Steel Butterfly

The Star Empire of Steel Butterfly

Flag of the Steel Empire in the Orion Sector
"Strength and Honor"
Official Languages	Primarily and Officially English, however Russian, Latin, and Aurelian are also used.
Capital	Steel Butterfly, Steel Butterfly (Official Capital) Corporate Cathedral, Bivens (Post Civil-War Capital)
Emperor	David Christopher Bivens
Population  - Orion Sector  - Steel Butterfly	~60 billion 6.840 billion
Founded	"Following the Machina Wars, General James Foxx was given the title of Emperor, permanently uniting the nations on the planet Steel Butterfly and the planet Steel Moon into one Imperial government."
Government Type	Imperial-Style Dictatorship
Nation Type	Empire
Currency	Imperial Credit (©)
International Abbreviations  - sport  - government	StB, OS SEOS
Internet TLD	.stb
Naval Craft Classification	ISS (Imperial Star Ship)

NationStates Overview

(As of December 30th, 2006)

The Star Empire of Steel Butterfly is a massive, safe nation, notable for its compulsory military service. Its hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical population of 8.147 billion are rabid consumers, partly through choice and partly because the government tells them to and dissenters tend to vanish from their homes at night.

It is difficult to tell where the omnipresent, corrupt, pro-business government stops and the rest of society begins, but it juggles the competing demands of Commerce, Defence, and Law & Order. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 69%. A powerhouse of a private sector is led by the Automobile Manufacturing industry, followed by Uranium Mining and Gambling.

Schoolchildren have twice-weekly sex education classes, citizens are regularly arrested in queues for 'loitering', citizens must pay to enjoy Steel Butterfly's pristine beaches, and college students make ends meet by selling their kidneys. Crime -- especially youth-related -- is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Steel Butterfly's national animal is the Monarch Butterfly, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its currency is the Imperial Credit.

Notable History and Leaders

Before the Empire

Steel Butterfly was a tribal planet known to different tribes as different names. Gradually, these five tribes expanded and evolved into nations, each of which learned to hate each other from birth.

The Machina Wars, James Foxx, and the Formation of the Empire

The new Steel-Butterfly Republic, and its Republican Army, now held enough power to effectively force its will onto the neighboring nations of the planet. Within a decade, the entire planet had either surrendered to the Republic or had been eliminated. With no one left to conquer, the Republic looked inwards for a period of technological and economic prosperity during which the most important invention of the next century was created: artifical intelligence.

Hailed as "revolutionary," artificial and electronic intelligence, in both robot and computer form, spread throughout the Republic. Ultimately, the liberal-leaning Republic would come to recognize these AI as sentinent beings, giving them both representation and voting rights in the Republican Senate. This decision would nearly destroy all humanity on the planet.

As soon as they gained an impressive majority in the Senate, simply by replicating themselves, the AI, who refered to themselves as Machina, were quick to pass anti-human and human restricting laws. As life for humanity got worse and worse, General Jacob Hein and the soldiers under his control decided to revolt against the Machina majority. The Machina struck back ruthlessly.

For fifteen years General Hein fought the Machina, but ultimately met his end as the machines grew less and less patient with humanity's rebellion. For the five years after General Hein's gruesome death, the machines systomatically eliminated over three-fourths of the human population on the planet.

Out of nowhere, a one-time captain by the name of James Foxx majestically rose to the position of General and through quick thinking, daring tactics, and a few superior weapons, effectively eliminated all traces of the Machine Armies in under five years. Afterwards, realizing that the Machines could simply build more of themselves until they once again held the majority in the Senate, the people voted James Foxx the first Emperor, and his first job as Emperor was to outlaw AI, which he did.

James Foxx also rewarded his six Generals from the war to the six governmental positions of the time. Those general's lasts names were as follows:

Bivens Apakoh Warheit Loire Mitchell Zephyr

When General Warheit married James Foxx's only daughter, the Foxx name died out, but the family names of the six generals became a sort of unofficial nobility throughout the Empire. There are also a few more widely known names that are related to the six families by marriage at some point, but now by blood over the ages. The last name Nemerov, the former Emperor's last name, for example, stems from the Mitchell family, and therefore is also considered nobility.

Emperor Christopher Mitchell III

The fourth Emperor, Christopher Mitchell, is largely responsible for the formation of the modern Orion Sector, and is considered by some to be the greatest Emperor of all time. Like his father and grandfather before him, he was obsessed with space travel and foreign relations within the sector, and was the first Steel Butterfly Emperor to land on Steel Moon, Steel Isle, Bivens, Aeisis, and XIII. However, unlike his father and grandfather, he was also quite adept at domestic policy and military tactics.

Expansion and the Orion Wars

Emperor Dante Graav

If Christopher Mitchell III was known for expansion throughout the sector, then Dante Graav was known for expansion beyond the sector. The 20th Emperor, and tied for the longest term in office at seventy-five years, Dante Graav gave the people both sector-wide peace as well as constant foreign war. Although praised by historians of the time, who compared him to both Christopher Mitchell III and James Foxx, recent discoveries and textbooks have cast him in a much less favorable light, calling him successful, yet terribly ruthless and bloodthirsty.

Colonization

Emperor Kyou Graav

Replacing his father who had him at an older age, Kyou Graav, the 21st Emperor is generally considered a foreign policy genious as well as a lover of his father's colonies, however his blind eye to social corruption and organized crime within the sector can do nothing but scar his otherwise noteworthy reign. Emperor for twenty years to the day, Kyou Graav was a strong leader and far more personable than his father ever was, but his life was cut short, and historians generally believe that he did not have time to truly grow into his role as Emperor.

The Global Dominion Of Dictators Against Democracy (GDODAD)

The Midnight War I

The Midnight War II

Emperor Alexander Nemerov

Perhaps one of the most difficult Emperors to judge objectively, Emperor Alexander Nemerov was both the most successful Emperor domestically, giving years of economic and social prosperity previously unmatched, as well as the greatest failure, plunging the Empire into a terrible Civil War with the highest casualty rate of any war to date. He purged the Empire of corruption before falling into its grasp himself, and came into power a murder before leaving a redeemed man, although his early years are almost always thought of as substancially better than his latter ones.

NiMBUS Biotechnologies

The Civil War

Emperor David Christopher Bivens

The Eight Prime Planets of the Steel Empire [1]

Steel Butterfly

Bivens

Steel Moon

Steel Isle

Aeisis

XIII

CTaNbHaR Eabo4Ka

Esthar VIII

Non-Imperial Orion Sector Planets

Destroyer

Thrakkon

Vespia

Rabanestre Rift

Barheim

Government Structure

People

Economy

GDP per capita: $150,000

GDP - composition by sector: agriculture: 3%; industry: 47%; services: 50%%

Population Below Poverty Line: 11% GDP per Capita is still extremely high due to extreme wealth of the upper and middle classes.

Major Exports: Uranium, automobiles, industrial supplies, raw materials, weapons, star ships and parts, fine wine, diamonds, gold, silver, and anti-matter

Major Imports: Foreign Food and Beverages

Currency: Imperial Credit

Currency Code: ©

Military

Important Characters

Out of Character (OOC) History

Steel Butterfly: The Man, The Myth, The Legend.

Quite honestly, I can’t agree entirely with any of those. I’m not old, or predominately false, enough to be a myth, and although I am hailed as an accomplished writer by a number of people, to say that I am legendary would be tooting my own horn a tad too much. As for “man,” it is true that I am male…however…“Steel Butterfly” is, as some may have guessed, far too grand for only one man to claim.

Perhaps I should start at the beginning.

There were five of us in my senior year of highschool who discovered NationStates. We were all on the football team, the baseball team, and in a ridiculously easy Advanced Computer Applications class during 7th period that taught us difficult concepts such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. Needless to say, we had a ton of time on our hands, and we used up most of it creating nation after nation just to see what would happen. Ultimately, we settled on our final nations, and so Power Slave, Diamond Sabre, Destroyer, Bivens, and of course Steel Butterfly formed the region “The Ragnarok Alliance.”

We started off as n00bs, like most people in that day (March 2004) and I believe our first thread was in regards to a five-nation joint nuclear program that we had “just completed.” However, as the first month dragged on, already the real life people who were Power Slave, Diamond Sabre, and Destroyer quit, giving the two of us, Bivens and Steel Butterfly (Dave Bivens and Alec Nemerov, respectively) their nations.

We reached out, founding Midnight and gaining friends such as Walten, Crimmond, Sigma Octavus, Maxter, Cspalla, and Tarasovka. This was the heyday of the Global Dominion of Dictators Against Democracy, and only large and established nations such as Iesus Christi and Menelmacar dared to oppose their reign. Its hard to explain to today’s nations, who live and die by the ignore cannon and the fact that there are too many to count. Nations honestly listened, in character, to the ridiculous demands the GDODAD demanded. Together Bivens and Steel Butterfly joined the GDODAD, along with powerhouses such as The Brotherhood of Nod, The Silver Turtle, and Klamath, and joined in striking fear into the hearts of nations.

Of course, as with any upcoming nation, there are always obstacles. A group of nations such as Blueville, Kellerville, Leg, Heaven Falling Down, Pantera Forever, and others, who ranged from decent people to idiotic jackasses out of character, decided that we were standing in their way and attacked. Using modern technology, Midnight fought this group and defeated them in glorious battle (stat wanking and godmodding).

With a new sense of power and bragging rights, the nations of Midnight, including Bivens and Steel Butterfly, began to refine their craft. However, it was about this time that my friend Alec Nemerov began to both lose interest and lose enough time to play NationStates. Since he was far more active in the first war, and now far more visible to the public, when he gave me his nation I made the odd decision to use it instead of my own. While Alec Nemerov still checked up on it and answered issues from time to time, I took total control of Steel Butterfly’s roleplaying.

As to not cause confusion, or not to be accused of lying about my “real life,” I played OOCly under the name of Alec Nemerov from this point on up until this year. I gave Dave Bivens, who is really me, credit for doing numerous things to “help out” over the years, so that my name wouldn’t be forgotten. Why I pretended to be Alec I can’t remember, but at the time, it simply made sense.

Of course, the defeated nations of the first Midnight War were bound to come back in force, and once again, they invaded a Midnight nation, conquering Diamond Saber when he was online alone and hopeless to defend against the invasion. This time, they were all in a region named “Sunlight,” (Witty, wasn’t it?) and involved other nations outside of Midnight and Sunlight as well. Ultimately, with Sunlight’s backs against the wall, the nations of Midnight launched tactical nuclear strikes against the Sunlight nations. However, terrorists from the nation of Leg exploded a nuclear bomb in the center of Moscow, Steel Earth, killing Emperor Kyou Graav. In response, Midnight’s ally Garrison II unleashed perhaps the most ridiculous godmod ever, with enough nuclear warheads to destroy the entire planet, which is now remembered as the Omnicaust.

My interests were always more future-tech than modern, and I used this situation to my advantage to break away from the standards Alec had set up for Steel Butterfly. I came up with a story that Steel Butterfly was actually the name of the Capital planet of a sector-wide Empire located in Orion, and that the territory in Western Russia (Steel Butterfly was the original nation to claim that land) was in fact a small, now-destroyed, colony of the Empire.

It was around this time that I joined the new Warmongering N00b Killers (WMNK) Alliance in an attempt to eliminate godmodding n00bs along with Automagfreek, The SLAGlands, and others. However, effective as the WMNK was, its founders and myself had a distinctly different opinion on what it should be. How it was run, it was both an OOC help alliance as well as an IC military and political alliance. I believed that the two couldn’t mix, and as the IC WMNK slowly began siding against the GDODAD, I had to bid them farewell, starting a long and nasty rivalry with Automagfreek.

With my new Emperor, Alexander Nemerov, named after my friend Alec, who is the one of the original five that I still talk to, I was quickly rising in rank within the GDODAD. However, the GDODAD was facing troubled times. Looking back on it now, it was simply due to the evolving nature of the forums. There were too many alliances, and too many ignore cannons for GDODAD to have the type of influence that it once had. After the infamous “Underwater Bubble” situation, in where a godmodding nation claimed that they “sacrificed a nation” to pop the Underwater Bubble (the region in which most of GDODAD resided). Somehow, when GDODAD refused to recognize the ridiculous incident, ignoring it as many had done to us, the GDODAD became known as godmodders themselves.

It was around this time that Klamath, who was the third in command of the GDODAD, did his now infamous suicide-by-mod by being generally ridiculous and breaking nearly every forum rule possible. He was deleted and banned, leaving his position wide open for the taking. Seizing the opportunity, I created the GDODAD off-site board, which was the first Invisionfree.com board associated with a NationStates alliance. Using my power as Board Administrator, I quickly gained influence from the strong yet passive TST and Nod, as more and more people began regarding the GDODAD as godmodders.

Eventually, I was the most influential, and therefore most powerful, nation of GDODAD, unofficially presiding over even TST and Nod. Well aware that my association with GDODAD was nothing but detrimental as I was quickly growing and improving as both an RPer and a writer, I proposed reforms to the GDODAD, which both TST and Nod agreed with. Renamed “The Dominion,” the alliance was thrust by me into a new age. GDODAD opponents even loved me fore it. Unfortunately, many people within the alliance resisted to both the new name and a plan other than the two-bit “death to all democracies.” GDODAD proved unwilling to adapt to the new nature of the forums and behind my back, Lord Christopher Scott proposed a new charter that was, unsurprisingly, much like the original one.

They passed it into GDODAD law, and so I quit. Steel Butterfly Resigns from GDODAD/Dominion Various nations followed me out, and within a week the once-powerful and infamous GDODAD had crumbled. While it tried to come back to life once by itself and another time along with Metus, it never gained the numbers it once had, nor came anywhere close to the power or influence.

(More Coming Soon)

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