The Great Sputnik War (Book)

The Great Sputnik War is a historical analysis of the Great War written by user costofnothing. Below is an archived version of the book.

Chapter 1: Background
Introduction

To truly understand the origins of The Great Sputwar, it is necessary to look back not too far into what the situation was before the first shots were fired.

An Aging Aristocracy

A crucial aspect of the Sputpire was its Old Guard Aristocracy that maintained as well as benefited from the status quo, and quickly exiled those who were a threat to their system. At the top were the staff, who acted at the ruling class of the Sputpire and hoarded all of the country’s resources to themselves. The Contributor/Emeritus classes could best be seen as a buffer class, designed to be a distraction that the lower “User” class strived for, despite few actually making it, due to frequent nepotism and a virtual shutting out of the lower class from opportunities to advance themselves in any way. It goes without saying that this system perpetuated vast amounts of inequality that drove many to flee the Sputpire in the 2010s, to the more democratic and prosperous neighbors of Redditia, Twitterstan, and Fourchanis. This marked the start of the Sputpire’s decline in power, as various demands for change within the Sputpire emerged during the same period, most importantly the Peripherand and Blaqtong incidents, that drew international attention towards the Sputpire’s abuse. The Sputpire economy tanked as more countries put embargoes on it, and the Aristocracy was forced to tighten its grip, repressing freedom of speech and detaining various important figures as they spoke up or tried to mobilize resistance.

Resistance Rises-The Emergence of Jeffrey Bigglestein

It can undeniably be said that the emergence of Jeffrey Bigglestein into the Sputpire public consciousness was like a match dropped into a powder keg. With the power of the pen, his views gained traction via a series of articles attacking many of the figures the Sputpire held in high regard, calling out rampant capitalistic exploitation [1] and homophobia [2]. He quickly found an audience, as many lauded his writing skills and what he expressed with them [3]. Bigglestein’s articles possessed a certain assertiveness to them, a feeling of pure, distilled conviction standing behind every word that he wrote. It was a level of sincerity not seen in the heavily regulated Sputpire press, and quickly drew an audience from the lower classes.

Backlash Against Bigglestein

The second Biggle article was notable in that it drew much backlash from much of the Sputpire “Old Guard” or the upper classes that had controlled most of the narrative for so long. One could easily see it as a sudden reaction to what the upper classes of the Sputpire had now realized was a legitimate threat to the status quo, and thus their power. After years of mismanagement and tyranny, it was quite ironic that the highest ranking members of the Sputpire had created the biggest threat to their control in their efforts to maintain it. Many attacks were lobbed at Bigglestein and his ideas, most notably from longtime Sputpire traditionalist Sinternet, who would grow to be the figure that opposition to Bigglestein rallied around [4].

Chapter 2: Sinternet And The Rise of The Dark Army
Skirmishes Leading Up To Conflict

It is hard to piece together a picture of who Sinternet was before the war, but a few inferences can be made, chiefly that he was an avid old-guard hardliner [5], despite not being a member himself. Thus, the justification for his position in the war remains hard to find, as he was not too prolific before it, and thus did not have much to defend from Bigglestein. This has lead some parties, mainly the Biggle Boys, to assume Sinternet is a Sputpire shill, funded and controlled by the Sputnik old guard as a proxy opposition to the Biggle Boys and their allies. Although this has its own problem, in that Sinternet’s views were so aligned with that of the old guard that they might as well just officially supported him. But it would be foolish to assume that Sinterned never had any motives of his own, in perhaps overthrowing the current Sputpire government and replacing it with his own, as he had published various articles detailing how he wanted the Sputpire government to change [6]. One of the more personal reasons that has been rumored is the allegation from the Biggle Boys that Bigglestein, at an unspecified time before the two came into conflict, had been having intercourse with Sinternet’s wife. Many of these rumors surfaced just before the war started [7], and later on extended to Sinternet’s mother as well. Regardless of what drove him or where he came from, sinternet began to gain a following, soon becoming known as Sinternet’s Dark Army, SDA for short.

Skirmishes and Spiteful Words

Sinternet rapidly gained allies as he spearheaded the backlash against Bigglestein’s movement, calling for the Sputpire to take legal action against him and trying to discredit his legitimacy as an author [7] as well as publicly insulting him on multiple occasions [8]. A consequence of this that Sinternet did not foresee is that it inevitably brought more attention to Bigglestein, as he now gained a clear adversary to point to as repeatedly getting under the skin of, and use as proof that opposition to him was fearmongering and traditionalism. Sinternet and his supporters then began a campaign of suppression of Bigglestein’s voice within Sputpire discourse, gathering up tons of pressure towards publications to not give Bigglestein’s articles as much attention. It is around this time that Bigglestein started referring to Sinternet and his supporters as “Sinternet’s Dark Army” although it is very hard to find a definite point at which the SDA was formed or became a coherent idea in the discourse surrounding Bigglestein and Sinternet. What is known is that leading up to the war, Bigglestein accused many Sinternet followers and Sinternet himself of using dishonest or foreign methods to undermine Bigglestein such as the creation of alts and neg-bombing Bigglestein reviews (neg-bombing being the mass negging of a review for political reasons). This worked considerably well in keeping questions of Bigglestein’s legitimacy from becoming too significant to stop the Bigglestein movement's momentum.

Escalation Reaches Its Peak

With every attempt Sinternet made to defame Bigglestein, and every suppression campaign ran against the Biggle Movement, both sides grew larger and the divide between them grew more irreconcilable. At this point, a massive amount of public attention was on Bigglestein, awaiting his every word, and he had many defenders as well as detractors. In many ways, it was the culmination of a chasm wide divide between the upper and lower sputnik classes, the progressive, anti-authoritrian parts of the Sputpire, many happening to be of the user class, taking Bigglestein’s side. The upper classes rallied behind Sinternet. On July Fourteenth, Sinternet, deciding that he had had enough of the Biggle Movement and the Sputpire, declared war on both [9]. In the words of Bigglestein, “see the trolls and bots and alt armies are coming we have to stop them". [10] The Sputpire was now officially at war with itself.

Citations:
1. https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/81623/Frank-Ocean-Blonde/ (lines 10-55)

2. https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/81606/Chance-the-Rapper-Acid-Rap/(lines 3-6)

3. https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/81606/Chance-the-Rapper-Acid-Rap/ (Cole T, comment section)

4. https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/81623/Frank-Ocean-Blonde/ (Comment Section Page 1)

5. https://i.imgur.com/0AnSdTj.png

6. https://www.sputnikmusic.com/list.php?memberid=1054524&listid=192457

7. https://www.sputnikmusic.com/album.php?reviewid=81742&page=2#comments

8. https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/81665/Jay-Electronica-A-Written-Testimony/

9. https://imgur.com/a/eMOSwXG

10. https://www.sputnikmusic.com/list.php?memberid=1215646&listid=192558