Closing remarks
Greetings everyone!This is my last address to the region as delegate. I would like to take this opportunity to look back at these eight months that I have served in that office. I will try to do an objective critique, being neither modest nor lenient.
I believe we have seen growth in all areas of the executive government. While not always as much growth as I promised, we had for eight months all six of the executive government’s ministries operating to create new infrastructure and advance the regional welfare.
In Home Affairs, we have seen a new Ministry start from scratch to become the driving force behind activity in the region. With telegrams, RMB posts, dispatches, and personal messages, the Home Affairs staff have worked hard to introduce dozens of new members to our region, and help them integrate with our community and become contributing citizens. The Northern Lights reported in their latest issue that Home Affairs sent this term about 100,000 telegrams, including a few thousand manual telegrams - this is an outstanding amount. The Ministry has instituted other successful programs, such as press releases, systematic upvoting of dispatches, region-wide surveys, and the mentoring program. It is no wonder that all other feeders are coming to us for advice in this area, looking to replicate our success. The Ministry did not finalize the in-game regional handbook that I had promised. This was a personal failure, as it was a project I undertook personally, and I underestimated the time it would take to complete. However, a solid amount of work has been put into this project, and I expect the handbook to be ready in the first few weeks of the new term.
In Defense, we have seen a tremendous growth in the strength and capability of our North Pacific Army, making it more powerful than ever. We have broken a deployment record that stood since 2012 at least four times (I believe, I lost count after a while). More importantly, we nowadays consistently deploy in a single day more units than that record, with full deployments of close to 20 units. This has been achieved through systematic recruitment, and frequent and varied training missions. The North Pacific Army has worked closely with all allied militaries on several missions, training or not, fostering closer relations with our allies and increasing our army’s capability to work as part of interregional coalitions. This has also been demonstrated by its strong participation in operations such as Nazi Europe, which we led, and more recently Anne Frank. All these have turned the North Pacific Army into the largest and most active military among game-created regions, one of the strongest in the world overall. The North Pacific Army is now strongly positioned to excellently protect The North Pacific, our allies, and our interests abroad.
In Communications, we have seen an overhaul of regional media, with the introduction of The Northern Lights. The Northern Lights has successfully established itself as a newspaper of record in NationStates, producing authoritative and high-quality reports that are read across all of NationStates. While this is already a considerable improvement compared to the previous state of media in the region, there is plenty of room for more. In particular, in the past two terms, the Ministry has failed to provide a high frequency of publications, and in the following terms the Ministry staff will need to work on identifying and addressing the issues causing publication delays.
In Culture, we have seen a strong renewal of cultural activities within the region. Our roleplay section has gone from inactive to one of the most active sections of the region, to the point that it is now self-sustainable and it is quickly becoming an integral part of our regional identity. Between the Democratic Union, individual national roleplay, and factbook writing, we see many new members coming over to the forum to get involved and post their own writings. The Ministry has also organized programs such as the Regional Identity Crisis, the Lennarts, Stories of The North Pacific, RMB Trivia, the Security Council Week, and theme weeks. In addition to providing entertainment for our forum members, all of these programs have been successful in combining game-side and forum-side components, helping reduce the gap that exists between our forum and game communities. Unfortunately, during the end of the term, the Ministry has not been successful in organizing a promised third theme week - this is in part because of poor scheduling (holidays period), and in part because of RL circumstances of myself and other Ministry staff. However, I hope that the theme weeks will provide a successful format for future cultural events in the region. The Ministry has also not utilize The North Pacific University, again mostly because of lack of direction by myself. Hopefully, in following terms, this will be ameliorated.
In World Assembly Affairs, we have seen an increase of regional involvement and influence in the World Assembly. The Ministry has been working to make sure that the regional vote is used in a way representative of the region and so as to maximize our regional impact. To achieve this, the Ministry has consistently created early polls, used the Information for World Assembly Voters program to provide analysis on resolutions going to vote, and run campaigns to promote World Assembly participation in the region. Through these efforts, we have seen increased participation in our World Assembly section, from both old and new members, and increased national participation in the game votes. Through the World Assembly Legislative League, the Ministry has brought World Assembly experts to our forum, to provide their expert opinion on resolutions, and educate our members on how to write their own resolutions, either through specialized courses or through direct feedback on drafts. The World Assembly Legislative League has also been a big factor in increasing our voting influence through coordinated voting with our partners in the League. Finally, the Ministry’s campaigns have been instrumental in improving our regional World Assembly statistics, from number of World Assembly nations to the endorsement count of the delegate and the Security Council, therefore contributing directly to regional security and playing a role complementary to the World Assembly Development Program and the work of the Security Council. The Ministry has not utilized the World Assembly Legislative League to the extent I had foreseen, and there is a lot of untapped potential there. To a big extent, this was due to fundamental disagreements among the ambassadors from the four participating regions, which I hope in the future will be addressed.
Finally, in Foreign Affairs, the Ministry has successfully conducted diplomatic affairs to make sure that, through a very tumultuous period for gameplay diplomacy, The North Pacific has emerged as the most diplomatically credible and influential power in NationStates. The Ministry has built on our existing treaties to foster a diverse, stable, and powerful network of allies, positioning ourselves as the most valuable ally of all of our bilateral partners. We have leveraged our influence to resolve countless of conflicts, and steer interregional events in a direction that benefits The North Pacific. Two new treaties have been successfully negotiated, the World Assembly Legislative League and the Aurora Alliance, both of which will have a long-term influence on our foreign affairs direction. On top of these, the Ministry continues to maintain a state-of-the-art diplomatic service, providing reports from and distributing our material to more than 50 regions across NationStates. As previously, it is no wonder that other regions point to The North Pacific as the prime example of a region with a professional, pragmatic, and effective diplomacy, clear of personal drama and short-sightedness typical of other gameplay regions. Unfortunately, due to their very nature and assorted confidentiality issues, many of these efforts remain private at the leadership level, and I have been unsuccessful at communicating them effectively to the region at large. I hope that subsequent governments will be more successful in this area.
The results I presented above have been the fruit of the work of a very large number of loyal members of The North Pacific contributing to the executive government, as members of the Executive Staff, as Ministers, or as private counselors. The Executive Staff in particular has provided an avenue for members to get involved in the day-to-day running of the region. The importance of the Executive Staff is twofold: not only does it allow the government to efficiently tap the enormous pool of talent our region provides us with; but it also allows new members to develop experience in the executive, fostering the next generation of regional leaders. I would like to thank everyone who has joined the Executive Staff for their contributions and dedication to the region. I am amazed by the success of the program, and I am looking forward to seeing the advancement of our staffers into the next Deputy Ministers, Ministers, and Delegates.
I would also like to take some time to personally thank my partners in Cabinet, the Ministers of the last eight months. Democratic Donkeys was instrumental in creating a foundation for the Ministry of Home Affairs, using his strong in-game links and presence to promote the Ministry’s agenda. Tomb, with his good nature and hard work, built upon this foundation to lead the Ministry from an experiment to integral part of the government. Gladio, our longest serving soldier, with more than 100 operations under his belt, has turned the North Pacific Army from a small, untrained force, into the powerhouse it is now. Crushing Our Enemies, with his professionalism and drive for excellence, was the main source of inspiration and design for The Northern Lights. punk d later continued to use this framework to maintain the high quality of our regional newspaper. Lord Nwahs was full of ideas and enthusiasm in an area where I myself had little prior experience. Malvad had a vague direction from me to rebuild our roleplay section, and ended up directing the development of the most active section of the forum. Abacathea continued to offer his expertise in World Affairs for the benefit of the Ministry, and his advice has been invaluable for my own tenure in that Ministry in the following term. And mcmasterdonia, one of the biggest foreign affairs assets of the region, has as always skillfully and wisely conducted himself as the regional diplomat.
When I first ran for delegate, I promised a focus on regional development, community expansion, and integration of new members. I believe this focus has been justified, as reflected in the bustling activity seen nowadays in our regional forum. I am very excited to see all these new faces, fresh ideas, conversations and debates. And my advice to my successor will be to not lose sight of these objectives. The delegate and their government should always endeavor to reach out to our nations, let them know of all our region has to offer, and help them become proper parts of it. It is very easy to neglect this aspect of government: We, the forumites, have a very biased view of things, that is very different from that of our 4500 nations. What we take for granted, most of those nations may be completely ignorant of. And so long as we hold ourselves as representatives and leaders of those 4500 nations, we should ensure that we do our best to reconcile our different viewpoints with those of the region-at-large. Following the Voting Rights Act, 50 new citizens joined our community. I challenge the next delegate to provide the means and direction so that, by the end of the new term, the majority of them are still citizens. And along with the challenge, I wish my successor a successful term, as well as offer to be of any assistance I can.
I will close this longer-than-planned address on a personal note. Being delegate of the largest region in the world has been an exhilarating experience. After nine years in NationStates, it was probably the most excitement I have had in the game. I admit I am also quite fatigued from the ride, so the end of the term comes as a relief. I thank the region for providing me with the opportunity to be its leader for eight months now, and I hope I have not disappointed.
Sincerely,
~r3naissanc3r
Former Delegate of The North Pacific.
