Tyler Kazakov
TNPer
Now that was a good Raid Xd.
Embassy of The United Defenders League
- Thread starter Cakatoa
- Start date
Now that was a good Raid Xd.
unibot
TNPer
A Letter from the Capitalis de Societate of The United Defenders League,
It’s been a quieter week as merrymen take time off to continue their vacations and summer activities – speaking of which I’ve returned from my vacation that was mentioned last update. Another special Kodiak moment from that trip:
Unibot standing beside some random dude in sunglasses in Sherwood, PEI.
Nonetheless, the Greenwood Band has been active this past week or so, striking liberations in Confederation of Democratic Socialists against Greater German Reich, Bevanawayanastan against United Sector of Aardvarks, Dragonarius against The Empire of Friendship and a recent liberation in East America. There were also defences in Great White Brotherhood against Pwnzoria as well as Ether, Roma Union and Ponsatomy against Libertatem. I know the group also helped out the North Pacific Army in Goauld System Lords and helped the Founderless Regions Alliance restore Fidelia.
In addition to that, our new guys have gotten some experience in some practice liberations in Warzone Asia and Warzone Sandbox.
So yes, a quiet week, or as the lieutenants put it: Hey Ravania, is everything under control?
Well, apparently it is under control! The United Defenders League is also happy to welcome Biyah, a legend in the field of intelligence, back to the Greenwood Band. In addition to roleplay stars, Crystal Spires and The Fanboyists; also Ajzland, Conclespia, Max empire, Apox, Atomosea, James Weismantle, Summermusic222, Fashiontopia and Kamany. So far in our recruitment challenge, I’ve been cleaning up, gaining my third recruitment star and two more away from the prestigious “sir” title – I can already taste the pageantry.
As for administrative news, I must promote the “Defender Tree” project, which seeks to map out which defender trained which defender – leading some ‘original’, ancient defenders to lead their own households (i.e., I am a fourth generation defender from the House of Ostendt). The project’s idea came about when I followed my own lineage through Whamabama, former head of the dissolved E-Army, to Westwind, former ADN Deputy-Director and Equilism co-founder and finally to Ostendt, Founder of the ArméeBelge/BelgischLeger (ABBL) and the E-Army. I had some great chats with all of them about the past and felt a bit more connected with the history of defending, which raised some interest among other defenders to do the same. Kogvuron is running the project, so contact him if you’re interested in participating.
We’ve already gotten some very interesting posts about defending history from Free4All, a legendary retired defender, Nastic, former TNP delegate who called in TNP to help defend The Heartland during its historic invasion and Mendanau, co-founder of the ADN.
In addition to the Defender Tree Project; The United Defenders League is also sponsoring NS Weather – a program coded by Solm and designed by me. NS Weather predicts weather for cities in NationStates and generates these reports in a static and stable image link that can be hosted on any forum for roleplay purposes etc. I hope you enjoy it!
Also, there’s a funny thread where merrymen have decided on pictures to personify different members of the group; like, Solm being depicted as a cute Golden Retriever or Mahaj, smiling mahajmellows etc.
If you’re wondering, Movie Night will occur Sunday, August 19th 2012 at 8:00 PM EDT – we’ll be watching “Dr. Strangelove” and all are invited to join us at #udl to do so.
Some final stuff to cover: (i) you might have watched the Olympics intently, but you probably didn’t follow the recent NationStates Summer Olympics as much – The UDL is very proud of all of the merrymen and merrywomen who performed admirably, some of whom (I count twelve), even were gold medalists! Congratulations; (ii) we’re happily observing the drafting of “Commend Yohannes” and “Commend Topid” – Yohannes is being proposed for commendation for her great service to the roleplayer community and Topid, the Security Council community, but we know them as both super nice defenders, (iii) a shout goes out to Haven, whose community is bouncing back from a major invasion a year ago – Haven is historically regarded as one of the greatest NationStates roleplayer regions of all time.
Yes, I know you’ve been waiting for it, here’s your Moments of Zen:
unibot
TNPer
A Letter from the Capitalis De Societate of The United Defenders League,
Whoo Labor Day!
In other news, this week (September First, to be exact) marks the date on which The United Defenders League went public for the first time, last year. We were private and only running limited operations up until then.
Hey, if it’s Labor Day? Why am I still laboring… ah frigg it, keep spotting! Our thoughts exactly as defenders watched update today, waiting to pounce on an invasion -- and pounce we did! Scoring a successful defense against The Cat Burglars in Targa (shout goes out to Frattastan for helping!). Dunno about our tongues, but they certainly had our attention. There was some controversy internally about one of our members not contacted us about participating in The Cat Burglars, raising concerns regarding member-ship overlap between the Greenwood Band and it’s a-mewsss-ing raider acquaintances. Rest assured, The United Defenders League will have a Chiefs of Staff meeting soon to discuss the organization’s options and figure out how to, hrrmm, declaw the issue.
Speaking of Labor Day, shame on you Libertatem! Karl Marx would be very disappointed!! I speak, of course, of the recent raid by said group against the region, Marxism. Fortunately, a liberation by the gang with some help from Frattastan and our friends in the North Pacific Army and the Medjai Guard, freed the region. We’ve issued this military ribbon to all the participants of the liberation:
We’ve also done liberations this week in Borg Collective against... by gawd, Dear Star (CROSSOVER!!), in addition to liberations in IRON AND BLOOD, Aaiam, Groom Lake, The Aison Collaboration, Roma Union and Ether. We also defended Ohio from the Black Riders with the help of TITO.
Furthermore, a shout goes out to Tinis, the delegate of Furry Federation, who received the Order of Danmarkland “for his swift protection of Furry Federation. Natives like Tinis are the reason that defenders keep their head held high”. It makes it much easier to defend a region when a native delegate does the work for us!
Heh, if you’re lucky, you may see Boogercrunch, our Chief of Feeder Affairs, wandering around some of the hallowed halls of the feeders and sinkers this next week or so, since we’ve got some plans for some diplomatic treaties. I’m sure we’ll have a follow-up to this later when a flood of green tights are chased out of the GCR world by pitchfork and torchlight.
<@Earth> Cormac officially joined UDL?
* +Cormac glances out window, sees pigs fluttering off into the sunset.
<+Cormac> Yes I did.
@Unibot> I think our pigs flying through windows moment came when Biyah and Dali joined. xD
<@Earth> Pigs are always flying around in the UDL
<+Biyah> atually, where do you think the bacon I presented from UDL came from?
<@Unibot> Biyah was just following dem flying bacon strips.
<@Unibot> hhhhhhhmmmmmm bacon.
* @Earth snickers
<@Unibot> Dahmmit, now I feel like a baconator.
<+Cormac> Yeah you guys can stop talking about food anytime now, making me hungry.
<@Earth> ewww, Uni. :p
* +Biyah puts Uni in a closet to smoke for a while
<+Biyah> Canadian bacon!
<@Unibot> Peameal
Ah, the sweet sound of hazing! Our organization says hello to its new members, Farfadillis, The Lower Realm, Vakolic, Castille de Italia, McKnightia, Virana and Cormac Stark, the latter of which is fresh off his retirement from raiding and already making a lot of new friends in the Greenwood Band. Our recruitment challenge is going strong with me only six recruits away from earning my fifth golden star and the ceremonial knighthood and pomp thereof; ABK, our Chief of Orientation, was recently recruiting to try to challenge me.
For these valiant efforts, ABK walked away with the Recruiter Award at the UDL’s Monthly Awards, which were announced recently. Congratulations to all the recipients!
Alright, so I’ve saved the last part of our update for the most important part. As many of you are likely aware: just past this week, the forums of Grand Central, Ravenstadt and Markarth were destroyed. An informative public thread on the subject is available here. As an organization, we do not associate with, nor condone forum destruction since it is a senseless obliteration of communities’ homes, cultures and history. One member of The Ascendancy, Gerzam was implicated with the forum destruction of Ravenstadt and thus, The United Defenders League has suspended its embassy with The Ascendancy due to a lack of “real initiative taken by the administration of The Ascendancy to get to the bottom of this horrible tragedy. That is, de facto, the behavior of a forum destruction haven regardless of whether Gerzam actually conducted the forum destruction or not”. There is an ongoing drafting effort by Cormac Stark, one of our merrymen, in the World Assembly Security Council to condemn The Ascendancy for its history as a forum destruction haven.
We stand in solidarity to grieve these unfortunate tragedies.
Finally, our Movie Night will take place on Sunday, September 9th at 9:00 EDT at #udl (on Espernet). No idea what we’ll be watching yet but I'm sure it will be enjoyable.
And of course, your Moment of Zens:
And this.. just … yeah.
unibot
TNPer
A Letter from the Capitalis de Societate of the United Defenders League,
Ah, the sweet smell of education is in the air as students return to their studies for the year, newer defenders and raiders are introduced to training guides for the first time and, erm, older ones … well…
Alas not everything can be so jovial and playful. We look somberly upon Strangereal and the events taking place there as the Land of Kings and Emperors and their allies have taken over the region and “piled” endorsements onto their respective invader delegate.
Wait… *refreshes the page* … this just in:
Arkinesia, long-time UDL Merryman, has restored his founder account in Strangereal and eliminated the threat to Strangereal! What a refreshing turn of events for the native community of Strangereal, the “UDL-LKE” war effort and the public’s confidence in the ability of imperialists to, well, imperialize.
Also, what an interesting choice of World Factbook Entry, Arkinesia (“Nice try, raiders. You shouldn't have $#%@ed with a region founded by a UDL member.”).
This comes on the heels of many other military successes for the Greenwood Band, striking defenses of Crimson Tide, Carpeinia, Continent of Pwned and The Sexiest Empire last night against the Black Riders and we held them to only one victory the night before (funny, I didn’t see them bragging about that one). During last week, we completed a boatload of detags and restoration missions, safely refounded Mariner Trench for the natives, liberated Defender Flag, helped the natives of Carta “password-protect” their region and defended Atheist Empire, The Skaian Initiative, The Islamic Republic of Iran and The Middle East against larger scale attacks.
Overall however, it’s been a very constructive week for the military.
Yes indeed, my second-in-command, Solm –is- awesome of biblical proportions. But if you need more proof on the matter, look no further than his coding work on the Gameplay Alignment Test.
Another project that the dynamic duo cooked up over the week, Gameplay Alignment Test identifies gameplayers’ ideological stance on the basis of two axes: one axis for military alignment and another for political alignment. You are absolutely welcome to take the test and I encourage you to tell your friends about it too. Some surprise results: EuroSoviets and Free4All sharing almost the exact same results (and taking the tests.. like a few seconds apart too, just to make it eerie), Balder’s Delegate and Vice Delegate sharing the same incredibly neutral result, Durkadurkiranistan and Tramiar butting heads for the most “raider” celebrity respondent and Assorro, Founder of Absolution (one of the most neutral and isolationist large UCRs probably –ever-), scoring a fairly defender-ish result.
Moving on! For our long-term followers, I’m sure they can remember back to our Special Holiday Update, right? Remember? It “warm[ed] the cockles of my promotional heart” to see Riemstagrad, one of our Senior Merrymen, promote the UDL using specific nation’s mottos? Well, I guess it tickled the cockles of some game moderators the wrong way and we got this gem instead:
Fortunately, this decision was reversed , so the World page is back to normal! But nonetheless, I thought the moderation take on the mottos was funny, so I decided to share it with you.
In other news, Sovreignry has been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant. Sovreignry was one of our first Senior Merrymen and has been tirelessly defending with us since March, in addition to being a very helpful defender for newer defenders and an incredibly responsible and devoted individual. As I said in our private headquarters, I had no reservations when I promoted Sovreignry and I see him as having the values of a great leader, and I also see him as being one of the main contributors to our successes during our night-owl missions.
Nope, I don’t think Boriem is “bad” either, in fact, he seems like a rather nice and dedicated new recruit. Some other recruits that have joined us and have been strutting their stuff on the battlefield include, Cordessia, Estruia, Sri Tschow, Vitzenburg, Fanaglia, Thousandsuns, Aldares, Anitgrum, Segland and Mercacano! I know I saw several of these new recruits, kicking butt the past few days during our military victories, so I hope it’s a start of something good for them. The United Defenders League also received a rather big shock this past week when St. George, our former Lieutenant, returned to the Greenwood Band with his quiver shouldered. Welcome back Georgie! This flood of new recruits also means … well…someone got the title of “sir” for their dedication to recruitment.
What else is there on the agenda? Erm, oh and Movie Night got postponed because the Greenwood’s fearless leader was moving into University and his computer didn’t work and blah blah blah (sorry Blaat!). Also, I see, "Condemn The Ascendancy" (which I told you about last time) was put on hiatus by Cormac, in advance of significant redrafting. I’ll keep you updated on any future happenings on that issue. Lastly, a shout out goes to Astrolinium, one of our Senior Merryman, who’s new roleplay, Mery Men in Scherewode, has an admirable theme and I believe it is open for all to join.
*out of breath* Okay, I think that just about covers it. Here’s your Moment of Zen:
Question for the Embassy: Are there any celebrities you’d like to see on the “celebrity” Gameplay compass that aren’t there already?
- Pronouns
- he/him/his
- TNP Nation
- Zemnaya Svoboda
- Discord
- Eluvatar#8517
Hi!
unibot
TNPer
Also: See Embassy Contest Below!
A Letter from the Capitalis de Societate of The United Defenders League,
Include Mahaj in an Embassy Update, CHECK!
Okay, erm…moving on. It’s been a busy couple of weeks for The United Defenders League. The first major curveball of the week came with Ballotonia adding “variance” to the server which makes it more difficult to attain “accuracy” and “precision” in Military Gameplay. This has definitely added a lot of stress on our staff, especially our excellent technicians, in the past week to try new techniques and advance our military technology. Invaders often have dozens of “tag-raids” a night so they can afford to “miss” their target almost as much as they “hit” their target and still emerge with a sizable list of regions tagged – defenders on the hand, often have –one– shot to perform a night.
It’s our goal to push forward beyond this imbalance and develop a system for responding to variance that is infinitely better and after a lot of late nights, coffee, calculus and clever engineering, I am certain we’ll get there. Then the task, of course, switches from innovation to counter-intelligence. However, all of our staff sees the situations developing in Hippiedom (with native ejections and banning occurring), Hell (with raiders taunting natives to break the rules) and Ohio as requiring us to innovate faster and more thoroughly than I think the game has ever forced defenders to do before, including Great Bights, if we are to be the source of relief that these communities desperately need. Battles may be lost, but the war will be won by the superior minds and hearts.
Nonetheless, it certainly hasn’t been all somberness and Gene Kranz impressions. Merrymen have recently received mission ribbons for participating in the liberation of Middle Earth against The Black Riders and the liberation of Former United States against the Cat Burglars, as depicted below:
We also had defenses in DFI, Those IRC guys, Land Of Evil Oppression and Voxia as well a good dozen other regions that someone has *shockingly* not tabulated. Besides that, there's been detags, detags and more detags – as we motion to restore regions from the incoming flood of spam. Also congratulations to Ravania for breaking his old record for most restoration missions at one update by the same lead (in recorded history), amounting to a grand total of twenty detags, you sick but loveable bastard you.
Ravania, the unofficial “minor update” lieutenant and steward of restoration, has been recognized for his contributions this month with a “Chief’s Award”. A shout out is also deserved for Cormac Stark, who picked up our first “Newcomer of the Month” award ever, since it is, ironically, a newcomer award to our traditional selection of awards (“Triggerman of the Month” was discontinued). For further info regarding the Monthly Awards, look no further than here!
The other recipient of the Chief’s Award, Chief Lieutenant Solm has, as explained last update, been working on The Gameplay Alignment Test. As of now, The Test has just cracked 500 participants (whoohoo!). There have been some fairly exciting new additions to the Celebrity Compass: just recently, for example, I tracked down Sir Paul, former NPO senator and tyrant of TNP (as “UPS Rail”), on the game-that-shall-not-be-named, who scored a modest result in around the pocket of "the usual suspects" (
: Venerable Heroes of The Feeders), as well, Westwind, former everything, who scored a humble statesman-like result (
: Moderately Suspicious Moderate), Aegera and Luxembourg, former one-day tyrants rightfully positioned themselves solidly in Durkadurkiranistan territory (
: Saints of the Order of Freedom! Hail!), RedCommunist, Founder of USSR and former NPO senator, edged towards the “Blue” (
: Comrade-With-Excusable-Insensibilities) , The Bruce, Founder of Wysteria and renowned historian was caught having lunch with several hard-core defenders (
: Defender-Scum-Knows-Best-State), in addition to Reploid Productions (
: Hero Mod) butting heads with former mod colleague, Erastide (
: Card-Carrying Ex-Mod of the Vast Defender-Wing Conspiracy). *coughs and clears his throat* Hhhm, my apologies, I appear to be coughing up devil's advocates like fiery fur-balls. I'm sure I'll have an update on this, since some exciting names are lining up to take to test like Dilber, Former ADN Deputy Director and Unlimited, Former Pacifican Delegate.
Respondents for The Gameplay Alignment Test as of now.
Yes indeed! NS-Sports Represent! Heh. I know of at least one new NS-Sports colleague of theirs, Weatherdon has joined the staff this week. Daiteikoku Nippon, Caecuser, South Kings, Vespeucia, The Ferrol Land, Jetan, Shmana, Carcassonne, PrussianEmpire, The Great Mid-North and Interania have also join the Greenwood Band this week, many of these fine chaps have already been in battle and demonstrating considerable skill. Also, we welcome the return of Tim-Opolis to our ranks. Tim-Opolis, the current Vice Delegate of The North Pacific has been seen around the Sherwood Forest, grumbling about troop discipline – so much so in fact that I have promoted him to Vice Chief of Orientation to help train the newcomers to defenderdom.
And who will be supervising Tim? Why none other than Mewsland himself! Recently receiving a promotion, the “Admiral” has got some big plans for revitalizing our orientation and training system. ABK, our former Chief of Orientation, has been reassigned as the Principal Librarian of The Naivetry Reference Library to pursue his passion for Gameplay History. Yeah, that’s right, The Naivetry Reference Library. Named after Naivetry, beloved defender, politician and scholar; The Naivetry Reference Library seeks to archive important documents, articles, essays, legal texts and other materials of historical value that can inform the public on the history of NationStates Gameplay -- especially Military and Political Gameplay.
It just has some basic documents so far, but over the next little while I hope to develop it at lot.
Also, as a note, congratulations to Johz and Cormac Stark on their passage of the Senior Merryman Exam and their subsequent promotions to Senior Merrymen. Excellent work from both of you!
Finally, your Moment of Zen:
EMBASSY COMPETITION:
So in about a week’s time, The Greenwood Band is going to be running some training operations and we’re going to split members off into two teams. Currently, the names, “Red Squadron” and “Blue Squadron” don’t exactly tickle my imagination. Therefore, if you have any suggestions for “team” names, please post them in this thread.
Next update, we will announce the “winning” submissions and we'll also recognize the embassy that had the most participants in this contest.
A Letter from the Capitalis de Societate of The United Defenders League,
Include Mahaj in an Embassy Update, CHECK!
Okay, erm…moving on. It’s been a busy couple of weeks for The United Defenders League. The first major curveball of the week came with Ballotonia adding “variance” to the server which makes it more difficult to attain “accuracy” and “precision” in Military Gameplay. This has definitely added a lot of stress on our staff, especially our excellent technicians, in the past week to try new techniques and advance our military technology. Invaders often have dozens of “tag-raids” a night so they can afford to “miss” their target almost as much as they “hit” their target and still emerge with a sizable list of regions tagged – defenders on the hand, often have –one– shot to perform a night.
It’s our goal to push forward beyond this imbalance and develop a system for responding to variance that is infinitely better and after a lot of late nights, coffee, calculus and clever engineering, I am certain we’ll get there. Then the task, of course, switches from innovation to counter-intelligence. However, all of our staff sees the situations developing in Hippiedom (with native ejections and banning occurring), Hell (with raiders taunting natives to break the rules) and Ohio as requiring us to innovate faster and more thoroughly than I think the game has ever forced defenders to do before, including Great Bights, if we are to be the source of relief that these communities desperately need. Battles may be lost, but the war will be won by the superior minds and hearts.
Nonetheless, it certainly hasn’t been all somberness and Gene Kranz impressions. Merrymen have recently received mission ribbons for participating in the liberation of Middle Earth against The Black Riders and the liberation of Former United States against the Cat Burglars, as depicted below:
We also had defenses in DFI, Those IRC guys, Land Of Evil Oppression and Voxia as well a good dozen other regions that someone has *shockingly* not tabulated. Besides that, there's been detags, detags and more detags – as we motion to restore regions from the incoming flood of spam. Also congratulations to Ravania for breaking his old record for most restoration missions at one update by the same lead (in recorded history), amounting to a grand total of twenty detags, you sick but loveable bastard you.
Ravania, the unofficial “minor update” lieutenant and steward of restoration, has been recognized for his contributions this month with a “Chief’s Award”. A shout out is also deserved for Cormac Stark, who picked up our first “Newcomer of the Month” award ever, since it is, ironically, a newcomer award to our traditional selection of awards (“Triggerman of the Month” was discontinued). For further info regarding the Monthly Awards, look no further than here!
The other recipient of the Chief’s Award, Chief Lieutenant Solm has, as explained last update, been working on The Gameplay Alignment Test. As of now, The Test has just cracked 500 participants (whoohoo!). There have been some fairly exciting new additions to the Celebrity Compass: just recently, for example, I tracked down Sir Paul, former NPO senator and tyrant of TNP (as “UPS Rail”), on the game-that-shall-not-be-named, who scored a modest result in around the pocket of "the usual suspects" (
Respondents for The Gameplay Alignment Test as of now.
Yes indeed! NS-Sports Represent! Heh. I know of at least one new NS-Sports colleague of theirs, Weatherdon has joined the staff this week. Daiteikoku Nippon, Caecuser, South Kings, Vespeucia, The Ferrol Land, Jetan, Shmana, Carcassonne, PrussianEmpire, The Great Mid-North and Interania have also join the Greenwood Band this week, many of these fine chaps have already been in battle and demonstrating considerable skill. Also, we welcome the return of Tim-Opolis to our ranks. Tim-Opolis, the current Vice Delegate of The North Pacific has been seen around the Sherwood Forest, grumbling about troop discipline – so much so in fact that I have promoted him to Vice Chief of Orientation to help train the newcomers to defenderdom.
And who will be supervising Tim? Why none other than Mewsland himself! Recently receiving a promotion, the “Admiral” has got some big plans for revitalizing our orientation and training system. ABK, our former Chief of Orientation, has been reassigned as the Principal Librarian of The Naivetry Reference Library to pursue his passion for Gameplay History. Yeah, that’s right, The Naivetry Reference Library. Named after Naivetry, beloved defender, politician and scholar; The Naivetry Reference Library seeks to archive important documents, articles, essays, legal texts and other materials of historical value that can inform the public on the history of NationStates Gameplay -- especially Military and Political Gameplay.
It just has some basic documents so far, but over the next little while I hope to develop it at lot.
Also, as a note, congratulations to Johz and Cormac Stark on their passage of the Senior Merryman Exam and their subsequent promotions to Senior Merrymen. Excellent work from both of you!
Finally, your Moment of Zen:
EMBASSY COMPETITION:
So in about a week’s time, The Greenwood Band is going to be running some training operations and we’re going to split members off into two teams. Currently, the names, “Red Squadron” and “Blue Squadron” don’t exactly tickle my imagination. Therefore, if you have any suggestions for “team” names, please post them in this thread.
Next update, we will announce the “winning” submissions and we'll also recognize the embassy that had the most participants in this contest.
unibot
TNPer
A Letter from the Capitalis de Societate of The United Defenders League,
Well, hasn’t this been a strange two weeks? It certainly has had its highs and low, that’s for sure. The first shock, I guess you could say, came early in the week when my nation, “Unibot II” was deleted, the full-story can be found here. Following shortly after my deletion, Eastern Islands of Dharma was taken by the Black Hawks. The United Defenders League and I especially would like to give our thanks once more to Osiris, The North Pacific and The Founderless Regions Alliance who contributed troops for an attempted liberation. I’ve also gotten word that the South Pacific Army would also like attend a future liberation of Dharma, so I have to express my gratitude for them too, in addition to the general coalition of the willing that seems to be surrounding this counter-invasion sentiment.
However, I guess our organization’s spirits were lifted a few days later, on my birthday. Solm decorated our forum in my blue and whites and Osiris (you made my day, folks!) celebrated “Unibot Day”. I would like to jokingly point out that Unibot Day corresponds with the passage of “Max Barry Day”, take from this what you will *shifty eyes*.
Left: Osiris announces “Unibot Day” // Right: The birthday banner is placed above the UDL forum board.
As you can see from the photo on the right, The United Defenders League has also been flying Goobergunchia’s flag on our forum to celebrate the ascension of one of our own to the Hall of Honour to mark his quiet but well observed departure – the full declaration is located here. Earth22 has been announced as his successor, her first request was to rename her position from Chief of Feeder Affairs to Chief of Feeder and Sinker Affairs. Earth22 (also known as Lyanna Stark), who has previously served as our Chief of Orientation, is probably better known for her service as Osiris’s Delegate for the past year. Earth also chose to construct her new office, so feel free to talk to her there.
Earth is not the only person who has been appointed to a position as of late. We also have welcomed Biyah to his new position as Press Secretary in the newly minted Office of the Press Secretary. Biyah is known for doing many things in his long and prolific career in NationStates; let’s just stick to the pretty things and say: Former ADN Council President and former Vice Delegate of Osiris. The Office of the Press Secretary is responsible for providing support and information to the regional and interregional media regarding the organization's beliefs, activities and actions. It works alongside the Chiefs of Staff in crafting and espousing the administration's message. I will still be writing these usual periodical Embassy Updates, but the Press Secretary will be writing and distributing most of our declarations from now and onwards.
Heh, he has so much faith in me. Anyways, The United Defenders League has had a ton of military victories. We had a liberation of Fortreau against The Cat Burgulars and a joint FRA-UDL defense in Continent of Pwned (my favorite region to pwn raiders), a defense of The Imperial Palace of Fandom and a defense of Marxism against Europeia, in addition to successful defenses against the Black Riders in Islamic Republic of Iran, Asia Pacific, Koeln, The NationStates of DDO, Stargate, Greece, Former United States, Deutschland, Blackwater, League of MPNet Nations and The Dark Alliance, among other defences that were not logged. We also were able to refound Ohio safely for the natives (using “Crosby Stills Nash and Young” as the disposable founder account B-) ). A shout goes out to Ohio!
Last Embassy Update, I asked what should the name of The United Defenders League’s two practice squads be? Our Lieutenants have chosen “Team Free” and “Team Hope” on the basis that The United Defenders League can use two of our regions, Free and The Ring of Hope as headquarters for the squads and of course, the team names are throwbacks to two absolutely legendary defenders, Free4All and Pope Hope. As promised, the embassy with the most responses to our question would receive praise and a special gift; that distinction belongs to none other thhhhhhhaaaaannnn…. The Allied Republics: A rising defender region with, apparently, a lot of enthusiastic members. Our gift to The Allied Republics, referencing a recent joke I made, is a tray of cookies named after famous feeder tyrants (and probably a few elected ban-happy delegates who will rightfully argue that title until kingdom come):
I’ve heard that Astarial has even baked her version of Pixiechoculence (a reference to Pixiedance, the tyrant who ruled over The North Pacific) in real life. I think we can all agree that themed cookies are the best way to learn history, nom nom nom. Speaking of history….
<Biyah> come to think of it, the bastard tried to put most of us on Trial.
* Biyah eyes dilber
<Dilber> you started it :<
<Biyah> you were part of it
<Dilber> you still started it :<
<Unibot> Come make up
<Biyah> you still leaked it
<Dilber> yeah, i did
<Dilber>
GUYS! The Dominion was –years- ago, play nice. Hmpf. *snickers* The United Defenders League happily welcomed Dilber to our Military IRC channel for a visit; Dilber was formerly, Deputy Director of the ADN and Major General in the West Pacific Liberation Force. I invited Dilber to our channel after I found him in CyberNations (on the search for lost NationStates Heroes and Villians who haven’t taken the Gameplay Alignment Test yet). Dilber chatted it up for several hours and reminisced enough to resurrect his nation after a long absence. We wish him well; he seems like a really nice fellow. Other well-known names who have taken The Gameplay Alignment Test as of late, include Kandarin, Gates the God, Cathhy, Brightonburg and Jakker. If you were wondering, Gates the God does still refer to me as the #1 WA Whore: he will never lose that ol’ charm of his.
In related news, The Naivetry Reference Library has been stocked with a whole shelf worth of interesting material, various speeches by EuroSoviets, “The Great Pacifican Lie” by Unistrut, Interviews of Max Barry and Free4All conducted by The Meritocratic Times, a must-read Lemurian seminar conducted by Ivan Moldavi (also included is a notable rebuttal by Flemingovia) on his tyrannical regime in The North Pacific, a collection of articles from the Alliance Defense Network News Service and of course, my brand new essay entitled “The Polysemes of Nativeness: Two Fundamental Conceptions of Nativeness Unravelled and Compared” (go check it out and comment please!). Thank you to Winnipeg and Thel for their contributions to the Library, especially.
Erm, and some final notes: I sat down recently withStersteraved of NS Weekly for an interview which has been recently published. If you haven’t had enough of me talking yet. Additionally, a shout goes out to Balder and Osiris, who are celebrating their one year anniversaries on Thursday.
To conclude, here’s two new (hopefully reoccurring) features to our update:
Today in history, only seven years ago, Cpt. Sekuu of “Invaders” was exposed as a spy for The RLA, on the coat-tails of the destruction of The Black Hawks and DEN’s forum by The RLA.
Your random fact of the Update is: General Colin Powell of DEN apparently coined the term “fenda”. Who knew!?
And, of course, your Moment of Zen, in a true “All restaurants are Taco Bell” moment:
- TNP Nation
- Blue_Wolf_II
unibot:
...anyone who has ever been in DEN, for starters.
- TNP Nation
- Blue_Wolf_II
No, they don't know the true definition because DENers like Franks overused it to apply to all defenders.
I think there are a far amount who either know it to be a DEN word or directly attributed it to Powell.
I think there are a far amount who either know it to be a DEN word or directly attributed it to Powell.
unibot
TNPer
A Letter from the Capitalis de Societate of The United Defenders League,
I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!
A week ago, Earth22 casually stopped by my place to help me carve pumpkins for this great holiday. Earth had a different version of the excursion however. Nonetheless, Earthie and I figured the proper way to celebrate Halloween is with all of you; so we set out to carve a UDL pumpkin and a Unibotian pumpkin – don’t be fooled, the professional looking UDL pumpkin is largely the work of my amazing Aunt.
Incredible, aren’t they? Heh. The United Defenders League was also on the prowl for candy in its celebration of Halloween. We visited twenty regions that had approved us beforehand for a visit; the Greenwood Band happily begged for candy during the event. Highlights included Vlaanderen giving us Flemish Beer, A Mean Old Man dishing out LSD-laced candies in The East Pacific and Astarial dressing as Sheldon the Dinosaur for her *cccccuuuuuttttee* costume. My only lasting regret is we didn’t get to visit The Rejected Realm to ask for more Kandy.
Fine, that was corny. But if you actually do want more Kandy, he’ll be back to NationStates to do a seminar with Naivetry during the 2012 NS World Fair – and so will many other NationStates scholars and celebrities (e.g., Westwind, Todd McCloud, Myself). This is my shameless plug for the event, but The United Defenders League will be attending the Fair and managing an organizational venue. I hope to see you there too.
Lt. Ravania on Detags:
Halcones:
Ah yes, detags, the smell of glorious detags is the air. Don’t you love it, Ravania and Halcones? Hhhm. I think I heard between the UDL and the FRA, we detagged (which means we restored them from raider spam) forty-two regions, yesterday morning alone. Great work guys, at this point I couldn’t hazardous a guess as to how many restoration missions you’ve pulled off as of late. Hhhm, but something is missing from our usual proud collection of successe. Johz? What are we missing!?
Sr. Merryman Johz:
Well, that’s a erm…blunt way of putting it, to say the least. I don’t agree with your conclusions or your assumptions, but um… well, I suppose I could mention that The United Defenders League has indeed handed out badges recently for their victories in New Spain and Christmas (badges depicted above), as well as having some strong liberation efforts in Ether and Halo. But I dunno, something still feels missing, perhaps it’s the lack of …
Cf. Lt. Solm and Sr. Merryman Riemstagrad:
There we go, the lack of Solm and Riemstagrad (who is also celebrating his recent acquisition of “UDL”, the nation). Heh. No, I meant the lack of fighting the lagging server as The United Defenders League defends regions against invasions! We’ve defended a lot of regions in the past two weeks, especially from the Black Riders, such as The NationStates Holocaust Memorial (who invades a Holocaust Memorial!?), Iraq, Gorolandia, The Court of UNAF, Boghanistan, The Fabulous Dominion of the Pegasus, Sumer, The Ottawa Collective, League of Righteousness, Melonesia, GM Motel, United Freelands, Undertow, Comintern, Score Hero, Aaiam, Tequila, Byonds Ragtag Group of Fools, Mount Olympus, Melonesia, Imperial Federation, Tzardom of Kazakhstan, Nukeland, Democratica, League of Righteousness, Phoebe, Beta Quadrant, Jordia, Cackalackey and Tzardom of Kazakhstan among others that I have not logged. Anyways, I think that about covers the brunt of our military victories from the past two weeks, it’s been fairly prolific, maybe even a bit exhausting.
These successes had a lot to do with the work from Earth and Tim-Opolis, who we here at the Greenwood Band have decided to promote to the ranks of Lieutenant because of their excellent service. I wish them well in their endeavors in the League, being a leader in our ranks is by no means a simple task. But I know these two are up to the task. This announcement comes on the coat-tails of Belschaft’s promotion to the rank of “Guardian” with his general semi-retirement from Gameplay; Belschaft has been a great and honorable friend to us all in The United Defenders League and I happily have placed his quiver in our Hall of Honour among the greats who have serviced the good alongside us.
The Monthly Awards also set out to recognize the incredible work of our great defenders. Akimonad scored the Newcomer of the Month award (the first roleplayer to do this), Johz picked up the Detagger Award once again and a surprise recipient of the Chief's Award was chosen, among various other recipients during October's Award Ceremonies.
Cf. Lt. Solm:
Oh yes, how could I forget! The other recent appointment was Cormac Stark, who has been given the position of Press Secretary. As the head of the Press Secretary Office, Cormac will be helping to carve out The United Defenders League’s general message presented to the press and the public abroad – much like carving a pumpkin, but my Aunt was not available for this job so Cormac will have to suffice (I’m sure he will!). Also, Cormac has just returned from his honeymoon with his new and very happy wife, Aliandra Stark, our Chief of Orientation. It was a great wedding and a lot of fun, I hope those two have a long and uninterrupted marriage (you cannot Cease-To-Exist; I need you both on the battle-field.)
Um, Movie-Night is making a come-back! On Nov. 3rd. 8 PM EST, we will be watching one of the Peter Pan films; we haven’t yet decided which one is the best. Um, but you’re welcome to join us at #udl on Espernet (IRC) when we open our regular military channel up to the public for your viewing pleasures.
Some last notes to wrap things up,
Today in history, nothing significant happened, but tomorrow night is the seventh anniversary of “The Core” ‘s coup of The West Pacific and only four days later, Lazarus was invaded by Evil Wolf, with support from various raider groups included Lone Wolves United and The Black Hawks.
Weird facts that you may not have known, on May 18, 2004, Warzone Sandbox and Warzone Airspace were created –first– out of the Warzones (Sandbox was first). Crazygirl became the delegate of Warzone Sandbox and Ostendt, in Warzone Airspace. The other warzones were added on May 20, 2004. Warzone Australia was first taken by Tresville and the North Pacific Army, Warzone Asia was first taken by Ceaser Caslte (ancient invader group). No idea what happened in Warzone Europe or Africa.
So for the Moments of Zen; I went for a nap one day – the *one* time I go to sleep for once and I woke up after an hour or so with the forum having been changed to announce the new leader of the United Defenders League: Mahaj.
*shudders* Not to be out done,
- TNP Nation
- McMasterdonia
HAIL EVIL WOLF!
And god that last quote made me laugh
Thanks for the update
Earth
TNPer
The United Defenders League happily offers our assistance to the government of The North Pacific in maintaining the security and democracy of The North Pacific.
As we have a plethora of currently unused non-updater troops, we offer our support in the terms of endorsements on the Interim Delegate so that he may stabilize the on-site situation and secure the Delegacy seat of the region until and through elections are held. It is, of course, up to you whether they are deployed -- we won’t be insulted if you choose not to take us up on our offer, but it’s on the table for you.
The United Defenders league has always taken pride in our relationship with The North Pacific, and are, as always, here to provide assistance when aid is needed.
Earth,
Chief of Feeder and Sinker Affairs of The United Defenders League
Tim
TNPer
The North Pacific would like to thank the United Defenders League for the Offer of Assistance. Although we shall politely decline, at this time, we are very thankful for the offers and hope that the UDL is not offended by our current decision. Should the situation worsen, and we require more endorsements, then it is a definite possibility that TNP would accept Assistance from The United Defenders League.
Right now though, It is to my belief that we want to handle this without non-allied support. If UDL were to help, it might fuel OMGG to write up another un-endorsement campaign on the grounds of "Foreign Invasion". I would like to avoid this for as long as we can.
Although TNP shall, for now decline, we extend our thanks to the UDL.
Interim Delegate Timkins shall make you a shiny or something
Right now though, It is to my belief that we want to handle this without non-allied support. If UDL were to help, it might fuel OMGG to write up another un-endorsement campaign on the grounds of "Foreign Invasion". I would like to avoid this for as long as we can.
Although TNP shall, for now decline, we extend our thanks to the UDL.
Interim Delegate Timkins shall make you a shiny or something
unibot
TNPer
A Letter from the Capitalis de Societate of The United Defenders League,
Happy Tenth Anniversary, NationStates!
Tea, please? Where is the tea ? Three essays due for Monday, just pulled off a NationStates World Fair, did some detags, I’m writing this letter and there’s no bloody tea around in Sherwood Forest!? Come on! *is handed a cup of tea* Ah yes, thank you, Chief Lieutenant Solmie Solm Solmkins.
Speaking of Solm; Solm recently built a program for defenders that saves and indexes World Factbook Entries for regions. Interestingly enough, if you misspell the region’s name, the script returns some funky messages:
Silliness:<Taria> "Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, but here's my number, so call me, maybe? Oh, wait, you can't. Because I misspelt my number, like you misspelt that region: equalism"
<Taria> oh my god
<Taria> solm
<Taria> I want to kiss you <3
* Solm huggles
<Earth> Solm these are incredible, you're awesome.
<Neavilos> "black_poop is classified, your actions have been recorded and will be reported to Uniboss"
Obviously, you can tell it’s been a busy week for me; I’m not so sure it has been all that busy for The United Defenders League. I remember detags (restoration missions where awesome defenders spend their time removing invader-spam from founderless regions)… lots and lots and lots of detags.
Senior Merryman Johz and Lieutenant Ravania on Detags:
Perhaps some of us have even gained glorified raider-bogeyman status; Welcome to the club, Ravania. But other than the bajillion detags that we’ve done and a large handful of defences against The Black Riders that I haven’t even bothered recording at this point, we also had a defence in the United World Alliance, in addition to a liberation of Roman Empire and The Middle East. We also had a liberation of The Plain of Scamander, where we ended up butting heads with 10000 Islands who were trying to liberate the region -- and yes, the Greenwood Band won, if you were wondering. Largely speaking the quiet field is due to the raider-world being staged and grounded in Eastern Islands of Dharma and Whitereach. Unfortunately, Whitereach was griefed, destroyed and refounded last night by The Black Riders. You may ask why Whitereach? The Black Riders rarely, if ever, captures and refounds the region they hold. Perhaps Gest, from The Black Riders would care to explain…
Gest:
Interesting; I suppose the old maxim remains true, “there is no honour among thieves”. Putting the discussion of The Black Riders’ interesting take on “Raider Unity” (wherein you colonize other raider regions) aside for a moment, my sincerest condolences to the natives of Whitereach. It’s very unfortunate that when a region is invaded and piled, the security of that region rests upon the patience of invaders and luck, not the skill of any party – if there is anything that needs to be addressed at the upcoming gameplay conference, this is it.
Okay... let's discuss something happier. The United Defenders League had a fun time at the NS World Fair. At our venue, one of our signature events was a game-show where players named off defenders. In total, 263 defenders were named. Kogvuron, The United Defenders League’s Principal Librarian, won with 107 names. Second and third were won by Frattastan (53) and Stersteraved (52) – and yes, it was in fact that close. Stersteraved had one answer that was disqualified for being a duplicate, otherwise it would have been a tie… imagine that. These lucky contestants get to choose between, Unibot, Mahaj and St. George, whose flag they get to dictate for a day; Kogvuron being the top challenger gets to pick first. Besides that, other venues included NationStates 2.0 where visitors filled out an outrageous dating service quiz intended for nations, “The Hugs, Huggles and Tacklehugs Booth” where we hugged visitors obviously; There was also a venue where people signed their own custom-made oaths and lastly, a venue where participants posted their own press releases using The United Defenders League logo; some crowd-pleasing mock press releases were HEM’s “Unibot Announces Incarceration to Mental Asylum”, Johz’s “New Raiding Corps. To Be Set Up Within UDL” and Kogvuron’s “UDL to NDO?”. Also our stamps seemed to have been received well by fairgoers.
During the Tenth Anniversary, NationStaters got the chance to mob Max Barry in all-out hysterical but incredibly fun sessions of open IRC chats,
Chief of Feeder and Sinker Affairs Earth22 responding to Max Barry:
*returns from passing out* Of course, the questionnaire in question is The Gameplay Alignment Test, which apparently Max Barry has on his to-do list and you should too. A shout-out goes to the always lovely and spirited former head of the ADN, Pope Hope as well as Thel D’ Ran and The Cat-Tribe for taking the test recently. You can find their scores and many more on the Celebrity Compass. This however, I know you’ll find entertaining:
Tim’s ideological scores over the past two months.
Lieutenant Ravania on Blaat:
We recently had The “Blaat” Blaatschapen around our IRC Channel during Movie Night. We ended up watching the original Disney version of “Peter Pan”. We’ll watch “Hook” due to popular demand, next weekend, Nov. 24 on 7 PM EST, at #udl on Espernet, our IRC Channel.
Speaking of fairy-tales, heh, Earth and I are getting married. Eh, I should clarify: NS married. We haven’t sent out invitations yet, but I probably will soon once we have a date settled for the Wedding. I know Solm is my best-man, Oliver is the maid-of-honour as well as Tim and Goobergunchia attending as bridesmaids. You can take a guess at what colour scheme the wedding will feature (think blue and yellow but cross-eyed). On the subject of Goobergunchia and Tim: remember how we were celebrating Goobergunchia’s departure from NationStates a month ago? Well he’s back, fortunately. Additionally, Tim has been promoted from Vice Chief of Orientation to Chief of Orientation for excellent work in training our new members.
Yes, new members. We’ve had some great new members sign up recently, some stand out newcomers are Flared and Peasley – love those guys. We’d also like to welcome Neavilos, New Roman Empire, Gaveo, Alern, Zeatly, Kaldaran, Licentiapacisterra, Ninja land, Central Layne, Asser and Kissimi, as well as Indiego!
Also, for administrative news: Our press secretary, Cormac Stark has just recently made two press releases. The first one, “Fischistan Inducted into Hall of Honour” honours Lieutenant “Fisch” Fischistan’s recent cessation of existence. The second press release, “Cancellation of Bi-Gameplay Policy”, goes into depth about our recent decision to cancel the Bi-Gameplay Membership Policy. Furthermore, The Naivetry Reference Library has gained a few new entires including The Transpacific Trade: NationStates as a Symbiosis between User-Created and Game-Created Regions, Of Scardinoism and a draft of the Revised Version of Invader Rules (former game rules).
Additionally, for some final notes: on this day in history, nine years ago, The Savage Lands and Thedoc (both ardent protesters of Francos Spain’s regime at the time) ceased-to-exist; Neutered Sputniks (a moderator) ‘s region, Axis, was also invaded and griefed. See NetworkRadio for more.
Also here’s your “Who would have thunk?” moment of the day,
Max Barry on Defending:
And finally, I can get back to drinking more tea and essay-writing, toodles. Before I go: here’s your Moment of Zen,
Moment of Zen:
unibot
TNPer
A Letter from the Capitalis de Societate of The United Defenders League,
Spare me the drama, oh please spare me!
I did not mean "spare" in that way! Yikes. Fortunately, the moderators had a change of heart when they noted that server difficulties had contributed to my mistake during update; you can read more about that drama here, but the key things to draw from this is: Unibot is back in the World Assembly and there is a new application system for The World Assembly – applications are processed in mere seconds now and nations can apply to the World Assembly with the same email address but are simply barred from joining more than one at a time (this is called “safe switching”).
Sir Unibot and Merryman Peasley:<Unibot> We could ask Max Barry to come out for a liberation
<Peasley> when max enters a region he probably just becomes wa delegate
How does a returning defender celebrate, you may ask? I may have arranged a thirty-man liberation of Eastern Islands of Dharma. Granted, it wasn’t successful. But, fun? Hell yes. Nobody else in NationStates gets the privilege to lead armies that large into battle anymore, so beyond just being really thankful for all of my staff’s support, I would like them to know that if there was one thing I would have missed most with my World Assembly access gone it would be been being on the frontlines with them during a major liberation. There is a certain energy that runs through the group on those nights that just draws you in and makes you want to be a part of it.
Anyways, pardon my indulgence there. But it’s not all failed liberations here, no siree! The United Defenders League has liberated World Union, Tea Party Conservatives, The Shinobi Operatives in the past week and it liberated another region this morning under the leadership of Lieutenant Mahaj. But wait! There’s more!! I’m very happy to announce that The Greenwood Band was able to liberate Roman Empire from The Brotherhood of Malice. For this mission, the twenty defenders that showed for one of the two attempts to liberate Roman Empire, get a lovely military ribbon for their service, while the elite ten defenders that attended both liberation attempts get a special military ribbon. See below:
Senior Merryman Akimonad on our Successes this Month:
Anyways. Um, defenses. I had started a “list” of defenses to record what we did this past week, it reads as written: Ishedus, Schleswigstein, Mitchell. *coughs* I can assure you we did more than three defenses, I am fairly certainly I stopped counting after about ten minutes. Lest we forget all of the restoration missions that the group has been pulling off too over this week; for every completed invasion, there’s a removal of that spam by hard-working individuals – go team go! For all of their hard work, The Monthly Awards recognizes a lot of effort by various defenders on the staff; a big shout out goes to Merryman Hodori, our Month’s newcomer, as well as Press Secretary Cormac who picked up his second “Spotter of the Month” award in a row and finally, Lieutenant Earth and Lieutenant Tim, who were awarded the Chief’s Award and praised for their dedication and strategic napping before Major Update (honestly I am so proud of you guys).
Merrymod Euroslavia and our Guardian Milograd:* Euroslavia pushes Milo off a cliff
<Euroslavia> into BUNNIES
<Milograd> ...you monster.
<Milograd> You want to see the bunnies crushed, Euro?
<Milograd> What kind of sick bastard are you? D:
<Euroslavia>
Hey, be nice to those bunnies; those be new members, you hear! Indeed, The United Defenders League is proud to have a fresh crate of bunnies and kittens delivered to our doorstep as we greet the following into the Greenwood Band this week: Kulaloe, The Miskito Coast, Bazalonia, Hodori, Triodard and Florard, Napkiraly, Flardania, Menassa, TaQud, Austeres and Contamenesia. Good luck, all of you. I hope you enjoy our group and have a lot of fun kicking butt, restoring regions and not sleeping enough.
Anyways, on a final note. I am getting NS Married at 10:30 EST to Earth22 (Lynna Stark) in #Sherwood_Chapel . Please join us.
As for your “Who would have thunk?” moment of the update: Unistrut, former ADN Deputy Director, recently did the Gameplay Alignment Test. His score was -2 , -8.5; near Whamabama. Who would have thunk!?
Okay, I got to get suited up for my wedding! Here’s your Moment of Zen:
Moment of Zen:
unibot
TNPer
A Letter from the Capitalis de Societate of The United Defenders League,
MERRY OMIGOD-EXAMS-ARE-OVER (and moreover, Happy Hanukkah)! It has been an absolutely hellish week for me due to exams, but that is now all over and I look forward to the holidays. I hope everyone else is also looking to wind down for the holidays and take a break -- especially The Black Riders *wink wink*.
As we transition into the holidays, I’ve been trying to check off all of the traditions that I need to remember to do. There seems to be several boxes on my checklist I will probably check off still.
? Defend Christmas.
? Liberate Christmas.
? Debate over whether it is right or wrong, in particular, to attack Christmas or whether there are any real natives in Christmas yada yada yada.
? Decorate the UDL forum.
? Send Christmas Cards out to UDLers.
? Decorate the Unibot flag (must outdo my awesome snowman from last year).
? Bitch about my home-internet’s connection speed while defending.
You’ll note from the list that I usually send Christmas Cards out to the various members of the Greenwood Band – this year I will be posting them on their home region’s forum instead of their Regional Message Board, just as a note. Also, Sherwood Forest is all decorated now! Chief Lieutenant Solm diligently put up the Christmas lights and the Christmas tree; I recommend taking a look at the customized Christmas tree -- it was quite fun to make.
In The United Defenders League, internally, we’re doing a prize giveaway; if a member shows up for all four of our Christmas events, they collect four chucks of Candy-cane to make a whole Candy-Cane prize to be placed on their forum profile. Two of those events, Secret-Santa and a Skype-Night, are just open to our members, but the other two events require your participation to make it awesome! First, on Dec 22, 2012 6 PM EST on #udl on Espernet, The United Defenders League will be opening up its private military channel to the public to watch a Christmas classic (or something like that) -- it isn’t decided yet which film we’re watching, but I believe it’s currently a bloody showdown between Miracle on 34th Street and Tim Burton’s Night before Christmas on the forum poll.
Second, my merrymen and I are going to be carolling around NationStates on Regional Message Boards on Sunday, Dec 23, 2012 – if you want us to carol in your region, just contact me by telegram and book a time for us to show up to carol (note: we need executive permission to post on RMBs)!
Whoa, hold on, there’s a Christmas special on T.V featuring a Claymation Elf! Eeek! *scampers over to the living room*
Lieutenant Mahaj chatting with Lieutenant Earth about the R/D Conference:
*returns from three hours of Christmas T.V specials* Actually to be fair to Sedgistan, I liked his agenda too, but, yes the “R/D” Conference has begun. The United Defenders League is happy to see two of its members, Chief Lieutenant Solm and Lieutenant Earth as representatives in the Gameplay Conference -- I’m sure they’ll both do very well. One of the major subjects being discussed is “piling” and how liberations can be made to be more competitive and I am looking forward to reforms in that area, especially bearing in mind that griefing has only become easier and more popular; my hope is that the on-going griefing of Ether will end on a happy note for the natives and my heart goes out to them today because the former native delegate was ejected from the region, which is never a good sign with The Black Riders.
Speaking of The Black Riders …
Lieutenant Ravania discussing his detag-record:<Ravania> I guess no raid-org ever took 69 delegacies in one update
<Ravania> with 6 people
<Unibot> 69 with 6 people, sounds like some kind of orgy
<Ravania> Well, Uni; Earth and I were teamed up and then you had Tim and Hodori and Cormac and Johz I guess
<Unibot> Leave my girlfriend alone :p
* +Karpy notes down for gossip column
<Unibot> None of your strange sex positions, go shoo
<Ravania> can't, she needed an endo
<Earth> You should detag more, m'dear. Clearly this is a sign of that. :O
<Earth> Your endo's the best endo, after all. ;P
<Earth> Okay this is weird.
<Earth> Actually you'd probably say -my- endo is the best endo. ;P
<Unibot> It was better when I was allowed magic endos.
* Earth hides before this gets weirder
<madjack> so
<Karpy> good timing madjack
<Cormac> Madjack's solution to the weirdness was apparently to impose an awkward silence.
To clarify: what Lieutenant Ravania is talking about is his new record; he and a group of five other Merrypeople, restored sixty-nine regions in one update. So sixty-nine regions are less spammed by invaders than they were a few days ago, which was an impressive event. After the Greenwood Band did that and then also trounced The Black Riders during an update, stopping them ten times from invading successfully. After these successes, I commissioned the Meritorious Unit Award to bestow upon the involved troops (you can read more about this in our Press Secretary’s statement), but then they went and out did themselves today by defending thirteen regions against The Black Riders (who only managed to take five regions during update). Thanks to the FRA Rangers for helping out too! So now I have to shelve out three sets of service medals; I’m not Rumpelstiltskin, guys!
Lieutenant Ravania polishes his medals:
Other than those kickass instances of defending and restoring, I know that the Greenwood Band has been on the field every night, stopping invasions and cleaning up regions as per usual. In one incident, The United Defenders League piled into Anarchy to defend it from an invasion by ComuCRVG (“Uma região de Vascaínos!”) and was joined by The Founderless Regions Alliance and The Ten Thousand Islands Treaty Organization in a strong showing of defender unity; also, thanks to Osiris’s Medjai Guard for also making an appearance.
Oh yeah, I nearly forgot: so if you were living under a rock for the past week, there was this Condemnation, that was up to vote in the World Assembly, for The United Defenders League proposed by that fallen defender.. you know, the one caught raiding with that forum destroyer dude (94 Block)? Yeah, well anyway, that Condemnation was soundly defeated 7,539 votes to 3,654; kudos to The South Pacific, The East Pacific, Lazarus and Capitalist Paradise and everyone else who voted or campaigned against the Condemnation. There was also a huge popular vote against the resolution -- so I'd also like to thank all the individual voters who took the time to read the resolution and helped defeat it. If you’re looking for a balanced review of the Condemnation then I think if I were you I would read A Mean Old Man (Topdog)’s review of the ill-fated proposal.
*sighs* Oh NS Marriages; yes, Earth and I are married as of December 2, 2012. It was a lovely wedding and a big shout goes out to our Press Secretary who served as the Reverend (Cormac!), in addition to Tim who served as our organist and Koth and The Blaatschapen who played the part of drunk uncles interrupting the service; at least I think the last two were acting. You can read the entire transcript of the wedding here.
As a point of interest, it was this day one year ago that Lieutenant Ravania joined The United Defenders League and two years ago that Lieutenant Ravania joined NationStates. You rock bud; Happy Birthday!
Well, I hope you enjoyed the update. I am tired now, must.. resist the urge to watch more.. claymation. Also, remember to approach me about caroling if your region is interested. At last: here’s your Moment of Zen,
Moment of Zen:<Earth> Uni can pull updaters out of his butt.
<Bel> Indeed he can
<Bel> Midas shat gold, Uni shits updaters
<Earth> They're just shit at it. ;P
<Bel> Yup
* Bel was a Uni butt shit updater to begin with
Joshua
TNPer
Actually it was one short raid that I ended minutes after it happened. I asked a guy named Seirawan to help me on that raid, at the time I had no idea he was 94 Block. Also Lazarus voted FOR the resolution and then abstained. That is all Lazarus did to "help" the UDL.
For all the shouting you did at me to check facts and to not distort events, you do a shit job of practicing what you preach.
For all the shouting you did at me to check facts and to not distort events, you do a shit job of practicing what you preach.
unibot
TNPer
A Letter from the Capitalis de Societate of The United Defenders League,
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!
Jingle Bells, Jakker Smells, Detag every day. Oh, what fun it is to have applied, endorse and dossier! HEY! Hehe, oh the holidays, how I love you. It’s been very merry indeed in the Sherwood Forest. We’re just wrapping up our series of cultural events. The fun started last week when we ran our “Secret Santa” event; a lot of thought was put into the gifts and it was great to see that participants had went out of their way to make their gift something special.
My gift to our Press Secretary, Cormac Stark, started things off since I surprised him with a wrapped “Lieutenant” badge – say hello to our newest Lieutenant, Cormac Stark! Cormac has been diligently working as both a Senior Merryman and as our Press Secretary for months; this promotion was long overdue and I am glad that I may have, just maybe, caught him off guard with the presentation of the promotion.
Lieutenant Cormac reacting to his present:
Heh, but alas my present still didn’t steal the show, in regards to Secret Santa, although I tried. A lot of presents were nations (or defender “switchers” as well call them), but some thought out of the box a bit more. Flowering Staplers presented St. George with a poem, Zwangzug presented Tim with a dialogue written by herself between talking chess pieces as well as an illustration of the story, Ravania got Hodori (a car-enthusiast) a late-updating region named Cars for him to stash his defender puppets with a really purdy World Factbook Entry, Hodori did his own really impressive illustration as a present for Ravania and Earth made Johz a festive flag. However, I think Chief Lieutenant Solm really went all out with his present for Senior Merrywoman Astarial – a special modification to NationStates that altered the site in unexpected places to tell Astarial just how special she is. She seemed to be *cough* happy with this present.
Merry Christmas Asta:
Nonetheless, we did other events to celebrate the Holidays too.
Senior Merryman Soviet Canuckistan with Lieutenant Tim on Movie Night:
Yes, you missed Movie Night, you silly duck. But a lot of people did not! Regulars, in great numbers, showed up for this monthly tradition. We were also blessed with the presence of Stersteraved of NS Weekly and Evil Wolf, who was just pleasantly surprised we didn’t ban him like usual. Movie Nights are special cultural events: we open #udl, our military communication channel, to the public and watch a film together. This Christmas, merrymen and merrywomen chose to watch “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”, I think, in an attempt to see how many of its memorable dialogue that I and Lieutenant Tim could recount verbatim.
Merryman Bazalonia is imbued with the Christmas spirit:<Unibot> We're caroling, Baza.
<Bazalonia> Good king winc whatever his name was looked down
<Bazalonia> on the feast of steven
* @Zwangzug will parody that next, Bazalonia, just for you
* +Bazalonia feels special
* +Bazalonia cancels the stab Zwangzug appointment he had placed in his diary
Avakael on Caroling:
Falla la la la, la la la. Indeed. The United Defenders League also was out caroling on Christmas Eve to various regions across NationStates that permitted our caroling. Carolers used Christmas-themed puppets and were advised not to make any references that could be construed as recruitment. We visited many regions, but two of them stick out in my mind. We caroled in The New Inquisition, I suppose as a holiday break from the hostilities and additionally, we got the opportunity to carol in The South Pacific just at the precise moment that the region elected their new delegate, Milograd. Some may remember Milograd from when he served as the Chief Lieutenant of The United Defenders League; nowadays however, he holds the ceremonial title of Guardian with the Greenwood Band. I am certain that Milograd is up to the task of leading the region and will do well as delegate; likewise, I am also glad to hear that The United Defenders League could be of some service to The South Pacific to aid in a safe delegate-transition over Christmas Eve. With Milograd taking the reins as The South Pacific delegate, we’ve had the pleasure of welcoming their former delegate, Hileville, back to The United Defenders League. As I said in his application, Hileville served his region well and, I know from past experience, he will serve native rights with just as much passion. We’re happy to have him back on the team.
It hasn’t just been fun cultural events though, we’ve been working around NationStates. Two of the more unusual missions would be Texas and Christmas. A few days, NewTexas, delegate of Texas, accidently resigned himself from the World Assembly due to a new “issue” that has an option which can remove players from The World Assembly – the full drama unfolds here; I’d advise any delegates or players concerned about their endorsement count to educate themselves about the issue because it sounds like it is staying. Fortunately, one of our members, Douria, spotted the accidental resignation and quickly called troops in to support NewTexas before he lost his record of 8 years 87 days as delegate. Furthermore, we have an ongoing mission in Christmas, since we’re protecting the region, at the request of natives, from possible trouble-makers. Generally speaking, at this time of the year, Christmas has been raided, so we’re happy to start a new tradition for the region.
Otherwise, the past week or so has been –quieter–, in regards to raider activity, but we have had some important missions.
Lieutenant Cormac on Lieutenant Tim:
Yes, dammit Tim. If it wasn’t for you and your keen sense of timing, I wouldn’t have to keep handing out military ribbons to our soldiers for successful liberations. The United Defenders League has had a series of successful liberations over the past few weeks, first in Transylvania and Italy, to free those regions from The Cat Burglars. Then we also stopped The Red Fleet from occupying and passwording Comintern without native approval. Additionally, we got a rare opportunity to work with some new organizations, The Right to Life Army and the Coalition of Catholic States, to liberate “RORMs” from occupation by ILLUINATI. ILLUINATI had instructed natives through RORMs’ World Factbook Entry : "To all natives of the region RORMS, [we] invite you to join ISIS and work for the largest and most effective intelligence and sabotage agency in the NS world." I guess, you could say that we invited them to a can of whoop-ass.
Those who participated in said missions received the following Military Ribbons:
(From left to right: Transylvania, Comintern, Italy and RORMS)
Alrighty, so it’s at this point I should admit that I won’t be around much this week since I’m going on vacation with Lieutenant Earth *coughs*, off-duty of course. I am afraid you’ll have to wait for a week more than usual for your bi-weekly embassy update. Nonetheless, I’ve instructed my officers to hold the fort down when I am gone and established a chain of command from Chief Lieutenant Solm to Lieutenant Ravania and then Lieutenant Sovreignry. I may or may not have given my lieutenants a comprehensive set of objectives and reminders to guide them while I am away *chuckles*. Nonetheless, tomorrow, after I fly out tonight to meet with Lieutenant Earth, The United Defenders League is going to organize an intimate little Skype chat between any of our members who want to talk with one another – should be a lot of fun.
Stay safe everybody and I hope everyone had a great Christmas. Here’s your Moment of Zens:
Moment of Zen:
Moment of Zen:
- TNP Nation
- McMasterdonia
Wow at that final quote O.o
Merry Christmas! Congrats on your victories.
Merry Christmas! Congrats on your victories.
Earth
TNPer
Happy (belated) New Years, everybody. The United Defenders League's New Year resolution is to be bigger, better and more resilient than the year previous.
It’s been some time since our last update. As I said, I was away for a week or so, then we spent the rest of this week preparing The United Defenders League for its annual reboot – with a darker backstory, a Hans Zimmer soundtrack and ninjas, I would say we’re well prepared for the coming year. Kidding of course, Hans Zimmer wasn’t available, but we will be approaching our organization’s administration differently this year. The message I will be conveying to our Chiefs of Staff is this list of priorities:
First, we need to continue our recruitment efforts by spreading the message of the defender cause, but likewise, we need to change minds. Recruitment, in years previous, was a more dependable process because the defender ethos pitched a compelling argument and, subsequently, a larger tent. This requires a more robust communications program. Instead of having an individual Press Secretary, our Press Secretary will now be a NationStates account which can be used to post many different articles on certain subjects from approved commentators.
Second, we need to innovate technologically – conduct studies to optimize timing. Ultimately, what works for invaders, will not work for us. We’re constrained by larger troop selections which cannot perform the same maneuvers; therefore we need to tailor our timing system to fit what we do and how we do it. But likewise, we need to innovate in how we think about defenderism. Defenderism isn’t some distant or contained ideology within a sphere of other ideologies, it’s an understanding of liberty, freedom and peace that has roots in many political ideologies (i.e., Liberal Democratic thought, Christian thought, Libertarian thought) on the political “left” and “right”. This has major implications for our foreign affairs – our natural allies are those regions who are already comfortable with being ideological.
Since the fall of the Red Liberty Alliance, the moderate left has often been overlooked; with our new foreign affairs attaché, Eggy216 (who some may recognize from Social Liberal Union where he serves as Minister of Foreign Affairs), I hope we can convey a new spirited message of commonality. Our values of self-determination, liberty and freedom of speech are their values. Likewise, I am happy to expand our base of foreign affairs attachés to include: Synaxis (delegate of the defender-catholic region, Coalition of Catholic States), Ognjen Ahmadinejad (a strong voice against invader oppression in the Muslim community of NationStates, who is also serving as the delegate of Islamic Republic of Iran) and Afforess (more known as Capitalist Paradise’s Secretary of Interior and Forums). These appointments reflect some major developments for defenderism in the Christian, Islamic and Libertarian communities, where we also share values of peace, bellum iustum and the just acquisition of property.
Innovation requires creativity, drawing connections and paying close attention to developing trends for emerging demographics. As a first step, I have created an entirely new discussion thread for The United Defenders League to begin the New Year.
Alright, enough of this blathering. What have we been doing here besides talking? Well we just had a very successful liberation last night in RORMs. The community of Region of Reunited Muslim States moved to RORMs to flee the destruction of their original region at the hands of The Black Riders, now The Black Riders were back to finish “the job”. But The United Defenders League with the help of The South Pacific Army, Right to Life Army, Coalition of Catholic States, Medjai Guard, The Founderless Regions Alliance and The North Pacific Army, was able to liberate RORMs in a decisive 30-22 victory. RORMs is “ever grateful,” explained Johor, the native delegate, “to its powerful and loyal allies. Thank you, liberators”. You are welcome, Johor. All participating soldiers will receive the following military ribbon:
Additionally, The Greenwood Band was involved with support missions in The Pacific and United Kingdom, where we helped neutralize threats to regional security.
<DeCole> So, what do i have to do now?
<Unibot> Decole, you apply for membership here: Kantrias
<Unibot> Erk
<Unibot> No
<Unibot> Copy/Paste ERROR
<Tim> D:
<Tim> Bad UNIBOT
<Tim> BAAAD
<Earth> XD
<Earth> BAHAH
* Tim troutslaps Unibot for this
<Unibot> http://s4.zetaboards.com/UDL/topic/8778084/1/ < this is where you apply, DeCole
<Tim> ^yes
<Tim> there
<Prussia> xD
<Prussia> There we go
Ah yes, the joys of recruitment. As I said, we’re looking to expand and we’ve welcomed a lot of new members in the past week to The United Defenders League. Welcome to Democratic Republic of United Koryo, Imbrinium, Andarium,SCONN,Nationalist Eminral Republic,Arcomo,Jormengand and DeCole. Additionally, we’re welcoming back Belschaft this week, who has decided to rejoin us. Likewise, we are just in the process of greeting A Mean Old Man to The United Defenders League. A Mean Old Man has a respected history in the intelligence field, since he was the one who led the investigation that eventually identified Frak (a couper) as Haxstree, a member of The South Pacific. Others may know A Mean Old Man for his distinguished delegate service in The East Pacific or his career in The World Assembly, where he was eventually commended. A Mean Old Man has taken on the role of Chief of Intelligence for our organization and will be working with his newly appointed Vice Chief of Intelligence, Lieutenant Mahaj. In additional news, we have announced that Lieutenant Cormac Stark has ascended to the Hall of Honour in recognition of his past service and furthermore, Strawberrry Fields has received the Order of Danmarkland for his fortitude in the face of Hippiedom's continued occupation.
Hmmm, Culture. It is my esteemed pleasure to announce the formation of the Chieftaincy of Culture which Lieutenant Earth (aka Lyanna Stark) will be leading. Culture is often an unappreciated focus in NationStates, but it’s probably one of the more vital ones in all actuality and I’m pleased to have someone so experienced in the field leading the task. You can expect more events like the Christmas events to take place in the near future.
Speaking of Earth and Christmas. Guess what Earth got me for Christmas?? EEK. Look at it in all of its glory:
You could say this is me ending the Update on a high note.
Okay, I’m done writing. Love you all. Here’s your Moment of Zen: