Wales Incident

The Wales Incident was an internal dispute within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, where Dutch Wales was griefed by King LordKarutemo and his supporters after the Welsh were discovered to have constructed a large sky railroad high above the island of Great Britain.

Background
The Netherlands was awarded the colonies of England and Wales after the nation's victory in the Indonesian War. In order to use their newly gained territory, many in the Netherlands began to settle their share of the island of Great Britain. Two members, StanFlash and JaymeCoolSocks, moved to Wales and founded a settlement of the same name. There, they established a bar called the Honky Tonky, constructed a giant snowman, and created a domestic rail network to transport industrial goods around the city.

WASA troubles
Since the beginning of VMJ World, the server has used a plugin called EasyCarts, which—among other things—greatly increased the speed of minecarts on railroad tracks. After spending much time figuring out how rail transportation worked on the server, StanFlash and JaymeCoolSocks quickly realized the potential for fast minecarts as heavier-than-air vehicles. agnius06, fellow member of the Netherlands, became interested in their findings, and the three would eventually found WASA (the Welsh Aeronautics and Space Administration) in late December, 2020, to research flight with minecarts. With additional help from AbolishSuburbs, another fellow Dutchman, they would construct a four-block wide powered railroad, originating atop a giant snowman in Wales and terminating somewhere high above western England. The railroad allowed the group to experiment the different ways minecarts could stay bound in air and test how long they could stay in air for.

King LordKarutemo of the Netherlands eventually discovered the railroad spanning high above Great Britain and was greatly upset with how such a structure had been built in his dominion without first asking him. He consulted Dutch Prime Minister bonito_pibb and foreigner allies including Sikorskiii to discuss the consequences that the Welsh should face for the construction of the sky railroad. Eventually, they agreed that the railroad must be destroyed and that Wales must be revoked of any of its autonomy.

The destruction of Wales
On December 29th, at around 18:30 EST, King LordKarutemo authorized the destruction of the WASA railroad for foreigners. LordKarutemo and Sikorskiii promptly arrived to Britain to bomb the railroad, with StanFlash, JaymeCoolSocks, agnius06, and AbolishSuburbs having to defend themselves against what they saw as an illegal griefing of Welsh territory. Soon LordKarutemo and Sikorskiii invited others to either spectate or grief as well. AbolishSuburbs, a moderator at the time, noticed thast one of the people invited, Yung_Nasdaq, had been setting off TNT on the railroad and thus banned him believing that he was not authorized by LordKarutemo to grief. This ban was quickly reversed by other staff, as it had turned out that LordKarutemo did in fact allow Yung_Nasdaq to grief.

Quickly becoming outnumbered, Wales and their allies were forced to retreat back to the colony's main settlement. They were unable to stop LordKarutemo's offensive into Wales and had to now defend against them griefing the giant snowman where the WASA railroad was built upon. After hour of fighting and griefing, Wales had been nearly completely destroyed; no structures were spared in the destruction.

Boiling over
After a decisive victory for the offense against Wales, King LordKarutemo called for a meeting of "all royalists" in the Dutch Parliament to vote on making Wales the direct property of the monarch and kicked agnius06 and AbolishSuburbs out of the Parliament and the Netherlands as a whole. Debate ensued in the Parliament building when AbolishSuburbs and agnius06 stormed in to argue in favor of Welsh autonomy. Additionally, many foreigners came to Amsterdam to witness what was then unfolding. The discourse ended up being futile, however, when the Parliament ratified the vote with agnius06 and AbolishSuburbs now without any real say either way.

Internal turmoil in the Netherlands spilled over to the rest of The Hague and the neighboring city of Amsterdam when a brawl ensued with AbolishSuburbs and agnius06 against many of King LordKarutemo's defenders.

Bitter conclusion
After tensions died out, LordKarutemo offered to reinvite AbolishSuburbs to the nation, to which he accepted. However, before agnius06 could ever rejoin, he had exiled himself in Suirenzhen, Dajiang, to avoid further conflict with the Dutch government.

No agreement was ever made among Wales, its defenders, and the Netherlands officially resolving their disputes. StanFlash and JaymeCoolSocks eventually abandoned Wales to found the nation of Kerala on December 31st.

Legacy
King LordKarutemo's decision to allow foreigners to grief in Wales has been one of the most controversial events in recent Mappercraft history. It set the precedent that nation leaders are allowed to grief and place blocks in any part of their respective nations, even if they do not directly govern certain territories, settlements, or cities. Some players, particularly agnius06 and AbolishSuburbs, critique the move as an revisionist interpretation of the Mappercraft rules, as nation leaders have been punished in the past for griefing their own nation's cities and territories without an occurring rebellion or civil war.