FOK

FOK is an Orange sphere alliance founded by the members of FOK, the largest on-line community of the Netherlands. As most of FOK's members are Dutch, most of the Alliance members are too. Recently however member states led by leaders from different ethnicity started to join. The largest group being from Flanders (Belgium), since Flemish is a Dutch dialect.

Member States
The Alliance mainly consists out of nations ruled by leaders of Dutch ethnicity. Although this is not obligatory, the ability to speak Dutch is. This is because communication proceeds primarily in Dutch. It is not obliged to be a member of www.fok.nl, although a large portion of FOK's members originate from this website. The Alliance does have its own forum, which can be found at www.fokalliance.com. New member states should report there.

The Beginning
Once upon a time there was a FOK user named rood_verzet. He started a topic on the FOK forums about political simulators in which both NationStates and CyberNations were discussed. As more users joined the discussion it soon became clear that Cybernations was far more popular. Several people decided to continue playing the game and started working together. On the glorious fourth day of May Sargon decided to make it official and he founded the FOK Alliance.

Soon the other forum users decided to join him and a tight community formed. Consisting out of a dozen members they formed the core of the FOK Alliance. Especially former IRON member Appelvla proved to be of great importance in the early days of FOK. His experience was invaluable for the young and inexperienced FOK alliance. He took the initiative and started to organize presidential elections on the newly hosted forums. Being the only candidate he won a landslide victory and became the first official FOK President. Under his guidance FOK started to organise and members each found their own special skill. Sitethief started out as the first diplomat, Timmehhh started controlling the tech raids, Shawn sent millions of aid, mnoire became famous as an awesome organizer of tech deals, Madine formed the High Court, Istrilyin wrote his own guides and El Jammos commenced with the writing of his (in)famous dirty stories. This process of organisation was finished with the completion of the FOK Charter, written by Madine and Sargon.

Growth and War
In the next 14 days the alliance quadrupled in size and then consisted of 51 members. With the growth in membership also came a growth in the number of conflicts. Several nations violated FAN’s Yellow Number 5 doctrine and were declared upon. Another tech raid gone wrong evolved into something bigger and on the 29th of June FOK came into conflict with the Peace Alliance. Victory was swift as the Peace Alliance surrendered within 3 hours after the declaration. The war was all but over however since the Peace plotted their revenge. A week later they blatantly broke the peace agreement and launched an all out attack on FOK. FOK retaliated, causing major losses among their enemies, and eventually NpO brokered peace between the two alliances.

After two months the first term of president Appelvla was over and he decided not to go for a second term. New elections were organised and Shawn of Sheneneh won with 77% of the votes. He formed a new cabinet consisting mostly out of the experienced members of the FOK Alliance. They set out to bring even more growth and prosperity to the young Dutch alliance. They used their contacts at the FOK forums to get a message about Cybernations on the FrontPage of FOK. With an estimated two and a half million page views every day the FrontPage turned out to be a great source of new players. In just one day over 180 nations signed up and joined the FOK Alliance. Several allegations were made that FOK was creating multis on an enormous scale. This resulted in the creation of one of the FOK mottoes; FOK, an alliance full of multis.

Treaties, mistakes and Orange cake
With the enormous growth the alliance made its presence known to the Cybernations community. Alliances started to contact FOK to find out more about those crazy Dutchies. FOK diplomats also set out to make friends, sign treaties and give FOK a solid position on Planet Bob. One of the first important treaties FOK signed was a MDP with LSF. This later turned out to be a mistake however when LSF proved to be too chaotic and nearly dragged FOK into a war in which it didn’t belong. The diplomats then faced one of the hardest decisions they ever had to make and in the end they decided to cancel the MDP. Luckily the FOK diplomats learned from their failure and put even more effort into finding long lasting friends. Quickly they discovered the awesomeness of Orange and decided that this was the way to go. FOK first signed an MDP with R&R, then entered into Orange Unity, signed several ToA’s with Orange alliances and entered into a MDP with our friends at TOP. Friendship wasn’t limited to colour however; especially our Black team friends at GOONS turned out to be great partners. FOK was never officially part of the Unjust Path but via its Mutual Defense Pacts with both GOONS and MK it had strong ties with the Unjust alliances.

A new president and an Unjust War
With the coming of September it was once again time for new elections. Shawn followed in the footsteps of Appelvla and also decided not to rerun for President. This time a total of five candidates ran for president and after counting the votes Mike was declared the winner with 72% of the votes. His luck turned out to be short lived however when a mere three days after his election the Unjust War broke out.

In a legendary Declaration of War FOK decided to go to Candy Mountain, which meant declaring war on NTO. FOK surprised both friend and foe with an impressive rush, starting over 200 wars within half an hour of the Declaration. NTO was considered defeated within a day of warfare. This turned out to be a mistake however when NTO started fighting back and got their friends AiD to help them out. Especially among the higher NS ranks FOK was struggling to fight off the enemies who were superior in numbers. Morale on both sides was high however and all three alliances made sure it was a fair and honourable fight. It also was a pretty even sided fight until GATO joined the war, based on a PIAT with the AiD alliance. They announced that their war against FOK was not a part of the Unjust War which meant TOP would get involved. After a small week of fighting AiD surrendered and a ceasefire was signed with both NTO and GATO. Even though the Unjust side lost in the end the events of the Unjust War were pretty positive for FOK. True friends like TGE, R&R, UNION, TOP and Grämlins had shown their support, FOK itself had impressed the CyberNations community with their military capacity and nearly all of the individual FOK nations had shown their loyalty to their own alliance.

Rebuilding the former glory
After the war the real task for Mike began. Under his leadership FOK needed to rebuild and regain its former strength. With the help of the amazing mnoire and a lot of TOP and Grämlins tech deals this was done quite quickly. In just a few weeks most FOK nations were rebuilt and the alliance was ready for another grow spurt. On the 27th of September another recruiting message was posted on the FrontPage of FOK and yet again the alliance gained a lot of new members, this time approximately 150.

The huge growth and the military achievements of the Unjust War made sure FOK left a lasting impression. Several alliances contacted FOK and were interested in stronger ties with the Dutch alliance. Among the various offers was one from the NPO concerning a MDP. Both the government and the members were rather excited to be approached by one of the most dominant alliances in the CyberNations Universe. Being asked for a MDP by NPO meant FOK was now officially an established power on Planet Bob. On October 25th the treaty was signed FOK members were happy to find new friends and allies in the New Pacific Order.

A celebration and new elections
On the fourth of November FOK celebrated its 6 month existence. In honour of this special day Divi Filius summarized the whole history of the alliance. In 6 months FOK grew from a group of 12 to an alliance of 400, an impressive achievement. However after the festivities ended the presidency of Mike also came to an end. Mike decided to follow the tradition started by his predecessors and he quit after one term. Therefore the elections once again showed a variety of new candidates. This time Wouser and Freek seemed to be neck and neck in the race for presidency and even outsider Shakes, with his idea to abolish democracy and form a meritocracy, proved to be a worthy opponent. The interests appeared too big however as one member decided to break the rules. A mere twenty minutes before the results were supposed to be made public the voting committee announced that someone cheated. It appeared that SpeedyRich, who was going to be Minister of Defense if Wouser was elected, used fake accounts to vote for his preferred candidate. SpeedyRich was expelled and the elections were declared invalid. A week later new elections were held and Freek was voted in office with 65% of the votes.

The unrest surrounding the elections took it’s toll on FOK however. Especially during the first round of the elections the battle between Wouser and Freek was fierce and inappropriate comments were made by both sides. Several members no longer enjoyed being in FOK and decided to leave the alliance in hope of finding their joy elsewhere. Among these were old members such as Shawn, Amicus Curiae, Shakes and Wouser. After the elections things quickly calmed down again and FOK went back to being the joyful alliance it always had been. With its stable basis restored the alliance went back to business and enjoyed another period of prosperity. The only big loss the alliance had to endure after that was not the loss of a member but the resignment of the best ministers in FOK history. mnoire decided he was no longer interested in CyberNations and gave up his position as the Minister of Economics. This meant that he would stop organizing tech deals, the one thing that made both him and FOK loved by everyone. Luckily mnoire decided not to quit the game and he remained one of the most important FOK members. As a member of the government he was replaced by the skilled MrCyber.

War and Peace
Although the majority of the alliance enjoyed the returned harmony some people got bored by the peaceful life in the FOK alliance. Several members decided to join Shakes in his holy war against the FOA alliance. The Smurfs, as they called themselves, consisted fully out of ex-FOK members among which old ones such as El Jammos and duke. Within FOK the Smurfs got mixed reactions; some members still saw them as a part of FOK and supported them, others felt betrayed and abandoned by their decision to leave FOK to go warmongering. In the end only the position of the government mattered however and they decided the Smurfs were no longer part of the alliance. The Smurfs were not guaranteed a return into the alliance as all of them knew the risks of leaving.

Besides the few aggressive Smurfs most of the FOK alliance members enjoyed their safe position. Therefore when they were presented with an opportunity to become part of the biggest power bloc in Cybernations almost all members were very positive. Everyone was glad to see both old friends and new faces united in the Continuum. Without any real opposition FOK agreed to membership of the mighty organization. FOK is looking forward to a prosperous future for both itself and it’s loyal allies.

President of the Alliance
The President is chosen by the member states in bimonthly elections, he acts as Head of State as well as the Head of Government. He is in charge of The Council of Five. He may stay in office for an indefinite number of terms. The current President is MrCyber.

The Council of five
The President and four ministers form the Council of five. The President is democratically chosen, the other four are appointed by the President. All ministers are in charge of one department: Economic Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Internal affairs and Defence. They are allowed to appoint civil servants to assist them in their duties.

Disputes Committee (former High Court of Justice)
The High Court played a very important role in the Alliance. The five judges of the High Court were entrusted with the power not only to hear and decide cases between member states, but also between member states and The Council of Five. Thus it is very important that the Court is independent from the Council of Five. This makes that the High Court was not appointed by the Council of Five, but chosen by the member states in bimonthly elections. The five judges appointed one of them as president of the Court. The first president was Amicus curiae.

The High court has recently been reformed into the Dispuutcommissie (Disputes Committee). This committee has 4 members, which will resolve disputes within the alliance between members and government. Issues between two members are to be resolved with help of a negotiator first. If the negotiation attempt is deemed unsuccessful, a case will be presented before the committee members.

Foreign Relations
The Alliance is keen to establish and improve its relations with other alliances. To achieve this, several diplomats have been appointed and sent to a vast number of alliances. FOK has also set up embassies on its forum. Every alliance may ask for their own embassy to be opened.

Charter

 * Main article: FOK Charter

The first Charter of the FOK!-Alliance was established on the 14th of June 2007. As the alliance started to grow substantially, the need for legislation did too. After several incidents, due to the lack of basic rules regarding warfare, the alliance decided a charter had to be made quickly.

Organisation
Organizing an efficient and effective war machine has been a top priority since the formation of FOK. The lack of experience resulted in a chaotic battlefield during FOK's first conflict, but during the next wars significant improvement was shown. FOK's efforts during the Unjust War have been highly acclaimed by allies as well as opponents and the FOK war machine is currently credited as one of the best of Planet Bob.

Protecting techdealers
To all rulers in the CN community: techsellers, which are participating in techdeals with FOK, are protected by FOK until their aidslots have expired + 1 day extra (since they may start a new techdeal the day the slots expire). An attack on one of our techdealers will get you in a lot of trouble. We suggest you check the aidscreens of your possible techraid victims carefully before declaring war on them.

Alliance emblems
A flag and coats of arms featuring the team colour orange, the colours of the Dutch and Belgian flag, the Dutch/Belgian Lion and the FOK-logo have been designed by member Wouser for the Alliance.

This is a gallery of all the graphic ever made for the FOK!-Alliance for their members.

Trivia

 * "Fok" is one of the most commonly used swearing words in Afrikaans.
 * "Fok" is an acronym for a stock or commodity market order. Better known as "Fill or Kill".
 * "Fok" sounds like fuck.
 * As a noun a "Fok" in Dutch is the triangular front sail of a ship. It's attached to the forestay of a ship, called a "Jib" in English.
 * As a verb in the base form "Fok" means "breed" (the breed of animals) and "annoy" in Dutch.