- TNP Nation
- McMasterdonia
An Interview with Cormac
McMasterdonia: Today, I am joined by Cormac Stark, two-time former Pharaoh of Osiris and one of the co-founders of the Osiris Fraternal Order.
What are you up to in NationStates right now?
Cormac: Well, I am currently a Regional Assembly representative (an elected legislator) in Spiritus and a sergeant in the Spiritus Defense Force. I have re-applied for the Regional Assembly of The North Pacific, where I’ve had membership before. I have also founded a new region, Camelot, though it has been slow going, due in large part to computer problems for me over the past month. I’m not entirely sure about the future of that project.
McMasterdonia: In your few years in NationStates, you have been quite a controversial figure. Do you enjoy controversy?
Cormac: It depends on the nature of the controversy. Do I enjoy good-natured, in-character controversy that enhances game activity? Yes, and I strive to generate it whenever I see an opportunity that meshes with my interests. Controversy that turns personal and ugly? Not so much. And unfortunately the former can often lead to the latter, though it shouldn’t.
McMasterdonia: I’d like to ask you some questions about your time as Pharaoh of Osiris and specifically about the war with Lazarus. First off, did you enjoy serving as Pharaoh of Osiris?
Cormac: Well, I’ve served twice. There were parts of it I enjoyed and parts I didn't. Osiris has a great, friendly community, but its politics can be extremely contentious at times. Being heavily involved in the leadership of that political community for as long as I was, with no break, didn’t mesh well with my temperament. It became a lot of pressure but I would like to believe, overall, that I’ve done a lot of good for Osiris, and I certainly enjoyed the positive contributions I've made to the region.
McMasterdonia: What did you find to be the greatest challenge of Osiris?
Cormac: Balancing the needs and interests of various factions within the community. Interest groups may be a better word, as factions implies that they were only looking out for their own group’s interests and that largely wasn’t the case. Specifically, I had difficulty balancing the needs and interests of independents, imperialists, and raiders in Osiris, all of whom had different goals for the region. Sometimes those goals intersected but there were some disagreements and I didn’t handle those well.
McMasterdonia: Do you believe that the OFO revolution has been a successful one for the community of Osiris?
Cormac: I think it’s been successful, on the whole, with some caveats. The Osiris Fraternal Order has brought an unprecedented level of liberal democracy to Osiris, and certainly the community is now far less fractious than prior to the OFO. I don’t think the focus on militarization, on imperialism, has been beneficial to Osiris. That was a mistake, and it was a mistake the entire community made together. No external entity forced imperialism upon Osiris.
McMasterdonia: What are your thoughts on the Empire, given that more than a year has passed since they were removed from Osiris?
Cormac: When the Empire group was expelled from Osiris last year, I was very angry at how they had conducted themselves during the Delegacy of Detective Figs (Astarial) and not yet ready to acknowledge that the way some others, myself at times included, conducted ourselves also contributed to the deterioration of her government. That anger is long since gone and the self-reflection has long since happened. There are winners and losers in every battle for control of a Feeder or Sinker, or any region for that matter; the Empire group lost in this case. I was one of the winners and perhaps the highest profile of the winners. It was, literally, my job to make our case against them, and I did it very well.
For the record, I don’t think they’re actually terrible, as my rhetoric would lead one to believe. I think they’re great players, I think they’re good people out-of-character, they can be strong allies in-character under the right circumstances, and politically -- in the best sense, as this is a political game -- I think they’re dangerous.
McMasterdonia: I will now move on to some questions about the war with Lazarus, which dominated your last term as Pharaoh of Osiris.
Did you make any effort, to discuss the issues you (and the OFO Government) had with the Government of Lazarus prior to the declaration of war?
Cormac: No significant effort. I did send a very hostile telegram to Funkadelia, Chairman of Lazarus at the time, expressing my discontent with the threatening remarks made by LLA General Aperi (Karpathos). I never received a response, though I didn’t actually expect one given my own hostile tone. No efforts were made beyond that.
McMasterdonia: Were you surprised or disappointed by the responses of other regions to the declaration?
Cormac: Largely I was neither surprised nor disappointed. Most regions I expected to side with Lazarus did, most regions I expected to remain neutral also did so. I was somewhat surprised and disappointed by the lack of explicit support from Osiris’ independent, imperialist, and raider allies. But I suppose they had their reasons, and given the way the war turned out that may have been the better decision for their regions.
McMasterdonia: Do you stand by your complaints about the attendants of the Regional Sovereignty Conference as being a forum for discussing the war effort?
Cormac: No. The complaints were ridiculous, but were manufactured to give us a convenient excuse to sever even the most basic relations with several regions that were in alliance with Lazarus and opposed to Osiris’ interests -- and thus to remove any accountability to or pressure from them in regard to the war or other matters. Unfortunately, some other regions, such as The West Pacific, were collateral damage, and in hindsight I should have differentiated between more friendly regions and those that were actually hostile to our interests.
McMasterdonia: Do you stand by the decision to close embassies with regions who attended the Conference?
Cormac: Some of them. The regions that were, and are, hostile to the interests of the Osiris Fraternal Order know who they are, and I don't for a minute regret closing their embassies and severing diplomatic relations with them. The charade of diplomatic relations was nothing more than that, a charade. In regard to other regions -- again, most notably The West Pacific -- I regret my actions, and I sincerely apologize for damage done between more friendly regions and the Osiris Fraternal Order.
McMasterdonia: Do you have any regrets regarding the handling of the Osiris-Lazarus War?
Cormac: I regret the war itself. It served no positive purpose for Osiris, for Lazarus, or for the broader NationStates world. I maintain that it could have served positive purposes, but both the handling of the Regional Sovereignty Conference and the squeamishness of some Feeder and Sinker communities prevented any of those purposes from coming to fruition.
McMasterdonia: Not long after the end of your term as Pharaoh, the ISRA was officially abolished, do you believe this was a good thing for Osiris?
Cormac: Yes. ISRA was an institutional failure from the beginning. Neither Osiris nor Balder had the personnel to staff that kind of joint military. ISRA also revealed some significant differences in the political and military aims of Osiris and Balder, differences that would have been no problem for bilateral treaty allies but did pose a problem for a joint military institution. Those differences actually created tension rather than strengthening unity. Had ISRA not been abolished, it may have completely destroyed the alliance between Osiris and Balder over time. For the sake of that alliance, I'm glad ISRA was abolished.
McMasterdonia: Do you have any regrets from your term as Pharaoh?
Cormac: Focusing on my second term, I do have a few regrets. I regret that I focused so heavily on external policy; I don’t think it was at all what Osiris needed, even had I handled it better. As noted, I regret the war and I regret some of the embassy closures. Finally, I regret the rash decisions I made without consulting my cabinet -- notably including the embassy closures -- and my difficulty with compromising, particularly in the early days of the term in regard to some domestic issues.
McMasterdonia: What do you believe is the greatest challenge for the OFO in the months ahead?
Cormac: Domestic recovery. Activity has completely died since I resigned from office. Rebuilding foreign affairs can’t be the immediate focus, as it won’t even be possible until other regions can see that Osiris has restored internal activity and stability. Part of that is going to be elevating some fresh faces with fresh perspectives, ideas, and above all, energy, into higher office, with a stable and orderly transition from the OFO "old guard" -- if you can call it that -- to newer and more energized citizens. A newer citizen shouldn't just be thrust into the office of Pharaoh, but it's time to start elevating these people so that they will be ready to serve as Pharaoh in the near future.
McMasterdonia: Do you see yourself returning to Osiris and serving in the regional government again in the near future?
Cormac: I feel that I do know what Osiris needs to do in order to restore activity and stability, and I feel that I have the experience necessary to effectively take those steps. Ultimately, whether I'm the right person for that job at this time would be up to the people of Osiris, if I return. I would be lying if I said I weren't seriously considering a return to the region and the possibility of a run for Pharaoh, given the state of the region since I resigned from office. If I were to do that, I would be pursuing just one term with an emphasis on making a transition to newer citizens with fresh ideas and energy.
McMasterdonia: What advice do you have for future Delegates of Game Created Regions?
Cormac: Well, the circumstances of each Delegate are diverse. The Delegate of The Pacific is not going to have the same experience as the Delegate of The South Pacific, for example. In general, I would advise future Delegates not to try to be a one person government. Delegate to your cabinet. Consult your cabinet. Listen to your cabinet. Don’t go it alone, on any matter, unless absolutely necessary. Consult as broad a sample of your region as possible under varying circumstances; from autocracy to democracy and everything in between, it’s still their region. You’re just leading it.
McMasterdonia: Future plans?
Cormac: I’m happy with my role in Spiritus and I’m looking forward to getting involved in The North Pacific again. As I noted, I'm considering a return to Osiris. Beyond that, I don't really have any solid plans for the future. Wherever the road takes me, I suppose!
McMasterdonia: Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions Cormac, all the best! Thank you, and my best to you and to all the people of The North Pacific as well!
