2nd delegacy - INWU; An opinionated history
Page 1 of 1
2nd delegacy - INWU; An opinionated history
by El Fiji Grande Wed Oct 14, 2015 11:25 pm
An Opinionated History of the Second Delegacy of the INWU
Note: this 'history' will be written from my personal perspective, and may thus include biases and opinions that may not be considered objective or impartial.
In order to fully encompass the political and social regional situation when I began my delegacy, I must begin this where my 'History of the First Delegacy of the INWU; from the Perspective of El Fiji Grande' factbook left off: just after The Great Split.
Additionally, I hope I don't miss anything too important. This last term has been the most active four months I think I have ever experienced on NationStates, at least as far as the Regional Message Board. My term started around page 800, and has continued to around 3,800.
The Last Minutes of my First Delegacy
I left the last day of my first term as delegate for special, ceremonial business. I wanted to establish the precedent of what the end of good delegacy should be like. Thus, I wrote a dispatch on the history of my first term, awarded a Delegate's Medal, and gave a few brief speeches. I wanted to make an impression on the citizens of the INWU regardless of whether or not I decided to re-run for WAD again.
Getting Re-elected
At the end of any delegacy is the decision of whether or not to run for re-election, and then, if doing so, to fight for re-election, because if truly a competition, it is truly a battle. My last dispatch on history covers the entire history of my first term, except for the period right at the end, in the period during which I decided to run again, as well as my reasons for doing so, though it does include my announcement to run again.
To begin, I had several concerns on my mind. The first was that I had the feeling that due to IRL issues (like school as stuff and things), I might have to leave the delegacy sooner rather than later, and in doing so, abandon my position in the INWU, during a presumably critical time. I was convinced to stay by many people, but the most significant reason was the state of the region at the time. Having just come out of the Great Split, and having had a choppy start as a region, I felt that the region had the best chance of continuing onward with me as delegate.
Early on, and worth mentioning, was the support of Estradia for my re-election bid.
The Karlore of Estradia wrote:
This is actually really good. I especially like the parts about me. But non-the less I think you've done a great job as WAD considering the more than overwhelming circumstances. I truly do hope you lead this region through another term.
Given the level of support The Karlore of Estradia had provided in my previous term, I specifically asked him and urged him to run for Chancellor. I did this to specifically vet and train him for the delegacy, on the idea that if I had to quit NS in the middle of my term, he would be experienced enough to take my place, and that by the end of my second, he would be able to convince the public to vote for him, and assume the Third Delegacy. I wanted to plan far ahead for this occurrence, and the idea of having The Karlore of Estradia as Chancellor would prove convenient for me to share classified information with him, as well as position him politically to be a viable candidate for the next term.
Topsail Empire challenged me in the re-election race, but did not end up winning his campaign.
The Opening Days of a Brave New World
The last few weeks of my first delegacy had been terrible. In retrospect, what happened wasn't really my fault, but at the beginning of my second term, I set out to systematically correct all of my errors, and piece the region back together. In order to ensure that this occurred, I needed to first ensure that each of our nations, and the nations in the INU and IWU understood my position. We needed to maintain friendships, and maintain a strong bond of alliance with them. I also needed to prevent infighting, since after the Great Split there was much confusion. I remember two specific events for their importance.
The first was clarifying to the region as a whole that while I strongly disagreed with the actions of GROSS Independency, I still respected him for who he was as a nation, for standing by his principles and acting on them. I also wanted to clarify that I supported the motives of every nation that left, for also acting on their beliefs. That type of behavior is respectable, and I naturally trust any nation that is readily willing to demonstrate their strength of opinion. What I said was absolutely true, but it is necessary to understand why I said it. The truth is that it was a political move, for the reasons detailed above. There needed to be a mutual understanding between our regions, and I figured that to have a nation with such heavy influence endorsing the actions of those who left would help calm everyone down. To a degree, it worked, but the words I said were also true. Additionally, it needed to be known the degree to which I, as well as the majority of the region, respected the original INU and IWU, as well as the ISU, which had merged later.
Secondly, I needed to ensure that direct conflict was at a minimum between our regions. The fight needed to be over for healing to really begin. Thus, I did what I had to do, in that I went after Othelos for consistently becoming angry at the nations that left, and insisting that they be clear in their allegiances. I do not regret my actions against Othelos, though to some degree they were seen as a betrayal to him. At the time, I was worried about losing a friend, but I felt that keeping ties with the INU and IWU would be very important. The actions taken by The Liberosis of Othelos were directly in contradiction with my regional policy initiatives, and threatened to push aside much of the good work done to keep the peace between our newly separated regions. I did later apologize to him though.
Healing
Only once there was peace, could any real efforts to heal be made. Healing applied to both the INWU and to the INU and IWU. I wanted to put restrictions in place that would help prevent anything like The Great Split from ever happening again in the INWU. This would be a problem faced throughout my second term as delegate. Legally, and keeping to my principles of never restraining RMB speech, I essentially cut a deal with The Karlore of Estradia that would allow him to learn more about the delegacy as a future position of his, but would blend our roles giving me greater influence for internal affairs. I set out to solve all major conflicts on the RMB, to settle any major problems before the grew and festered before they burst with major conflict and outrage.
I then began to send several telegrams to The Neo-Socialist Districts of GROSS Independency and The Decaying Founder of Kialga. I wanted to reach a mutual understanding and agreement between our three nations. Now with the INWU under control, I could attempt to reposition our stance with regards to foreign affairs. My ultimate goal was to undo the damage of The Great Split and have the three regions remerge into the INWU. Interestingly, while The Great Split resulted in the loss of many highly regarded nations, the majority of them were very much inactive. So, in one of the greatest ironies of my NS career, the new regions proved to be fatally inactive, whereas the INWU began to boom. At the time, I claimed that we were entering into a period of Golden Age for the INWU, and used this as a bargaining point with the nations that left. Even more ironic was the fact that The Neo-Socialist Districts of GROSS Independency, the very leader of the cause of The Great Split, ceased to exist as a nation almost exactly thirty days after the events of their departure. Some of this even occurred while the voting for the next WAD was still happening.
I decided to focus on the INU first. The INU then had a few different leaders over the next few days. One was Albiorix, who insisted on waiting on the return of GROSS for the betterment of the region, and the other was New Educandi. I recognize how hard it is to be a WAD, especially in a period of transition, in which each and every one of the nations you represent is counting on your action. Thus I respect both The Ploof Ploof of Albiorix and The Deutschestaten of New Educandi for their time as WADs of the INU. However, it was in this period in which my respect for The Deutschestaten of New Educandi went a bit further than that with The Ploof Ploof of Albiorix. This was because of the understanding The Deutschestaten of New Educandi showed of the situation, and the willingness to act to improve his region that it seemed neither The Ploof Ploof of Albiorix or GROSS had had at the time. I shared a series of very in depth telegrams with NE, which focused on the betterment of the INU as a region, but also had the intent of bringing our regions back together.
The specific content of these telegrams I still have, but I will not share them here, as a definite amount of trust was created within them. Without becoming too detailed, I will however describe some of our overall conversation. The Deutschestaten of New Educandi felt betrayed by many nations - by The Directorate of Xin Prussia, by The Liberosis of Othelos and by The Maritime Commonwealth State of Ichoria - who had been plotting a coup and later an invasion. I had to reassure him that the return of the INU would be welcomed, and that the mutual distrust between our regions was justifiable, yet unnecessary. My attempt was to convince him to return to the region on even footing, and to accept any left over hostilities that, after which, would allow the nations of the INU to remain reputable figures in society, and would build the confidence that the strength of our union could in fact prevail. Due to my own efforts in desperately trying to save the heart of Strategos Prime back before the original merge, I hold a level of respect for The Deutschestaten of New Educandi nearly unparalleled by any other nation in NS, as he underwent the same pressures, and did not buckle, but rather defended his region and his people in the same way I had done for SP.
After convincing The Deutschestaten of New Educandi that returning would be the best option, there was some delay in convincing other nations of the same, but NE effectively made the decision on his own and remerged the regions. The remerge went better than expected, and while there were some minor spouts of hostility, everyone seemed back at home again from the INU.
I then focused on the IWU. However, unlike the success of my efforts in the INU, the majority of my telegrams were blatantly ignored by the members of the IWU that had left. I then realized that I wasn't being ignored, that simply nearly every single member that had left had become completely inactive since the merge. While marginalization had been the reason they left, I became convinced that the reason they were marginalized was their own inactivity. One nation did respond, after having been the only one to post anything on the IWU RMB for several days. The Federal Republic of Nova Analestiana then returned as well as a result of my TGs.
The Federal Republic of Nova Analestiana wrote:
Yeah, when Gross contacted me and several other members of IWU that transfered into the INWU, we were promised a region that would be active and would grow as well. However, as soon as we moved back, things kinda went down hill. Gross eventually became in active and The Decaying Founder of Kialga was no where to be seen for almost a week. I've tried to post stuff asking for other nations to get involve in the region but I got silence.
It's a little ironic, that the day I was about to leave the region to return to INWU, i became the WA delegate. So as my first and last official act as Delegate of the region, i offered my resignation and transfered back here.
No offense or malice to Gross, but it just did not work out in the end.
All in all, the period of healing the wounds caused by The Great Split went well, and extraordinarily swiftly. The tensions of the previous weeks quickly evaporated, and under the reforms to help prevent marginalization, most everyone seemed to become friends again.
The New Administration
The new administration of the INWU included myself as WAD, The Karlore of Estradia as Chancellor, The Fijitologist of Falling Stars as Minister of Role Playing, The Commonwealth of Askium as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and The United States of Topsail Empire as Minister of Recruitment. After the usual period of congratulations was over, the next term officially began. There was one compliment that really did stand out, included below:
The Federation of Hijjma wrote:
I can't stay long but I would like to thank Fiji for all his constributions. I don't always agree with you Fiji but I would follow into hell and back.
Note that I have told things a bit out of order, as the remerge of our regions occurred several days after the start of the new administration. But it feels more proper to place that period directly at the start of this history, as it was the absolute, number one priority of this administration to handle. Everything else came second.
The goals of the new administration were simple in thought yet complicated to achieve. They included the remerge of our regions, recruitment/activity, and the emergence of the INWU onto the world stage. This sense that the INWU could be something larger, and could become a real part of world affairs was prompted by interaction at the NS World Fair back in the previous December.
The MT Map
The original history of the MT Map goes back to a project of mine from SP. I originally collaborated with The Muffinator of Hockesin on the map as far as generating the coolest, most realistic alternate-Earth projection went. After that, I put most of the work into the project, which was originally modeled after the nearly world-famous map in the New Coalition of Nations. After stagnating for months, I restarted the project to help reinvigorate RPing in the INWU. While the map was, as of my first term as delegate, our regional map, it had not been fully created. Resources had not been mapped, terrain had not been plotted, and many of the nations in the region were not yet included on the map. Additionally, there were no clear guidelines as to how RPs on the map would work, nor was there much documentation on its creation. Ironically, despite these efforts, the map is still not complete, and will probably never be. I set out to fix each of these issues, culminating with the creation of a few new RPs on the offsite forums and a much more interesting map.
Reactivation of IONIA
Near the start of my second term in office, I began to seek for ways to help prevent the marginalization of nations within the region. One way of going about doing that was to expand the executive branch of the INWU to allow for more executive appointments, and hence, more nations involved. However, I also became aware that one of the causes of marginalization is inactivity, and I wanted to create a core for the region built on brotherhood and based off of activity. I thus put in a large amount of effort to rebuild and restart the InternatiOnal Northwestern Intelligence Agency. After appointing The Karlore of Estradia, the victor of my first delegacy's Delegate Medal, to the position of Director, I then established a separate set of forums, missions, and new agents. I also copied over several files from the SPIA forums. The plan was to reassert the power of IONIA as a force for regional well-being, and to create an active heart of the region.
To my disappointment, IONIA received far less attention and activity than I believed it deserved. Part of me realized the reason for this occurrence - that the overall prosperity of my delegacy was forcing the life out of traditionally very active programs, as there simply weren't issues to focus on. But the other half of me insisted, and continues to insist, that having a group of intelligence officers constantly on the lookout for foreign threats and security issues can be a boon to the region, if used properly. We still need IONIA to perform basic surveillance of the raiders, but we need to expand their power to also include foreign affairs. If IONIA becomes merged with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and interregional diplomacy, there can be more activity in the creation and maintenance of embassies.
It was incredibly frustrating to have specific missions created, distributed to agents, for them not either not respond at all due to inactivity or simply not caring, or even respond objecting to the reasons behind certain missions and to the hierarchical structure of the agency. A specific example of this was when The Maritime Commonwealth State of Gatito lashed out at The Karlore of Estradia for a certain TBR monitoring assignment that created a divide within the agency and among the regional elites, so to speak. I was thankful that The Maritime Commonwealth State of Gatito spoke honestly about his opinions about his assignment. At first I was angry, but then after a moment of thought, I agreed with him.
Firstly, it made a certain amount of sense for The Maritime Commonwealth State of Gatito to demand the logic behind his assignment. If there was none, then why do it? And the reason happens to be tradition. A tradition started within all of our founding regions. That tradition has been to lean strongly to the side of the defender cause, and to keep an eye on their activities such that we can set an appropriate response to them. But just because we've always done something one way, doesn't mean we should. The raiders have typically hounded after founderless regions, and conducted a method entitled tag raiding, leading to the conquering of 40 or more regions in a single update, depending on the speed of the raiders and the density of the individual update times. The largest reason why defenders have not been willing to conduct a similarly scaled response is because the raiders raid mostly inactive regions. These are regions filled with dying or dead nations, and there is hardly any point in returning the regions to the natives, if there are no real natives to return them to. Secondly, the defenders do not have an accurate update time prediction tool, contrary to the raiders.
Modern usage of intelligence agencies should be much more open to the other sectors of interregional affairs. If the agency handles what it has traditionally done, but also expands to helping create and maintain embassies, organize the NS World Fair booth, bring about interembassy RPs and games, as well as provide aid in conjunction with our military to couped regions or regions with a large number of active natives that are under the long-term occupation of raiders, the agency will have the chance to grow and regain much of the respect it never had in the INWU.
So while part of me said that The Maritime Commonwealth State of Gatito should no longer be a part of IONIA if he didn't understand the purpose of a disciplined organization to aid our regional efforts in foreign affairs, I decided that Gatito was too valuable a nation to lose over simple misunderstandings and miniscule conflict within a miniscule agency. The brief anger I displayed, and have elaborated on here, was perhaps not even noticed by Gatito at the time, and the incident made hardly a ripple on the floor of our region's foundation. I transferred Gatito to helping me directly with the creation of actual embassies, and encouraged him to do create real benefit to the region culturally and politically.
Embassies with TRR
The process began with The Rejected Realms. Unibot first contacted me in the middle of my first term, back in November. Unibot then contacted me in February to begin the construction of embassies and the signing of a treaty between our regions. After convincing the NFA (swiftly, I might add), the treaty was set up.
TRR came to us asking for embassies - an important detail to note. As part of a program to ally with growing and starting-to-become-influential regions, Unibot III reached out to us, not the other way around. Of course I accepted, because, well, how could I refuse? Unibot III is an extremely friendly nation, leading an extremely friendly region, and the whole thing fit in very nicely with the goals of my term of office: to expand our foreign affairs connections.
TRR was a jumping point. It was an important first step, and they were our closest allies for several months. TRR announced their Rock-Paper-Scissors Competition (RPSC) amongst all of its allied regions. This stage helped build both international and interregional cooperation, activity, and bonding. And we didn't do badly. Despite being one of the youngest and smallest regions participating, we managed to defeat Lazarus. We went on to lose to TRR, ending our RPSC participation, but for two to three weeks, we were very much involved interregionally.
I then organized a vote in the NFA to allow myself on behalf of the INWU to establish embassies at my leisure with each of the regions featured in the RPSC. Most prominently among these regions were Taijitu, Wintreath, and Lazarus.
INWU Sports
With many requests for a regional sports league, came a ready supply of organizers of regional sports. Lacrosse, football (soccer), American football, horse racing, and gladiator fights were all suggested, though the latter-most was later retracted. An official Inwusports nation was created for the precise purpose of being an easy locale to store seasons and scores. Nations from across the INWU, including myself, submitted teams, built stadiums, and competed in the grand INWUSL tournament. Credit goes to Gatito and Topsail Empire for organizing the league. Plans were made to continue the tradition of sports within the region, though these plans went awry, as organizing an updating a sports league can be hard and nit-picky work.
INWU Ball
The creation of INWUBall was another movement that Gatito spearheaded. I have always been in support of INWUBall, as it is yet another facet of our culture as a region that has grown into a custom to poke fun at the various conflicts we have encountered over our history, as well as tease our ever satirical delegate. Credit goes to all nations who made an INWUBall, and all nations who helped spread its ever pervasive influence across our region. Polandball also exists in other sectors of NS, but having a personal version for our region has always been a very neat feature.
Fijitology
The center two months of my delegacy were rather uneventful from an interregional perspective. It was almost the beginning of a new era, in which all of our nations were becoming peacefully and happily bonded. It was in this era of prosperity, that a number of nations, quite praising of my role in its creation, decided to begin a cult if you will, centered around my image as delegate. Fijitology, it is called to this day. I have always been appreciative of its existence, as it means a lot to me that I am seen as being that valuable to the INWU. I found it compelling that Fijitology and Malkbacconne were able to coexist peacefully, and were never mutually exclusive. Though the Supreme God of Strategos Prime never died in the hearts and souls of some, much of that influence was transferred to Fijitology. Good times.
UETA vs. UCON
It was also in this period in which roleplaying (finally) began to have more of an influence. With the creation of my MT map came the development of international organizations. I first joined UETA because I wanted to promote a spirit of roleplaying in the region. I did truly miss the old days of Colony RPs and Delta Bases with East Ibsenia in Strategos Prime. Roleplaying needed to develop in the INWU. When UCON left UETA as a separate alliance of nations more focused on a stockpile of nuclear warheads, I had three emotions. Firstly, I was angered in the roleplaying sense by the ambition, greed, and stupidity of UCON members for embracing the devastating power of the nuclear weapon. Secondly, I was happy that finally someone had created a second alliance, because it made everything more interesting. I knew I could count on Atlantica to achieve that (he's always been ambitious). And thirdly, I knew I had to tread cautiously ahead. The conflict between the two international alliances began to create tensions that extended outside of the realm of RP. As soon as that occurs, RP is no longer a boon for the region, rather, a burden. Because that kind of divide can create long-term tensions, destroy long-term friendships, and lead to the eventual collapse of the region as a whole. I was tempted to create a third alliance to help balance the struggle for power between the other two, and for a time I did, but mostly I suck out neutrality. In this way, I prepared myself to fulfill one of my starting goals of delegate - to solve any minor problem before it became a major one. Neutrality is the best way to ensure that.
With the birth of the international alliances came the birth of RP. Several new roleplays were created. Unlike the older RP start ups The Vacation and Heir to the Throne, these RPs garnered more activity and therefore more success. The INWU Arms Expo 2015, The Boot Camp, and Smoke, Cinders, and Ash were all successful. These RPs were fine and dandy, but not quite the explosion of roleplaying excitement that I had hoped for. It will be up Topsail's administration to help push forward new RPs, as well as get a larger percentage of the regional population interested in them.
Easter Eggs
I'll mention Easter Eggs briefly, as it was in my second term of office when there was quite a bit of excitement and discussion about how to obtain the NS Easter Eggs. I got a couple, and I know several other nations were also actively interested.
Cards Against Nationstates
Or should I say, NationStates Against Humanity, as that would have been a far better name. This year's April Fool's 'prank' was the NS version of Cards against Humanity, and it was fun for the time that it lasted. It allowed be to remark upon the importance of international relations, and having our region be visible to other regions and external nations could also help our recruitment campaigns.
Pharthan's WA Proposal
In late February, soon after the establishment of our embassies with TRR, Pharthan proposed the Nuclear Power Safeguards Act to the WA General Assembly. The proposal began to almost immediately lose ground against interregional heavyweight dissenter delegates. Usually, once a proposal starts poorly, it generally also ends poorly. Very rarely does a proposal later overcome the initial negative votes to actually become passed as a resolution. The next three days became quite tense. I knew just how important the WA GA proposal was to Pharthan, as I had personally witnessed the amount of effort he had put into it, and the rigorous methodology he had in refining it on the WA forums. One nation even phrased it as such: "If this proposal doesn't pass, I don't know what will. This proposal really raises the bar quality wise for the rest of us." Given Pharthan's effort, I felt strongly that the INWU should support him in every way possible. I voted for his resolution, as did nearly every WA nation in the region, with only a few exceptions. I then also contacted Unibot III from TRR.
The Holy Moly of El Fiji Grande wrote:
Unibot III,
I'd like to ask that you vote approve on the current WA GA proposal, as the author of said proposal, Pharthan, is a member of the INWU, and it would mean a lot to him.
Thanks,
El Fiji Grande
Unibot's vote did weigh heavily towards the proposal, and was our alliance's help passing the proposal. I was proud to have helped add an additional 200 votes. But it was Pharthan himself who really pushed the ball forward, spending much of his time convincing others on the WA forums. Thankfully, his proposal passed with flying colors, and went down in history as WA GA Resolution #315.
The Meritocracy of Pharthan wrote:
My resolution passed! Woo hoo!
Annnnnd there are already two repeals proposed.
Written by fools.
Incidentally, the repeals were never passed, and Pharthan's Resolution is still in effect to this day.
Taijitu, Wintreath, and Lazarus
Following the TRR RPSC, I began to send TGs to the WADs, Founders, MRPs, and Diplomats of Taijitu, Wintreath, and Lazarus.
The Holy Moly of El Fiji Grande wrote:
Good day, gentlemen.
For starters, introductions. Citizen-Delegate The All-House Union of Myroria, and Citzen-Diplomats The Liquid Sunshine of Funkadelia and The Federal Kindreds of Mjollnira of Taijitu, I am El Fiji Grande, the WA Delegate of the International Northwestern Union (INWU). I'd like to introduce you to the INWU's Chancellor Estradia, Minister of Foreign Affairs Askium, and Gatito, a personal adviser of mine.
The reason for this diplomatic telegram is with the intent of establishing embassies between Taijitu and the INWU. The INWU is a stable, if not growing region of 127 nations, and we wish to secure embassies and possible alliances with larger and more influential regions. We are also impressed with the continued growth of Taijitu as a region, and would like to congratulate Myroria for becoming delegate!
I have formally requested embassies between our two regions, and if there is a more official protocol, please direct us to it.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Signed,
~ El Fiji Grande and fellow diplomats of the International Northwestern Union
The above telegram was sent to Taijitu, and similar versions were sent to Wintreath and Lazarus, respectively. Taijitu and Wintreath responded quickly, and positively, but while we had already passed the embassy request through the NFA, it took roughly two weeks for the legislatures of both regions to fully respond and establish embassies. Albiorix created our regional seal, with which we headed all of our interregional communications on our new offsite embassy forums.
I would do this section of our history more justice, but to be honest, I'm quite tired by now. Our embassies with Taijitu and Wintreath are extremely important. At this point (currently), if something catastrophic were to happen to the region, I would recommend a merge into Taijitu. Not even new regions - but essentially a mass exodus from this region to theirs. They are friendly, accepting, both casual and formal, and active. Wintreath is also an excellent option, but my gut feeling is that they are a bit too established, and the merge wouldn't work out. Hopefully it never gets to that point, but there's my advice.
In Wintreath, I then participated in their fourth Werewolf game, this one (awesomely) based off of Monty Python. It was quite fun, and I recommend it to anyone in the INWU wanting to make friends in other regions and have a good time. Lazarus never responded to my telegrams, and I'll return to that later.
RMB Boom
This entire period was one of the most active periods I have ever witnessed as far as the RMB goes. As I mentioned before, roughly 3,000 pages of RMB were written during this term of office, sometimes at a rate of over 100 pages per day. This boom period can possibly be referred to as a Golden Age for the region, but I am fully confident that the next delegate will be able to make the region yet better. Interestingly, this RMB boom continued even after conflict (NWM, Gatito, Top, Veyris, Celibrae) reached the NS moderator level, resulting in the one month ban of Topsail Empire from the RMB. This one month seemed like an eternity, but the RMB continued at its staggeringly swift rate.
Othelos v. INWU
Of course, this period of wild activity also generated a more frequent occurrence of conflict. This is to be expected, though at times these conflicts did reach rather poor levels. Apparently the concept of drawing ASCII genitals on the regional message board just absolutely fascinates some of us here in the INWU, and at times these low periods of immaturity get noticed by our more respectable nations. And in this point I am conflicted. I believe very solidly in the freedom of speech and openness on the RMB, but I also do not appreciate ASCII penises on the RMB. I have noted this several times, and openly discouraged it, but never taken action upon it, as I do not find it offensive; merely a peculiarly annoying form of spam. But someone was sure to complain. That nation, in this case, was Cekan.
Cekan never made a big deal out of it, and he really did get a lot of crap that he didn't deserve. Just like Celibrae's Scottish Incident, he really should not have gotten much of the blame for the situation that followed. Upon Cekan's request, and, partially upon my own basic agreement with his complaint, I suppressed several posts on the RMB. This violated my own principles as far as freedom of RMB speech, but I was already giving a much wider breadth of space than even our constitution instructed. I have never been anywhere near as strict as the moderators, as evidenced by both SP and the INWU, specifically in the case of Topsail Empire.
Othelos filed a direct challenge to the ability of the WAD of the INWU to suppress posts with the push of a button. He did so in a nice way, however, in that he was not looking for charges to be placed on any nations, but was rather seeking a judgement call on the constitutionality of my actions. Before he filed, I tried to convince him to accept a compromise of some sort with Cekan, and to at the very least give it some consideration. He obliged to the delay, and I, with the help of Estradia, quickly drafted The Spoiler Act. It was a compromise that no one liked, and I figured that that is the best sort of compromise. If no one is happy, then no one is getting quite what they want. Cekan did, however, accept the deal, so I passed on the message to Othelos. He verily declined the compromise, and proceeded to file his suit.
I made it clear to the region that I was very much against his actions, but I was also glad that he took the issue to our regional court system instead of resorting to violence. Secretly, I was also proud of Othelos for standing up for the openness of the RMB and the speech rights of all of our citizens. I privately telegrammed him wishing him the best of luck with his case. However, true to my duty as delegate, I argued my side of the case, from the perspective of a delegate trying to do his job. Interestingly, while ideally I agreed with Othelos, practically, I felt that his case would not work for the region. If passed, it would drastically restrict the ability of the WAD to keep the region under control.
Kudos to Greater New Poland for nearly single-handedly building the entire Judicial Branch of our region. It was his effort that made Othelos v. INWU possible, and it was this effort that led him to become part of the forefront of INWU politics. Othelos v. INWU was the very first test of our judicial system, in an otherwise very prosperous delegacy.
Othelos won his case, and, later, further guidelines were released by the court in a form of judicial activism to help the delegate to still have the ability to suppress posts, but only under certain conditions. Interestingly, the end result of the guidelines followed much closer to the Constitution than I would have predicted, and actually gives the delegate a bit more power than I had even been acting under before. It also legalized the suppression of posts under Delegate's Discretion, though ruled that the specific posts complained about by Cekan were legal, given their purely ASCII content.
Restructuring the forums
It was, for quite some time, a goal of Estradia and I to renovate the offsite forums. They were extensively cluttered, confusing, and mashed up. It took quite some time, but we finally got around to getting it done. The improvement was so stark that even Al Khem, the ambassador to the INWU from Taijitu, noticed.
Coup of Lazarus
To return to our embassy application to Lazarus from earlier, it turned out that the main reason we never received a reply is because I sent that telegram just days before the coup of Lazarus. Stujenske, the former long-term delegate of Lazarus, executed a coup as part of the New Pacific Order for The Pacific. This event was quite sudden, and quite unexpected. I am still, to this day, a bit confused on the reasoning behind why it occurred, and even what exactly the NPO is. But it was such an important interregional event that it summoned the attention of nearly every gameplay nation in NS. Each of our main allies became quickly involved, and I encouraged similar participation from the citizens of the INWU. I created an account on the Lazarus Underground offsite forums, and stood in solidarity with the true natives of Lazarus. There wasn't much I could do without additional support from the region, but at least I showed my face. The Lazarus coup actually taught me something very interesting - that being, that all raiders aren't black and white or good and evil. One such nation, a nation that I personally trained with (via Death to Bill), Ridersyl, made an interesting comment in support of the Lazarus Underground. Lazarus was eventually liberated, but we did not resubmit our application for embassies since then.
Fall of TBR
The Fall of TBR came as yet another shock. Due to some script rules violations, the founder of TBR and Bob Moran, a key raider and mentor of TBR, were deleted. The upset meant that The Black Riders could be liberated, and liberated they were. Led by UnitedGermanRegions (UGR), a massive defender coalition came together and seized control of TBR. The raiders fled to DEN, but continued their support of their occupation in Atheist Empire. The liberation of TBR was a monumental success for the defender cause, and the subsequent creation of a defender organization gave hope to many who had spent years fighting the raiders.
This event seized the world's attention away from Lazarus, and the opportunity was one I could not miss. I personally got into contact with UGR, as well as numerous other nations situated there. My ambassador puppet, Caleann, was used on their RMB and newly created offsite forums. I became a high-ranking official in the defender organization's Intelligence Agencym under the formal title of 'Chief Agent'. This situation lasted for nearly a week, but I felt the need to resign my position to put more focus into the INWU in the last couple of weeks as delegate here.
I continue to get updates through Caleann, but do not regularly respond to them. It is my opinion that the raiders will continue to be very active, and that the liberation of TBR was merely a symbolic victory rather than a lasting triumph. It is likely that the defender organization will eventually crumble from infighting and inactivity, though perhaps there is still hope as it has been nearly a month since its creation. A longer-lasting government has since been established in TBR, but many question the judgement, authority, power, and leadership of UGR over TBR.
Departures
Due to further clashes on the RMB, Othelos decided to leave. It was sad to see him go, and almost equally sad to see him leave on such a sour note. Greater New Poland also announced a new period of inactivity for his nation, though he did not officially leave the region.
2nd Delegate's Medal
The process I went through to select my second Delegate's Medal was much like the first time I did, but this time I chose to send my selection to the previous winner of the Delegate's Medal (Estradia), to gather his thoughts. I was originally planning on giving Gatito the 2nd Delegate's Medal, but after numerous clashes on the RMB, frequent periods of outrage and anger, and a culture of ASCII genitalia, I decided that Gatito would not be the best choice, despite his significant contributions to the region through INWUBall and INWUSports. I changed my mind to Greater New Poland because he had created the entirety of the Judicial Branch of the INWU, and it was under his court that so much had happened. I felt that he was the most deserving in the region of the medal. I additionally awarded New Educandi the runner's up prize for his time as delegate in the INU after The Great Split, and for his creation of the Smoke, Cinders, and Ash Steampunk RP on the offsite forums.
Elections
Elections went well, though not as expected. I had expected Estradia to defeat Topsail Empire for the Delegacy, especially after I had groomed him for so long for the position. Celibrae defeated Falling Stars for Minister of RP, and New Educandi defeated Atlantica for Chancellor. SSV Normandy SR-2 also joined the new administration as the new Director of IONIA. Judicial and Executive appointments are yet to be revealed by the Delegate-Elect, but will come soon after the NFA Elections of the next term. I am confident that Topsail Empire will do an excellent job as WA Delegate, what with him having past experience being Delegate in SP.
Preparation for Leaving
In preparation for leaving NS, I have tried to ensure the best possible conditions are in place. The region is prosperous, all of my initial goals as delegate have been completed, though many of my later goals did remain merely as ideas, which can be used by future administrations. Additionally, I created a series of suggestions entitled 'Fiji's advice for future delegates', in which I outlined the fundamental concepts of how I have led the INWU for the past 240 days, and how I believe it can continue to be run well by.
I give Topsail Empire the best of luck as WAD, and I depart with the knowledge that I will check in occasionally, and that, for the time being, all is well.
Note: this 'history' will be written from my personal perspective, and may thus include biases and opinions that may not be considered objective or impartial.
In order to fully encompass the political and social regional situation when I began my delegacy, I must begin this where my 'History of the First Delegacy of the INWU; from the Perspective of El Fiji Grande' factbook left off: just after The Great Split.
Additionally, I hope I don't miss anything too important. This last term has been the most active four months I think I have ever experienced on NationStates, at least as far as the Regional Message Board. My term started around page 800, and has continued to around 3,800.
The Last Minutes of my First Delegacy
I left the last day of my first term as delegate for special, ceremonial business. I wanted to establish the precedent of what the end of good delegacy should be like. Thus, I wrote a dispatch on the history of my first term, awarded a Delegate's Medal, and gave a few brief speeches. I wanted to make an impression on the citizens of the INWU regardless of whether or not I decided to re-run for WAD again.
Getting Re-elected
At the end of any delegacy is the decision of whether or not to run for re-election, and then, if doing so, to fight for re-election, because if truly a competition, it is truly a battle. My last dispatch on history covers the entire history of my first term, except for the period right at the end, in the period during which I decided to run again, as well as my reasons for doing so, though it does include my announcement to run again.
To begin, I had several concerns on my mind. The first was that I had the feeling that due to IRL issues (like school as stuff and things), I might have to leave the delegacy sooner rather than later, and in doing so, abandon my position in the INWU, during a presumably critical time. I was convinced to stay by many people, but the most significant reason was the state of the region at the time. Having just come out of the Great Split, and having had a choppy start as a region, I felt that the region had the best chance of continuing onward with me as delegate.
Early on, and worth mentioning, was the support of Estradia for my re-election bid.
The Karlore of Estradia wrote:
This is actually really good. I especially like the parts about me. But non-the less I think you've done a great job as WAD considering the more than overwhelming circumstances. I truly do hope you lead this region through another term.
Given the level of support The Karlore of Estradia had provided in my previous term, I specifically asked him and urged him to run for Chancellor. I did this to specifically vet and train him for the delegacy, on the idea that if I had to quit NS in the middle of my term, he would be experienced enough to take my place, and that by the end of my second, he would be able to convince the public to vote for him, and assume the Third Delegacy. I wanted to plan far ahead for this occurrence, and the idea of having The Karlore of Estradia as Chancellor would prove convenient for me to share classified information with him, as well as position him politically to be a viable candidate for the next term.
Topsail Empire challenged me in the re-election race, but did not end up winning his campaign.
The Opening Days of a Brave New World
The last few weeks of my first delegacy had been terrible. In retrospect, what happened wasn't really my fault, but at the beginning of my second term, I set out to systematically correct all of my errors, and piece the region back together. In order to ensure that this occurred, I needed to first ensure that each of our nations, and the nations in the INU and IWU understood my position. We needed to maintain friendships, and maintain a strong bond of alliance with them. I also needed to prevent infighting, since after the Great Split there was much confusion. I remember two specific events for their importance.
The first was clarifying to the region as a whole that while I strongly disagreed with the actions of GROSS Independency, I still respected him for who he was as a nation, for standing by his principles and acting on them. I also wanted to clarify that I supported the motives of every nation that left, for also acting on their beliefs. That type of behavior is respectable, and I naturally trust any nation that is readily willing to demonstrate their strength of opinion. What I said was absolutely true, but it is necessary to understand why I said it. The truth is that it was a political move, for the reasons detailed above. There needed to be a mutual understanding between our regions, and I figured that to have a nation with such heavy influence endorsing the actions of those who left would help calm everyone down. To a degree, it worked, but the words I said were also true. Additionally, it needed to be known the degree to which I, as well as the majority of the region, respected the original INU and IWU, as well as the ISU, which had merged later.
Secondly, I needed to ensure that direct conflict was at a minimum between our regions. The fight needed to be over for healing to really begin. Thus, I did what I had to do, in that I went after Othelos for consistently becoming angry at the nations that left, and insisting that they be clear in their allegiances. I do not regret my actions against Othelos, though to some degree they were seen as a betrayal to him. At the time, I was worried about losing a friend, but I felt that keeping ties with the INU and IWU would be very important. The actions taken by The Liberosis of Othelos were directly in contradiction with my regional policy initiatives, and threatened to push aside much of the good work done to keep the peace between our newly separated regions. I did later apologize to him though.
Healing
Only once there was peace, could any real efforts to heal be made. Healing applied to both the INWU and to the INU and IWU. I wanted to put restrictions in place that would help prevent anything like The Great Split from ever happening again in the INWU. This would be a problem faced throughout my second term as delegate. Legally, and keeping to my principles of never restraining RMB speech, I essentially cut a deal with The Karlore of Estradia that would allow him to learn more about the delegacy as a future position of his, but would blend our roles giving me greater influence for internal affairs. I set out to solve all major conflicts on the RMB, to settle any major problems before the grew and festered before they burst with major conflict and outrage.
I then began to send several telegrams to The Neo-Socialist Districts of GROSS Independency and The Decaying Founder of Kialga. I wanted to reach a mutual understanding and agreement between our three nations. Now with the INWU under control, I could attempt to reposition our stance with regards to foreign affairs. My ultimate goal was to undo the damage of The Great Split and have the three regions remerge into the INWU. Interestingly, while The Great Split resulted in the loss of many highly regarded nations, the majority of them were very much inactive. So, in one of the greatest ironies of my NS career, the new regions proved to be fatally inactive, whereas the INWU began to boom. At the time, I claimed that we were entering into a period of Golden Age for the INWU, and used this as a bargaining point with the nations that left. Even more ironic was the fact that The Neo-Socialist Districts of GROSS Independency, the very leader of the cause of The Great Split, ceased to exist as a nation almost exactly thirty days after the events of their departure. Some of this even occurred while the voting for the next WAD was still happening.
I decided to focus on the INU first. The INU then had a few different leaders over the next few days. One was Albiorix, who insisted on waiting on the return of GROSS for the betterment of the region, and the other was New Educandi. I recognize how hard it is to be a WAD, especially in a period of transition, in which each and every one of the nations you represent is counting on your action. Thus I respect both The Ploof Ploof of Albiorix and The Deutschestaten of New Educandi for their time as WADs of the INU. However, it was in this period in which my respect for The Deutschestaten of New Educandi went a bit further than that with The Ploof Ploof of Albiorix. This was because of the understanding The Deutschestaten of New Educandi showed of the situation, and the willingness to act to improve his region that it seemed neither The Ploof Ploof of Albiorix or GROSS had had at the time. I shared a series of very in depth telegrams with NE, which focused on the betterment of the INU as a region, but also had the intent of bringing our regions back together.
The specific content of these telegrams I still have, but I will not share them here, as a definite amount of trust was created within them. Without becoming too detailed, I will however describe some of our overall conversation. The Deutschestaten of New Educandi felt betrayed by many nations - by The Directorate of Xin Prussia, by The Liberosis of Othelos and by The Maritime Commonwealth State of Ichoria - who had been plotting a coup and later an invasion. I had to reassure him that the return of the INU would be welcomed, and that the mutual distrust between our regions was justifiable, yet unnecessary. My attempt was to convince him to return to the region on even footing, and to accept any left over hostilities that, after which, would allow the nations of the INU to remain reputable figures in society, and would build the confidence that the strength of our union could in fact prevail. Due to my own efforts in desperately trying to save the heart of Strategos Prime back before the original merge, I hold a level of respect for The Deutschestaten of New Educandi nearly unparalleled by any other nation in NS, as he underwent the same pressures, and did not buckle, but rather defended his region and his people in the same way I had done for SP.
After convincing The Deutschestaten of New Educandi that returning would be the best option, there was some delay in convincing other nations of the same, but NE effectively made the decision on his own and remerged the regions. The remerge went better than expected, and while there were some minor spouts of hostility, everyone seemed back at home again from the INU.
I then focused on the IWU. However, unlike the success of my efforts in the INU, the majority of my telegrams were blatantly ignored by the members of the IWU that had left. I then realized that I wasn't being ignored, that simply nearly every single member that had left had become completely inactive since the merge. While marginalization had been the reason they left, I became convinced that the reason they were marginalized was their own inactivity. One nation did respond, after having been the only one to post anything on the IWU RMB for several days. The Federal Republic of Nova Analestiana then returned as well as a result of my TGs.
The Federal Republic of Nova Analestiana wrote:
Yeah, when Gross contacted me and several other members of IWU that transfered into the INWU, we were promised a region that would be active and would grow as well. However, as soon as we moved back, things kinda went down hill. Gross eventually became in active and The Decaying Founder of Kialga was no where to be seen for almost a week. I've tried to post stuff asking for other nations to get involve in the region but I got silence.
It's a little ironic, that the day I was about to leave the region to return to INWU, i became the WA delegate. So as my first and last official act as Delegate of the region, i offered my resignation and transfered back here.
No offense or malice to Gross, but it just did not work out in the end.
All in all, the period of healing the wounds caused by The Great Split went well, and extraordinarily swiftly. The tensions of the previous weeks quickly evaporated, and under the reforms to help prevent marginalization, most everyone seemed to become friends again.
The New Administration
The new administration of the INWU included myself as WAD, The Karlore of Estradia as Chancellor, The Fijitologist of Falling Stars as Minister of Role Playing, The Commonwealth of Askium as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and The United States of Topsail Empire as Minister of Recruitment. After the usual period of congratulations was over, the next term officially began. There was one compliment that really did stand out, included below:
The Federation of Hijjma wrote:
I can't stay long but I would like to thank Fiji for all his constributions. I don't always agree with you Fiji but I would follow into hell and back.
Note that I have told things a bit out of order, as the remerge of our regions occurred several days after the start of the new administration. But it feels more proper to place that period directly at the start of this history, as it was the absolute, number one priority of this administration to handle. Everything else came second.
The goals of the new administration were simple in thought yet complicated to achieve. They included the remerge of our regions, recruitment/activity, and the emergence of the INWU onto the world stage. This sense that the INWU could be something larger, and could become a real part of world affairs was prompted by interaction at the NS World Fair back in the previous December.
The MT Map
The original history of the MT Map goes back to a project of mine from SP. I originally collaborated with The Muffinator of Hockesin on the map as far as generating the coolest, most realistic alternate-Earth projection went. After that, I put most of the work into the project, which was originally modeled after the nearly world-famous map in the New Coalition of Nations. After stagnating for months, I restarted the project to help reinvigorate RPing in the INWU. While the map was, as of my first term as delegate, our regional map, it had not been fully created. Resources had not been mapped, terrain had not been plotted, and many of the nations in the region were not yet included on the map. Additionally, there were no clear guidelines as to how RPs on the map would work, nor was there much documentation on its creation. Ironically, despite these efforts, the map is still not complete, and will probably never be. I set out to fix each of these issues, culminating with the creation of a few new RPs on the offsite forums and a much more interesting map.
Reactivation of IONIA
Near the start of my second term in office, I began to seek for ways to help prevent the marginalization of nations within the region. One way of going about doing that was to expand the executive branch of the INWU to allow for more executive appointments, and hence, more nations involved. However, I also became aware that one of the causes of marginalization is inactivity, and I wanted to create a core for the region built on brotherhood and based off of activity. I thus put in a large amount of effort to rebuild and restart the InternatiOnal Northwestern Intelligence Agency. After appointing The Karlore of Estradia, the victor of my first delegacy's Delegate Medal, to the position of Director, I then established a separate set of forums, missions, and new agents. I also copied over several files from the SPIA forums. The plan was to reassert the power of IONIA as a force for regional well-being, and to create an active heart of the region.
To my disappointment, IONIA received far less attention and activity than I believed it deserved. Part of me realized the reason for this occurrence - that the overall prosperity of my delegacy was forcing the life out of traditionally very active programs, as there simply weren't issues to focus on. But the other half of me insisted, and continues to insist, that having a group of intelligence officers constantly on the lookout for foreign threats and security issues can be a boon to the region, if used properly. We still need IONIA to perform basic surveillance of the raiders, but we need to expand their power to also include foreign affairs. If IONIA becomes merged with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and interregional diplomacy, there can be more activity in the creation and maintenance of embassies.
It was incredibly frustrating to have specific missions created, distributed to agents, for them not either not respond at all due to inactivity or simply not caring, or even respond objecting to the reasons behind certain missions and to the hierarchical structure of the agency. A specific example of this was when The Maritime Commonwealth State of Gatito lashed out at The Karlore of Estradia for a certain TBR monitoring assignment that created a divide within the agency and among the regional elites, so to speak. I was thankful that The Maritime Commonwealth State of Gatito spoke honestly about his opinions about his assignment. At first I was angry, but then after a moment of thought, I agreed with him.
Firstly, it made a certain amount of sense for The Maritime Commonwealth State of Gatito to demand the logic behind his assignment. If there was none, then why do it? And the reason happens to be tradition. A tradition started within all of our founding regions. That tradition has been to lean strongly to the side of the defender cause, and to keep an eye on their activities such that we can set an appropriate response to them. But just because we've always done something one way, doesn't mean we should. The raiders have typically hounded after founderless regions, and conducted a method entitled tag raiding, leading to the conquering of 40 or more regions in a single update, depending on the speed of the raiders and the density of the individual update times. The largest reason why defenders have not been willing to conduct a similarly scaled response is because the raiders raid mostly inactive regions. These are regions filled with dying or dead nations, and there is hardly any point in returning the regions to the natives, if there are no real natives to return them to. Secondly, the defenders do not have an accurate update time prediction tool, contrary to the raiders.
Modern usage of intelligence agencies should be much more open to the other sectors of interregional affairs. If the agency handles what it has traditionally done, but also expands to helping create and maintain embassies, organize the NS World Fair booth, bring about interembassy RPs and games, as well as provide aid in conjunction with our military to couped regions or regions with a large number of active natives that are under the long-term occupation of raiders, the agency will have the chance to grow and regain much of the respect it never had in the INWU.
So while part of me said that The Maritime Commonwealth State of Gatito should no longer be a part of IONIA if he didn't understand the purpose of a disciplined organization to aid our regional efforts in foreign affairs, I decided that Gatito was too valuable a nation to lose over simple misunderstandings and miniscule conflict within a miniscule agency. The brief anger I displayed, and have elaborated on here, was perhaps not even noticed by Gatito at the time, and the incident made hardly a ripple on the floor of our region's foundation. I transferred Gatito to helping me directly with the creation of actual embassies, and encouraged him to do create real benefit to the region culturally and politically.
Embassies with TRR
The process began with The Rejected Realms. Unibot first contacted me in the middle of my first term, back in November. Unibot then contacted me in February to begin the construction of embassies and the signing of a treaty between our regions. After convincing the NFA (swiftly, I might add), the treaty was set up.
TRR came to us asking for embassies - an important detail to note. As part of a program to ally with growing and starting-to-become-influential regions, Unibot III reached out to us, not the other way around. Of course I accepted, because, well, how could I refuse? Unibot III is an extremely friendly nation, leading an extremely friendly region, and the whole thing fit in very nicely with the goals of my term of office: to expand our foreign affairs connections.
TRR was a jumping point. It was an important first step, and they were our closest allies for several months. TRR announced their Rock-Paper-Scissors Competition (RPSC) amongst all of its allied regions. This stage helped build both international and interregional cooperation, activity, and bonding. And we didn't do badly. Despite being one of the youngest and smallest regions participating, we managed to defeat Lazarus. We went on to lose to TRR, ending our RPSC participation, but for two to three weeks, we were very much involved interregionally.
I then organized a vote in the NFA to allow myself on behalf of the INWU to establish embassies at my leisure with each of the regions featured in the RPSC. Most prominently among these regions were Taijitu, Wintreath, and Lazarus.
INWU Sports
With many requests for a regional sports league, came a ready supply of organizers of regional sports. Lacrosse, football (soccer), American football, horse racing, and gladiator fights were all suggested, though the latter-most was later retracted. An official Inwusports nation was created for the precise purpose of being an easy locale to store seasons and scores. Nations from across the INWU, including myself, submitted teams, built stadiums, and competed in the grand INWUSL tournament. Credit goes to Gatito and Topsail Empire for organizing the league. Plans were made to continue the tradition of sports within the region, though these plans went awry, as organizing an updating a sports league can be hard and nit-picky work.
INWU Ball
The creation of INWUBall was another movement that Gatito spearheaded. I have always been in support of INWUBall, as it is yet another facet of our culture as a region that has grown into a custom to poke fun at the various conflicts we have encountered over our history, as well as tease our ever satirical delegate. Credit goes to all nations who made an INWUBall, and all nations who helped spread its ever pervasive influence across our region. Polandball also exists in other sectors of NS, but having a personal version for our region has always been a very neat feature.
Fijitology
The center two months of my delegacy were rather uneventful from an interregional perspective. It was almost the beginning of a new era, in which all of our nations were becoming peacefully and happily bonded. It was in this era of prosperity, that a number of nations, quite praising of my role in its creation, decided to begin a cult if you will, centered around my image as delegate. Fijitology, it is called to this day. I have always been appreciative of its existence, as it means a lot to me that I am seen as being that valuable to the INWU. I found it compelling that Fijitology and Malkbacconne were able to coexist peacefully, and were never mutually exclusive. Though the Supreme God of Strategos Prime never died in the hearts and souls of some, much of that influence was transferred to Fijitology. Good times.
UETA vs. UCON
It was also in this period in which roleplaying (finally) began to have more of an influence. With the creation of my MT map came the development of international organizations. I first joined UETA because I wanted to promote a spirit of roleplaying in the region. I did truly miss the old days of Colony RPs and Delta Bases with East Ibsenia in Strategos Prime. Roleplaying needed to develop in the INWU. When UCON left UETA as a separate alliance of nations more focused on a stockpile of nuclear warheads, I had three emotions. Firstly, I was angered in the roleplaying sense by the ambition, greed, and stupidity of UCON members for embracing the devastating power of the nuclear weapon. Secondly, I was happy that finally someone had created a second alliance, because it made everything more interesting. I knew I could count on Atlantica to achieve that (he's always been ambitious). And thirdly, I knew I had to tread cautiously ahead. The conflict between the two international alliances began to create tensions that extended outside of the realm of RP. As soon as that occurs, RP is no longer a boon for the region, rather, a burden. Because that kind of divide can create long-term tensions, destroy long-term friendships, and lead to the eventual collapse of the region as a whole. I was tempted to create a third alliance to help balance the struggle for power between the other two, and for a time I did, but mostly I suck out neutrality. In this way, I prepared myself to fulfill one of my starting goals of delegate - to solve any minor problem before it became a major one. Neutrality is the best way to ensure that.
With the birth of the international alliances came the birth of RP. Several new roleplays were created. Unlike the older RP start ups The Vacation and Heir to the Throne, these RPs garnered more activity and therefore more success. The INWU Arms Expo 2015, The Boot Camp, and Smoke, Cinders, and Ash were all successful. These RPs were fine and dandy, but not quite the explosion of roleplaying excitement that I had hoped for. It will be up Topsail's administration to help push forward new RPs, as well as get a larger percentage of the regional population interested in them.
Easter Eggs
I'll mention Easter Eggs briefly, as it was in my second term of office when there was quite a bit of excitement and discussion about how to obtain the NS Easter Eggs. I got a couple, and I know several other nations were also actively interested.
Cards Against Nationstates
Or should I say, NationStates Against Humanity, as that would have been a far better name. This year's April Fool's 'prank' was the NS version of Cards against Humanity, and it was fun for the time that it lasted. It allowed be to remark upon the importance of international relations, and having our region be visible to other regions and external nations could also help our recruitment campaigns.
Pharthan's WA Proposal
In late February, soon after the establishment of our embassies with TRR, Pharthan proposed the Nuclear Power Safeguards Act to the WA General Assembly. The proposal began to almost immediately lose ground against interregional heavyweight dissenter delegates. Usually, once a proposal starts poorly, it generally also ends poorly. Very rarely does a proposal later overcome the initial negative votes to actually become passed as a resolution. The next three days became quite tense. I knew just how important the WA GA proposal was to Pharthan, as I had personally witnessed the amount of effort he had put into it, and the rigorous methodology he had in refining it on the WA forums. One nation even phrased it as such: "If this proposal doesn't pass, I don't know what will. This proposal really raises the bar quality wise for the rest of us." Given Pharthan's effort, I felt strongly that the INWU should support him in every way possible. I voted for his resolution, as did nearly every WA nation in the region, with only a few exceptions. I then also contacted Unibot III from TRR.
The Holy Moly of El Fiji Grande wrote:
Unibot III,
I'd like to ask that you vote approve on the current WA GA proposal, as the author of said proposal, Pharthan, is a member of the INWU, and it would mean a lot to him.
Thanks,
El Fiji Grande
Unibot's vote did weigh heavily towards the proposal, and was our alliance's help passing the proposal. I was proud to have helped add an additional 200 votes. But it was Pharthan himself who really pushed the ball forward, spending much of his time convincing others on the WA forums. Thankfully, his proposal passed with flying colors, and went down in history as WA GA Resolution #315.
The Meritocracy of Pharthan wrote:
My resolution passed! Woo hoo!
Annnnnd there are already two repeals proposed.
Written by fools.
Incidentally, the repeals were never passed, and Pharthan's Resolution is still in effect to this day.
Taijitu, Wintreath, and Lazarus
Following the TRR RPSC, I began to send TGs to the WADs, Founders, MRPs, and Diplomats of Taijitu, Wintreath, and Lazarus.
The Holy Moly of El Fiji Grande wrote:
Good day, gentlemen.
For starters, introductions. Citizen-Delegate The All-House Union of Myroria, and Citzen-Diplomats The Liquid Sunshine of Funkadelia and The Federal Kindreds of Mjollnira of Taijitu, I am El Fiji Grande, the WA Delegate of the International Northwestern Union (INWU). I'd like to introduce you to the INWU's Chancellor Estradia, Minister of Foreign Affairs Askium, and Gatito, a personal adviser of mine.
The reason for this diplomatic telegram is with the intent of establishing embassies between Taijitu and the INWU. The INWU is a stable, if not growing region of 127 nations, and we wish to secure embassies and possible alliances with larger and more influential regions. We are also impressed with the continued growth of Taijitu as a region, and would like to congratulate Myroria for becoming delegate!
I have formally requested embassies between our two regions, and if there is a more official protocol, please direct us to it.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Signed,
~ El Fiji Grande and fellow diplomats of the International Northwestern Union
The above telegram was sent to Taijitu, and similar versions were sent to Wintreath and Lazarus, respectively. Taijitu and Wintreath responded quickly, and positively, but while we had already passed the embassy request through the NFA, it took roughly two weeks for the legislatures of both regions to fully respond and establish embassies. Albiorix created our regional seal, with which we headed all of our interregional communications on our new offsite embassy forums.
I would do this section of our history more justice, but to be honest, I'm quite tired by now. Our embassies with Taijitu and Wintreath are extremely important. At this point (currently), if something catastrophic were to happen to the region, I would recommend a merge into Taijitu. Not even new regions - but essentially a mass exodus from this region to theirs. They are friendly, accepting, both casual and formal, and active. Wintreath is also an excellent option, but my gut feeling is that they are a bit too established, and the merge wouldn't work out. Hopefully it never gets to that point, but there's my advice.
In Wintreath, I then participated in their fourth Werewolf game, this one (awesomely) based off of Monty Python. It was quite fun, and I recommend it to anyone in the INWU wanting to make friends in other regions and have a good time. Lazarus never responded to my telegrams, and I'll return to that later.
RMB Boom
This entire period was one of the most active periods I have ever witnessed as far as the RMB goes. As I mentioned before, roughly 3,000 pages of RMB were written during this term of office, sometimes at a rate of over 100 pages per day. This boom period can possibly be referred to as a Golden Age for the region, but I am fully confident that the next delegate will be able to make the region yet better. Interestingly, this RMB boom continued even after conflict (NWM, Gatito, Top, Veyris, Celibrae) reached the NS moderator level, resulting in the one month ban of Topsail Empire from the RMB. This one month seemed like an eternity, but the RMB continued at its staggeringly swift rate.
Othelos v. INWU
Of course, this period of wild activity also generated a more frequent occurrence of conflict. This is to be expected, though at times these conflicts did reach rather poor levels. Apparently the concept of drawing ASCII genitals on the regional message board just absolutely fascinates some of us here in the INWU, and at times these low periods of immaturity get noticed by our more respectable nations. And in this point I am conflicted. I believe very solidly in the freedom of speech and openness on the RMB, but I also do not appreciate ASCII penises on the RMB. I have noted this several times, and openly discouraged it, but never taken action upon it, as I do not find it offensive; merely a peculiarly annoying form of spam. But someone was sure to complain. That nation, in this case, was Cekan.
Cekan never made a big deal out of it, and he really did get a lot of crap that he didn't deserve. Just like Celibrae's Scottish Incident, he really should not have gotten much of the blame for the situation that followed. Upon Cekan's request, and, partially upon my own basic agreement with his complaint, I suppressed several posts on the RMB. This violated my own principles as far as freedom of RMB speech, but I was already giving a much wider breadth of space than even our constitution instructed. I have never been anywhere near as strict as the moderators, as evidenced by both SP and the INWU, specifically in the case of Topsail Empire.
Othelos filed a direct challenge to the ability of the WAD of the INWU to suppress posts with the push of a button. He did so in a nice way, however, in that he was not looking for charges to be placed on any nations, but was rather seeking a judgement call on the constitutionality of my actions. Before he filed, I tried to convince him to accept a compromise of some sort with Cekan, and to at the very least give it some consideration. He obliged to the delay, and I, with the help of Estradia, quickly drafted The Spoiler Act. It was a compromise that no one liked, and I figured that that is the best sort of compromise. If no one is happy, then no one is getting quite what they want. Cekan did, however, accept the deal, so I passed on the message to Othelos. He verily declined the compromise, and proceeded to file his suit.
I made it clear to the region that I was very much against his actions, but I was also glad that he took the issue to our regional court system instead of resorting to violence. Secretly, I was also proud of Othelos for standing up for the openness of the RMB and the speech rights of all of our citizens. I privately telegrammed him wishing him the best of luck with his case. However, true to my duty as delegate, I argued my side of the case, from the perspective of a delegate trying to do his job. Interestingly, while ideally I agreed with Othelos, practically, I felt that his case would not work for the region. If passed, it would drastically restrict the ability of the WAD to keep the region under control.
Kudos to Greater New Poland for nearly single-handedly building the entire Judicial Branch of our region. It was his effort that made Othelos v. INWU possible, and it was this effort that led him to become part of the forefront of INWU politics. Othelos v. INWU was the very first test of our judicial system, in an otherwise very prosperous delegacy.
Othelos won his case, and, later, further guidelines were released by the court in a form of judicial activism to help the delegate to still have the ability to suppress posts, but only under certain conditions. Interestingly, the end result of the guidelines followed much closer to the Constitution than I would have predicted, and actually gives the delegate a bit more power than I had even been acting under before. It also legalized the suppression of posts under Delegate's Discretion, though ruled that the specific posts complained about by Cekan were legal, given their purely ASCII content.
Restructuring the forums
It was, for quite some time, a goal of Estradia and I to renovate the offsite forums. They were extensively cluttered, confusing, and mashed up. It took quite some time, but we finally got around to getting it done. The improvement was so stark that even Al Khem, the ambassador to the INWU from Taijitu, noticed.
Coup of Lazarus
To return to our embassy application to Lazarus from earlier, it turned out that the main reason we never received a reply is because I sent that telegram just days before the coup of Lazarus. Stujenske, the former long-term delegate of Lazarus, executed a coup as part of the New Pacific Order for The Pacific. This event was quite sudden, and quite unexpected. I am still, to this day, a bit confused on the reasoning behind why it occurred, and even what exactly the NPO is. But it was such an important interregional event that it summoned the attention of nearly every gameplay nation in NS. Each of our main allies became quickly involved, and I encouraged similar participation from the citizens of the INWU. I created an account on the Lazarus Underground offsite forums, and stood in solidarity with the true natives of Lazarus. There wasn't much I could do without additional support from the region, but at least I showed my face. The Lazarus coup actually taught me something very interesting - that being, that all raiders aren't black and white or good and evil. One such nation, a nation that I personally trained with (via Death to Bill), Ridersyl, made an interesting comment in support of the Lazarus Underground. Lazarus was eventually liberated, but we did not resubmit our application for embassies since then.
Fall of TBR
The Fall of TBR came as yet another shock. Due to some script rules violations, the founder of TBR and Bob Moran, a key raider and mentor of TBR, were deleted. The upset meant that The Black Riders could be liberated, and liberated they were. Led by UnitedGermanRegions (UGR), a massive defender coalition came together and seized control of TBR. The raiders fled to DEN, but continued their support of their occupation in Atheist Empire. The liberation of TBR was a monumental success for the defender cause, and the subsequent creation of a defender organization gave hope to many who had spent years fighting the raiders.
This event seized the world's attention away from Lazarus, and the opportunity was one I could not miss. I personally got into contact with UGR, as well as numerous other nations situated there. My ambassador puppet, Caleann, was used on their RMB and newly created offsite forums. I became a high-ranking official in the defender organization's Intelligence Agencym under the formal title of 'Chief Agent'. This situation lasted for nearly a week, but I felt the need to resign my position to put more focus into the INWU in the last couple of weeks as delegate here.
I continue to get updates through Caleann, but do not regularly respond to them. It is my opinion that the raiders will continue to be very active, and that the liberation of TBR was merely a symbolic victory rather than a lasting triumph. It is likely that the defender organization will eventually crumble from infighting and inactivity, though perhaps there is still hope as it has been nearly a month since its creation. A longer-lasting government has since been established in TBR, but many question the judgement, authority, power, and leadership of UGR over TBR.
Departures
Due to further clashes on the RMB, Othelos decided to leave. It was sad to see him go, and almost equally sad to see him leave on such a sour note. Greater New Poland also announced a new period of inactivity for his nation, though he did not officially leave the region.
2nd Delegate's Medal
The process I went through to select my second Delegate's Medal was much like the first time I did, but this time I chose to send my selection to the previous winner of the Delegate's Medal (Estradia), to gather his thoughts. I was originally planning on giving Gatito the 2nd Delegate's Medal, but after numerous clashes on the RMB, frequent periods of outrage and anger, and a culture of ASCII genitalia, I decided that Gatito would not be the best choice, despite his significant contributions to the region through INWUBall and INWUSports. I changed my mind to Greater New Poland because he had created the entirety of the Judicial Branch of the INWU, and it was under his court that so much had happened. I felt that he was the most deserving in the region of the medal. I additionally awarded New Educandi the runner's up prize for his time as delegate in the INU after The Great Split, and for his creation of the Smoke, Cinders, and Ash Steampunk RP on the offsite forums.
Elections
Elections went well, though not as expected. I had expected Estradia to defeat Topsail Empire for the Delegacy, especially after I had groomed him for so long for the position. Celibrae defeated Falling Stars for Minister of RP, and New Educandi defeated Atlantica for Chancellor. SSV Normandy SR-2 also joined the new administration as the new Director of IONIA. Judicial and Executive appointments are yet to be revealed by the Delegate-Elect, but will come soon after the NFA Elections of the next term. I am confident that Topsail Empire will do an excellent job as WA Delegate, what with him having past experience being Delegate in SP.
Preparation for Leaving
In preparation for leaving NS, I have tried to ensure the best possible conditions are in place. The region is prosperous, all of my initial goals as delegate have been completed, though many of my later goals did remain merely as ideas, which can be used by future administrations. Additionally, I created a series of suggestions entitled 'Fiji's advice for future delegates', in which I outlined the fundamental concepts of how I have led the INWU for the past 240 days, and how I believe it can continue to be run well by.
I give Topsail Empire the best of luck as WAD, and I depart with the knowledge that I will check in occasionally, and that, for the time being, all is well.
El Fiji Grande- Admin
- Posts : 5
Join date : 2015-10-07
Similar topics» 1st delegacy - INWU: An opinionated history
» INWU Collectible Badges!
» History of Strategos Prime
» An Introduction to the INWU Fall Fair
» INWU Collectible Badges!
» History of Strategos Prime
» An Introduction to the INWU Fall Fair
Page 1 of 1
Permissions in this forum:
You cannot reply to topics in this forum|
|
|