[@RubyOwl] There is an overarching timeline and we are just before the present day in the RP. Basically the RP has the present day in the Conference of the White Tower itself, meaning that the nations we will be creating will be the ones present in the conference. You can create a history for your nation as far back as you wish to, but the idea is that the most well-rounded part of it would be the closest to the RP's present.

Now, the RP's present itself won't be here, meaning in this thread, as that is for part II, in which we will play the nations themselves and their interactions with one another. What might have confused you is part III, which would be the period equivalent to our history's WWI. There will be a moment, if the RP is successful enough, in which the nations will slowly drift towards conflict with one another, per the plot of the RP, and we will play the result of that too. That means that the "present date" (meaning starting point) of part II is before the "present date" (also meaning starting point) of part III.

As for what happens in this RP's equivalent of 2017, we might do an epilogue of it if we get that far.

About me having a nation: I will be taking place of the arbitraror in the RP, which can mean me indeed having a nation whose diplomats are being the neutral party who "authorizes" the final results of the negotiations, which in practice would be very subordinated to what the players can say. If I do have a nation and not an international comittee of neutrals who definitively won't participate, then you can threaten my nation, try to bribe me and other under-the-table practices.

If I play a nation, and this will only be in the case of very few players, then I most likely won't be participating in the war in part III. Take Switzerland as an example, you technically could invade me, but I won't give you any reason to, diplomatic or strategic.

As for creating nations, if the RP gets stuck in this phase, then I'll help by creating some nations to have some available for players. They likely won't be very detailed to give each player a chance to customize them.

Hopefully that has answered your questions.