Nova:New Jersey
New Jersey is a Nation founded by Bigred914, 42symbols, OrangeJuiceMoose, Samisol, Scottydude456, and other Newark members. It was founded due to a breakdown of the nation of The Tri-State Area.
History
Pre-New-Jersey Period
There has been war, unions, economic prosperity and phases of utter inactivity throughout the northeastern United States in all of Terra Nova. Near the center of all this, New Jersey and its capital city of Newark has been home to many notable players and greatly contributed to the economic and political situation of the American northeast today. You might ask, how did Newark and New Jersey get to where they are today?
Newark was founded by Mayor Bigred, Councillor TwinIceBear, and Councillor OrangeJuiceMoose on the first of November 2018. Within the first few days, the settlement grew rapidly and attracted many new players, resulting in it becoming the largest city in the United States. Newark at this time was not too pretty, it mainly consisted of a large slum just west of Shore Street, the oldest street in the town that has several beach houses. Around this time Newark’s period of peace ended, as New York City was ready to see which town would be the dominant town of the region. What is now referred to as the Newark-NYC claim war was one of the many outbursts of tension between the United States and Wabanaki, NYC’s nation. As time passed, Newark eventually gained favor in this conflict, pushing NYC north several chunks and a border agreement was reached.
The following period of time is generally referred to as the dark age of Newark, as with Bigred officially moving to Liverpool, all active members of the town moved too. This resulted in Newark being sold to TypicalFernie, and for months it remained as a dormant town with no active citizens. Eventually, Fernie was wiped from the server and the mayorship of the town fell into the possession of YodaBest who later gave the town to LoganCreeper50. Newark joined Wabanaki at this time. Logan was the first mayor to improve the town since Bigred. His most notable project was the removal of the slums for a new suburban area, which was done with the help of Bigred.
While touring the American Northeast, Bigred saw the success of NYC and decided to move back to Newark. He helped with the renovation of the slums, but his main goal was to improve Newark’s urban area enough that it would stand out and even rival NYC’s. After the launch of the first expansion of Newark’s urban area since early Newark’s history, Logan decided to leave Newark, giving the mayorship back to Bigred, who is mayor to this day.
Bigred’s first action as mayor was to unite with NYC into a “mega town” called the Tri-State Area. This was agreed upon by Lucas, and for the next 2 months, both Newark and NYC cooperated on building projects such as the twin towers for the first time in their history. Around this time the revival of Newark’s old citizens took place, as well as the completion of the slums renewal project.
Growing discontent with the government of Wabanaki, NYC and Newark decided to declare independence and create the nation of New England. New England was extremely successful for a long time, and for a month basically united the east coast. Sadly, this period of prosperity had to end, doing so with the Times Square massacre the collapse of New England occurred.
To summarize, the Times Square massacre was a cascade of misunderstandings between New England and the newly independent Virginia. Angered with his government's actions, Bigred decided to have a peaceful protest that walked through NYC and Newark. This protest ended with violence, as the New England government mistook it for an uprising. As a result, many Newark citizens demanded Newark secede from New England in order to become a city state where such events wouldn’t happen.
The day after the massacre, Newark left New England and remained a self governing city state for around a week. At this time, Newark’s economy was hit hard. The citizens of Newark were not able to teleport anywhere to trade, and as a result, there was a growing demand to be a part of a nation again.
Following this, negotiations with the Virginian government allowed Newark to join Virginia and operate as an autonomous region, so citizens were able to teleport and Newark was able to keep its independence. In Virginia, Newark’s growth was the same as before, but there was a sense of a loss in community as many people had grown relationships with people in NYC.
A few weeks after the massacre, Lucas, the mayor of NYC, returned from his time off from the server. Newark unanimously voted to reform the tri-state area and create a new government with NYC, which would be known as New York.
This time brought accelerated growth to Newark, including one of the most economically significant events in Newark’s history. Under New York, Newark would be the home to the New York Stock Exchange, which would bring large amounts of investors to Newark and encourage business within the city. This time also saw a wave of immigration and a housing shortage, which was solved by selling land in the south part of the city, creating a new slum.
With the collapse of the government of New York due to an internal plot not related to NJ’s history, Lucas left the nation to Bigred, who ran it for the next month. This period is by far the most unstable political period as Newark and NYC both had trouble suppressing riots as well as keeping threats away. With VA declaring war on New York, large amounts of private Virginian land were seized by the government, resulting in many finding the city unsafe. In response, the city started slowly returning property to those who were deemed to be not a threat. Stability was starting to return to the region.
With Lucas’s return, Bigred was forced to abdicate from the government in order for Lucas to return, beginning the recent events of Newark. While Lucas managed the nation, he implemented rules that asked Newarkers, such as 42symbols, to not attack Virginians, antagonizing the city. This angered the population of Newark, as they wanted to protect their city from invaders. In turn, Lucas’s public opinion declined rapidly. Fed up with the absence of democracy in New York, Newarkers came together to fund the creation of a new nation. Many people, including Bigred, OrangeJuiceMoose, Samisol (who started the server in Newark, but would later go on to become a reputable player for himself), UrNewMum and 42symbols worked together to find the gold necessary for a nation.
Transition to New Jersey
On the 12th of September 2019, the Tri-State Area disbanded with the independence of Newark and the creation of New Jersey. New Jersey quickly formed a direct democratic government and later elected secretaries to manage certain aspects of the nation. This government was extremely successful, and within weeks of its creation a new transit center, the Oculus, was announced. This modern center would be surrounded by a modern shopping district to attract companies to the nation. The New Jersey military was formed and gathered god gear to use in times of war. A new apartment project was launched to house new players in the urban area, and skyscrapers were being built more than ever.
New Jersey Is Born
Despite the positives New Jersey had on Newark, this saw the revival of the claim war with NYC. The previous border agreement was violated and a new wave of hollow claims occurred between the towns, ending with Newark claiming west and north of the old border.
New Jersey also expanded outside of Newark. The neighboring city of Philadelphia joined New Jersey, as well as Charlottesville and New Brunswick. These newer smaller towns were allocated some funding so as to help them grow.
As the saying, “history repeats itself” goes, the nation of New Jersey officially reunited with New York, forming the Northeastern States of America. This was a democratic nation that hoped to continue to allow New Jersey and New York to cooperate well into the future. However, the unified nation would prove to be largely ineffective and only kept New York and New Jersey at peace with one another for a few weeks. This peace would be brought to an end when Lucas messaged Bigred, asking for the nation of New Jersey to disband and rejoin New York. New Jersey did not appreciate the request and therefore voted to withdraw from the Northeastern States.
In a bid to pressure and cut New Jersey off from New York, a wall was constructed between the neighboring cities of Newark and New York and was frequently compared to the Berlin Wall. This was reportedly followed by NewYorker9 threatening to demolish the buildings that both towns shared, the same buildings that had been made in the earlier Tri-State Area days. A final threat would come in the form of a potential stock exchange competitor as New York would threaten to create its own and compete with the EarthMc Stock Exchange, which was based in Newark. Skirmishes would occur along the wall upon its construction, and afterwards, New York would have a minor tussle with some West Virginian players on the Newark side of the wall. Player 42Symbols would take it upon himself to lead a beautification project on the wall wherein he detailed the wall on the New Jersey side. Shortly after, the wall would be taken down by New York. Relations remain hostile between the two city states, however New Jersey hopes for the best. In addition, the New Jerseyan capital, Newark, was seeing a migration of players into other national towns which led to progress slowing down.
The integration of Transylvania is one of New Jersey’s most recent decisions, and the effects of which are not yet visible. Following the abdication of the previous Transylvanian king, Adi2003, a Newarker, PawoG04, took control of the nation. He then requested that he become an integrated state of New Jersey, which was accepted unanimously. Immediately, the integration caused tensions with neighboring Bosnia, which escalated to war. However, this war would only last one day. Despite 42symbols promising to pay the Bosnians under the condition that they cease war, which was accepted, New Jersey would never pay the ransom.
Soon after this, Aceshooter’s USA was formed. New Jersey quickly joined this, hoping it would bring even more prosperity. However, this would be troubling for Transylvania, who would not be granted equal representation. In response, Transylvania declared commonwealth status from New Jersey and the US. The US would not last long, and would begin to collapse when a scandal involving the NSA spying on people using bots was revealed. In response, New Jersey would leave the US and join an anti-US organization, the American Order. However, this was a highly disputed decision and caused a lot of internal fighting. Finally, a compromise was reached, stating that New Jersey would withdraw from the American Order and maintain a policy of complete neutrality.
Sadly, prosperous phases never last forever. New Jersey soon fell inactive, and projects became indefinitely postponed. Shortly after, PawoG04 returned to New Jersey and seized power, as nobody cared enough to stop him, and suspended voting rights. PawoG04 quickly became inactive and moved from Newark, thereafter Bigred resumed power, marking the only time voting rights would be suspended. The last remaining active players, such as 42symbols, moved out of the city. This inactivity ensued for months on end, even while neighboring cities prospered. Months later, this would change with the real-life COVID-19 pandemic, which gave many players enough time to come back to EarthMC.
The Second Resurrection
Hence, the second resurrection ensued. Many previous members of Newark returned to make the city great again. Such members include OrangeJuiceMoose, C_5h, 42symbols, PawoG04, ohTig, UrNewMum and Scottydude. Additionally, new members Apple_Soup and Kingboy joined the nation. With such a burst in activity, development in Newark was at an all-time high, completing three towers in a single day.
With New Jersey, well, being New Jersey, a third Tri-State area was created. This unionized the nations of Empire State (which later broke off from New York), New Jersey, and New York. While in this union, New Jersey still desired to maintain its period of neutrality that had started months before, increasing diplomatic ties with Rio Grande, an empire taking up much of the US and where Samisol resided at the time, and America, which was owned by a former Newarker, Bidav.
This situation would complicate things for Newark and the Tri-State when war erupted between Rio Grande (and the Canadian Empire) and America (later the NAU). New Jersey was invited to join both sides of the conflict, but instead chose to stay neutral, maintaining the previous policy.
New Jersey’s neutrality would not go uncompromised, with the towns of Washington and Baltimore declaring war on the nation. The war was declared as a result of a personal dispute between OrangeJuiceMoose and Laniebell, the leader of Washington and Baltimore’s nation, Maryland, at the time. Upon hearing of the declaration, New Jersey raised a militia of 7 people, including famous PvPer UghBraces, and occupied Washington. An hour later, the declaration of war was redacted. Some time later, Washington, Fairfax (a new town affiliated with Washington), and Baltimore would join New Jersey while they planned to create the nation “D.C.”.
During this time, the Tri-State grew significantly, and included nations such as Pennsylvania, Vermont, D.C., and even Indiana. However, the Tri-State would be put to the ultimate test when Sri Lanka, which was comprised of former members of Rio such as Samisol, declared war on all Tri-State nations, except New Jersey and Pennsylvania. New Jersey once again chose to remain neutral. This angered many Tri-State nations, especially New York, who left the Tri-State over the situation. This caused the war to end, but many nations were planning on leaving the union. As a result, New Jersey voted to leave the union, and it disbanded soon after.
After the Tri-State Union fell, many players from other nations began immigrating to New Jersey due to a multitude of reasons. Some examples include Vargario, a former councillor of New York and later D.C who left due to personal reasons, and Icelasher2005, a former chancellor of New York who had left New York to start his own town, Pittsburgh, in the neighboring nation of Pennsylvania. He and Pittsburgh eventually joined New Jersey due to personal and ideological reasons. Additionally, Seniph, a former councillor of D.C. who left D.C. due to personal and ideological reasons and became a Newark Councillor. Likewise, Ooban and his town of Baltimore joined New Jersey for the same reasons as Seniph.
With Newark recently doubling in claim size, and the renovation of South Newark into a modern housing district, development of the political and economic situation of NJ continues. Prominent player UghBraces now has close ties to the nation, directing the national military. Due to his PvP ability, this could be especially useful when the war plugin is added to the server.
The future of New Jersey is yet to be seen; however, there are many more things to address and overcome. Since the end of the Tri-State, New Jersey has been looking to form a better union with friendly nations. Their main goal is to create a strong union without internal problems. On July 19, 2020, New Jersey delegates arrived at the Boston city hall to discuss a union, whose effects are yet to be seen. However, their idea, a union with a fairer government to secure both parties interests (that actually works), is almost unheard of. While most unions and alliances have a clear, dominating leading nation, New Jersey and America seek to tread uncharted waters with a more equitable and unified approach.
Whilst exploring such ideas, New Jersey continues to grow, with the creation of the nation of West Jersey, which joined New Jersey as a dependency. New Jersey also entered the Syndicate, a prominent military alliance on the server.
Another big question toward the future is the next school year, which is rapidly approaching. School was a large factor as to why many players, not just those of New Jersey, became inactive. When schools reopen again in the fall, Newark may fade again. Despite that, there is hope. New Jersey has overcome many hardships before, and its activity does not seem to be slowing. Only time will tell what New Jersey’s future holds, but for now we just have to wait & see.