformist leaders debating over their next course of action, with most opting for resignations and to relocate temporarily to 11:59 (now Midnight) and to continue working on the mod there. It was only until later that the concept of Midnight as a home server for former AoC2 server members began to emerge, primarily after Issue Zero which cemented Midnight as an actual community instead of being based around a mod.

Events on Strategy Hub 'A G E' during the early morning of Black Wednesday remain extraordinarily confused, and multiple conflicting accounts of Angel's reaction have emerged since, with the most popular interpretation being that Angel did not realise the broad consequences of his actions against the Reformists. Whilst most likely being correct in his interpretation that the Reformist base of support was severely limited, the following actions, bans and retaliatory measures among suspected Reformists was part of what triggered the mass exodus that would truly start the Civil War.

#### **Mass Resignations**

📣  *MidnightQuotes* has quotes related to this topic. Read Vis' Resignation Speech here.

With few options remaining open to the Reformists, Lonathan, Unity, and Vis each chose to resign from the server, with Vis resigning on the 13th, and Lonathan scheduled to resign the following day on the 14th. A resignation letter from Vis was published around 13:00 PST, ending with the phrase 62C, 72R, and Unity's (which had been peer-edited by Vis), was published shortly thereafter. Lonathan's resignation speech was never been made public, leading some to believe that it had never been written in the first place.

Regardless, the resignations had a profound impact on the morale and public situation of Strategy Hub 'A G E', with certain loyalists lampooning it as unnecessary drama, whilst others began to openly question what was going on in **11:59**, which up until then had functioned largely as a modding Discord for Age of Civilizations II, the game around which Strategy Hub 'A G E' was originally conceived.

## Course of the war:

#### **The Evacuation**

Immediately after the resignations of Vis and Unity had been posted, an evacuation to 11:59, driven partly by efforts from Reformist members such as Vis, and partly by a general concern for the direction in which Strategy Hub 'A G E' was headed in, began to take place, and over the following two days, an additional 7 active users (including ex-mod Mavel, around which the Second Salmerian Crisis focused), decided to depart Strategy Hub 'A G E' for 11:59 between the 12th and 13th of June, continuing to drive down the total message count.

Realising that the server was beginning to be drained of active members, and showing evidence that users such as Vis had directly messaged server invites to 11:59 to multiple members of note from Strategy Hub 'A G E', Angel quickly took the position of banning Vis, Unity, and Lonathan from the server, and began to hunt down suspected Reformists in the server, many of whom were either sacked, gaoled, or banned from the server entirely, which only served to further exacerbate the mass exodus.

Over the following days, the server's population would explode, jumping from 78 members to 115 between the 11th of June and the 7th of July, as what was once a relatively inactive modding server suddenly became a second hub for the Age of Civilizations II community. As the majority of the new members were active users from the old Discord, its impact on Strategy Hub 'A G E' was disproportionate, and would eventually lead to its downfall.

Main Article: *First Republic*

#### **First Republic**

    The First Republic was a short-lived transitory government that was established by the Reformists in the wake of the Civil War, with the announcement of Issue Zero, which was passed by a 17-3 popular vote margin on the 12th of June. Moderator elections were then quickly implemented immediately following, with Gibby, Lonathan, and Unity becoming the first three First Ministers of the server. The First Republic was later superseded by the brief First Monarchy which declared Vis King, and Chexier (formerly a Junior Developer of 11:59), Prime Minister without a popular vote.

#### **Opening Hostilities**

Hostilities were effectively opened on the 13th of June, 2019 as Strategy Hub 'A G E' staff began a general purge of any and all suspected Reformists. A following damage survey taken the same day shows that 61,5% of users in 11:59 had already been actively affected in some capacity, whilst the remainder remained unaffected. With the declaration of the First Republic, and Issue Zero, 11:59 officially became a separate community branching off from the main server. Bilateral relations between now renamed AoC2 and Strategy Hub 'A G E' quickly deteriorated as the few attempts at mutual dialogue were simply ignored, the Reformist server was organised into a war memorial, and 11:59 quickly devolved into, as !Hiking 1582, a prominent active on the old server user put it, an 'Angel hate club'.

The increased amount of bans and punishment imposed onto suspected Reformists (the majority of whom were actually innocent of their supposed crimes), led to an increased amount of paranoia and resignations, with alt74, D3nX, goktug14, among others, following shortly after the main resignations had been posted, afraid that these blanket retaliatory measures could affect them or their status on the server.

Main Article: *AGE Diaspora*

#### **AGE Diaspora**

Although many chose to migrate over to the now-renamed AoC II server, many others, including Checkmate and !Hiking 1582 chose to leave the community entirely over the recent spike in 'drama'. Shiite also largely left during this period, although he continued to maintain his account on 11:59. Hiking would later return to Midnight a few months after the war. Unity, despite being known as the 'Father of the Rebellion' became increasingly inactive on the new server, and eventually largely quit Discord entirely. Checkmate, meanwhile, increasingly chose to focus on moderating Krunker.

Many of these users would later go on to start or attain senior positions in various group chats and servers, including PTR, World Roleplay, Doodlate Server, and Country Battle. Some chose to delete their accounts and leave Discord entirely, whilst others have since had their accounts lay dormant, with it rarely being touched, especially ex-AGE staff such as shulle, Arksm3x, and Angel. These users collectively form a diaspora of the old server simply known as the AGE Diaspora, whilst other more vague and less uniform terms are used to describe the same phenomenon.

Those that did migrate over to 11:59/AoC II are known as the First Generation, in comparison to the Second Generation, which joined mostly through Discord immediately after the Civil War.

Main articles: *Raid of 14 June*, *Raid of 16 June* & *Raid of 29 June*

#### **Bot Raids**

The fledgling First Republic and First Monarchy also suffered from a variety of bot raids, many of which lasted for hours or even multiple days as moderators struggled to manually contain the raids. Some even openly suspeted Strategy Hub "A G E" of sponsoring or directing the raids, although no such evidence of such has emerged to date. These raids had an adverse impact on the morale of 11:59, and were one of the primary causes for why an automatic swear-word filter was enabled for Dyno, which proved to be a major catalyst for the Coup of 26 June.

Although the Raid of 29 June was not a bot raid, and was instead made up of users mostly from Turkey, with two notable Midnighter expats (goktug14 and iTurkish) joining in, it nevertheless carried a major effect on how raiders would be dealt with in the server, with laws later being added during the Second Republic that specified that raiding and spamming would constitute an instantaneous ban without trial.

Bot raids would continue sporadically into the Spring of 2020, but they reached its peak during the Civil War as massive amounts of pornography bots would all join instantly, likely prompted by crawlers on DISBOARD. The issue has since been presumably fixed.

#### **Morale and Propaganda**

Morale and propaganda, or hearts and minds for simplicity, were psychological operations conducted by both the Reformist and Loyalist sides during the first phase of the Civil War, and taken up by Republican forces during the second phase.

**Reformist Propaganda**

Reformist propaganda used a wide variety of memes, posters, inspirational slogans, flags and banners, as well as verbal influence to shift the narrative in their favour by portraying the remaining staff on Strategy Hub "A G E" as abusive dictators who were finally meeting justice, and their continued ignoring of any requests for bilateral negotiations was cemented as proof of these claims. Additionally, they charged the old server owner, Angel, with essentially committing suicide with the old server, claims which were proven right with the Collapse of Bangelreich on the 17th of June.

Many of these memes and posters were taken in the now infamous Cropping Style, in which a user's Discord avatar would be cropped (typically into a square) and pasted over a pre-existing image of a historical or current event, with one side, (typically the Reformists) being shown in a victorious pose whilst Loyalists (or perceived Loyalists) were shown in a defeated stance, occassionally violently.

As the server crumbled, this narrative of the Civil War became more and more dominant until February and March, when significant developments in the historiography of the Civil War became more prominent, and older staff such as Rain and Fun began to speak more openly about Angel and the ancién regime.

**Loyalist Propaganda**

Unlike Reformist Propaganda, Loyalist Propaganda focused exclusively around controlling the narrative, with verbal arguments instead being made in favour of the AGE staff. Examples of this can be found in allegations that Reformists were 'plotting' to overthrow the server, or that they were more of a 'suppressed revolt' than any actual movement on the server. As the majority of voices since the Civil War on the Loyalist side have since gone silent, and propaganda was distributed in a solely insular capacity amongst remaining Strategy Hub 'A G E' members, much of what we believe we know about Loyalist propaganda is down to pure speculation and guesswork.

**Republican Propaganda**

Republican Propaganda was a brief phenomenon that emerged after the Collapse of the Bangelreich and the institution of the First Monarchy, arguing that a constitutional monarchy had never been voted for by the people, and that the government was thus illegitimate. Republican propaganda also painted Dyno's swear word filter in a negative light, stating that it was censorship of otherwise legitimate posts and statements.

They were also often paired with long, windy speeches emphasising server unity whilst also singling out individuals that they believed to be harmful to the cause, or later on, The Family.

#### **The Great Collapse**

By the 16th of June 2019, preliminary reports by Eisen began to emerge that the state of the old server had essentially deteriorated into a full lockdown, and that the server was essentially a 'like a demilitarisation zone', with hard border checks (presumably asking new members whether they had anything to do with the Reformist movement), and that the purge of supposed Reformists had grown so huge that 'Except for Naner and Eevee, we are all banned', pinning the blame on Angel having a mental breakdown over the impending collapse of the server.

On the morning of the 17th, following hours of radio silence from the old server, Lonathan and Unity finally announced that the old server had likely been deleted, as all user accounts remaining in the server and Reformist sources had suddenly been forced out overnight, despite initial confusion believing that all remaining users had simply been banned off of it. These reports were confirmed over the following hours by Nerdolf Geekler, Ramiro007, and finally Lonathan and Unity.

**Reactions**

Reactions were varied, with some users immediately celebrating the deletion of the old server as a sign that they had won the Civil War, whilst others expressed limited amounts of regret and wished that the server had at least been archived to preserve the server, and since then, various projects to archive the history of the old server have been created, including this wiki and the Discord server Memorial To The Fallen, which had been opened on the 15th.

#### **First Monarchy**

Discontent, however, rapidly began to flare up in the now renamed AoC II server after the First Monarchy, a transitory government was declared by Vis without a motion of consensus first, and Chexier (previously a junior developer for the mod 11:59) was declared Prime Minister. Further exacerbating tensions was the auto-mod feature on Dyno which had previously been enabled following both the raids of 14 and 16 June. Lasting from 18 June 2019 to 26 June 2019, its short lived history was turbulent, and eventually resulted in the Coup of 26 June, in which elected First Ministers essentially took the post of the previously 'legitimate government'.

The First Monarchy created two new posts: King, and Prime Minister, neither of which had been elected at the time, but Prime Minister elections were in the works. It also created the 'constitutional monarchy argument' that would later be employed to great effect during the chaotic days of the Third Republic.

Main Article: *Vladist Revolt*

#### **Coup of 26 June**

On the 26th of June 2019, several staff members, including Unity and Lonathan briefly took matters into their own hands, acting as the legitimate government between 09:00 Pacific Standard Time and 19:24 Pacific Standard Time the same day. The coup largely received popular support backing from both Doodlate, Vlad and their followers, and as such, the coup is often referred to as the **Vladist Revolt** or **Vladist Revolution**. The brief coup largely put an end to the First Monarchy, and forced Vis to enter into negotiations and agree to the demands of the Republicans, who wished to put an end to any monarchical pretense and enter into a more republican form of government.

The event also cemented Vlad (now known as Vain d'al Vicious) as a major early political and cultural figure, and helped open the path to the Activity Wars, a legislative battle between pro-Vis and pro-Vlad democratic forces.

Main Article: *Second Republic*

#### **Second Republic**

Following the Coup of 26 June, Vis (and by proxy) Chexier both agreed to end the First Monarchy, and effectively agreed to the opening of elections for Prime Minister. However, an uneasy compromise was struck between the two sides, as the *de jure* post of King was abolished, and replaced instead with the Office of the Prime Guarantor, whereas the previous post of Prime Minister had been renamed to the Vice Guarantor. These two posts, whilst being named differently, held the same *de facto* reserve powers as they otherwise have.

These two offices would later prove a source of controversy as the scope of these reserve powers and their usage was never properly legally defined until the Common Code of the later Second Republic, with the final iteration of these offices in their republican form coming from the Constitution of the Third Republic.

The compromise reached was formalised following Issue #15, which was passed by a 12-4 margin in Parliament the same day, with Prime Minister elections scheduled for the day following First Minister elections, this day being the first Sunday of each month. Consequently, the vote affecting the office would be held on the 7th of July 2019, heralding the end of the Civil War as tensions between Republican and Monarchist forces began to die down temporarily. These tensions would later be reignited during the Activity Wars.

Main Article: *2nd Parliament*

#### **2nd Parliament**

The Raid of 29 June marked the last raid on the server during the Civil War Era, and whilst underlying tensions continued to remain, elections proceeded smoothly, with Vlad winning the Prime Minister elections with a total vote margin score of **+20** despite being downvoted by some pro-Vis elements, and promising to bring activity to the server. New First Ministers were also elected, with only Lonathan holding onto his incumbent seat. As Vlad went on to become Prime Minister, a third provisional election was conducted on the 9th of July, which is often referred to as the 3rd Parliament. By the 9th of July, the positions for the next month had been solidified.

**Election Results of the 2nd and 3rd Parliament:**

 First Minister (I. Office)
 First Minister (II. Office)
 First Minister (III. Office)

## Aftermath:

#### **End of the war**

Although the end of the Civil War at the time was largely celebrated as the 17th of June, attempts at effectively chronicling the server's history in February and March of 2020 led to the reconsideration of this notion, and whilst most agree that putting a hard date on the end of the Civil War is hard to come by, the election of the 2nd Parliament marks the end of attempted non-democratic actions to gain power.

The end of the war left the political state in the server largely unbalanced between two blocs: an ascendant bloc led by Vlad d'al Vicious (now known as Vain), and a second stagnant political power bloc simply referred to at the time as 'pro-Vis members'. Despite Vis' having supposedly been relegated to a ceremonial role in server politics, the two forces clashed frequently in following elections, leading to the so-called Activity Wars. Pro-Vis members of the server criticised Vlad as being power hungry, being able to potentially bypass democratic traditions entirely, and gave historical comparisons to General Boulanger of the early French Third Republic, whilst pro-Vlad members accused Vis of starting nonsensical notions and countermanded the accusations by positing the notion that he was causing members to leave (see Ramiro controversy for more information).

The Activity Wars would eventually lead to the gradual decline of activity on the server, and the First Great Slump, which would only be ended in March of 2020 by the Change Commission. They were also likely largely responsible for the political environment that enabled the Moppet Crises to happen, whereby various candidates would attempt to rig votes using various methods to curry political favour and gain electoral office.

#### **Community effects**

The Civil War had drastic effects on the community and continues to do so to this day. The old server was entirely destroyed, ~550-600+ members were lost and never rejoined the community (and although most were admittedly inactive, some active users also consciously chose to never rejoin, leave to another server, or to quit Discord entirely). Whilst harder for newer generations of members to understand, the Civil War remained a serious subject for months, and it changed the community's perception of Angel to be almost universally negative.

The war had a varicose impact on the community's culture as well, and ex-AGE loyalists often feared reprisals from the community or refused to join the new AoC II server on the grounds that they may be subject to ill treatment.

Image archives, screenshots and quotations from the old server were almost universally destroyed with its deletion, as few users had imagined that such an event could potentially occur, and therefore image archives of the old server are rare, with noteable exceptions being the Jakowski Reform group chat, the Memorial to the Fallen, the Vérenfrontes group chat, and the Visii private archives, which are stored in two separate private servers.

#### **Continuing tensions**

Although the war had ended by and large, continuing tensions between both Vlad and Vis (and later Doodlate and Vis) would eventually continue to become a feature of politics for the next few months, and also helped to normalise such electoral tensions. The exact role and scope of these tensions remain unclear and debated, and conversation about the subject (along with the Summer Riots) remains controversial to this day for some Midnighter expatriates, and particularly on PTR.

Main Article: *Activity Wars*

#### **Activity Wars**

The Activity Wars were a series of electoral conflicts surrounding various activities and entities between largely pro-Vlad and pro-Vis forces from the 21st of July to the 25th of August of 2019 (1 month, 4 days). These times were largely characterised by high tensions between the two camps as well as long-running debates over activity and the future course of the server.

The Activity Wars largely ended in the political decline of Vlad, but is also widely credited with being the cause of the First Great Slump, a period in which activity on the server became largely minimal, and during which many users left for other communities. Political intrigue on the server was then continued in the form of the Moppet Crises and the Committee for Reform and Revolution, and largely led by Doodlate, one of the four original Reformist leaders.

## Cultural Legacy:

#### **Historiography and perspective**

With the Reformist faction ascendant after the Civil War, its historiography became overwhelmingly skewed against the autocratic Loyalists that had sided with the former owner of Strategy Hub 'A G E'. Even today, Enexpi/Angel is almost universally viewed as a failed owner, and as virtually all influential Loyalists had disappeared by the time the Civil War was starting to be commemorated in a more neutral manner, the popular opinion largely remains that Angel was interested only in his own power and/or didn't care about the community enough to help and try to forward it.

It wasn't until March, when the failed project of the National Museum, (to which this wiki itself is a successor) was started that the tone regarding the Civil War began to shift in a more neutral fashion, with a new interpretation simply believing that Angel had 'panicked' or had a mental breakdown and, in a drastic miscalculation, decided that banning all suspected Reformists was the best course of action available.

The historiography of the original Civil War is no longer as highly contested as it once had been, and today, both the accounts of the Reformists and the Loyalists are taken into account, especially as the conflict begins to fade out of 'living memory', and less and less people are able to be contacted about the conflict.

#### **Impact on democratic traditions**

Although the Reformist movement had initially been devoted to the ideals of increasing transparency, clamping down on moderator abuse, and reforming the rules to be less authoritarian overall, on the eve of the Civil War, most Reformists continued to believe that reform within the old server was still possible, and believed that the autocracy only needed to be 'reformed', whereas the more radical branch of the Reformist faction (Vis, Lonathan, and Unity) believed that a full democracy (to varying degrees) was the best way forwards for the community. After the outbreak of the Civil War, this viewpoint gained prominence, and a permanent tradition of democracy was established.

Although many democratic traditions have since been eroded by the Summer Riots, the server continues to profess a return to democracy at some point in the near future, and the Second Republic, established in the wake of the Civil War would go on to overshadow much of the server's history, lasting until the declaration of the Constitution of the Third Republic in the aftermath of various rulebreakers and toxic users managing to gain effective control over the server's judiciary, effectively crippling and paralysing the republic.

#### **Memorials**

Main Article: *Memorial to the Fallen* & *National Museum*

The Memorial to the Fallen was originally built during the Civil War to honour almost exclusively the Reformist Movement, and those that fought for the new republic. It is the only memorial to have been built during the Civil War, or to have commemorated the Civil War, and contains the full public archives of the Reformist movement, as it was the former server out of which they were based. (The Reformists also used private messages and group chats to communicate with each other, making the full digitisation of these archives difficult).

Although the attempted construction of other memorials (including the National Museum) did go ahead, none were able to get off the ground, and to this day the Memorial To The Fallen (which you can visit here) remains the only fully constructed memorial dedicated to this conflict. The National Museum was eventually succeeded by Project Midnight, which is an online enyclopaedia dedicated to chronicling the story of the server of Midnight.

#### **Future cultural references**

The Civil War would carry a lasting impression onto the new community, and future conflicts often of a legislative nature would be likened to the Civil War. The only conflict that has come close to qualifying itself as a second civil conflict are the far more recent Summer Riots, which lasted for almost five months and contributed to the decline of the Second and Third Republics, and the eventual declaration of an emergency government. For some it became a recurring joke that showed just how desperate things could get on a Discord server, but for many others the drama surrounding Midnight's turbulent history has caused them to leave the server entirely, or be alienated from the concept of democracy.

1. ↑ (Some interpretations of the Activity Wars may put this date even earlier, or potentially even immediately after the Civil War).