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Issue XXV. July 25, 2014.

Editor-in-Chief: Unibot | Copy Editor: Gruenberg

Table of Contents

Part I

Not In My Wildest Dreams (Kogvuron)
Bearly Started: A Special Interview with Bears Armed
The Legitimate Point of View? (Glen-Rhodes)
Migration in The Rejected Realms (Starrie)
The Decline of Defending (Cormac Somerset)

Part II

It’s the End of the World! (Afforess)
The Myth of the Gameplay-Role Play Divide (Joe Bobs)
A Critique of the Wolfist Manifesto (Kogvuron)
We'll see your World Cup and Raise You! (Apox)
The Battlefield Effect (Unibot)

Part III

Foreign Relations Main Talking Point In The South Pacific Elections (Gruenberg)
Lazarus "Wins" The World Cup (Kogvuron)
World Assembly Legislative League Treaty Ratified By TNP (Gruenberg)
NSG Reacts to MH17 With Shock And Anger, Mostly Anger (Thafoo)
Is TNP's community "cracking at the seams"? (Church of Satan)
World Assembly's 300th Resolution Breaks Record (Gruenberg)
TRR Chooses a New Flag! (Church of Satan)
In Brief - News Round-Up (Gruenberg)


Not In My Wildest Dreams
FEATURE | KOGVURON

The founder of The Rejected Times reflects on its legacy and impact...

A year and a half ago, I started the TRR Media Organization on a whim. I saw an opening, an opportunity, and I took it. At the time, there were no real established media organizations, save for the PNN which was always more into satire than reporting. I wanted to help create something special, something unique, and something that we as a region could be proud.

We started out with humble beginnings. Issue 1 was only 5 short articles and an interview, and was basically put together by three people. However, as time went on, the Organization grew and changed and adapted in order to fit the current times. Today, the Rejected Times as the Media Organization is now known, regularly pumps out issues with the most insightful editorials, the most informative commentaries, and the funnies cartoons available in NationStates gameplay.

I could talk about the Times for pages, but instead I’m going to talk about a couple of other things. First, I wanted to acknowledge the change that the Times has made in gameplay as a whole. As I said earlier, back when I founded the Times, there were basically no serious media organizations. Today, there are many. Most excitingly, many of our fellow GCRs have formed their own media organizations as well. From The Northern Lights to the Independent Herald Tribune, the Rejected Times has helped to inspire a new generation of GCR media organizations. And this is something that we can all be excited in.

Second, I wanted to talk highlight the work put in by the staff of the Rejected Times. Our paper truly has the greatest staff of journalists in NationStates. From the all-star writers whose eye-opening op-eds headline pieces, to less-recognized reporters who help keep people informed about what is going on, everyone works extremely hard to meet deadlines, and to keep improving. Today, TRT is so far removed from my original image of what the media organization would be like, and that is great, because the input of so many people has made it far better than what I alone imagined.

Third, I wanted to thank everyone who has ever been involved in a publication of the Times. You have transformed a small idea into huge publication, one that will surely last long past most of us here in this game. You helped to build one of the greatest newspapers that this game has ever seen. And you have made me proud to call myself a contributor to the Rejected Times.

Thank you, and here is to 25 more stellar issues!


Bearly Started: A Special Interview with Bears Armed
INTERVIEW | UNIBOT


Bears Armed sails to victory with "Legal Competence". 7,135 votes to 2,282.

Congratulations on your victory with "Legal Competence". For our readers, could you give a brief overview of the resolution?

Certainly. It requires that every member nation have and use a fair system of some kind for determining which people there are or aren’t fit to make important decisions for themselves, without needing a parent or guardian’s approval for their actions, whilst leaving the actual details of those systems for the nations (in their variety) to determine locally.

If I understand it correctly, this stands as a major success for you in a career-long crusade to push for sapient rights? How did that mission begin and what have been some of your successes and losses along the way?

It began quite shortly after I got involved in NS. I started looking at the ‘United Nations’ (the international organisation that we had in those pre-‘WA’ days) a few months after creating my first nation, Godwinnia, and by that stage I’d already decided that the nation had some Fantasy elements in its nature including the presence of groups from a few non-human peoples in its population. This meant that when I started looking for proposal ideas and noticed that there was nothing guaranteeing sapient non-humans the same rights that humans enjoyed, it seemed an obvious possibility to try. However my own first attempt at drafting a proposal on the subject inspired somebody else to create one as well, they submitted theirs before mine was ready, and when theirs was voted-down I turned to other projects instead for a while.

Are things complete for the Sapient Rights movement? Or is there more work to be done?

There’s definitely more work that could be done, although in some cases that might interfere more extensively with national sovereignty than I or the Bears would really like: We accept the need for international legislation in the case of the most ‘fundamental’ rights, but have a rather narrower view than some nations do about what rights should actually counts as 'fundamental' in that context.

For one thing, I’d still like to see an “Equal rights for non-human sapients” resolution passed, although bearing in mind that at least three other proposals on the subject (including one by me) have already been voted down since the earliest one that I already mentioned here I’m not very optimistic about the chance of that ever happening.

An idea that does seem quite obvious and potentially viable would be a resolution about the rights & duties of the guardians who are assigned to look after the interests of those individuals who don’t qualify to manage their own affairs under the Legal Competence rules. I was going to start work on one myself, as a follow-up to ‘Legal Competence’, but another nation has already started a draft and for now I’ve settled for commenting on that instead.

I heard you faced a moderation challenge with "Legal Competence" before it passed. Obviously the proposal survived, so what was the challenge? How was it resolved?

All that I know about it is what was posted in the discussion thread: Somebody, their identity not publicly revealed, questioned whether some detail in the text would count as either contradicting or amending an existing resolution — despite my inclusion of a line specifically recognising that earlier resolutions (if still in effect) took precedence over this proposal in any cases where they overlapped — and the Mods decided that it didn’t do so.

Although I've known you for a long time, I'm not sure I'm well informed about Bears Armed, the player. How did you find NationStates? How did you get settled down into the World Assembly and the NS Sports community? And how did your bears theme develop?

I originally learned about NS, back in 2005, from an online friend-of-a-friend who mentioned that she’d just revived her own nation and posted a link to that page. The basic idea looked interesting, and I had some spare time available, so I created ‘Godwinnia’ that same day and never looked back. I lurked in the forums for a couple of months before starting to post there, learning what was what, and the NS-UN was simply the side of things that attracted me most: I introduced myself there by commenting a bit on some drafts by other people and then went on to start the ‘Sapient Rights’ proposal that I’ve already mentioned, and apparently did so sensibly enough that the existing regulars accepted me quite quickly. The ‘NS Sports’ side of things, which in those days was included in the ‘NS’ sub-forum rather than given a separate section of its own, was a later addition to my interests: Shortly after creating the Bears I was looking for ways in which to introduce them to the outside world, sign-ups for the [first] Summer Olympics happened to be open, and my involvement just grew from there.

And why the Bears, you ask? Well, after running various human or mostly-human nations for about a year I decided that I’d like to try the challenge of running an actual non-human nation successfully, I didn’t want to simply resort to using one or another of the well-known concepts from SF&F, a Modly comment in the forum about the illegality of submitting joke proposals on ideas such as that old favourite the “Right to Keep and Arm Bears” put this idea into my head, bears did look rather easier to handle than some of the other possibilities… and I’d always had both a sweet tooth and urges to hibernate when winter came along. ^_^

As you may know, The Rejected Times often publishes articles that provide a critical light on issues in the World Assembly, especially in regards to the Secretariat. What issues do you think are most prominent in the World Assembly (if any) and how do you see these issues being resolved?

Well, let’s see...

a/ Starting with one of the biggest shouting points of recent months, there’s the question of whether Mall made a misjudgement in proposing ‘Liberate Haven’, because a lot of people think he should have realised that doing so would stir up such a major storm and that this might impact on quite a few other players’ feelings about the Secretariat as a whole. My response to this would be: Yes, in my opinion he made a serious mistake. No, though, it obviously wasn’t an abuse of power. No, he shouldn’t “have to” resign, but he should learn from this and be more careful in future… and if he doesn’t learn from this situation, and does something else along those lines that causes such a major kerfuffle again, then maybeso then the Secretariat as a whole would be well-advised to reconsider whether having him in their ranks is overall an asset or a hindrance to their work.

b/ Some of the GA regulars have expressed unhappiness about various recent rulings on proposals’ legality, but although I might have preferred more clarity about the reasoning involved in a few cases I don’t actually have any major objections to raise there. I understand and have no problem with the Secretariat’s current policy of using all of the GA-experienced Mods available to try and get their rulings as correct as possible on the first paw, instead of deliberately holding some back for potential use as a ‘court of appeal’, especially bearing in mind the limited number of judges that they have available: In my personal experience they’ve always been willing to listen to reasoned arguments about the actual facts involved, and past precedents, if the players raising questions actually take that approach instead of trying to insist on changes to the existing rules or just shouting for a second opinion.

c/ And talking about players wanting the rules changed, there’s also the recurring drive by some GA semi-regulars to have the ‘mandatory compliance’ rule abolished… That’s a potential change that I definitely think would be another mistake, because even leaving aside the matter of passed resolutions causing stat changes — which might not always make perfect sense under current circumstances, but would become downright nonsensical if member nations were actually free to ignore any & all GA laws to which their governments objected — if all resolutions became totally optional then where would be the point in trying to hard to craft ‘good’ proposals and get those passed? How much sense would still bothering with that if it would have no more effect than simply tossing ideas out bloggishly on a “take it or leave it” basis? What, in fact, would continue to distinguish the GA from NSG?

You've been a modestly vocal anti-invasion advocate for a long time - and in a way, you're both a roleplayer and a gameplayer. So, may I ask: do you see solutions on the horizon for settling the divide between Gameplay and Roleplay? Especially in regards to the "Liberate Haven" debacle?

Sadly, no, I don’t. Some raiders might become more “reasonable” about their choices of targets, but I suspect that there will always be others who either attack everywhere that they can or deliberately choose the targets that they know there will be the most fuss about so that — in some peoples’ eyes — they will look more important. As long as the administration continues to regard R/D as a valuable aspect of NS, and declines to introduce any measures that would drastically limit it, we’re probably stuck with more-or-less the current situation.

Have you ever considered becoming a defender? Why or why not? *hands Bears Armed a business card tactfully*

I’ve considered that, yes, but there are several reasons why I’m unlikely to make defending a major part of my NS activity: RL generally limits my ability to be around at updates, I’m averse to being a cog in a larger organisation (I already get more than enough of that for my liking in RL, and one reason why I enjoy NS so much is being in charge of something — even though that’s only a fictional nation — myself instead…), I think that Bears Armed Mission’s continued GA activity might actually contribute more to both its home region and the game as a whole than just adding one more soldier to the ranks would do, and it really wouldn’t makes sense from an IC viewpoint for Bears Armed Mission to keep moving between regions.

However there have been a few occasions, during periods while B.A.M. wasn’t regional delegate, when I’ve shifted WA membership temporarily to other puppets that were already in various other regions so that those could support native delegates against outside threats… and I do have puppets, acknowledged or secret, in quite a few regions…


The NS World Cup is coming up soon - what are Bears Armed's chances? And how do you plan to roleplay this World Cup?

I’d like to say “an easy win”, but to be honest — considering their recent form, and consequent rating — I’d be overjoyed just to get them through the qualifiers successfully and into the World Cup proper again for the first time in a while. I think that that might be possible this time around, looking at how free I will be to spend time on my RPs. And the main theme for this RP? I’m going to continue with a storyline that I actually began several Cups ago, but that was intended from the start to be spread across the years: It’s basically inspired by DC Comics’ classic ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ storyline from 1985, although with more of an Ursine aspect…

“Look, up in the sky!
Is it a bird?
Is it a plane?
No, it’s SuperBear!”

I know you’re a big fan of NationStates Issues and you’ve done a lot of research on how they affect nations and how population rises. What’s your favourite NationStates Issue and why?

Careful there, Uni, you almost look as though you’re implying that some issue decisions might actually affect population levels… which we know, despite the fact that some answers look as though they should have effects, isn’t the case.

My “favourite issue, and why?” Ouch, that’s a difficult question: So many possible choices… I think that I’ll have to go with #201 ‘Jolly Roger Sighted Off The Port Bow!’, for its novelty value.

Thank you so much for joining us for this very special issue, Bears Armed. Good luck in the future, mate. I couldn’t think of a genuinely nicer, more treasured player who we could have shared with the world for this interview. If you’ve got any final words for our readers, you have the floor.

Thank you for the compliments, and thank you for giving me this opportunity to express my opinions.

“Remember, dear readers, it isn’t absurd:
A person’s a person, no matter how furred.”

And remember, too, that only you can prevent wildfires! ^_^


The Legitimate Point of View?
Independentism's influence over The South Pacific wanes
OPINION | GLEN-RHODES

Disclaimer: The following views are that of the author solely in a private capacity.

In early June 2104, the Assembly of The South Pacific found itself yet again debating the region’s stance on military gameplay – whether we are Independent, and what being Independent truly means. This discussion had last been held in late November 2013, when Hileville posed the question if TSP was actually Independent, given the raider and imperialist slant of its foreign affairs. That discussion did not lead anywhere, except to show that Independence in TSP was not monolithic – it has its supporters and detractors, and not everybody agreed on what it meant in the first place.

Belschaft, the region’s loudest and most prolific advocate of Independence, proposed a Charter amendment in June 2014 that would have officially re-declared Independence to be one of the “fundamental ideals and principles” of The South Pacific. The language read:

"6. Independence; that ours is an independent region, devoid of any prescribed military ideology or alignment, and that our officials shall act on such basis."

A year prior, this amendment would likely have sailed through the Assembly. But something unexpected happened. The fault lines that were first exposed in November 2013 were fully opened by Belschaft’s proposed amendment. Opponents to Independence, this author included, vilified the amendment as an attempt to push out non-Independents from the region. Proponents of the amendment denied that, and argued that it’s really defenders (particularly Unibot and myself) who were harming the region by advocating for something other than Independence.

However, among those who called themselves Independents, or eschewed any label, there was a clear disjointing when it came to what these people really wanted. Many simply did not care about military gameplay, and assumed Independence was merely another term for not getting involved. Others thought of Independence more in terms of regionalism.

The original language of Belschaft’s amendment was changed midway through the debate, abandoning the language of Independence, and adopting something some have started referring to as TSP First:

"6. Openness; this region seeks to remain open in matters of military and political alignment, welcoming all citizens and officials with loyalty to the region."

While this language is different from that which ultimately made it to the voting floor (although failed to get the requisite 75% required to pass, with the region split 10-7 in supporting it), I believe this marks an evolution in the debate over Independence. Throughout the debate, it seemed that people began to see Independence as a distinct ideological position, with a set of connotations that went beyond merely “acting according to the interests of TSP.”

In other words, I posit that TSP now sees Independence for what many have argued it has been all along: an ideology that consistently favors raiding and imperialism, and disapproves of defenders. TSP First arose from that debate as a completely separate ideal, one in which raiders, imperialists, defenders, and neutrals are all capable of having TSP’s best interests in mind, even if they advocate for the adoption if a particular ideology.

It’s under this ideal that I made the conscious choice to highlight my disagreements with Independence in my own campaign platform. A year or two ago, this would have been predictable political suicide. In my past two campaigns for Minister of Foreign Affairs, I avoided discussing the topic altogether, instead focusing on internal ministry reforms. However, I always thought that it was a shame TSP could not see people run on their beliefs, because being anything other than Independent was too controversial.

The debate over Belschaft’s amendment, and the subsequent failure of even a watered down version, signaled to me that the iron-fisted vision of Independence as the exclusively acceptable ideology of TSP no longer existed. I also saw a dramatic shift in other GCRs. Osiris went raider. Lazarus went defender. The Rejected Realms officially adopted the “defender” label in January 2014, although it had long been a member of the Founderless Regions Alliance.

I have no illusions that TSP will adopt a specific military stance anytime soon. There are still people in the region who believe that non-Independents threaten TSP society. There are even more who don’t really care about military gameplay, at least not enough to go all in on any particular stance. But I think TSP will enter into a new era where Independence is not the only legitimate point of view, and where Cabinet members can run on their sincerely held positions. And that is ultimately far better for the region than the alternative.


Migration in The Rejected Realms
An Empirical Investigation
FEATURE | STARRIE

This article profiles four groups of nations -- those immigrating to The Rejected Realms, those emigrating, migrating nations in general, and all nations in total. These are named trr-i, trr-e, wld-m, and wld-s respectively in the graphs. I've collected a sample size of almost 20,000 from each group, found on nsarchive.net. Error bars at 1-std.



This shows the average civil rights, economy, and political freedom of each group of nation. With the exception of economy, nations immigrating to TRR seem to align with the average world nation while nations emigrating from TRR seem to align with migrating nations in general.



These histograms show the three statistics, with score on the x-axis and frequency of the y-axis. Red, blue, and green show economy, civil rights, and political freedoms in some order which i've forgotten. Curiously, the wld-m group seems to be the only one which has lost the spike right below 60. The wld-s group seems to have a large proportion of nearly maxed-out scores. Beyond that, there isn't a huge visible difference in the charts.



I stuck these two charts together for no particular reason. It seems that small nations do the majority of the moving in NS. It is notable that nations tend to leave TRR with a significantly larger population than when they joined. The effect is too large to dismiss as an artifact caused by the sampling window. Perhaps nations CTE less often in TRR.

The influence chart reveals no surprises. Nations taking a quick trip through TRR leave with slightly less influence, and static nations tend to have the most influence. Influence is scored on a scale from 1 to 21, with 1 being minnow and 21 being hermit.



These population histograms reveal more detail. Population is on the x-axis and frequency on the y. Note the natural log scale. Small nations make up a significant portion of nations, and the vast majority of nation migrations seems to be from the very youngest of nations, probably settling in a region. Surprisingly, the trr-e chart shows that few of the nations which joined TRR in their youth leave before around 100 million population. Possibly, young nations recruited to join one region rarely leave for another, at least for the first few weeks.



For each group, there are two influence histograms. The histogram on the right excludes minnow in order to clearly show the rest of the bars. The trr-i histogram sticks out -- even though many hermits move from region to region, few move to TRR. This hints that the majority of nations moving to TRR don't do so voluntarily.



Almost 35,000 nations pass through TRR in the last year. So where did they come from and where did they go? These pie-charts show the origin or destination of nations in all four groups. The top twenty regions are shown and the rest are just lumped together in Other. TRR recieves many nations from the sinkers, but barely any GCRs show up in TRR's emigration chart.

The bottom two charts hint that nation migrations are fairly spread out. Although the top twenty regions hold what seems to be a third of the nations in NS, the top twenty in migration handle less than a fourth of moving nations. TRR is a clear outlier.



One crude way to identify activity / enthusiasm is through flags, the rationale being that a collection of puppets is less likely to have custom flags than the average active region. Over a quarter of the nations entering TRR have the default flag, yet only a sixth leave TRR that way. But in general, we can still consider them slackers. Only 12% of all nations use the default flag, and among traveling nations, the figure is under 8%.


The Decline of Defending
A NationStates Great War on the Horizon?
OPINION | CORMAC SOMERSET

"Defending is dead." You may expect this statement to come from an imperialist or raider partisan, but it came instead from a high profile defender official in a Founderless Regions Alliance member region. Indeed, the decline in defending has been startling. In recent months, defenders have been largely absent at update, neither preventing most invasions nor even attempting to end most long-term occupations. Perhaps the starkest demonstration of the decline in defending was the Lone Wolves United occupation of American Continent, ended after two weeks only by the revival of the Founder, despite minimal support and a comedy of errors on the part of Lone Wolves United.

Rumors of the death of defending should, of course, not be exaggerated. Both the raider and defender sides of the military gameplay spectrum have seen declines in the past, with defenders experiencing another recent decline during the summer of 2012 and raiders seeing an early 2013 lull in activity. In both cases, activity resumed after a few months. Still, it must be noted that the decline of defending has lasted longer than usual and preceded the overall 'summer lull' of NationStates by several months.

If defending is truly dead, as at least one defender official believes, its passing from NationStates gameplay raises serious questions in regard to regional conflict. For as long as NationStates has existed there has been conflict between regions. Whether it's the overall invader-defender conflict or more specific examples such as the battle between the New Pacific Order and the Alliance Defense Network, there has always been conflict in NationStates and defenders have always been integral to that conflict. If defending is dead and buried, how will new forms of conflict take shape?

Some have recently theorized that raiders are trying to create new enemies to replace defenders, or perhaps to become a new generation of defenders. This theory is based on Mallorea and Riva's attempt to pass a liberation resolution against the historic roleplay region Haven, followed shortly thereafter by invasions of roleplay regions Ixnay and American Continent by, respectively, The Black Riders and Lone Wolves United. This theory suggests a coordinated goal to provoke roleplayers into defensive action. Whether there is any truth to this theory, no such goal appears to have been accomplished, as roleplayers have instead continued to insist they want to 'opt out' of gameplay and will not be forced to participate in it as defenders.

If defending remains dead, a far more likely scenario is escalation of already existing conflicts that lie just beneath the surface of a previously united sphere of independent, imperialist, and raider regions. Now able to sustain their own invasions and occupations without support from other regions, in recent months The Black Riders have taken a cavalier attitude toward independent and imperialist regions as well as other raider regions. This erosion of unity has already seen Ainur, currently a minor player in the imperialist sphere, seeking formation of an alliance with The Eternal Knights, the sworn enemies of The Black Riders. Other imperialist regions, such as imperialist Sinker region Osiris, have also begun distancing themselves from the Riders.

Independents and imperialists, meanwhile, remain natural allies as they share the same fundamental goal: pursuit of regional interests through military policy, rather than advancement of rigid ideologies or apolitical, arbitrary military action. In the absence of a defender threat to their own military operations, it is becoming increasingly difficult for independents and imperialists to politically justify supporting The Black Riders' injudicious and aimless destruction of random founderless regions. For imperialists, who also prioritize the projection of their regional power upon the world stage, the absence of a defender enemy has led to an increase in liberation efforts against fringe invaders such as Right Wing Uprising and The Doom Squad as a means to this end.

While these conflicts between independents and imperialists on the one hand and raiders on the other largely remain limited to harsh words, in a world in which words mean everything they could quickly lead to military action. One wrong move against the wrong region could find The Black Riders, the largest and most active raider force, as the new enemies of an extensive and tightly interconnected network of independent and imperialist alliances. If defending remains a ghost of its former glory, NationStates gameplayers should not be surprised to see regional conflict taking a new shape as a 'Great War' between political independent and imperialist regions versus apolitical purveyors of random destruction.

It’s the End of the World! (As we know it)
FEATURE | AFFORESS

I’m leaving NationStates. By now, most readers should be well aware of the circumstances of my second deletion. I don’t think this deletion surprises too many people. Feared, respected, hated, or loved, I don’t think there is anyone left on NationStates that hasn’t formed an opinion on me or my actions as a player. I’ve never minded being a polarizing figure and I embrace controversy, but these two tendencies spell doom for interaction with the NationStates staff. Whether you think the moderators are ivory-tower tyrants or even-handed sheriffs guarding the wild west, there is no room left in NationStates for my cavalier brand of antics. I don’t conceal the fact that I think its better to ask for forgiveness than permission, or that if it can be done, it should be done. Right and wrong is a question for the historians, not the movers and shakers of tomorrow. This attitude of experimentation and disregard for tradition is incompatible with how the staff run NationStates.

My welcome has long since been worn out. I don’t normally mind the vitriol or hate spewed in my direction, anyone who changes anything is always an easy target. The internet can be a hateful place, but it is also the final frontier, where anything can still happen. But I think a tipping point has been reached where most players would rather see me go than see me stay. As a permanent resident of Capitalist Paradise, I’ve always embraced democratic rule. So it is hard for me to justify remaining when the majority would see me gone. I don’t want to stay against the wishes of the community. I’d rather leave, its not my place to dictate how the NationStates community should be run or what it should embrace. This isn’t an apology, I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong. I have a clean conscience. But it is the end of my time at NationStates, so it’s the end of the world.

What will become of my many projects? NSWiki, NSArchives, NationStates++? The NationStates administrator [violet] expressed interest in acquiring all of my projects. We agreed upon an arrangement and all domains, services, and sites will become official NationStates Ltd. assets. This means the NationStates++ extension, NSWiki, and NSArchives are all going “official”, and will continue to be supported into the future. The goal is to integrate the best of the sites & services into the game over time, while continuing to use the sites as a “testbed” for beta testers and non-standard, but much desired features (like puppet management). Users should not see any interruption in services, and their data will remain secure. I’ll be working with the staff to make sure the transfer goes smoothly and my code & projects are well documented.

To my friends, I am glad I had the opportunity to become friends with strangers over the internet, even thousands of miles apart. If you ever want to talk, don’t hesitate to email or find me somewhere to chat. To my users, I am glad I was able to improve your experience on NationStates, even if it was only a tiny bit. NationStates++ was a huge learning opportunity for me and I enjoyed every minute of helping you guys. To my detractors, I wish I could have known you better. In my experiences, most disagreements arise from miscommunications and unmet expectations, not a fundamental “unlikableness” in a person. I always wanted the best for NationStates, even if we didn’t agree on what best was.


The Myth of the Gameplay-Role Play Divide
OPINION | JOE BOBS

In this article, I want to cover the wide range of issues that have arisen in recent weeks on the pseudo-divide between role play and gameplay. In the last issue of The Rejected Times, Gruenberg's excellent article covered the array of technical options aimed at resolving the situation, so I will not go over that ground, though I urge everyone to read it to understand some solutions being discussed. Instead, I wish to focus on the current 'GP versus RP' zeitgeist, dispelling some myths, examining the evidence and looking at a non-technical solution I have proposed.

In the NS History thread, Space Dandy posed the question: have gameplay and roleplay always been so divided? Reploid Productions described the historical relationship as "identical" to today's, which was met with disagreement from others: Unibot cited Francos Spain's involvement in roleplay, while Blackbird recalled that the distinction is a more recent phenomenon, and that 'in character' or 'out of character' were more normal modes of thought in years gone by. My recollections are in agreement with this.

NationStates is a very different place now than it was originally. This is not the beginning of a nauseating voyage of nostalgia and glorification of the past; it is simply true that the game was different. I believe the internet was different. Remember a time before Facebook? When you maybe had a Hi5 or MySpace account, and there was certainly no Netflix or Amazon Prime Streaming, because your internet made a funny noise when it started up and you maybe even went through that horrific AOL screen? This is what I remember when I began playing NationStates (though admittedly, perhaps my technology was worse than most). This is almost impossible to prove, but I feel that internet communities tended to be more specialised then, owing to there being fewer internet users who logged on daily or for long periods of time. NS was no different to the rest of the internet: communities were specialised, often focusing on a political ideology, national identity, or cultural trend.

Let's examine the evidence. Two of the most powerful communities in 2005 were the Alliance of Capitalists, Conservatives and Economic Libertarians (ACCEL) and the NS Communist Party. The ADN and DEN fought their wars, but the vast majority of players were mostly concerned with forging alliances with other regions who came up when they searched 'liberal' or 'Europe', as these would probably be like-minded individuals. In this climate, gameplay and roleplay had no meaning: everyone was both a gameplayer and a roleplayer. One could make certain actions in character or out of character, but it was rare for someone to assert their identity as a gameplayer. or a roleplayer. This recruitment telegram from the ADN from 2003 was written in what we would today call roleplay language.

So, if the divide is an illusion, what's the problem? Are roleplayers upset over nothing? Shouldn't they get equal treatment and be just as prone to invasion as any other founderless region? Mallorea and Riva clearly believes so, as he believes that releasing one's password makes one responsible for allowing invasion. But the logic here is distorted: if roleplayers want no part in gameplay, forcing them to maintain an Intelligence or Security Department to prevent invasion is forcing them into gameplay. He may be factually correct: there is nothing to distinguish a roleplay from a gameplay region in the eyes of an invader. Yet here is the misunderstanding: why ask the question as 'do roleplay regions take part in gameplay by default?' Why not ask: 'is there another way?'

This week the FRA have launched a new tool for roleplayers to use: the FRA Intelligence Support Agency (FRAISA), which will provide security to any roleplay region who requests it, in the form of advice, performing security checks of new nations and, of course, defending and liberating. My hope is that this will provide a temporary fix until a technical solution is found to prevent the raiding of those who do not wish to engage.

This brings me to another point. This debate is not gameplay versus roleplay: I may be accused of being a 'moral defender' for this, but this is invaders versus roleplay. Firstly, the invader philosophy of destruction as a form of creation is a myth. It creates activity for the invaders only. If it does create activity in the natives, it is not the kind of activity they want. If it were, we would see a lot more natives of invaded regions joining invader militaries. Secondly, defenders (bar a few examples) are not solely interested in defending as an end unto itself: they are also interested in region building and the continued existence of communities. This is one of the cornerstones of the FRA.

Call me 'moral' as a dirty word if you will, but defending is in and of itself beneficial to NationStates in a way invading will never be, because NationStates is a text based game born from those years of slow internet, and so it is based on communication and interaction between communities. Defending preserves communities whilst invading does the opposite. I avoid using the term 'destroy' here only because of its connotations of forum destruction; perhaps a better wording would be that invaders silence communities, by silencing their identity through their WFE and flag and their interactions by closing embassies and erasing RMB messages. To those invaders who deny this, look at the outcry over The Black Riders' invasion of Farkistan, which has been called 'desecrating holy ground'.

By following Mallorea and Riva's Liberate Haven fiasco with the invasions of Ixnay and American Continents, the invader and imperial community has fired across the bow of roleplayers, but in doing so they have attempted to draw a division that does not exist between gameplay and roleplay. It is a fabrication of their propaganda. The reality is: it's invaders versus everyone else. Everyone on NationStates who values their community; everyone who enjoys the interactions they have experienced; and everyone who wants to see their creations flourish.


A Critique of the Wolfist Manifesto
FEATURE | KOGVURON

The Wolfist Manifesto is arguably one of the most important documents in the history of military gameplay. In it, Evil Wolf and Scardino laid out a set of principles that have guided raider organizations since 2007. At face value, the Wolfist Manifesto makes Wolfism seem to be a benevolent philosophy that aims to help nations all over NationStates by pillaging their regions and pushing them towards the "enlightened path." However, once one analyzes the document more closely, several interesting conflicts appear, which I will now expand upon.

Are Raiders The Backbone of NationStates?

In Section I of the Manifesto, Evil Wolf claims that "raiders are the backbone of NationStates." Wolf introduces this point by alluding to the Communist Manifesto, and then describing the conflict created by raiders as the most important conflict.

In doing so, Evil Wolf follows the theory of activity set out by The Mighty Pump and Todd McCloud in their pieces "Pump's Views on Activity in NationStates" and "The Necessity of Chaos." Under this theory, raiders would spur activity by creating conflicts, thereby being the "activity creators" in NationStates, and forming its backbone. Wolf's complete ignoring of all non-gameplay factions aside, I challenge this idea by introducing the idea of a world without defenders, such as the one that Wolf proposes will eventually be the end result of Wolfism. Without defenders, raiding would exist. However, most raids would be either a) tag raids or b) one-sided raids. Tag raids generate a little activity for the raider organization, but this activity is mostly meaningless and has no real value. One-sided raids too generate activity for the raider organization, but the lack of hope for a liberation would cause hopelessness to set in among the native population, thereby suppressing activity among communities that were raided. From this, I conclude that raiders are not the backbone of NationStates, because without defenders, any activity generated by raiders would be inconsequential for all outside of an elite few raiders, and would even suppress activity in the rest of the gameplay world. Raiders and defenders together are the backbone of NationStates. This brings me to my second point.

How Does Wolfism Help Natives?

In Section II, Evil Wolf claims that raiding a region "propels [it] towards the enlightened path." This implies that raiding, and Wolfism, somehow helps natives, despite conspiring to deface and occupy their homelands. This is quite an interesting take on military gameplay to say the least.

The premise put forth in this section depends on whether a) raids spur meaningful activity in the target regions or b) the end result of Wolfism is somehow favorable to natives, favorable enough that it would negate any short-term losses. With most raids today being tag raids on regions that are already half-dead, it is safe to say that most raids do not spur meaningful activity for the affected natives. Even in regions targeted for long-term occupations, lasting activity is usually not a result. Out of 16 non-tag raids performed by TBR since 2012 that are not ongoing, 1 is active (Catholic), 3 are moderately active (South America, Ohio, Yorkshire), 8 are inactive (Deutschland, RORMS, Korel, Former United States, Ireland, Coffee House, Orion, Christmas, Western Assembly), and 4 are colonies (Islamic Republic of Iran, UNO, Planet X, The Silver Isles). Although this sample set is not statistically valid for all raiders because it focuses on just TBR, I think the point is clear. Raids simply do not spur meaningful activity in invaded regions. It is safe to say that the Wolfist premise is not true by point (a).

Therefore, it must be true by point (b) if true at all. This leads me to the last and final section of this piece.


Dictatorship of the Raider

In the Manifesto, Evil Wolf claims that Wolfism seeks to bring about the "Dictatorship of the Raider" by destroying defenderism completely. I assume this would look like a world ruled by raiders, where raiders can go around destroying whatever region they want without opposition, although the term is so vague that it could mean any number of things. Based on this, there are a couple of issues with the Dictatorship of the Raider.

Going back to point (b) from the last section, the Dictatorship of the Raider would have to be long-term positive to natives in order for Wolfism to be good for natives. I think it is clear that a Dictatorship of the Raider would be an absolute catastrophe for natives, because natives would always have to watch their backs for invasions, thereby being distracted from whatever they actually wanted to do. Thus, I think it is clear that the premise is not true by point (b), and therefore, Wolfism does not help natives.

More importantly in the military gameplay of today, Wolfism advocates for unity among raiders so that they can create the Dictatorship of the Raider. Theoretically, a world with a Dictatorship of the Raider would be basically utopian for raiders, as there would be no defenders. However, without defenders, raiders would quickly run out of regions to raid and raiders would have to turn in among themselves for the next targets. Because of this, a Dictatorship of the Raider could never last, simply because of the nature of raiding organizations. Raiders will always keep looking for the next target, and sooner or later, that target will be other raiders, causing civil war among the Dictatorship and allowing a new generation of defenders to arise. Raider unity towards the creation of the Dictatorship of the Raider is useless.

Conclusion and Credits

I hope that my critique sheds light on some conflicts and inaccuracies inside of the Wolfist Manifesto. One of the things that I personally found interesting about the Wolfist Manifesto was its modeling on the Communist Manifesto. While the Communist Manifesto argued for a classless society where all are socially equal, the Wolfist Manifesto in fact argues for the elevation of a raider class above all at the expense of natives and defenders. I don't know if this juxtaposition was intentional, but it was certainly an intriguing choice of model by Evil Wolf. Credit to Evil Wolf and Scardino for the writing of the Wolfist Manifesto, and to The Mighty Pump and Todd McCloud for the pieces that I cited in the text of my argument. The list of non-tag raids by TBR was taken from a list of raids by Feuer Ritter. I am unaware of whether this list is complete, but I think any additional raids unmentioned would be unlikely to affect the conclusion much.


We'll see your World Cup and Raise You!
LXIX NationStates World Cup coincides with RL World Cup
FEATURE | APOX



Apox, Co-Host of the NationStates World Cup, discusses the history and the future of the famed NS tournament...

The NationStates World Cup is by far the longest-running event in the NS Sports section of the forums. Founded in 2003, with 36 different winners since then, it is about to begin its 69th edition, with myself and The Holy Empire (the only nation still-active in the tournament that also participated in WC 1) co-hosting.

It is therefore by far the most prestigious tournament we have in our sub-forum, with numbers regularly topping 180 competing nations since I've taken part, and occasionally more than 200. It is one of the biggest hosting achievements any nation can undertake in NS Sports, only surpassed in size and complexity by NationStates Olympics. The World Cup is intentionally closely modelled on the Real Life football/soccer version: while many nations enter, only 32 qualify for the finals.

There have been significant changes over time regarding the generation of scores, with the first two tournaments using dice to generate results. However, Excel spreadsheets were introduced in WC 3, and by the 5th tournament, excel spreadsheet formats started to focus on the "three Rs": rank, roleplay and random. The balancing of these three components has been a much debated point over the years, with frequent arguments over how random a "scorinator" is. So frequent are both arguments and upset results in games that the community can often be heard to talk of the dread random number goddess known as Margaret, who can be appeased through the sacrifice of rubber chickens.

While a range of scorinators were used in the middle years of the tournament, the current scorinators are typically NSFS (Nations States Footie Simulator) or Xkoranate (a gargantuan scorinator with many different events). A system known as "KPB rankings" tracks each contestant's success (or lack thereof) over recent tournaments, allowing for a fair assessment of each team's current multiverse national football team rank.

However, what really makes the World Cup great is the community. 90% of users who take part in the NSSport sub-forum will enter the World Cup, and there have been many legendary, funny or downright absurd roleplays over the years. Current active teams include squads composed of Orthodox Christian monks, sentient ursines, and absurdly polite gentlemen in top hats, while long-term participants fondly remember the legendary incident involving an egg....; there are even some 'normal' football teams. Nearly every cup, there will be collaborative roleplays between nations, and it is these collaborations, planned or unplanned which makes the World Cup so fun.

Even if winning the damn thing is so hard…


The Battlefield Effect
Where Independentism Goes Wrong…
EDITORIAL | UNIBOT

One of the key observations of this article is that partisan politicians themselves are more irrational, more dangerous, defensive and most of all more partisan, when the entrenchment of their values is threatened. This is the source of what I will call “The Battlefield Effect” and it is a phenomenon which has extremely grave consequences for independentism.

We expect that when a region becomes “independent”, leaders will make more balanced and rational decisions, voters will act more balanced and rational and the whole region itself becomes a more calculative machine. That is the intended purpose of independentism: to pursue a region’s interests above all else. However, from my observations, independentism has the exact opposite effect than intended. Leaders become more partisan, voters become more partisan and the region itself becomes a more partisan machine.

It can be said that The Battlefield Effect occurs when players seek out other ways to confirm their region’s alignment, in the absence of a clear official alignment. When a region lacks a clear alignment that is not the “end” of the debate. Players seek out other ways to signal their region’s alignment and these signalling tools can take on an absolutely irrational form.

For example, you might believe a treaty isn’t just a treaty; it’s an affirmation that “we share common ideals” *nudge* *nudge* *wink*. You could propose a treaty with X, Y or Z or cancel a treaty with X, Y and Z to more closely align a region towards an alignment. Alliancing with other more solidly aligned regions serves to confirm what has been left unconfirmed in the wake of the region’s independentism.

Likewise, you might propose an election isn’t just an election; it’s a confirmation of “where the region stands” *coughs*. If so and so wins or loses an election it signals a shift in a region’s alignment based on the stances of those running – despite none of them (perhaps) running as anything but a closet defenderist or invaderist.

Over the years, I have noticed many issues where military gameplay has played a silent third rail in the political backdrop – players competing over polls, attempting to define their region’s culture with regional flags, holidays, anthems, fighting for control over their forum administrations and court decisions (criminal, civil and legal!), media and immigration policies, promoting roleplay, spam, General Assembly votes, WA Repeals, IRC versus MSN/Skype or sources of international cooperation (i.e., “The NationStates Community”, NS World Fair). Meanwhile others might condemn activities like adspam, UCR recruitment and forum destruction with the question of a region’s alignment playing a vital, although understated role to the discussion.

One of the more common items to manipulate for one’s advantage is the discursive interpretation of history. A closet defenderist might to try to downplay dissonant events and emphasize events that resonate with defenderism, while a closet invaderist would do the same in regards to invaderism. Take for example, The North Pacific, where the legacy of the originally defender North Pacific Army is discounted by some and praised by others, or The South Pacific, where the collective memory of important events is edited, pruned and challenged – the major involvement of invaders in the Sedgistan and the Milograd coups are downplayed or excused and a new narrative is written to suggest that these coups reflect an Anti-TSP FRA, despite the fact that Sedgistan was ex-FRA at the time of the coup, Milograd was not yet a member of the FRA and the Founderless Regions Alliance had supported the coalition in both coups (which is also contested). The histories of coups are especially important as the “narrative of liberation” can resonate with defenderism, but the “narrative of hypocrisy” can clash with defenderism. The Empire’s reign in The East Pacific is often very controversial, for example, with some Easterners attempting to downplay the wrongfulness of the event. Instead, they might emphasize the mistakes of defender forces or the creation of the Concordat as of result.

Since The Battlefield Effect finds that players seek ways to demonstrate their region’s alignment through other ways than an official acknowledgement, there has to be a symbolic process for which players can accomplish this outcome. Namely, players form associations with the desired alignment. Some are strong associations, while others are weak associations. Note that none of these associations are necessarily valid, reasonable or rational.

A strong association is a relationship between the military, people or other regions which are already officially aligned, while a weak association is a contrarian relationship or a tangential relation with an idea related with a clear alignment. The former association is simple: if say Bigtopia is a defender or a defender region, support for them is regarded as a direct, strong association with defenderism. The latter can take on more complex forms. We observe patterns and make poor generalizations: for example, it was argued by some that IRC was more popular among defenderdom, while MSN was popular with invaderdom. These kinds of generalizations serve as the foundation for many weak associations. Likewise, defenders might tie unrelated issues to features of their own rhetoric of compassion, social responsibility and international cooperation or the rhetoric of the invader, which promotes personal responsibility, creative destruction, social darwinism and self- aggrandizement.

The fairy tale of independentism begins with a myth that this ill-fated ideology can find common ground between all regional mates, regardless of creed: the interests of their region. But this rational compromise collapses under scrutiny and practice. Interests are not a solidly defined rational construct, but an ambiguous morass that can be misinterpreted and misconstrued. With room for debate, common ground becomes a battlefield. The product of this clash, forces the region’s decisions to become less rational, even warped by partisanship – avoiding peace and cooperation to evade tacit association with “the other”, while the internal meritocracy of independentism devolves into sheer cronyism. The community relations of the independent region deteriorate as every issue and nearly every decision becomes an ideological space for catty dialectics and more identity politics.

Independentism, in practice, brews all of the vices it condemns (in greater potency than its alternatives): irrationalism, partisanship, a near religious commitment to particular allies and the militarization of the political community.

Perhaps Independentism is unintentionally flawed or perhaps its creators never intended it to be anything else but a political instrument – a trojan horse for invaderism (or its shrewd step-brother Imperialism) or defenderism.

I even reckon that defender and invader regions, with the Battlefield Effect largely not present in their regions, more closely realize the independent ideal than officially independent regions do. Take for example, The Rejected Realms, which — after formally becoming a defender region this year— sought a Non-Aggression Pact with Osiris, an imperialist-invader region. Meanwhile, the citizenry here in The Rejected Realms recently voted a vocal non-defender, Christian Democrats, as its most well regarded executive officer (in terms of performance). The official shift towards defenderism has closed a gaping void… an endless debate in The Rejected Realms, allowing us to focus the past few months on cultural development and growth instead.

In light of this, though, it should be said that imperialists are right to propose that defenderism and invaderism are not “political ideologies” — defenderism, for example is a set of ethical value judgements which can only inform the politician so far. If martial ideologies govern the martial and political ideologies govern the political, it can be said that independentism is a failed project to bridge the two and govern both the martial and the political from a coherent rational egoism. Imperialism is a success in those regards, leading both the martial and the political with a unifying doctrinal vision, whereas the Battlefield Effect is a direct consequence of Independentism's failure to address the political or the martial in any clear, unambiguous manner. Perhaps some of the issue for independentism lies with its use of Realism, an international relations theory, which cannot be applied to internal politics, since Independentism’s rational egoism conceives of a collective regional ego, but does not explore the individual. Martially, independentism is an ambiguous mess that loses ground and is quietly undermined by clearer, more preferred alternatives.

It was a mistake rather to assume that existing defender regions do not already govern their political spheres with a doctrine that can inform leaders what they ought to do, when defenderism —as a value set— is irrelevant.

For example, defenderism cannot normatively propose who you ought to ally with, or better yet, how to design your constitution or whether you should be democratic or autocratic. Yet, defender regions do make these decisions, so there must be some underlying, connecting ideas present. So what could they possibly be? The Red Liberty Alliance had democratic socialism to govern the political and the martial under a thick, established ideology that included the values of defenderism, while the Alliance Defense Network was a dissociative beast – Dr. Jekyll, the idealist, Mr. Hyde, the realist.

But what about contemporary organizations and regions like the FRA, the UDL, The Rejected Realms, Lazarus or even 10000 Islands? All of us have identified as “defender”, giving the false impression that defenderism serves as our political ideology, but there has to be something truly driving our political decisions … a set of ideas that extend to internal issues and are relevant not only to decisions regarding interregional conflicts, but regional politics and culture too.

Next edition, I will explore in depth this elusive ideology without a name – the unspoken doctrine from which defender regions and organizations govern. Dare if you will to enter the mystery and the unknown of the Defender State as I confront the subconscious of our political psychology…

This editorial will continue next edition with a second and final installment, “Political Philosophies of Defenderdom”.

Foreign Relations Main Talking Point In The South Pacific Elections
COMMENTARY | GRUENBERG

The South Pacific has concluded a low key set of summer elections, giving another term to incumbent Delegate Kringalia and Vice-Delegate Arbiter08. Kringalia ran on a platform entitled "Forward", an easy direction to choose given he faced no opponent. The ticket was elected by a margin of 24-5, and will be served by a Cabinet comprising Minister of Regional Affairs ProfessorHenn, Minister of the Army QuietDad, Minister of Foreign Affairs Sandaoguo, and Chair of the Assembly Unibot. The South Pacific also held its traditional vote for "Craziest Person in TSP", which saw 13 voters favour Rebeltopia's particular brand of craziness to the 7 who preferred ProfessorHenn.

While Kringalia, QuietDad and ProfessorHenn were all elected unopposed, Unibot faced the tightest election, winning by only a single vote of 14-13 against God-Emperor. A late vote change proved decisive in determining the outcome. But despite the margin of victory, the election for Chair of the Assembly was not fiercely fought: both candidates faced questions over their ability to commit to the rule given their duties elsewhere, Unibot serving as delegate of The Rejected Realms and God-Emperor holding political office in two other Pacifics. Unibot assured voters he would be able to maintain activity levels, while God-Emperor promised to appoint a competent deputy, an approach Unibot described as unnecessary.

But this was the only point of friction; indeed, so bland was the political debate for this position - an almost impressive feat given the involvement of Unibot, who has proven himself capable of arousing partisan bickering at every turn in the Assembly - that it is difficult to analyse the vote outcome, which may have come down to something as prosaic as the candidates' choice of graphics: while God-Emperor campaigned with a stylish Van Gogh chair, Unibot chose a more prosaic Clip-Art style. The South Pacific voted for functionality over aesthetics.

The centrepiece of the election was the race for Minister of Foreign Affairs, the most fiercely contested Cabinet seat. Four candidates declared themselves, although Sandaoguo and Belschaft quickly leapt ahead of The Republic of Zinnwaldite and The Solar System Scope, both of whom faced accusations of being too inexperienced and failing to understand the role, earning only a single vote each. Sandaoguo won the election with 15 votes to Belschaft's 11, but paid a gruelling price for doing so, facing repeated character attacks by Belschaft, who accused his opponent of lying over everything from whether he was claiming credit for work done by his predecessors, to whether he had underhanded motives in negotiating the treaty with The Rejected Realms.

It was this issue that proved the most controversial, as midway through the elections, in a truly remarkable and no doubt wholly coincidental bit of timing, The New Inquisition announced they were severing their Treaty with The South Pacific in response to the treaty with TRR. While the reunciation was emphasised "not to be seen as an act of war or hostility" by Minister President MagentaFairy, it was also starkly critical of Glen-Rhodes (Sandaoguo) for his previous questioning of their alliance, and of TSP Minister of the Army Geomania for some R/D crap, whatever.

The renunciation of the treaty with TNI was immediately hailed by Belschaft as proof that his darkest prophesies of the outcome of the treaty with TRR were accurate, but it was not enough to swing the election in his favour. That Sandaoguo was reelected to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggest many in The South Pacific do not share this sense of pessimism about the direction of foreign policy, or that they agree with Sandaoguo's anti-imperialist sympathies. He will now have another term to further his aims, which he had announced as pursuing interregional security not through doomed multilateral agreements, but instead on a gradual bilateral basis, and the success of that project on whether trading a bilateral agreement with TNI for one with TRR proves a wise decision in the long run.


Lazarus "Wins" The World Cup
COMMENTARY | KOGVURON



July 13 saw Germany win their fourth World Cup title following a 1-0 extra time victory over Argentina. In addition to German fans, Lazarenes were also quite excited with this development, with their region defeating The Rejected Realms and The South Pacific in the FIFA World Cup Event. Lazarus picked Germany partly because of its status as the birthplace of Karl Marx, the father of communism.

Other regions in the competition did not fare so well. Picking perennial disappointers England, TRR found themselves knocked out in the group stage. TRR Delegate Unibot said, "Short and sweet. Just what The Doctor ordered. We didn't choose England for its chances, let's say that. Hah! It was a pleasure getting to watch the World Cup as a partisan and I hope the others, Lazarus and TSP, had fun too." TSP fared better, picking The Flying Dutchmen of the Netherlands to win it all. The Dutch played well, working their way through to the semifinals through a tough group including Spain and Chile. However, they were knocked off in penalty kicks by Argentina, denying the Event a Lazarus versus TSP final. TSP had to settle for a victory in the third place game over Brazil.

On the whole, it is safe to say the tournament was a huge success. Rejects were very excited about the contest, despite the reservations that some held over their team of choice. Lazarus was even more excited, with the official world cup thread reaching 35 pages long and hosting a commentary on almost every one of the 64 games. Lazarus Chairman Funkadelia commented, "I'm pleased to be able to share this competitive event with our friends in The Rejected Realms and The South Pacific. I think we all know that Germany, and the People's Republic of Lazarus, were all destined to win from the start ." TSPers too were excited with the success of their squad. ProfessorHenn noted how Kringalia changed made the WFE orange to support the team and changed his national flag to the Netherlands football logo. This event was truly enjoyed by all who took part.


World Assembly Legislative League Treaty Ratified By TNP
COMMENTARY | GRUENBERG

The North Pacific Regional Assembly has voted to ratify the World Assembly Legislative League Treaty, a multilateral WA agreement between TNP, Balder, Europeia, and the International Democratic Union. Proposed by former TNP delegate McMasterdonia, who had sought to revitalise the region's stagnant WA affairs ministry, bringing in Abacathea as an advisor and reforming policy to exclude citizens without WA membership in the region from voting, the WALL Treaty ratification vote passed 28-8 with 8 abstentions.

The Treaty calls for increased cooperation between the respective member regions in World Assembly affairs, including binding them to consensus decisions on whether to sponsor or oppose proposals, and usurping the powers of the regions' respective WA ministers to provide analyses and summaries of resolutions; the cooperation is also intended to extend to broader policy discussions and activity drives. However, each member retains regional sovereignty in determining their own votes on resolutions.

Three of the regions represent sizeable delegate votes and are known for “stacking” early to influence resolution outcomes; the IDU may seem an odd bedfellow, but share long historic links to The North Pacific, and already technically possess a treaty with the region, although in practice its requirements with regards to WA activity are seldom honoured. As the largest region and leader of the negotiations, TNP will play host to the official WALL discussions.

WALL represents a novel venture, at least for regions of this size. Gameplay treaties in the past have been signed on forum destruction, antifascism, telegram recruiting, and aspects of R/D play, but given the scant regard for using the WA as anything more than a technical means to a game exploit in most gameplay communities WA-oriented treaties have not been actively sought. Indeed, one has to go back to before the WA was even created, to its predecessor the NSUN, to find examples of interregional organizations cooperating on WA matters, such as CACE and ACCEL.

How the WALL will work in practice as such remains very much an open proposition. Personality clashes – a number of those in senior positions within the respective regions have starkly different views on WA policy, and TNP's experiment of appointing WA deputies from opposing ideological camps has seen much butting of heads – could easily derail accord, but if the agreement holds up it could see even greater sway over the direction of the WA falling into the grip of the cabal of powerful regions, further proving the complete irrelevance of the WA forum community.

Whichever path is taken, it promises to be an intriguing prospect.


NSG Reacts to MH17 With Shock And Anger, Mostly Anger
NSG reacted to information nearly as fast as it became available
COMMENTARY | THAFOO



The reaction of all NSers far and wide, from Gameplay and Roleplay to NationStates General, was of complete shock when the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was downed this year.

The grim news was announced via the thread posted by L. Ron Cupboard. Naturally, everyone's mind immediately went to the previous incident, MH370, which had occurred months ago, nearly equally shocking the world as the search progressed for the still missing airliner. One famous NSGer, Ifreann, known for his tongue-in-cheek commentary regarding social and economic issues, claimed, "At some point we have to consider the possibility that God does not want Malaysians flying."

By the third page, however, the tone had changed, with blame going to the Russian government, Russian-supported separatists, or a mistake by the Ukranian military, all highly reminiscent of Iran Air 655, an incident that occurred in 1988 when the United States Navy mistook an Airbus A300 for a warplane, with a death toll of 290, a mere eight fatalities behind MH17.

As NSG topics usually go, however, by page 100, the thread had devolved, ridden with threadjacks and debates, mostly centered around the most suspected culprit in the plane's downing: Russia or Russian-backed separatists. Further developments have continued being posted on the fast-moving thread as they arrive.


Is TNP's community "cracking at the seams"?
OPINION | THE CHURCH OF SATAN



Lately it has become apparent to some that the community of The North Pacific is tearing itself apart rather fiercely. punk d of The North Pacific expressed concern over this in a post to The Agora of The North Pacific entitled "Cracks at the seams".

However, the citizens of The North Pacific don't seem nearly as concerned on the grounds that these things happen: people will leave regions from time to time and others will stay; this kind of turmoil is unavoidable; it will happen eventually, but The North Pacific will survive as all GCRs do in these situations. I'm inclined to agree with these citizens, though it's nice that punk d is so concerned for The North Pacific.

In response to the lack of concern by fellow citizens, punk d said: "I tend to be paranoid, so hopefully I'm being just that. ... I feel the lack of concern means that the "cracks at the seams" may not be as bad as I suspected. I am concerned about the things I wrote, sure, but if most others are not concerned then it means that the disagreements aren't hitting the core of TNP as I feared."

Cormac also weighed in on this: "I haven't been playing NationStates for nearly as long as Punk, nor have I been as active a contributor to The North Pacific. I do, however, have some experience with community turmoil and community collapse within GCRs.

"I tend to agree with his assessment here. All communities will have their drama, but what I've seen happening in The North Pacific over the past few weeks has a different feel to it. It doesn't have the same feel as past political disputes such as the WA voting policy, the NPA Doctrine, etc. It feels more to me like the serious disputes that led to irreparable rifts in Osiris in 2012 and 2013.

"Whenever I get that feeling in a community, I feel compelled to share my perspective with people. Of course you can take that for what it's worth, or leave it, but I would rather share my impression of the situation and be wrong than not say anything and wonder later if I had done everything I could to call attention to problems and change them."

Crushing Our Enemies replied with a similar response to the rest of TNP which seemed largely unconcerned, hopefully for good reason: "I've been hearing bits and pieces of the craziness of late, and I've had the chance to read through some of it. It seems to me that it will all come to a head, one way or another, and TNP will go on. Maybe not the same as it ever was, but our community can weather this."

Romanoffia, one person largely responsible for the 'craziness', chimed in with: "Hey, people wanted activity and failed to realize that when you ask for activity, you don't always get exactly the type of activity you hoped for. Or worse yet, got the exact activity you were looking for."

In the end, the worst case scenario is a repeat of Osiris, in that new leaders will arise from the conflict and unite the region once more; the best case scenario is that the in-fighting continues and one or both parties involved leave the region, returning stability to it. Frankly this is nothing to be too concerned about but it should be watched closely. I hope all goes well for The North Pacific. I may not have invested anything into the region myself, but I'm a citizen too and I don't want anything bad happening as a result of the in-fighting.


World Assembly's 300th Resolution Breaks Record
COMMENTARY | GRUENBERG

Statheads in the World Assembly had two reasons to get excited about child pornography as the 300th Resolution ever passed broke the all time record for the highest percentage in favour. Wrapper's Child Pornography Ban passed by a margin of 8486 to 649, representing 93% of votes in favour; in doing so, it eclipsed even such highly supported resolutions from the World Assembly or its predecessor, the NSUN, as Outlaw Pedophilia, Female Genital Mutilation, Prevention of Child Abuse, Child Pornography Prohibition, and On Female Genital Mutilation – the list itself suggesting the kind of issues on which the WA has the biggest consensus.

The vote reflected a rare moment of GCR unity in favour, and an equally rare moment when prominent anti-WA delegate Noctaurus of Gatesville did not cast a vote against. Indeed, the largest vote against came from Duck-Boss, raider delegate of the occupied region of Anarchy. This vote irritated the natives of Anarchy for implicitly associating their region with support for child pornography. The Black Riders explained that they voted against not based on the political issue at hand, but rather as part of a general pattern of doing everything to antagonise natives: according to the ever poetic Coraxion, "Our actions will always show bad taste, from point of views of an average NSer".

But even deliberately provocative votes like this did nothing to the overall margin of victory, which surprised even its author. "I thought for sure that passing a Moral Decency/Significant proposal would be more of an uphill battle. Category aside, I could see how some would vote against it on technical grounds, like the definition of pornography, or the age of consent, or other reasons like, it doesn't go far enough, or goes too far, or it should ban hentai, or it shouldn't ban realistic CGI. There were so many plausible reasons to vote no," admitted Wrapper, who roleplays a Stargate-themed pacificist nation in the World Assembly and had previously tasted defeat with their unpopular World University of Peace proposal.

The resolution arose out of a concern that the restrictions in existing WA legislation, such as Prevention of Child Abuse, did not go far enough to ban child pornography, and real life precedents played their part, as Japan finally banned the possession of child pornography. This motivated Wrapper to write a proposal in comprehensive fashion: "This, along with Sciongrad's very persuasive arguments, convinced me that a possession ban was absolutely necessary." Wrapper can now boast, in similarly annoying fashion to Safalra, to being the most successful resolution author in history - while the WA may have occasion to consider where it is at 300, and whether progress on issues of less obvious consensus is still possible.


TRR Chooses a New Flag!
OPINION | THE CHURCH OF SATAN

For several months now the citizens of The Rejected Realms have been debating whether or not to choose a new flag for the region.

It started on October 11th of last year when Frattastan telegrammed Milograd, asking for a more refurbished flag. The aim was to have a more modern version, so the region seemed less old-fashioned. Milograd posted 3 versions, one of which he scrapped, the second a definite improvement from the first and the last one being his finalized version, which looks vert sharp. Almonaster submitted one as well although it isn't quite up to par with Milograd's last one. Unibot submitted one too. Personally I think it's a good second place option. In the end when the issue went to vote, TRR delegate Unibot went with Milograd's finalized version. The vote ended at 10 For, 5 Against.

As of 9:28PM EST on July 14th the change was put into place. The Rejected Realms' new regional flag is now the following:



We're grateful for Milograd's contribution to the region and I'm sure this flag will fly over TRR for years to come! Thank you so much Milograd, from all of us at The Rejected Realms!


In Brief - News Round-Up
NEWS | GRUENBERG

Flag Thief's Return

NationStates's most infamous imposter, Flag Thief, has returned after a long absence from the game. Announcing their resumption of vexillological villainy, Flag Thief immediately stole the fiery phoenix flag of YoriZ, having noticed the ongoing drama of the occupation of Anarchy. Flag Thief often chooses high profile targets for their banner burglary, and had soon moved on to a new unsuspecting victim: The North Pacific delegate McMasterdonia, subject of a Commendation vote in the Security Council (with which Flag Thief will be familiar, having themselves been Condemned for their actions in a previous vote). The Rejected Times will be watching for further acts of flag thievery by the returning rascal.

Games of the IX Olympiad

The NationStates Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the IX Olympiad, have been selected to be held in Zube and Kytler Bay City, hosted by The Kytler Peninsula for the first time. The Summer Olympics are organized using the xkoranate scorinator created by Commerce Heights, and are the largest multisports tournament in NationStates, with over 50 nations having already entered. Signups, open until July 31 at 23:59 UTC, are permitted by all nations in NationStates regardless of previous involvement in NS Olympic or Sports events, and are being coordinated via spreadsheet in this thread.

NS++ bought by NationStates

NationStates has entered discussions to acquire NS++ from Afforess. Following the deletion of Shadow Afforess for threatening the region of Haven with a password cracking tool, the mechanics of which would have broken NationStates rules, there were fears that NS++ might close down, but [violet] has now taken steps to ensure its continuation. Game staff have long disclaimed any official sanction for NS++, but this would now become the first tool created by players to be officially supported by the game. Details have been closely held while negotiations continue, but there is every sign that NS++ will continue to be made available to all players, with only the loss of its ad-blocking feature.

My, what a large issue, and quite fitting that The Rejected Times would come to Wintreath now. I think that alone is exciting news, so thanks for agreeing to post it here for us!

On "The Legitimate Point of View?"
Independence comes off as such a pretty word in regional and inter-regional politics, because it's supposed to imply that it's a policy of doing what's best for the region without taking a side in R/D gameplay. It's supposed to imply some sort of middle ground between raiding and defending. In practice though, it seems that these regions rarely defend or liberate unless it's against Nazi operations or in support of allies. At the same time, you see these regions raiding often for dubious benefit at best (see: The North Pacific).

I don't think it would be quite as popular an "alignment" if it weren't so easy to cloud what Independence really means in this context, and it's nice to see such a vigorous debate going on in The South Pacific. And for the record, I think a sovereign region should have every right to declare itself raider. I'm not saying this as a defender. But to pretend that there's this huge middle ground between raiders and defenders is a sham. At the end of the day, you have to associate more with organizations and regions that raid or organizations and regions that defend, just because the two sides are so far apart, and in practice it's been shown that it's almost always the former.

On "The Decline of Defending"
Oh, I had to have a chuckle at this one. Somehow Cormac has married the death of defending with his new feud with The Black Riders to create some sort of future fantasy world where 'his' imperialist side would be against 'their' side. And the fact that he uses his own foreign policy as Scribe of Foreign Affairs (and now Pharaoh) as proof of such a rift is comical. All the while writing in a publication 'his' side has derided as nothing better than defender propoganda.

I wouldn't exactly call myself an expert on imperialism in NS, but what benefit would it bring to the UIAF and other imperialists to turn their backs on TBR? While TBR has certainly grown as an organization and proven they can do their own long-term holds, they still have great relations with UIAF and imperialist regions other than Osiris (and Ainur?), and the two forces still present a combination that's nearly unbeatable when they're working together.

A much more reasonable alternative, in my opinion, is that you would see even more new raiding organizations spring up that are against "raider unity", as we've already seen with The Eternal Knights and their allies. I would think that the imperialist and independent regions and orgs would largely choose to stay out if it since getting involved wouldn't give them much benefit, but certainly The Black Riders would gain their own set of new allies as they already have with Sicarius.

My personal prediction if defending were to somehow die out completely is you'd see more of what you're already seeing, but more of it. I think we're headed into a more vibrant period on the raider side with a number of small-scale conflicts and swift change. Imperialists would seek to avoid this conflict and instead focus on the remaining GCRs they don't have influence in, armed with the propaganda that they 'win' R/D and stamped out defenderdom. Whether this is true or not, they would certainly take credit for it. And life would continue. Far from the "Great War" that Cormac fantasizes about.

It's the End of the World! (As we know it)
I've always been divided when it comes to Afforess...on one hand, I feel enjoyed flaunting his ability to disrupt the game at various times, and in the few talks I had with him in #wintreath he seemed a touch bitter about not being given the opportunity to join the staff in spite of his accomplishments. On the other hand, he has advanced NS gameplay so much with NS++ and his other services, and sometimes I think his disruption of things has been for the better.

I fear that NS++ will be slowly cannibalized and neglected when it's taken over by NS. The great thing about NS+ is that Afforess was able to develop and add features at a quick pace, while development seems so slow with NS. Nearly a year after Sedgistan announced a number of mechanics changes to R/D, five out of seven of those changes remain unimplemented. I hope the purchase of NS++ won't kill off any ability to quickly develop some aspect of the game.

On "The Myth of the Gameplay-Role Play Divide
An excellent article. I would also posit that back in 2003, there weren't nearly as many people playing NS as there are now, so it was of benefit to everyone for there to be no barrier between different aspects of the game, but as the game grew and more people joined, different people were able to specialize into different subsets of NS, and then recruit people into them who would only know that particular piece of NS so that now when one part of the game branches into another, it seems like an invasion in more than one way. It's not just one branch of the game running into another, it's a 'foreign' branch declaring itself superior to their own branch and forcing it on them. And to them, I imagine having to get assistance from defenders is just as bad, because to them defenders are part of that same 'foreign' branch.

I would be interested to know how much interest the FRA's operation has generated. While I applaud the outreach, I can't help but wonder if many roleplay regions will actually take advantage of it out of that principle.

I would say all the articles were good, but if I were to write my thoughts about any more I'd be here all day! Thanks again for bringing The Rejected Times to Wintreath.

Frak destroys LWU Forum
COMMENTARY | TRR STAFF


The Wolf's Den (pictured above) is no more.

A void has been left in the heart of the Lone Wolves United community - its recorded history and its past culture has been lost to a violent internal attack on their region. With their forum destroyed, it's sadly possible that much of their historical records are irrecoverable.

The forum currently sits with a simple, disingenuous message to visitors:

"Board will be back online in 24 hours. Error with a script, be back soon".

Fortunately, much of the region's oldest history has survived on its first forum - this includes old mission announcements, media and philosophy texts. However, the new forum contained everything from late 2009 onward.

The forum destroyer in this instance is Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, a senior LWU official. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds has also been known as Frak, Haxstree or Anur-Sanur in NationStates. A notable troublemaker, Frak was involved in a series of attempted coups on The South Pacific, The Rejected Realms, The East Pacific and The North Pacific.

Osiris, in wake of the tragedy, has declared Frak as "personna non grata" in Osiris and released a statement condemning his actions and the loss of Lone Wolves United's forum. As of right now, Evil Wolf is still attempting to recover the forum, while dozens have sent their condolences and well wishes.

Thanks for the kind words Moot!

You can make separate topics for separate editions if you would like.

On the topic at hand, it's devastating when any region loses their forum. I've heard of this Frak quite often, and never in a good way...I have to wonder why anyone would put someone like him in such a position to be able to attack the forums.

Agree, forum destruction is a terrible thing. When I think of the hundreds of hours I've put into writing things on NS, if someone destroyed them, I'd be heartbroken, really. When a game is creative, you do put some of yourself into it.

I was thinking that I'd do the same as I do when posting this in the GRA, I do a new thread for each new issue, and then the stand alone features and bulletins that trickle after an issue in the same thread, and then start a new thread for the new issue. There are a few more stories to post, I'll catch you up.

Also, I'm away from tomorrow, but if you ask any of the other Times reporters they'll be able to bring it over, Church of Satan, for example.

New Motto and New Officers for TRR
Elections begin and the Month of the Motto competition concludes...
COMMENTARY | TRR STAFF


"You're All Fired!"

"Illegitimi non carborundum" has been voted, 43-37, in the finals of the Month of the Motto competition as The Rejected Realms’s regional motto. “Illegitimi non Carborundum” is a mock-Latin aphorism which translates roughly as “Don’t let the bastards grind you down” – it originated from World War II and has been engraved in the offices of many of America's most powerful, including JFK and Hoffa. For many the motto represents the tough, indomitable exterior of the region’s rebel psychology and spirit, while for others it was a clever way to fit a curse word into our motto.

Not all Rejectees were as positive about the new motto.

“Yeah f--- that,” says Christmas Barry III, “we don’t need no f—ing latin, we need som’in ‘tuff’ yeh know? How’ll about “Don't piss down my back and try and tell me it's raining”, eh, eh? Or “Approach at yer own peril” or “Rip Ya New One”? Yeeeeaah.”

The disgruntled rejectee, however, did agree that anything was less wussier than “Paradise Found”.

“F--- that crap!”

On perhaps a more important note, Officer Elections have begun in The Rejected Realms. At the beginning of August, as per the constitution, all officers are removed from service automatically and a period of elections is slated to begin with open nominations and competitive challenges.

The recent opinion polling conducted by the Office of Human Resources helps shed some light on which candidates stand a good chance at being re-elected if they were to run.

Christian Democrats (WA Affairs):  Approve [69.2%], Disapprove [15.4%], Not sure [15.4%]
Guy (Foreign Affairs): Approve [63.6%], Disapprove [18.2%], Not sure [18.2%]
Feux (Human Resources): Approve [22.2%], Disapprove [33.3%], Not sure [44.4%]
Libetarian Republics (Internal Affairs): Approve [8.3%], Disapprove [50%], Not sure [41.7%]

With a notoriously hard-to-please public, Christian Democrat’s performance leading The Rejected Realms’s World Assembly affairs, managing votes and organizing the WA Committee, has left him the most popular candidate for re-election with nearly a 70% approval rating (tying with the Delegate for support). Similarly, Guy, a long-term fixture in the region, was rewarded handily for his negotiations of the Osiran Non-Aggression Pact and TSP-TRR Peace and Amity treaty as The Rejected Realm’s top diplomat.

Feux, a more low-key officer garnered the most uncertainty among voters and will likely have to prove himself this election to voters if he wishes to serve in office again, while Libetarian Republic’s inactivity was a sore point with many voters.

“It would be a pleasure to see any number of you return to the cabinet,” Unibot said of his former cabinet, “and, at the same time, I encourage all citizens to throw their hat into the ring if they feel they've got what it takes to contribute to our executive”.

Nominations are open for three days, while voting will follow for four days.

Balder Queen Dismisses Government
COMMENTARY | TRR NEWS


"I am removing everyone," says Queen Rachel.

In a shocking announcement this afternoon, Queen Rachel Somerset of Balder has announced that she was unilaterally terminating the Statsminister (Head of Government) and removing all the members of the Riksraadet (Privy Council). To fill the void, the Queen told the region that she would be assuming direct leadership of the government and accepting applications for membership into the Riksraadet.

To make this unilateral move, Queen Rachel initiated a royal decree based on her residual powers for the “peace, order, and good government of Balder”. This phrase comes from a controversial clause in the original Consitution Act, 1867 from Canada – “POGG” powers as they have become known by constitutional scholars and academics have been criticized for their far-reaching scope.   

Justifying this move as a necessary motion to counterbalance Balder’s slide towards inactivity, the Monarch told the region that for the “past few months” it had “seen a collapse in the governance of Balder”, while calling its current state, “embarrassing”.

Thus far, the dismissal of the government has been well received by the King of Balder, North East Somerset, but Zander Cerebella had different words for the dismissal: calling the motion a “royal pain in the ass”.

Whether or not this move can turn around Balder from a long season of cronic inactivity remains to be seen. In the meantime, the monarch could receive political blowback for this "house cleaning" session - removing the Head of Government and the entire Council of State.

Weird Laws of NationStates
FEATURE | UNIBOT

Dare to enter if you will... an expedition into the quirky, the silly and the downright weird laws of NationStates's Game-Created Regions.

________________________________________________________________________


16. The East Pacific. Article F.8 prohibits The East Pacific from granting titles of nobility, or citizens accepting titles of nobility from foreign governments.  This law was a reaction to The Empire (who used nobility titles), but also served as an Anti-Imperialist measure for several subsequent governments. This is a case of a bizarre law serving a useful function years after its creation.

15. Balder. Section 4.C of the Instrument of State and Government Act allows any former monarchs to continue to title themselves King or Queen - this includes several former delegates, who served prior to the establishment of a monarchy!

14. Lazarus. Section 4 of the Legislative Style Law requires all laws to use common English. 没有更多英语!!

13. Osiris. Section 2.10.a of the State Code of Osiris sets the endorsement cap on the "Guardians of the Atef" at 66% of the delegate's endorsements. The entire rest of the State Code of Osiris uses "two-thirds", but nope, Section 2.10.a requires specifically, a 66% cap. Nobody bothered to tell them that two-thirds isn't 66%. Might as well have chosen 69 and made it a cool number.

12. The South Pacific. Article 10.2 declares that all citizens can request a Great Council to review all of The South Pacific's laws. All other motions require at least a seconded motion.

11. The Pacific. An old gem: Section 406 of The Civil Code prohibits "bad grammar to the point of complaint".

10. The East Pacific. Article F.9 of the Concordat proclaims that "all rights not in this Concordat described or reserved to the government shall remain in the hands of the individual nations". Yes, tilt your head and read it again. All rights not in the Bill of Rights shall still be possessed by individual nations. This legal caveat has been used as a legal catch-all, giving breathing room for the Conclave's members to rule however they like on pressing issues.




Dare to continue? It only gets more loopy from here....






9. The South Pacific. Article 2.1 and Article 2.6 mandates that residents have a right to reside in The South Pacific, so long as they reside in The South Pacific.

8. The Rejected Realms. Although in most regions, run-off elections would commence following a tie during an election, due to Article 3.E, ties force officers to "break the tie" and if this still results in a tie, the delegate must "break the tie". Scare quotations are a result of this author having no clue what "breaking the tie" means - could mean a separate election, or else, players are actually forced to switch their vote to break a tie???

7. Lazarus. Article 1.8 of the Penal Code of the People's Republic of Lazarus prohibits Vexatious Metacommunication. What is "Vexatious Metacommunication", you might ask? The repeated use of emoticons to the point of annoyance. Watch out Rachel! The recommended sentence is banishment from the forum and in-game region.

6. The North Pacific. Section 5.5.28 of their Code of Laws, entitled "Sanity", requests that all Security Council laws be applied in a reasonable manner. Curiously, no similar law applies to any other branch of The North Pacific's government.

5. The Pacific. An old gem: Section 404 of The Civil Code cannot be found - seriously.

4. Osiris. Article VIII of The East Pacific - Osiris Treaty of Amity requires both Osiris and The East Pacific, prompty notify each other of a new delegate's election.

"WHO IS THE DELEGATE OF OSIRIS!!?!?"
"I DUNNO"
"HOW WILL I EVER FUNCTION WITHOUT MY FORMAL NOTIFICATION!!!"

3. Lazarus. Article 1.B of the Law of Official Images requires the use of Lazarus's seal in all foreign updates and diplomatic statements. Here's the catch: "if it is not used, no seal should be used". Brilliant no?

2. The West Pacific. Article 1.1 of The Regional Assembly of Nations of The West Pacific Act gives their legislative assembly explicit permission to change their legislature's name with a motion receiving 50+1%  support. In fact, changing the name of the legislature appears to be one of the most common events in The West Pacific's legislative record.


And the finale....



1. The North Pacific. 7.1.4 of their Code of Laws prohibits the use of TNP's arms in national flags (presumably to prevent impersonation), but nations are free to use TNP's flag (which features TNP's arms - and more effective for impersonation). This bizarre quirk of the law was upheld with Court rulings on Nov 25 2012 and Jan 18 2013.

So if you're ever stuck on deciding what flag to fly in The North Pacific, here's a brief guide for you...



And remember, if you don't follow this guide - you could face a count of treason !!

My apologies Wintreathians, after I went on vacation and then had a very busy month when I got back, I completely forgot I was supposed to be posting this here (and in the GRA too). I will now spam you with all the back issues you've missed. Sorry!

Issue XXVI. August 13, 2014.

Grub Bans XKI Delegate !
Benevolent Thomas accuses Grub of slander.
COMMENTARY | THE CHURCH OF SATAN & UNIBOT


10000 Islands: The Land of Infinite Paranoia.

In a sudden and unexpected move, 10000 Islands Delegate, Benevolent Thomas, was banned and ejected from the region. Shortly after, Grub posted an announcement on the Regional Message Board explaining the reasoning behind his actions.

"As a sitting Delegate of 10000 Islands, Benevolent Thomas has been secretly planning on starting his own offshoot region while in office," says Grub. "To have a sitting Delegate actively planning on starting their own region while in office is disgraceful and goes against the very ideals of that office".

One would presume, the way Grub phrases it, he has concrete proof that Thomas would have recruited from 10000 Islands and that Benevolent Thomas did intend to start his own region, although the evidence has not been provided.

"The plans of Benevolent Thomas were all in secret and it was only when I confronted him that he admitted to his plan," says Grub. "He claimed that he did indeed plan on leaving the 10000 Islands once his term was over and would start his own offshoot region. He also told me that he wasn't planning on trying to take any 10000 Islanders with him. I did believe that he planned on riding out his term, but I did not believe that [he] wasn't going to try and take from our region to build his own."

Yes: beware the double negatives. Although Benevolent Thomas specifically told him that he did not intend to poach from 10000 Islands, Grub decided unilaterally with no evidence to the contrary that Thomas was lying to him. The former delegate's feelings on the matter were made clear when he changed his national pretitle to "Disgraced Delegate" -- later replacing that with"Slandered Delegate". However, Grub states that Thomas "undermined" the rules of 10000 Islands, although he has not referenced any laws to support his claim, 10000 Islands has a tradition of Grub arbitrating problems instead of addressing issues through a court system.

This is most certainly not the only controversial decision to ban a player that Grub has made. Several others already have commented on the matter, many complaining about the lack of due process in this issue, but many still are concerned about how Benevolent Thomas's removal seems to be more or less coinciding with a personal fallout with Grub and Anime Daisuki.

"Thomas posted a swear to me," says Anime Daisuki, "Basically telling me off in an angry tone, saying that I disrespected him by speaking to him that way. I was surprised at his sharp reaction which I put it to a bruised ego. From then on I decided to stay away from the guy".

Anime Daisuki condemned Benevolent Thomas's "premature" promotion in TITO and argued his changes to TITO, including the use of IRC and cooperating with other defender organizations, were unilateral and ignored major conventions. As of late, the political climate in 10000 Islands has between deeply divided by those open to cooperating with other defender organizations and interacting with the international sphere and, at the other end of the spectrum, the isolationists. Some have speculated that Benevolent Thomas's removal from office and the subsequent smear campaign has been more or less an isolationist political maneuver through fear and paranoia to remove 10000 Islands's most internationalist delegate in half a decade.

Is this what is to be expected by all future citizens? Is this the kind of distrust they can expect from their founder? If so, even I would not wish to return to such a place.


TRR Officer Elections Close
Elections posed a tight finish.
COMMENTARY | UNIBOT

Elections for The Rejected Realm's next cabinet has concluded. Only a day ago, it would have been anyone’s guess as to which candidates would rise to the top and secure a plurality over the other candidates – many candidates were separated by a single vote.

Since only four officers can be elected: Christian Democrats, Guy and Yohannes, having amassed the largest count of votes, secured their seat in the cabinet as officers, but two other candidates, The Church of Satan and Kogvuron tied for votes and faced off in a special run-off. The rules of the run-off were always ambigious, see "Weird Laws of NationStates" for more details, but the speaker chose to have the officers decide the tie-breaker. With Yohannes and Christian Democrat's votes going to Kogvuron, Kogvuron has been chosen as the fourth and final officer for this term.



With the elections this close, some have proposed that The Rejected Realms would be better served with an alternative voting model that considers voter preferences and eliminates the “spoiler effect” – this led to a region-wide discussion on the merits of preferential block voting versus the single-transferable vote versus traditional plurality block voting. The hope is to achieve a functional democratic voting system that implements majoritarianism without sacrificing the executive's pluralism or the simplicity of plurality voting.

For The Rejected Realms, these latest elections are a sign of a resurgence in the region, with a long list of talented candidates placing their hat in the ring. While for Christian Democrats, former WA Officer and Guy, former Foreign Affairs Officer, these elections proved to be a resounding endorsement of their incumbencies. Christian Democrats, who was voted recently as The Rejected Realm's most popular executive alongside Unibot, built the new WA Office from scratch over his term, while Guy negotiated a well-received treaty with The South Pacific and an Osiran Non-Aggression Pact.

Ryno and The Church of Satan are long-time natives of The Rejected Realms, while Christian Democrats, Guy and Kogvuron are more seasoned gameplayers from The Rejected Realms, whose names probably ring familiar to many of our readers. Hallowell is a respected up-and-comer reject, while Yohannes and Sciongrad are new to gameplay, but by no means new to NationStates. Yohannes hails from the roleplay community, where he rose into great prominence as the second largest international commerce and trading nation. Meanwhile, Sciongrad is a “global disarmament policy wonk” from the World Assembly, where he is noted for passing GAR#242, “Biological Warfare Convention”.

The Rejected Times briefly spoke with Yohannes, one of the new arrivals to cabinet, who told us that he was very surprised by the election's results and feels an immense sense of duty to the region for entrusting him with an executive portfolio.

"I know that I have a lot to learn," says Yohannes, first-time Officer, "and will most probably make mistakes now and then.. but I will try my best to contribute to our lovely community, and the region, of The Rejected Realms -- I will work with all of you, and look forward to get to know each and everyone of you!"

The current election as expected has brought with it a balance of both experience and some fresh new faces to cabinet, proving the power of elections in shaping and propelling a region towards an exciting new direction. Next stop: Awesome!


The New Pharaoh Speaks
INTERVIEW | THE CHURCH OF SATAN

The Church of Satan speaks with Osiris's new Pharaoh, Cormac Somerset...

The Church of Satan: So, getting straight to the interview, if you would be so kind. To be honest I'm rather excited for this one!

Cormac: Hey there! Glad you're excited for the interview, I am too.

The Church of Satan: We all know your extensive history with Osiris. What prompted you to go for pharaoh once more?

Cormac: There were a couple of different reasons. First and foremost, I felt like I had a strong platform of ideas that would benefit Osiris over the course of this term and hopefully do a lot to improve activity. Activity was strong when the Osiris Fraternal Order was established in December, but it has slumped a bit with the overall NationStates summer lull. My hope was and is that the ideas I've brought to the table will get us back on track with high activity.

The Church of Satan: How do you feel about it this time around? Were you at all hesitant about going for it?

Cormac: I was a little hesitant. There has been a tendency in Osiris since the region was created for the people of the region to step back and let strong personalities lead, and simply follow. One of the major goals of the Osiris Fraternal Order has been to end this mentality and create a region of leaders, or as Detective Figs (Astarial) would probably have put it, build a sense of community self-ownership. My concern is that I'm someone who has been in Osiris and particularly in its leadership for some time now, so I was hesitant that I could end up recreating that atmosphere of "Hail Pharaoh!" in which one person leads and everyone else follows. That isn't healthy for Osiris, as there will always be people who seek to exploit that kind of political culture.

That said, the best way to prevent fostering that kind of political atmosphere is to be aware that it's a possibility and actively seek to avoid it. I've nominated an active cabinet, with a combination of veteran and fresh faces, all of whom will be active and will shine in their particular roles. We also have some newer folks in the Deshret who aren't afraid to speak their minds, even when they disagree with the Pharaoh, and I couldn't be more happy to see that happening. Even if I disagree with them and I'm passionate in arguing my position, I'm glad to see them holding their ground. And most of all I'm glad to see all of us tackling disagreements in a civil manner, and through normal political means, rather than threatening coups d'etat or pulling stunts to intimidate each other. Osiris has come a long way over a few months.

The Church of Satan: So who have you nominated for your cabinet?

Cormac: Treize Dreizehn for Vizier, James for Regional Affairs, Treize for Foreign Affairs, Zaolat for Media, Severisen for Security, and Zeorus for Justice (Attorney General).

The Church of Satan: These fresh faces, what is it about them that made you decide to give them a shot?

Cormac: Mostly their enthusiasm. James has been enthusiastic about getting involved with both integration and culture, and I think a strong dose of enthusiasm is what both of those areas need. Zaolat, while hardly new to Osiris, is new to the OFO cabinet andhe's been  excited about media as well. I've found that enthusiasm often trumps experiencein terms of many cabinet positions, because those who are more excited will often also remain more active.

I also think it's important to promote fresh faces and talent, so thatregional leadership doesn't become a revolving door of the same people term after term. New players don't want to get involved if they don't think they can advance.

The Church of Satan: How do you think their enthusiasm will work in conjuction with the experience of the veterans?

Cormac: I think their enthusiasm will work well. The veteran members I've chosenare also quite excited about their roles, and are among some of the most welcoming peoplewe have in Osiris. So I think they'll get along fine with new faces in cabinet.

The Church of Satan: Do you think this term will go better than previous ones?

Cormac: If you mean better than my previous term last summer, almost certainly. We're not starting off with a month long coup by Gatesville, so we're already doing better!

The Church of Satan: What are your current plans for Osiris? Anything you feel could be improved upon?

Cormac: My plans are to focus more on regional affairs -- integration and culture -- than we previously have. This doesn't mean foreign affairs and military activity will be dead, but they're going to be a secondary priority. We need a more active community, and a big part of that is simply having more people in the community and giving them more to do. So that will be a big priority of this term. Another priority will be media, with a new regional newspaper called The Osiris Oracle. We're hoping it will offer an alternative and a second major media presence in NationStates gameplay to compete with, well, you guys.

Although foreign and military affairs aren't going to be a primary focus this term, they remain a priority and there should be some developments in both areas that will be of interest to Osirans and our friends abroad, very soon.

The Church of Satan: Osiris is much different from the last time you were pharaoh. Previously the region was independent. I noticed that you removed the "raider" tag from Osiris. Does that mean it is strictly imperialist or is it still, as I've heard often lately, imperialist-raider?

Cormac: Well, we shouldn't exaggerate the importance of removing the Invader tag. We've been having a regional discussion about tags since I took office, and we basically decided that tags like "Anti-Fascist" and "Invader" don't describe who we are. Osiris is an imperialist region, and both anti-fascist action and invasion are aspects of Osiran imperialism. But neither tag really defines our region so we decided to remove them.

Osiris isn't imperialist-raider, though. That should be clear. We're an imperialist region, and our military activities are geared toward pursuit of our regional interests -- something we have in common with independent regions -- as well as projection of our military power as a demonstration that we are a region to be respected in world affairs. Often that does mean actively raiding, for training purposes as well as to support the efforts of friends and allies. But as we've now seen twice in the region Liberal Haven, we're very open to defensive operations as well when they're in our interests. We certainly have a respect for the sovereignty of other regions with active communities that is not characteristic of raider regions, particularly a respect for the sovereignty of fellow Feeders and Sinkers.

The Church of Satan: That being said, do you foresee any changes in your decisions as pharaoh as a result of this?

Cormac: I think there will be some clarifications made, and perhaps some new policies enacted to flesh out a more independent approach to imperialism. I don't really look at these as "changes," though, as we've been headed in this direction for some time. Admittedly, the Osiris Fraternal Order began with a much more "raider" flavor than it has currently, but we've been headed in a more independent-imperialist direction since Lord Ravenclaw was Pharaoh.

The Church of Satan: Osiris at the very least being imperialist, how do you think it will affect foreign relations? Specifically, since Osiris signed a non-aggression pact with TRR, do you feel it will conflict with the other 3 treaties you have with TNI, LKE and Albion since they are at war with them via the FRA? What would you do if the 2 sides clashed during your term?

Cormac: I don't believe our non-aggression pact with The Rejected Realms will conflict with the treaties you mention. It's important to note first what non-aggression is: It's a commitment to avoid aggressive action against each other. Full stop. It isn't a commitment to mutual defense, and while we aren't at war with the Founderless Regions Alliance we respect that our allies in The New Inquisition and The Land of Kings and Emperors are at war with that organization and its member regions. We won't take any action against The Rejected Realms, but we also wouldn't act to defend that region against our allies, and of course the non-aggression pact doesn't require us to do so.

I will note, however, that the Osiris Fraternal Order respects the sovereignty of all Feeders and Sinkers. We signed a non-aggression pact with The Rejected Realms due to the troubled relationship our regions previously had, in recognition that we would like to move forward with relations that are built on a much stronger foundation. But Osiris is committed to non-aggression, in practice if not in law, with all Feeders and Sinkers. Moreover, if any Feeder or Sinker is invaded by any force that is not in a treaty alliance with the Osiris Fraternal Order, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone to find us supporting the legitimate government of that Feeder or Sinker. Both diplomatically and militarily. Our treaty allies remain our first priority, but our commitment to the sovereignty of other Feeders and Sinkers is a real priority for us and one that we will continue to pursue.

The Church of Satan: Awesome interview! I look forward to the next one. On a side note, good luck with The Osiris Oracle.

Cormac: It was a fun interview, and thanks!

So there you have it. Things are looking up for Osiris and maybe we can all see a reign of stability in Osiris that will last for years to come! I'm Bruce Noland, Eyewitness News and that's the way the cookie crumbles!


TSP-Lazarus Treaty Passes
COMMENTARY | UNIBOT


Funkadelia (left) and Kringalia (right) as they signed the treaty earlier today.

Two storied game-created regions, Lazarus and The South Pacific have entered a formal treaty arrangement. The treaty was passed unanimously in Lazarus’s congress and was support heartily in The South Pacific were it passed with 83.3% -- smashing the necessary 60% threshold for passage.

The introduction of the treaty, titled a “Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between The South Pacific and Lazarus” marks an incredible recovery of relations from the last year when Belschaft, delegate at the time, unilaterally declared The South Pacific’s original alliance with Lazarus dead after Lazarus had chosen Milograd as its new leader. Kringalia, Belschaft’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, had not been informed beforehand of this decision and succeeded in negotiating a popular Non-Aggression Pact with Lazarus – always maintaining that The South Pacific would eventually revisit relations with the Mother Sinker.

It appears as though Kringalia has made good on his promises, but the same can be also be said for Glen-Rhodes, TSP Minister of Foreign Affairs, whose top campaign priority was the negotiation and passage of the Lazarus treaty. Glen-Rhodes was the main drafter of the treaty’s well-received text which emphasizes non-aggression, cultural and military cooperation, in addition to laying down the groundwork for his grand vision for a pan-GCR security network.

We spoke with both of the region’s delegates, who were very positive about this development.

Kringalia called the treaty, “exciting”.

“This is a region with whom we have cooperated in the past, both militarily and culturally,” says Kringalia over milk and cookies. “I am fully confident that our already strong bonds will get even stronger with the passage of this treaty. We are already planning some exciting activities between the South Pacific and Lazarus, which will show the strength and maturity of our alliance”.

Chairman Funkadelia said he very pleased with the decision, adding “this is a wonderful new beginning to a relationship that can only get warmer from this point”.

For some commentators this treaty may signal changes to the geopolitical landscape with the diplomatic prowess of defender regions growing, but for many others this is just a positive revival of an old friendship. Lazarus and The South Pacific are slated to work together next with the upcoming “rock-paper-scissors” tournament being organized by The Rejected Realms. Recently announced, the event will see these three regions square off against one another in a unique cultural competition where regions select their weapon, rock, paper or scissors, using their regional polls. Can’t wait!


Canadian Invasion Escalates
TBH place password on Canada
COMMENTARY | UNIBOT



Despite initial assurances that this mission would not aim for the griefing of Canada, The Black Hawks's lead, Jakker, has placed a password on the region.

The full destruction of Canada would require such a long-term investment from invaders that it appears unlikely, but invaders could use the password to help prevent a liberation attempt and sustain a longer reign to torment natives and continue to grief the region. This is a common tactic for The Black Hawks - with their high-profile occupations of Catholic, Capitalist Paradise and South Pacific following a similar pattern of abuse.

The occupation has run for a week thus far, already amassing forty-five ejections of native residents. With a regional password now in place, invaders will only need to eject, not ban natives -- since they will not be able to return to their region while it remains passworded and closed to new arrivals. Ejecting residents, of course, requires less Regional Influence than banning residents -- meaning the whole process of griefing Canada has become more efficient.

Given the password is now in place, the "pilers", soldiers who supported the lead invader initially to inflate his endorsement count, are no longer needed in such high numbers (dropping almost thirty endorsements).

These pilers can return to their headquarters or serve a role in the wider effort to maintain invaderdom's hold on its other ongoing occupations, Ixnay and Anarchy. Both occupied regions have also been recently password by invaders - actions which required an international response and a humanitarian clarion call from the WA Security Council. Already discussion has begun among established authors over the potential drafting for "Liberate Canada" to free the region of its password.

While the invasion rages on, players are reminded that the neutrality that Canada has held sacrosanct for decades posed no protection from the appetite of invaders.

"Canada has always welcomed those on both sides of the Raider/Defender debate," says long-time native, Almonaster, "and we have done our best to stay actively neutral. We have a very open and relaxed political climate, and would like to keep it that way. Both of the raider leads were citizens in good standing, and could have legitimately run for delegate, simply by agreeing to abide by our constitution. Their press when they took over clearly indicated that this was a flag raid, and they would withdraw. We were not best pleased, but in typical Canadian style rolled out the welcome mat and threw a party. The UIAF were largely silent and disciplined while there, and have indeed (partially) withdrawn".

Almonaster had less nice things to say about The Black Hawks.

"Jakker on the other hand has reverted to type, and has been busy kicking out long-term residents, gloating about it, and suppressing RMB posts," says Almonaster. "He has clearly broken his word on "no decimation", and seems to be settling in for a long stay. For those who understand British understatement, I think we've reached the level of 'slightly miffed'".

Those who can be invaded, may always be invaded, say invaders.


PBV for TRR?
OPINION | CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATS

Christian Democrats considers Electoral Reform for The Rejected Realms...

August is election season in the Rejected Realms (TRR); and, not surprisingly, the issue of electoral reform has come up again. For those not familiar with the region, TRR elects its four executive officers at regular intervals; and, after elections, the delegate, as the head of government, assigns the winners to various roles according to their particular talents. Currently, the plurality-at-large system is used: each citizen votes for four candidates, and the four candidates who receive the most votes are the winners. I believe this method is flawed for several reasons and have suggested (again) a constitutional amendment to adopt preferential block voting (PBV). Here, I give a short description of PBV and briefly outline its major advantages as a voting system.

PBV, basically, is the multi-winner version of instant-runoff voting (the alternative vote), the system that Australians use to elect their House of Representatives. Each voter casts a preferential ballot on which he ranks all the candidates from first to last. The person or people who tally the votes count all the voters' first choices. If no candidate has majority support after the first "round," the last-place candidate is eliminated, and those votes are redistributed to voters' second preferences as if the last-place candidate had never existed. This process continues until a winner is found.



Under PBV, successive instant-runoff "elections" are held virtually using the exact same ballots. Instant-runoff counts are repeated over and over again with the winners from the previous "elections" being eliminated at the outset. In this way, one can convert individual preferences (be there ten voters or ten million voters) into a collective list of preferences: this is the electorate's favorite candidate, this is its second favorite candidate, this is its third favorite candidate, etc.

PBV has the advantage of being majoritarian (i.e., no more spoiler effect): no candidate is ever elected, unless he is supported by more than half of the citizenry. Second, PBV reduces negative campaigning: candidates have an incentive to get themselves ranked as highly as possible on every voter's ballot, not just the ballots of a small group of citizens. Third, PBV reduces strategic voting: it is no longer necessary to sit around and wait to see how others are voting to see how you should vote or to see if you should edit your earlier post in the election thread; instead, each and every person is free to vote for his genuine preferences whenever he wants without having to worry that his vote might be "wasted" or that it indirectly might "help" candidates whom he disfavors.

In short, PBV would provide TRR with a unified set of four officers, each of whom, in his own right, has majority support. Electoral outcomes genuinely would reflect the region's views, minus the political "horse trading" that occasionally leads to the election of widely unpopular or largely inactive candidates. Furthermore, motivated newcomers to the region could find their way into the government more easily by appealing to citizens to give them their second or third "votes." In other words, the adoption of PBV would make TRR more democratic. Whether or not the citizens' Assembly will adopt the system, though, remains to be seen.


Change “is a coming” to Osiris
COMMENTARY | KINZVLLE

Cormac Somerset, notable Osiran, has recently been elected the new Pharaoh of Osiris, with many thanks to a platform that promised change and a push forward towards progress for the great sinker.

Within his platform, Cormac argued that Osiris ought to ensure more of a direct and streamlined orientation and integration process, while also focusing on cultural activities as a strong priority. In regards to media, the delegate argued that Osiris needed to provide an alternative voice in the media sphere for imperialism. On Foreign Affairs, he spoke of building on Osiris’s already strong, mature diplomatic foundation, in addition to appointing a committee to serve as policy advisers and fully integrating Osiris’s military into the ISRA command structure. Cormac also argued that a reorganization of the Hedjet (cabinet) was sorely needed. Of course, promising change may have put him over the edge in the polls, failing to realize that change (at least far as voters are concerned) could have equally sharp consequences for his tenure.

Thankfully for Cormac, he is delivering thus far.

One of the first changes that Cormac has “made good on” has been the reorganization of his cabinet, in addition to the whole bureaucratic system. Apart from a more streamlined application process, the brunt of the changes, however, were made with a shuffle of several priesthoods. Ma`at, which oversaw Osiris’s World Assembly Affairs, has been absorbed into Horus which oversees foreign relations. Ptah, which was once the Ministry of Culture, has been absorbed into Isis, otherwise known as Integration.

Apis, a new priesthood, has been created to oversee Osiran media, which was formerly covered under Ptah. The merger of Culture and Integration may reflect the importance of these areas, in regards to Cormac’s priorities for this term. Meanwhile, the creation of Apis suggests that Cormac is laying the groundwork for his idea for a “pro-imperialist” media outlet. The pairing of World Assembly Affairs and Foreign Affairs, although a bit unusual, corresponds with Osiris’s recent public announcement which promoted sovereigntism as a holistic, far-reaching ideology.

Cormac’s new cabinet consists of both old faces and some new. Treize Dreizehn for Vizier, James for Regional Affairs, Treize Dreizehn for Foreign Affairs, Zaolat for Media, Severisen, former pharaoh, for Security, and Zeorus for Justice.

Delivering on another campaign promise, within the Priesthood of Horus, Cormac has established “The Foreign Policy Advisory Council (FPAC)”. This committee serves as the Pharaoh’s Board of Advisers on state matters. This committee is comprised of seven ex officio members and three additional members invited by the Pharaoh. However, over only the past few weeks, the committee has already shifted more than a game of musical chairs – some new appointments were invited into the fold, North East Somerset and Rachel Somerset were removed for unknown reasons and other members have switched places. At the time of this writing, the ex officio members of the committee are Cormac Somerset, Treize Dreizehn, Severisen, Vaculatestar, and Venico BrightAxe. The committee also includes invited members, Aincora, Bran Truine, Common Sense Politics, and Joshua Bluteisen.

Nonetheless, in a season of change follows a storm of controversy. In particular, Cormac’s stance on griefing led to some fierce disagreement from the public. A veto of the “Colonies and Territories Act” sparked controversy when Cormac said that he would not allow Osiris to lead any griefing operation. Of course, this only applies for leadership of a mission, not support missions. Griefing, a widely despised practice outside of invader and imperialist circles, hurts Osiris’s image abroad and isolates them from having stronger diplomatic relations with non-invader circles, argues Cormac. Venico, former delegate, most notably voiced his opposition to restricting Osiris from griefing regions, arguing it was necessary for the military’s activity – a claim which Cormac disputes.

Overall, it can be said that running and winning on a platform of change soared Cormac through the polls. Indeed, it seems as though his promises of change are in the process of being implemented without much of a hitch, although not without their share of controversy.


Rumours of an “Imminent” Retirement for Krulltopia
COMMENTARY | UNIBOT


"Hey, look, pal, I don't want to buy a suit!"
"[Laughs] No, this is for your coffin".
"My coffin?!"

Emperor Krulltopia recently celebrated his fifth anniversary as Emperor, but already rumors are spreading that the Bunny Tyrant may be retiring shortly.

The rumors started last week in #the_north_pacific among other social channels, claiming that the Emperor intended to resign his position as delegate after August 28th, the eleventh anniversary of Francos Spain’s rise to power in The Pacific.

Krulltopia has seen The Pacific through a difficult time for the region – inheriting leadership over the region following an unsuccessful civil war and a decline in Francoism as an ideology. Over the past couple of years, Krulltopia has spearheaded the transition of The Pacific from a Francoist state to a Post-Francoist state – facing internal challenges from Former Senator Gaspo, among others, who advocated for a special brand of imperial independentism that rose to prominence in the ideological vacuum, amidst the launch of the Sovereign Confederation.

Feux, NPO Senator, told The Rejected Times that “the rumors are just rumors”. Noting that he and fellow senator, Elegarth had laughed when they first heard the rumors.

“Non-Pacificians are the first to claim they know everything about us,” says Feux.

In all actuality, Krulltopia is often tight-lipped about such details and it is unlikely any rumors could emerge from a credible source. Over the years, his inward style of leadership and deliberate absence in the international sphere has been mistaken for inactivity, so much so even that it is very likely that Krulltopia could continue as delegate for many more anniversaries to come.


Is a “Rachtatorship” Good for Balder?
EDITORIAL | UNIBOT

The title says it all, Unibot investigates the question of the hour...

In an unexpected announcement, Queen Rachel dismissed the Statsminister and assumed control of the Riksraadet. The move was justified by the monarch on the basis of improving Balder’s activity in a time of crisis for the sinker which has been plagued with inactivity for the past several months. Affectionately, one Balderan called the new administration, the “Rachtatorship”.

It is impossible to know for sure whether this move will actually improve Balder’s activity – critics of the move in Balder have argued that it will not, while supporters are adamant that it will greatly bolster the region’s activity. I would, however, like to first look at the basic features of a region that promotes activity in any general region, then apply that model to Balder’s case and see whether this most recent initiative in Balder passes muster or struggles to impress.


Conceptualising Activity


What is activity? It’s participation. So to figure out what generates activity, we have to figure out what generates participation. First, I have to disagree with other academics – the source of activity isn’t “drama” or “chaos”, or even satisfaction with a region. It’s very possible to hypothesize the “Happy Inactopia” – a region where citizens are satisfied with their region and their government, despite its gross inactivity. In fact, in many inactive regions, satisfaction with the status quo is quite high because satisfaction is not an indicator of activity. Nay, satisfaction is undermined by our natural cognitive bias to embrace the status quo, lack of exposure to alternatives, loss aversion and our social and political inertia. Sometimes maintaining the status quo is just “easier” and more convenient – with those sentiments comes with it complacency and even genuine contentment.

Meanwhile, activity is most certainly not “chaos”. Although “drama” (i.e., social conflict) is often a result/consequence of activity, “chaos” is more or less a political synonym for enforced activity or an engineered crisis. Certainly, events can and have motivated players to maintain their activity for a brief period of time in response to an immediate threat of deprivation or oppression, but maintaining that kind of long-term participation from players requires more than a threat, but a whole system that inspires, promotes and encourages their participation.

Activity = Satisfaction
Activity = Chaos

We can also rule out the notion that activity is a product of a specific political structure – saying that authoritarian states are more inactive than democratic states is simply poor research. While the New Pacific Order might be considered inactive now, it was one of the leading and most active governments at one time. Meanwhile, some democracies like Pre-Revolutionary Lazarus or Balder have been plagued with almost endemic inactivity, which makes it no different from The West Pacific’s gerontocracy.

Nay, sustainable activity begins first and foremost with proactive leadership that gets people involved. Most regions struggle to maintain their activity if their leadership is inactive and it is the pro-active approach among leaders which leads to any semblance of a resurgence of activity for a region.

But activity is more complex than just to say you need people to inspire others to get active – there are many structural features of a region which can encourage or discourage participation. The most active regions, I have found, are like “living projects” which are constantly evolving – I like to call this kind of openness to change, “Lability”. When a region is labile, it has low political inertia – it’s constantly trying to progress and pursue perfection. One of the greatest obstacles is the mantra, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Successful regions pursue a “if you can make it better, make it better” mantra, which propels their discussion forward and keeps people interested in contributing to the region and shaping their region to be more relevant to them and their generation. Without lability, a region feels like it is in an “end state” for its users, which begs to question why anyone would see their participation as anything but redundant in that system.

Let’s not put the cart before the horse however, all of this is greatly restrained if a region simply does not have the recruits! You can have the most pro-active leader and the most labile region in NationStates, but if you do not have the recruits and the fresh blood, there is nobody to participate in any potential activity campaign. This is why the problem of chronic inactivity is a spiraling, downward phenomenon – recovering from inactivity is not simply a matter of becoming active, it is a matter of closing an “activity gap” or breaking the glass ceiling. You need activity to become active – understand the paradox? This problem is partly a physical limitation, you need people to participate, but also a dynamic social phenomenon, people participate when they see others participating (out of presumably some deep-sated informational cascade). Beating an informational cascade requires a lot of laborious recruitment, some shrewdness and a lot of luck.

However, even if you have all of these things, new recruits coming in the door, an active leader and a serious axe to grind for the status quo, you have still got to be concerned with how your region is organized. Traditionally, there are two schools of thought on this issue: The Cosmopolitan is a meritocrat that values the merit and contributions of residents, while The Regionalist is a communitarian that values demonstrations of loyalty from residents. To some extent, both have the right idea.

If a region is not meritocratic enough, individuals will not feel as though they can succeed or rise to success in a region which may lead to talented individuals leaving said region out of frustration. The selection of individuals based on negative features (i.e., an autocrat might deliberately surround himself with incompetents to avoid a coup), popularity or loyalty alone, is bound to discourage talented residents who may not excel within those selection processes. The departure of this talent slows down the growth of participation in a region, thus emphasising the importance of meritocracy. Similarly, social cohesion is vital to the growth of participation in a region – if individuals feel they are a part of something greater than them which poses a solid identity and strong cultural dimension, it encourages them to contribute and cooperate with their fellow region-mates. Likewise, it is the perception that one region is different than other regions which attracts people to participate in the former, presumably unique region over others, thus the contributing cultural factors that predicate social cohesion are also quintessential to building a strong, positive pattern of activity in a region.



We could articulate this general conceptualisation of activity as the formula above and it will serve as a tool for us as we proceed to analyze Balder’s approach to reviving their region’s activity.



The Rachtatorship: The Pros and Cons


The Good

By taking direct control of the cabinet, Rachel is asserting herself to take on a more pro-active approach in rebuilding the region’s cultural and social infrastructure. The long, arduous process to revive participation in your region begins with a force for change that can inspire others to get more involved. It must be said that dismissing a leader that had continued to be inactive in their position and overseeing the recovery for one's self is a classic stable of pro-active politics.

While there may be issues with how this initiative has been handled (which will discuss in a moment), letting an authority figure simply neglect their duties is not an option for any region which wants to pursue a more active course for their region.

The Bad

One of the main problems with this political maneuver is, however, that although letting the Statsminister continue in their position was not an option, there were other options than assuming direct control of the executive for one’s self (e.g., placing someone else in control or justifying an open dialogue about constitutional changes with the Statsminister’s inactivity). This bridging of the Monarchy and the Cabinet is a sign of an even less meritocratic Balder. In a region which already reeks of a horizontal hierarchy, where players rise to prominence based on the relationships they maintain with those higher in the rungs of power – a closing of the gap between the (already enormously influential) monarchy and the executives, provides a signal to residents of an even greater preponderance of cronyism.

"Toe the party line, keep in the good books of the top dogs and shut up” might be a fairly straightforward procedure, but overall it is a crony selection process that undermines the region’s meritocracy and discourages bright, more forthright talent from sticking around, when there are dozens of other regions similar to Balder where players can succeed on their own merits without the glass ceiling that this initiative lowers.

The Ugly

The real shame of this whole crisis is that Rachel has the opportunity to nurture a much stronger Balder, but her response thus far, to dismiss the executive, leaves her with only two clear directions.

First, she could use her newfound status in the region to encourage her loyal cabal to spam more regularly, while she benefits politically from this power-grab and consolidates her political and social influence over the region. Rachel benefits enormously from this strategy – using the inflated forum post counts as a public vindication of all of her “hard work” and leadership. But make no mistake, the region does not benefit from this kind of scenario – constrained by an influential elite, little open and genuine political and constitutional reform would be pursued when such activity could upset the balance of power. That is a recipe for prolonged inactivity – procrastinating in the areas of change, renewal and reassessment for another political season, until the consequences become all the more volatile for Balder.

Alternatively, Rachel could use her place in the executive to oversee and accomplish a bold reconstruction and rebirth of Balder. However, that kind of change requires a serious compromise from the Monarchy in term of their influence over Balder, but it also requires an open mind about the current political, cultural and constitutional arrangements and how they could be changed to ensure the region recruits more and finds new faces to participate and contribute (without elites worrying about the blowback from immigration on their own influence), values and rewards contributing members and develops a stronger identity and cultural dimension. Yelling “Fram Balder!” does not ‘cut it’ – you want players to truly identify with the region.

Ultimately, it is Rachel’s decision whether to take the easy road and put Balder’s systemic issues on the backburner, or take the high road and threaten her own position in the region to give it a brighter future. As fate will have it, the contentment that people have for the status quo, as I discussed earlier, often delays this decision, but every so often a popular political dynasty in the Game-Created Regions faces that difficult choice of whether to roll the die and continue the victory lap or open the region to new possibilities. This decision, the final act… the day we dread to live, makes kings out of folk heroes and stories, good and bad, out of kings.

This week, Joe Bobs speaks with Warzone Africa's District XIV and Wysteria's The Bruce.


Class of 2002 #3: The Bruce
FEATURE | JOE BOBS

For the third installment of this series, The Rejected Times sat down with The Bruce. The Bruce is certainly one of the longest serving members of the NationStates community, having begun playing shortly after the game launched in 2002. He is the founder of Wysteria, one of a handful of user-created regions to have lasted almost twelve years. In founding the Triumvirate between The Heartland, Texas and Wysteria, he was one of the pioneers of Defending, before the concepts of invading and defending had even been established. His History of NationStates is widely considered as one of the most authoritative accounts of the story of our game.

JB: Who was your biggest influence in the early days?

TB: In the early days there really wasn’t anyone to influence you, because everyone was just doing their own thing and most of those things hadn’t been done yet. Equus and I had our hands on the tiller to guide our regional community the most, so she had a lot to do with the success of our region. Even then, it wasn’t so much influencing each other as it was dividing up duties, hashing things out, and getting things done.

JB: How did you find the process of region building back then? As there are of course many tried and tested methods today, was it more difficult back then?

TB: I think that because of how wide open everything was, it was both easier and harder to build a region back then. With so many regions now buying recruitment stamps or using 3rd party recruiting scripts, you now longer have to plod your way through the feeders and sinkers, sending individual recruiting telegrams. The downside to this means new nations are drowning in recruitment telegrams at the click of a button, so less work is put into it, which can translate into less caring about the nations that come to your region. It was not at all difficult to recruit in the first four years of the game and you could afford to be choosy. As long as you treated region building as community building it wasn’t a difficult process at all. Recruiting is only a small part of the process of region building, because even more than a reason to come to your region, they have to have a reason to stay and be active.

JB: What changes to the game do you believe have had the most impact?

TB: There have been a lot of big changes to the game that have had a lot of impact. Restrictions on submitting UN proposals were both a blessing and a curse. There were only a few other delegates with the patience to slog through 120 pages of UN proposals, so a lot of delegates didn’t bother and a lot of business didn’t get done. The restrictions (2 endorsements required) disenfranchised a lot of UN member states, but helped decrease the tendency of dead beat delegates.

Regional Powers and Founders had a huge change on the system. There were unfortunate instances of invaders claiming founder status in conquered regions to make them permanent prize regions, but otherwise these changes made regions with active founders less of a slave to the whims of invaders, spammers, and griefers.
The introduction of moderators stemmed from the same reason regional powers and founders were created: players being extremely crappy to one another. While there were numerous instances of baiting that occurred, to get other nations mod bombed after antagonizing them, on the whole moderators helped make NationStates less of a 4Chan experience.

The Griefer Rules regarding invading (with percentages of bad things invaders were allowed to do before they crossed punishable boundaries) was a bucket of cold water on invading. Invading and defending declined, moderators got migraines intervening over every little invasion, and everyone else got to enjoy a bit more peace and quiet. Reversing that in 2006, to a more hands off “gameplay” system caused an immediate rise in invading, without the same resurgence of defenders to balance it, because so many prominent defenders had retired or become less active.

JB: This is interesting, do you think the general tone or attitude of players in NationStates has changed a lot over the years?

TB: Thing biggest change in attitude is that there is an expectation of some measure of fair play, in terms of being treated poorly by your fellow player. A large part of that was the introduction of Moderators, but a lot of that also has to do with the emergence of good role-models and people feeling that their regional communities are worth defending.

JB: What changes to the game would you most like to see put into action?

TB: I like a lot of the changes to the game that have been introduced. The only one that hasn’t been beneficial to everyone were the more hands off “gameplay” rules that clearly favour invaders. The powers that be have made it perfectly clear that they have no wish to go back to the mod work intensive Griefer Rules and any changes need to be carefully thought out, because invaders will find a way to pervert their intent. Likely, a wider window of opportunity for updaters to affect quick changes in delegate would help.

JB: What has been the most unexpected event you have witnessed?

TB: When players I didn’t know in real life began moving to Wysteria in 2002. To begin with, the nations in our region were all played by people I knew offline; so when strangers started showing up out of the blue it was a bit of a shock. You have to understand that things were all very new back then.  It completely changed how I viewed our regional community. It went from a region for friends to have nations in to a region for nations to come and become friends in.

JB: What has given you the most satisfaction?

TB: I’d have to say that helping to build a regional community that has led to long term, friendships outside of the game.

JB: Would you say that the community aspect is the most important part of NationStates?


TB: Nothing else has the same draw in the game as feeling that you’re part of a community. A well planned and successful liberation of a region is less rewarding, without fellow players to share in the moment.

JB: Wysteria has a very strong community, what do you think makes a region a real community, rather than just a group of players?

TB: Regions live and die by the activity and dedication of their core players. What makes a strong regional community is that players identify strongly with the region, support their fellow players, feel protective of it when it is threatened, and want to participate in regional activities.

JB: What was your biggest disappointment?

TB: The Server 1 Invisionfree crash of 2006. It affected the oldest regions in NationStates, as it was one of the most popular offsite forum options when players needed an option to the clunky, early NS forums that were too slow to use. We were having a really good level of roleplaying activity on our offsite forum and then in a flash we lost six months’ worth of posts.  That stopped everything in its tracks and the focus went from role-playing to thread recovery (Google caches, Wayback Machine, etc.).

JB: I remember this too, there was a lot of outrage across the game. How long did it take Wysteria to recover?

TB: The first couple of weeks were spent wading through the panic and sometimes conflicting statements by Invisionfree, while they sorted the mess out. We were by no means the only victims of the server crash. A lot of the older regions used it and some of the non-NationStates forums they supported were online memorials to people no longer among the living. Once we knew that Server 1 information wasn’t going to be restored, there was another two months of people using various means to recover lost threads and repost them. It probably took another six months or more to recover the lost level of role-playing activity and having their major threads derailed cost us at least one of our most active role-players at the time.

JB: What is your opinion on the current state of affairs? How does it compare?

TB: For a lot of players it’s a contentious question. The best of both worlds would be the sophistication of the current game system and the overwhelming enthusiasm in the early years of NationStates. The invader-defender rules are in serious need of an overhaul to put some balance back into the nightly struggle. Probably the biggest problem right now is when you have players that have been around a long time taking the piss out of new players for the crime of wanting to try to do something on their own, but making the mistake of posting their ideas on the NS Forum. Veteran players need to be more supportive of new players and not pounce on anyone for having an idea. The future of the game will always be tied to the enthusiasm and creativity of new players.

JB: What advice would you give to others who want to last as long?

TB: You need to explore the facets of this game that interest you and work at it. If you’re not creative, don’t engage other players, don’t want to be part of something bigger than your nation, and just hammer away at your daily issues you’re probably not going to be around for a long time (unless you’re competing in the world census standings). You have to make time for NationStates, to get the most out of it, and remember that for every nation there’s someone on the other side of the keyboard doing their own thing. Even for players who are active, the biggest challenge is not to get jaded or in a rut. A lot of people whine about there not being enough activity, but when it comes right down to it, the best way to generate activity is to be active. It starts with you.

JB: Truer words have never been spoken!

In the recent Great Influence Survey, Wysteria was voted as the 10th most influential region of all time. What do you think the key is to Wysteria's staying power?

TB: The development planning of our region always used long term thinking. Recruitment in the early years was done in waves, sometimes six months apart, to allow generations of players to grow within the region before the next recruiting drive. While a lot of regions wanted to get as big as they could as fast as they could, to be the next boom-bust region, Wysteria has always been concerned about sustainable numbers and not getting so big that we lost our character.

Wysteria has also been very fortunate over the years. We’ve had a strong core of players grow with the region, who have been willing to invest their time and imaginations to making it a better place than when they arrived. Without the arrival of active players over the years that really wanted to do something with their NationStates’ experience, we wouldn’t be the region we are today. When new players arrive in the region with their energy, if they are supported, that energy becomes infectious. Even when I've had less time to participate in my own region, due to the demands of offline life, I've always done my best to ensure that the region was secure to ensure it was a safe place for its active, core players.

JB: Who do you believe has made the biggest contribution to NationStates?

TB: No Max, no NationStates. So logically, Max has made the biggest contribution. After that it’s a few hundred players pulling at the same ball of yarn over the years. Outside of the sham popularity contests, each high profile player exists differently in the minds of every other player. Despite what players in certain cliques might feel, because there are so many different regional and cosmopolitan experiences available in the game, even an exceptional player won’t transcend that boundary for everyone.

JB: One final question. Some of those who have been here since the first days of NationStates have joined the Mod Team. If asked, would you consider joining?

TB: While I’d be honoured if they asked, to be honest I’m really not their guy. Moderators are typically chosen among those who are extremely active on the NationStates Forums, where the lion’s share of their work is. While I tend to check out forums of interest daily on the NS Forums, I don’t have the kind of post count or activity level that gets you considered for the role of moderator. The only time I was a really prolific poster there was when I was laid up with a sports injury for a few weeks.


Rising Stars #3: District XIV
FEATURE | JOE BOBS

Rising Stars looks for the future leaders of NationStates and we want to thank all of those who have recommended people to be featured in this piece, please keep your suggestions coming!

In this issue, we speak to District XIV. A regular feature in the NSGP forum, District XIV is currently Vice President of Warzone Africa, Steward of Courage (equivalent to a military general) of the United Provinces of Hyrule, Deputy Tsar of Hummusland (a region he co-founded), Minister of Foreign Affairs for Sanctuary, and a Citizen of the Global Right Alliance. He is also a former Overseer of Foreign Affairs for the Coalition of Freedom. He began playing back in December 2012 but left the game only to return a few months ago, and has received recognition in particular for his work in Warzone Africa. He is also the author of the proposal Liberate Panem.

JB: What has been the biggest learning curve for you in NationStates?

DXIV: Just plain experience and active participation. Doing things over and over, even when I failed, helped me learn about how to do it better the next time.

JB: Who would you describe as your mentor?

DXIV: The guys back in Panem, who really took me on when I was a total n00b. We learned and experienced together; and both of them, United Soviet Jason Republic and Star United States, were amazing people to be with. They were nice and accepting.

JB: Some of our readers may not know Panem, could you briefly describe it? You recently submitted a proposal to the Security Council for the Liberation of Panem. Could you describe the situation that led to this?

DXIV: Panem was originally a small region, having not more than little over twenty members. I moved there a few months after founding the nation of District XIV, and quickly got involved with the small community that was developing there. My nation, if it wasn't obvious, is based off The Hunger Games series of books, so a region based off the same thing seemed appropriate to me. Over time, my interest in NationStates dipped, so I CTE'd in April of 2013.

Unfortunately, Panem is a founderless region, so it met the same fate most founderless regions meet. It was invaded numerous times by both TBR and other groups; essentially becoming a battlefield. Star United States and United Soviet Jason Republic were the players who I regarded as like "founding fathers" of the Panemian community, but they left the region after I had departed (temporarily) from the game. Then, who I and some others assume to be defender sleepers, entered the region and placed in a password. The region is now locked down and the current residents have not responded nor complied with any requests of mine or SUS's for the password as so we may attempt to refound the region; this eventually leading to my seeking of an SC liberation of Panem.

JB: What has been your biggest challenge so far?

DXIV: Attempting to construct a community in Warzone Africa even with the help of good people like Arekrya. It's hard to build a government and community in a place that was not built for what we did, and the raids don't help. But, hey, we can't really complain 

JB: The Warzones are certainly an interesting and unique aspect of NationStates. How do you think the Warzone community differs from others in the game?

DXIV: The constant threat of invasion, as the Warzones were intended to be, well, 'war zones', not communities. We get used to invasions because they happen so often, and we continue on with our lives when they're over.

JB: Where do you see yourself in a year’s time?

DXIV: Hopefully, by that time, I will have built Panem up from the ground. I want to invest my resources into rebuilding that region once it's refounded; hopefully it works.

JB: You're fairly well traveled in NS and active on the main forum. Any lessons learnt from the communities you've participated in which you will be applying to building Panem?

DXIV: Keep things original, and offer fun but easy-to-participate-in activities for the residents. Nations tend to stay if they can easily become involved in the regional community.

JB: What area of the game would you most like to expand into that you are not currently involved with?

DXIV: Roleplay, most likely. I've hung out in II a lil' bit, but not that much. My RP skills are fine, although I'm willing to expand them and continue actively participating in the roleplay forums. I created an IC organization once (which actually still exists), but It didn't really take off.

JB: As a Gameplayer who is interested in RP, what are your views on the recent Liberate Haven / Ixnay / etc controversy? Should RPers be able to opt out of being raided?

DXIV: Mall was acting independently in the World Assembly, as any player has the right to do. The whole "Mallorea and Riva should resign" was a hilariously immature reaction to situation, for two reasons:

1. We all know "Liberate Haven" wasn't going to pass, much less go to vote.
2. As I stated before, Mall has the full right to act independently as any player, moderator or not, may do.

Although, I do think roleplaying regions should have an easy "opt out of R/D" ability; similar to the "Intergovernmental Organizations" feature Esternial suggested.

JB: What advice would you give to newcomers?

DXIV: Find people who you trust, and stay clear of assholes. Don't do things for those who disregard you and what you want to do. People like those interfere with your progression and experience in this world.

JB: Thank you very much for taking part!

DXIV: My pleasure. Thank you for the interview.

"Back to School" for NS Universities?
FEATURE | KINZVLLE



Are NationStates Universities a "dying breed"? Kinzville considers possible causes of their decline...

Earlier this year I became the dean of Equilism University. When I first arrived in Equilism, I was engulfed in the sheer wonderment of the university. The dean at the time had worked tremendously hard before classes ended and the whole institution grinned to a halt. The same phenomenon repeated itself again when all of the teachers, besides my Assistant Dean, failed to accomplish anything with their courses. Granted, this is partly because I started right before the dreaded "summer hole". However, I reckon this is not the only factor playing a role in the decline in the University,

1. Real life: This is all a game. Real life comes first, surely, in all matters. Sadly when it comes to something like teaching a course, this can take time that many simply do not possess. Between typing documents, researching, editing, and teaching a class is no "lunch break" feat. Make no mistake: I am in no way blaming professors, just merely identifying real life as a key factor.

2. Losing interest: At one time or another, we are all guilty of doing this . In fact, the more you do something the less dopamine intake you get from that activity (brain fact). While losing interest halfway is by no means not a sin, it is a problem for the University. While a student losing interest is normally not a huge issue, a teacher is a whole new can of worms. Especially, if you are using the "class system" which Equilism uses, where any truancy by professors leaves a class stranded with no teacher.

3. Focus on the wrong subjects: Courses on World War II or the culture of Finland are amazing and fascinating, but they should not be the focus of a NS University. The last term the university was active, all of the courses were Non NS based (with the exception of Role Playing 101). We have to remember this is NationStates, the school ought to train new (and veteran) members in the fields of fancy and interest in regards to the actual gameplay sphere.

4. Necessity: As dean, I did attempt to get classes restarted but there was one snag... they weren't seen as necessary, and really are they? Most military training is done internally for good reason, same with Foreign Affairs and Diplomacy. With countless guides available on a range of subjects, I had to wonder if these classes really were needed...

We at the Equilism University are considering new arrangements, while those at the Europeia University are already transitioning from ongoing classes to pre-made courses with detailed guides. With this method, all the materials and information are provided, but can be worked on at a student's own pace and, since it is all to be presented as a finished project rather than post-by-post, a teacher's departure does not affect the overall system as much.

Of course, as with every system, there are flaws. First, it takes quite a long time to, not only get a class prepared and refined, but for an entire class to be completed. With this preparation time, I have to wonder whether this process is any slower or faster than that of open classes? It varies but the benefits outweigh this, I believe. The biggest issue with guide-led classes, however, is that just reading a guide isn't always what is needed to learn! Hands-on, practical learning can be extremely critical. The East Pacific may have found a compromise, however, between Europeia and Equilism's education systems: a system based on guides, in addition to a number of Q&A sessions, and supervised practices.

Regardless, there is still one more factor that help determines a university's survival. Are they relevant? As I stated earlier: with the way most subjects are taught there may not seem a pressing need for more training for these areas. Without that need what purpose does a university fill? This answer varies from region to region, topic to topic. Some fields like speech and debate fair better in a classroom than say immigration. Some regions would rather outsource training of ambassadors and such to public-run universities, while others still would view that as unsafe and prefer to keep it in house.

Rounding back to the topic, are NS Universities a dying breed? Regardless of the ideal system, the pulse rate of an academic institution is tied to its relevance. Not just in terms of actual relevance, but also in term of the public's perception of their relevance. If players see a value in keeping these institutions afloat, investing their time in there and maybe even attending classes, then mark my words: there will life. Sadly most universities nowadays have not found that enthusiasm and their "pulse lines" slowly but surely flat-line. As with past universities, many do hold great potential, but they may never live to realize it. There are some regions where universities may still grow and prosper, but for the most part, "the university" as a institution has outlived its relevance.