- Pronouns
- he/him
- TNP Nation
- El_Fiji_Grande
- Discord
- El Fiji Grande (#3446)
In October of 2003, my cousin Steve emailed me about a new online political game he had heard about called NationStates and - knowing my interest in all things political given that I have a degree in Political Science - urged me to explore it. I tend not to be too interested in internet games, but decided to give it a shot anyway. As such, the nation Mikeswill was born into a Pacific region with the Eagle of Albania on the eve of NationStates’ first birthday. In the ensuing days, I spread the word of the game to another friend who joined and created a region called ‘NationStates’ and asked me to move. My first puppet, Mikes Hope, became resident number twenty-one.
The earliest days of the game were hectic and reactionary mostly because it was never meant to become a sustained platform. Max Barry initially created the game simply to promote his book “Jennifer Government,” but in the explosion of interest, a true game was formed. As such, the original game mechanisms were not made to deal with a plethora of player activity and antics, and had to constantly evolve.
A purview of the News bulletins from 2003 exemplifies the challenges of early game play especially as it tried to deal with “obnoxious morons”. Password hackers, griefers, region crashers and UN (now WA) Cheats were unforeseen problems that required a response. Prior to April 29, 2003, nations could move at will throughout the multitude of regions, spam at will, and create multiple UN identities with little recourse. As such, regional controls were created which allowed the delegate and founder to eject nations and password-protect the region. In May, NS Etiquette was introduced in part to define region crashing ie. raiding/invading. June saw the creation of Moderators: “kind, noble players who have volunteered their time to weed out some of the obnoxious elements.”
During this period, legend has it that the NationStates region was often raided and fought over due to the fact that it is named after the game and also because of its founderless status. Regional population was minimal until November. Thus, by the time Mikes Hope became UN Delegate of NationStates in early November of 2003, raiding was a major threat and password protection was the last line of defense. Moreover, without a founder, the power and responsibility to keep the region safe and secure was left solely to the delegate.
As the game increased in popularity, the region of NationStates grew exponentially and added players from around the world. September 2004, saw Mikes Hope deleted for griefing (not my best moment) and the region in flux as players split on the future direction of the region. Despite my humiliation, I was determined to be a candidate for the delegacy and thought I had a chance because I had personally recruited nearly every player in the region. By the end of the month, I secured the delegacy as Mikeswill and have remained in this position ever since. The other faction split off and continues to this day as a small, tight-knit community of fifteen nations.
By late September of 2004, the game unveiled the process to repeal previous UN/WA Resolutions. At first glance this mechanism looked to have much merit as it gave the UN/WA electorate to reconsider past legislation. Resolutions were no longer etched in stone, rather, they had to be able to stand the test of time. Unfortunately, this mechanism would become the most abused tool in the World Assembly and in the yet to be created Security Council.
Fundamentally, it makes sense to have a mechanism to correct flawed or erroneous legislation or to amend legislation which no longer reflects the essence of a changing environment. The United States has examples of changing course via legislation (the 18th and 21st Amendments regarding Prohibition) and judicial review (Plessy v. Ferguson and subsequently Brown v. Board of Education regarding segregation). In each case the ethos of a nation was heard and altered. In general, however, legislation has a long lasting effect and is difficult to undo.
Not so in our World Assembly where the opposition of legislation has written a repeal before the initial resolution has concluded the vote. What has become important is not the essence of the legislation rather the artistry of persuasion to convince a haphazard, easily manipulated, electorate to alter their position minutes after they cast their votes. Often times it seems that Repeal writers are more interested in authoring a repeal than the substance of their position.
Thus, in my region most of us vote for a resolution one week and against the repeal the second week. Unfortunately, the first legislation which passed with say 80% approval in round one dies with the same percent in round two. The result is a perceive travesty of justice and an inclination to believe that the overall electorate is easily manipulated. Were we overly engaged we could have submit a fix whereby no Resolution could be repealed for a period of six months.
Meanwhile the game continued. In 2006 Regional Influence was added to the game in another attempt to stem the tide of Invading. The result was that WA Delegates had greater power to keep invaders out and the Regional Power ranking minimized many threats. Undeterred the Raiders continued. May of 2009 saw the addition on Commend and Condemn Resolutions which had the effect of creating a badge of excellence for the Condemned. And in July 2009 came the worse mechanism of the game, in my opinion, the Liberation Resolution.
Liberation resolution: “A Liberation Resolution overrides any Delegate password in the nominated region, allowing other nations to enter freely. (It doesn't restrict the Delegate's ability to eject, ban, or do anything else; nor does it affect regions with Founders.) This allows the World Assembly to further its aims of bringing freedom and justice to the world, or grossly overstep its moral authority, depending on your perspective”.
The purpose of Liberations is basically to free a region that has been raided and return it to the natives. Whereas the idea has a degree of altruistic merit it is the most dangerous piece of legislation ever to threaten the NationStates region. How so? As a founderless region, it potentially removes my last line of defense as WA Delegate of the region. And sure enough the use of Liberation Resolutions soon became a tool of organizations to manipulate the borders and member nations of a region only then to use the repeal mechanism to revert back to the security of password-protection once they established hegemony over the region.
Moreover, the rationale for a resolution that nulls a game mechanism was flawed from my perspective. The reality was that regions without founders were most likely to be affected by such a provision mostly because they were easy to attack. Regions with founders are not favorable given the omnipotence of a founder. The cries of so-called natives that their precious region had been disturbed by raiders overshadowed their own irresponsibility to secure their own region, either by a strong Delegate or the refounding of their region.
In a nutshell, our fear is that an unscrupulous author will manipulate the electorate to usurp our Regional security via a Liberation and then Invade the region in such numbers to successfully take the Delegacy. As Condemn/ Commend/ Liberation were moved into the Security Council in February 2010, I petitioned for and received an Anti-Security Council Tag. Since that time we have voted against all liberations and for their repeals even when said repeals were merely the completion of power politics. And until such time as the travesty of liberations are removed from existence we shall continue in this direction so long as I am WA Delegate.
The earliest days of the game were hectic and reactionary mostly because it was never meant to become a sustained platform. Max Barry initially created the game simply to promote his book “Jennifer Government,” but in the explosion of interest, a true game was formed. As such, the original game mechanisms were not made to deal with a plethora of player activity and antics, and had to constantly evolve.
A purview of the News bulletins from 2003 exemplifies the challenges of early game play especially as it tried to deal with “obnoxious morons”. Password hackers, griefers, region crashers and UN (now WA) Cheats were unforeseen problems that required a response. Prior to April 29, 2003, nations could move at will throughout the multitude of regions, spam at will, and create multiple UN identities with little recourse. As such, regional controls were created which allowed the delegate and founder to eject nations and password-protect the region. In May, NS Etiquette was introduced in part to define region crashing ie. raiding/invading. June saw the creation of Moderators: “kind, noble players who have volunteered their time to weed out some of the obnoxious elements.”
During this period, legend has it that the NationStates region was often raided and fought over due to the fact that it is named after the game and also because of its founderless status. Regional population was minimal until November. Thus, by the time Mikes Hope became UN Delegate of NationStates in early November of 2003, raiding was a major threat and password protection was the last line of defense. Moreover, without a founder, the power and responsibility to keep the region safe and secure was left solely to the delegate.
As the game increased in popularity, the region of NationStates grew exponentially and added players from around the world. September 2004, saw Mikes Hope deleted for griefing (not my best moment) and the region in flux as players split on the future direction of the region. Despite my humiliation, I was determined to be a candidate for the delegacy and thought I had a chance because I had personally recruited nearly every player in the region. By the end of the month, I secured the delegacy as Mikeswill and have remained in this position ever since. The other faction split off and continues to this day as a small, tight-knit community of fifteen nations.
By late September of 2004, the game unveiled the process to repeal previous UN/WA Resolutions. At first glance this mechanism looked to have much merit as it gave the UN/WA electorate to reconsider past legislation. Resolutions were no longer etched in stone, rather, they had to be able to stand the test of time. Unfortunately, this mechanism would become the most abused tool in the World Assembly and in the yet to be created Security Council.
Fundamentally, it makes sense to have a mechanism to correct flawed or erroneous legislation or to amend legislation which no longer reflects the essence of a changing environment. The United States has examples of changing course via legislation (the 18th and 21st Amendments regarding Prohibition) and judicial review (Plessy v. Ferguson and subsequently Brown v. Board of Education regarding segregation). In each case the ethos of a nation was heard and altered. In general, however, legislation has a long lasting effect and is difficult to undo.
Not so in our World Assembly where the opposition of legislation has written a repeal before the initial resolution has concluded the vote. What has become important is not the essence of the legislation rather the artistry of persuasion to convince a haphazard, easily manipulated, electorate to alter their position minutes after they cast their votes. Often times it seems that Repeal writers are more interested in authoring a repeal than the substance of their position.
Thus, in my region most of us vote for a resolution one week and against the repeal the second week. Unfortunately, the first legislation which passed with say 80% approval in round one dies with the same percent in round two. The result is a perceive travesty of justice and an inclination to believe that the overall electorate is easily manipulated. Were we overly engaged we could have submit a fix whereby no Resolution could be repealed for a period of six months.
Meanwhile the game continued. In 2006 Regional Influence was added to the game in another attempt to stem the tide of Invading. The result was that WA Delegates had greater power to keep invaders out and the Regional Power ranking minimized many threats. Undeterred the Raiders continued. May of 2009 saw the addition on Commend and Condemn Resolutions which had the effect of creating a badge of excellence for the Condemned. And in July 2009 came the worse mechanism of the game, in my opinion, the Liberation Resolution.
Liberation resolution: “A Liberation Resolution overrides any Delegate password in the nominated region, allowing other nations to enter freely. (It doesn't restrict the Delegate's ability to eject, ban, or do anything else; nor does it affect regions with Founders.) This allows the World Assembly to further its aims of bringing freedom and justice to the world, or grossly overstep its moral authority, depending on your perspective”.
The purpose of Liberations is basically to free a region that has been raided and return it to the natives. Whereas the idea has a degree of altruistic merit it is the most dangerous piece of legislation ever to threaten the NationStates region. How so? As a founderless region, it potentially removes my last line of defense as WA Delegate of the region. And sure enough the use of Liberation Resolutions soon became a tool of organizations to manipulate the borders and member nations of a region only then to use the repeal mechanism to revert back to the security of password-protection once they established hegemony over the region.
Moreover, the rationale for a resolution that nulls a game mechanism was flawed from my perspective. The reality was that regions without founders were most likely to be affected by such a provision mostly because they were easy to attack. Regions with founders are not favorable given the omnipotence of a founder. The cries of so-called natives that their precious region had been disturbed by raiders overshadowed their own irresponsibility to secure their own region, either by a strong Delegate or the refounding of their region.
In a nutshell, our fear is that an unscrupulous author will manipulate the electorate to usurp our Regional security via a Liberation and then Invade the region in such numbers to successfully take the Delegacy. As Condemn/ Commend/ Liberation were moved into the Security Council in February 2010, I petitioned for and received an Anti-Security Council Tag. Since that time we have voted against all liberations and for their repeals even when said repeals were merely the completion of power politics. And until such time as the travesty of liberations are removed from existence we shall continue in this direction so long as I am WA Delegate.
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