A Union is defined as "a group of clans that form together and work with each other in many different ways". It's basically an alliance of four or more clans. Unions range from relatively small (four clans, or one hundred or less members) to very large (1,000+ members, or over fifteen clans).
Unions are often very large and powerful. A common belief is that they hold complete power over their clans and limit the power of the leaders, because of this, many clan leaders do not like unions, for the fear of losing power. That was somewhat true, however most modern unions are a lot less restrictive, and rarely interfere with their clan's internal affairs.
RSB Unions
There are many different major RSB unions. The majority of them are clan alliances, like the United Federation of Alliances or The Dark Confederation. Most of these unions are about helping their member clans, developing bonds, and having fun events together, but there are also those who war each other to show which union ranks supreme. Different unions operate in different ways, each with different forms of government, event scheduling, and diplomacy
Many unions take pride in warring other unions, and often declare on other Unions to gain ranks on ladders. Most of the time, however, RSB unions don't interact with other each other, and instead, focus on improving themselves.
Non-RSB Unions
Some Unions are not part of the RSB, and are often Unions that are mainly made up of free players.
Union Government
There are several main types of governments used in Unions. The first is representative democracy. Unions with a representative democratic government elect representatives (usually from each clan) to vote on Union decisions. Sometimes this democracy is intertwined with a dictatorship, in which one or more leaders make all of the decisions for the Union. Most newer or beginning Unions start out with some form of dictatorship or oligarchy, and gradually convert to some form of representative democracy or one which they elect a complete leader. Eventually this passes and more advanced and complex forms of government are formed that consist of multiple councils, legislatures, and writings of law. Theoretically, a fifth stage (not shown below) in which the union begins losing strength of government and resorting back to the third or second stage would occur. As government progressed amongst these stages, the efficiency goes down, the more centralized a government is (such as a dictatorship being extremely centralized), the more efficient it is to do things. This leads to problems in the fourth stage, and can be a large reason for why many may move into the fourth stage, hoping that it will become more efficient and progressive if they advance. This is one of the explanations for this theoretical fifth stage in the evolution of a union where it devolves into the second or third stage once more.
Feedback to Unions
Unions are often very large and powerful. A common belief is that they hold complete power over their clans and limit the power of the leaders, because of this, many clan leaders do not like unions, for the fear of losing power. That was somewhat true, however most modern unions are a lot less restrictive, and rarely interfere with their clan's internal affairs.
A positive of a union, however, is that it can help you get alliances, members, and reputation. Unions can benefit you, but they can also hurt you. Most clans are encouraged to ask the union's clans about the union, before joining. Unions are often well known for their massive wars. These wars often pull up to 300+ people. Because of this, most union wars take place in fight pits. However, other benefits of unions can lead to mass organized trades between clans, questing partnership of all combat and skill levels, and a stronger brotherhood bond.
Wars
The massive TCA vs CP Fight Pits war in January of 2008
Union wars (or Ally Wars) are often fought in huge (sometimes thousands of players) in either Clan Wars or in the Wilderness. They can be organised weeks in advanced between two or more unions which will have many clans in them. These wars can last hours because of the amount of people and are often very publicized within the RuneScape community. Winning a Union war could mean many things including 'ownership' of a particular RuneScape city (Player-Owned city, POC) or just to say that one union is better then another. First one to be known, was between the clans Blood Law and Shadow Law, fighting over Varrock in world 90. Summer 2005, they formed an alliance, under their new leader Angel of D... creating the 1st ambitious union, W9W (World 90 Warlords).
Past Wars
Throughout the RSB Union history there have been many major conflicts between Unions. The largest yet fastest one was between W9W (World 90 Warlords) and SODA (Soldiers Of Dominating Ambitions), summer of 2005, in world 90. This war lead to senseless wilderness luring, scamming, botting, and a world nobody felt safety in. SODA won the war, but both sides lost their home world. Another one of the most notable conflicts is the TCA (The Champion Alliance) vs CP (Corruptive Powers) conflict. During the summer of 2007, three Unions (RuneScape World Alliance, Union For Clans, United Coalition) did not agree with CP, so they merged and formed The Champion Alliance. TCA and CP were fierce rivals from the very beginning, and often engaged in flame wars (heated arguments) with one another. TCA and CP warred twice; once in the summer of 2007, shortly after the founding of TCA, and once in January of 2008. The January of '08 Fight Pits war was massive, with over 1,000 players participating. TCA won the war, but the results have been disputed ever since, with accusations of cheating on both sides. Some recent union conflicts are LoN (League of Nations) vs PK (Pheonix Kismet), it was a very messy war with a ton of flame but the war was never fought. The other conflict is LoN (Leauge of Nations) vs RWA (Runescape World Alliance). The war started out as a ladder rank but it turned out LoN brought many clans not in LoN. But also CP (Anti Union) crashed the event and helped RWA. Soon later RWA was announced as CP's junior union. RWA closed shortly after. In the spring of 2010, there was a power dispute between three unions, The Dark Confederation, Requiem of Carnage, and Phoenix Kismet. TDC and PKU in particular had a fierce dislike for each other, while RoC who at the time was the most powerful union, got caught in the middle of it (though they claim neutrality, many accuse them of having TDC sentiments). You see, the #1 clan and TDC clan The Resistance, crashed PKU's war with RoC for #1 warring union. The leader of PKU was enraged and declared total war on TDC. Meanwhile TDC had a go at declaring for #1 warring union. The TDC vs RoC war was truly something amazing, and the pull neared 1,000. Eventually it came down to 1 TDC vs 1 RoC, with the 1 TDC killing the 1 RoC. So TDC became the #1 warring union, and since it was and has always been far more forum and in game active than RoC and PKU combined, TDC became the undisputed #1 union. However, PKU was not satisfied. Not only had both RoC and TDC proven to be stronger than them, the officials had rated TDC #1. PKU then began to flame the ladders and newspapers if they supported TDC (which was all of them). So TDC and PKU had an off ladder war in clan wars. TDC and PKU met in clan wars with the best of each union duking it out. PKU won the 1st round with 22 remaining, TDC won the 2nd with 62 remaining, and PKU won the last with 4 remaining. While PKU claimed victory, the point was brought up that PKU brought several combatants that were not in the union, and PKU cut out half of TDC's warring clans from the war. Couple this with the fact that the war was a fun war, most of the RSB disregarded PKU's claim of #1 warring, as they have yet to beat either TDC or RoC in a ranked pits union war, most consider PKU #3. Now present day June of 2010, RoC had declared on TDC for #1, more details to come on whether or not TDC can defend their rank.
Current RSB Unions
The following is a list of all the current Unions in the RSB:
- Central Powers Union (CPU)
- Flying Kacklers Union (TFU)
- Requiem of Carnage (ROC)
- Pheonix Kismet (PK)
- The Nazgul League of RuneScape (TNLOR)
- United Kingdoms of RuneScape (UKR)
- Anarchy's Sacred Alliance (ASA)
- Empire of Siscia (EOS)
- Three Legion Alliance (3LA)
- Brotherhood of Scatasville Saints (BOSS)
- Soldiers Of Dominating Ambitions (SODA)
- 9 Unknown Men (NUM)
Past RSB Unions
Throughout the RSB's history there have been many Unions, some more well known than others, such as the RuneScape Global Alliance and The Foundation. More examples are the Union For Clans, RuneScape World Alliance (The Original one), and United Coalition were three Unions that merged together to form TCA, which only recently disbanded. The League of Nations has been founded several times, not counting the most recent LoN created by God Justice1. Arguably the strongest Union in the RSB existed from February until August of 2008, and it was known as the United Clan Federation, or UCF. UCF contained over thirty clans at its peak, and was one of the top Unions in the RSB after existing for only several days. Others would say the 2005 underground alliance, W9W, was the strongest, yet grew corrupted. Known for manipulating the Grand Exchange market, recruited a total over 600 P2P active members (clan settings didn't exist, meaning they organized their clans through their friends list), then over 1000 profiles caught botting, and it lead to gambling, luring, and the deletion of world 90. This started by the clans called Shadow Law and Blood Law, both lead by Angel of D... ended in 2006. Many of those members still exist with clanning organizations today, and if spotted, will be at fault for the disbanding of their unions... such as those listed below.
Disbanded RSB Unions:
- The Liberty Alliance (TLA)
- World 90 Warlords (W9W)
- Runescape World Alliance (RWA)
- The Dark Confederation (TDC)
- The Grand Alliance (TGA)
- Corruptive Powers (CP)
- The Champion Alliance (TCA)
- Dark Cross Alliance (DCA)
- The Forgotten Alliance (TFA)
- League of Nations (LoN)
- United Clan Federation (UCF)
- Central Powers (CPU)
- Requiem Of Carnage (RoC)
- The Order (TO)
- The United Coalition (UC)
- The Alliance/RSB Alliance (TA)
- The Flying Kacklers (TFK)
- Destructive Forces (DF)
- United Federation of Alliances (UFA)
- The Federation (TF)
- Union For Clans (UFC) <-- First Union Ever Created
- Red Storm
Current Non-RSB Unions
The following is a list of some of the current Unions that aren't on the RSB:
Disbanded Non-RSB Unions:
- United Runescape Clans (URSC)
- Marx's Confederacy (MC)
- The Confederate Independant Systems (CIS)
- United Runescape (UR)
- Anti-Julk Alliance (AJA)
- UCUL (United Clans Under Leaderism)
Anti-Unions
Main article: Anti-Union
An Anti-Union is a Union that aims to destroy other Unions and organizations, a prime example would be corruptive powers . This may because they don't like other unions, or because they wish to be the strongest union. An Anti-Union might crash other Union's events or flame/spam their thread until that Union gives up. An Anti-Union, such as X-W9W (the World 90 Warlords returned alliance) might also declare war on any Union/clan/organization that is not allied to them. They might also just act like every other union, except with alot more enemies, such as SODA (Soldiers Of Dominating Ambitions).
See also
- Anti-Union
- RSB
- RSB Ladder Rankings
- Alliance
- List of Unions
- Category:Unions