Trench War

The Trench War was an incident that took place from the 15th to 17th of February 2021 during GS8, mainly between Duck and Conq. The overall incident was caused by Duck's use of advanced trench tactics that should not have realistically existed during the game's early 1900s timeline. The ensuing argument, followed by Conq frustrating Chegg into banning Duck and Will5stars out of frustration, led to some instability and had a major effect on TLW.

Note: Due to the Ignominy of Linio, all messages from Conq are lost

Italian-Ethiopian War
During GS8, the Italian-Ethiopian War was occuring, with Adger playing as Italy and Duck playing as Ethiopia. Alongside this, Conquerus was playing as Germany - a fact that is relevant for later.

During gameplay, Adger's advances on Duck's forces ended in failures. After lobbying by Conq, Duck revealed his trench system, which was highly advanced by 1901 great power standards, let alone Ethiopian 1902 standards.

Argument
There was considerable debate as to whether these trenches were to be allowed or not. The technology itself wasn't advanced, but Duck's trenches employed tactics that had not been conceived by 1901. This sparked a larger argument about whether tactics that did not exist in 1901 should be allowed or not. Quartz, who was playing as Austria-Hungary, lended support to Conq, arguing that they should not be allowed and that the Italian-Ethiopian War events that focused on the trenches should be revised.

Duck was not very pleased about the whole situation, and he as well as some other members argued that Conq and Quartz were only opposing his trenches because they wanted their ally Adger to win his war against Ethiopia. Will also joined in the argument, supporting Duck against Quartz and Conq. Conq was fairly hostile to Duck and frequently tied the whole situation to his anti-RTSG sentiments.

Bans
On the 17th of February, a massive argument once again erupted after Duck repeatedly used "cope" to respond to Conq's arguments that the war was unfair against Italy. This culminated in him being muted and having his player role taken away. Will argued alongside him. Within the #elder-mod channel, Conq and Quartz argued with Chegg about banning the two. Chegg refused to, stating that the two never enforced rules about saying cope until it benefitted them. Eventually, their arguing finally pissed Chegg enough for her to ban Duck and Will, not because she genuinely believed that they were wrong, but because she was tired of them.

These bans were universally criticised by GS members, who did not blame Chegg but saw her as being forced into banning two members who did not deserve to be banned. Adding to this, while it could be argued that Duck had been somewhat toxic, Will had done next to nothing within the server. The low grounds for their ban led most GS members to believe that their bans occured not largely because of the events of the game, but mainly because of Conq's efforts to try and "decouple GS from RTSG". Chegg noted that the only people that the two ever bothered was Conq, implying that his antagonisation of them was the reason why they were derisive of him.

Several members cited the suspicious entry of a user who joined the server several days prior and acted highly suspiciously, and happened to be friends with Vadim, who was banned. Some members had theorised that this person was an alt of Will or Duck (subsequent investigations prove that this person was indeed a normal person).Quartz eventually backed down and began arguing from a more neutral perspective once more elder mods came online and backed the two. Quartz argued that the two had been spreading false claims of him being a pedophile in RTSG, which led to some sympathy for his position, though many admins stated that their behaviour outside of the community shouldn't determine their presence within it. Conq tried to argue that the two should be banned as per his "strikes" system, which he had proposed in the past but was not in practice in the server, causing Chegg to react with frustration. A poll was set up within the elder mod channel regarding whether to unban Will and Duck. The only elder mod to vote against it was Conq. The two were unbanned shortly afterwards.

Subsequent events
Once Duck was unbanned, Conq sent him a passive aggressive message about not being toxic, causing further frustration against him. He later tried to boycott all channels with RTSG members in general, cementing the general belief that Conq's actions were part of a larger anti-RTSG move.

Ramifications
Conq later boycotted TLW due to Duck's presence in it.