Libertanny Elected Delegate, Horse RetiresBy Tretrid
After the latest series of Delegate Elections, Libertanny has been elected Delegate of the East Pacific. Vice Delegate Libertanny has run in both the February 2020 and the October 2019 elections, so it seemed natural that he should run again. It seemed like the path to the Delegacy would be clear for him, or at least it was until Viceroy Zukchiva entered the running. Here is a list of all nominees, as well as those who accepted their candidacy:
| Libertanny | Accepted |
| Zukchiva | Accepted |
| AMOM | Declined |
| Todd McCloud | Declined |
| Dragons Blood | Declined |
| East Malaysia | Declined |
| Bachtendekuppen | Declined |
| Pakitsk | Declined |
| VW53a | Declined |
| Sokala | Accepted |
| Dylan | Declined |
| Sakana | Declined |
| Aivintis | Accepted |
| Asendavia | Declined |
| Wiranath | Declined |
| Eastern Alksearia | Accepted |
| Algerstonia | Accepted |
| Danelaw Scandinavia | Declined |
| Marrabuk | Declined |
| Pax | Declined |
| Atlae | Declined |
| Acronis | Declined |
| ArenaC | Accepted |
Since Viceroy Zukchiva, who would otherwise have overseen the election, was himself running as a candidate, Viceroy Designee Pakitsk was instead administering the election. Also, it should be noted that Marrabuk had opted not to run for a third term as Delegate. And so commenced the campaigns for the Delegacy. Libertanny focused mainly on foreign policy. Part of this was through the Consortium, an ambitious plan initially created under Marrabuk’s delegacy. Meanwhile, Zukchiva took a more general approach to improving TEP. Not all of these campaigns were serious, however. In fact, two joke campaigns were run. Algerstonia based their campaign off of George Orwell’s celebrated novel, 1984. To be specific, they proposed basing TEP off of INGSOC and instituting the totalitarian government from the novel. And most importantly, they proposed ordering citizens to touch their toes without bending every morning. Aivintis (or “Lerasi/Aivintis/Warris/Manganite Mangote Mangite Magnet Mangent Mangetithe/The Wolf/Oh My God Idiot Stop Changing Your Name”), on the other hand, proposed theming TEP after the Empire, the group that invaded TEP in 2008. Among other things, Aivintis also proposed making the founder of the Confederation of Corrupt Dictators, Jocospor, “Chief Minister of Laughing Affairs.” Eventually, every candidate other than Zukchiva, Libertanny, and Algerstonia had dropped out of the race. It was a very competitive race, and for a lot of the time Libertanny and Zukchiva were either very close or tied. However, eventually, Libertanny won the election with 30 votes to Zukchiva’s 24. The delegate transition quickly started. The Delegate-elect quickly started to create his own cabinet, nominate ROs, and start to institute his agenda. Meanwhile, outgoing Delegate Marrabuk has made a farewell statement, and has recently been confirmed as a Vizier by the Magisterium after his nomination by the Delegate-elect.
A Parrot's Platform of Promised Plans and Potential Policies
By Aivintis
Libertanny's campaign, called the #Libertanny4Delegate Program, promised to bring even more democracy, unity, and strength to The East Pacific. In case you weren't planning on reading through text wall that would put the Great Wall of China to shame, I reread it so you don't have to. Here's a little rundown of Serge's plans for The East Pacific and promised policies:
- Approachability - Monthly forumside Cabinet meetings to be augmented by Voice Chat meetings on discord to answer questions
- Cabinet Reform - Retainment of the Vice Delegate position, release of the Ministry of World Assembly Affairs into its own Chief Ministry, transparent records and goals for all Ministries, new Chronicler office to maintain even more records, and concrete layout for all 12 Regional Officer positions
- Bureau of Public Affairs - New department akin to a Ministry that consists of an appointed Director, and elected "Ambassadors" to represent RMB RP and Forum RP and to act as middle ground between the RP community and the government, and to promote RP within the greater TEP community, with the possibility of mentorship
- Ministry Plans - Staffer of The Month program to boost morale, even more cultural events and activities, a focus on education and assimilation, simplification of the Ministry of Immigration, maintenance of current WA voting procedure, and new World Assembly Development and Education Program run by the CMoWAA
- Foreign Policy - Maintenance of the current foreign policy, a focus on UCR-oriented affairs without compromising GCR relations, Statesmus+ as a form of foreign exchange akin to Erasmus+, a treaty with Thaecia, guarantees of independence, and official establishment of the Inner Circle as the FA leadership council
- Consortium - Foreign Affairs project forming a Cultural-Military-WA-Diplomatic Bloc with a select number of active UCRs that maintain close relations with TEP promote equality and cooperation and to pay attention to TEP's UCR allies
These potential promised policies and plans (phonetically fun to say) are apparently indicative an ambitious delegacy in which the rebuilt government will be built upon even more in new ways. Minor points like "Spreading The East" to other games, and maintenance of the current EPSA policy augment this platform. Although it hasn't even been an entire month since Libertanny was elected, this is what has been accomplished already:
- June 15th marked the release of Libertanny's first statement as delegate, naming his cabinet. A lot of the Cabinet stayed the same, but some of the changes included the appointment of Dragons Blood to Vice Delegate, the naming of Zukchiva as Director of the Bureau of Public Affairs, the promotion of Wallenburg from Minister of World Assembly Affairs to Chief Minister of World Assembly Affairs, the appointment of Feu de Glace as Chief Minister of Regional Affairs, and the appointment of Virgolia as Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs while The Earth Systems Alliance goes on a Leave of Absence.
- Bureau of Public Affairs - Zukchiva was named Director of The Bureau of Public Affairs, and has since worked relentlessly on sculpting the new organization. On June 23, Eastern Alksearia, better known as SirShadow, was elected Forum RP Officer by Evolved RPers, making them the official Forum RP Ambassador to the Bureau. RMB RP Ambassador elections are being held as of the writing of this article.
- Independence - Our first guarantee of independence was offered up to a founderless UCR with close relations with TEP and a promising future, however it was refused by their leadership.
- Goals + Staffers - On June 17, Libertanny officially requested that all Ministers write up a list of Monthly Targets and keep an updated list of Staffers. This is still a work in progress for some Ministries.
- Chronicler - Vanzeria was appointed Chronicler on June 17, and has proved to be a valuable addition to the Cabinet.
- New Executive Application - Chief Minister of Regional Affairs Sakana reached out to Ministers on in regards to updating the Executive Branch Application with new descriptions and contacts, with changes to account for the Cabinet changes.
- Festival of Tranquil Suns - On June 22, Libertanny opened the Festival of the Tranquil Suns, a festival that had been being planned for quite some time, with a speech written by Vanzeria and Aivintis.
- Trello - Trello.com was adopted on June 22 as a new platform used by Cabinet as a place for various forms of task management. It has seen extensive use already by most of Cabinet.
- Consortium - On June 23, the Consortium, which had been discussed before amongst TEPers and other regions, began development. Since, multiple regions have taken part in discussions and debates on various aspects of the Consortium.
- New Festival - On June 24, Libertanny approved the planning of a new Festival with recent consulate Grace of Gaia.
- WA Development / Cabinet VC - On June 25, practically the entirety of Cabinet gathered in Voice Chat to discuss the WA Development Program. In this chat, an agenda was followed and ideas were put out and discussed, making great progress for the WA Development Program. The next VC has already been scheduled for early July.
- Foreign Affairs - Under the leadership of Acting Minister Virgolia, the Chief Ministry of Foreign Affairs has opened up a consulate with India, as well as reviewing all current consulates upon Libertanny's request and requesting aid in the delegate transition from a number of our allies. Talks have not yet begun with Thaecia regarding a treaty.
So in this short time, some of Libertanny's campaign goals have already been fulfilled and other achievements have been made, heralding a bright term for Delegate Libertanny. I, for one, look forward to next month's achievements, and the months after that. Hail Pacificus Orientalem.
An Honest Interview with a Parrot: A Talk with Libertanny
By Zukchiva | Interviewer’s Note: This interview was held with Delegate Libertanny on June 29th, 2020 via Discord Direct Messaging. As such, the grammar and spelling of this interview is riddled with typos and mistakes!
Zukchiva: Hey Lib, thanks for giving me the chance to interview you! I'm sure a lot of people have questions on what you plan to do in the next few months as Delegate, especially now that you've spent two weeks in office. My first question (to ease into this interview), is simply how have the past two weeks as Delegate gone for you so far? Have you already come across strong obstacles and have you made substantial progress on your campaign goals in this short time?
Libertanny: Hello Zukchiva, Well. When Marrabuk said, that being Delegate is basically having a second job, I didn't fully believe him. I was a Vice-Delegate for some period, and I was thinking on how is that supposed to be that different from being Delegate. But it is. It is very different. You can go to sleep and wake up with 20 pings and 10 DMs, alongside forum and in-game notifications. So in between of working full-time, being freelancer / setting up own websites related company and spending weekends away from home, I'm also doing my best to be the Delegate of the East. I hope I'm not doing that bad, but it's up to Citizens. But that's just a typical me, and you seem to know it the best :stuck_out_tongue: Speaking of what I have achieved (looks into his own campaign). We started creating Bureau of Public Affairs, we already have its leader (Zukchiva) and Forum RP Officer (SirShadow). RMB RP Officer elections are currently happening and I have contacted TEAPOT to have its representative in BoPA / Cabinet too. I have instituted McStooley as Vice Delegate of the East. We kind of changed idea for Organization, and we decided to use Trello, which is an awesome tool to organize Cabinet's tasks. I have nominated ROs. Ministry of WA Affairs has become and independent body (as in, not a part of Regional Affairs). We've had an awesome VC with most of Cabinet attending, during which we talked WA Development Program and prepared business plan for it. We have also began working on Consortium (having already 5 regions + TEP being interested in idea and server being created). We've also already scored a failure - the guarantee of independence of one of regions was denied by them.
Zukchiva: Thats... actually extremely impressive @_@ So that's one thing that caught my eye in all that is the WA Development Program! Many people would say that TEP is a bit behind on the World Assembly game, with GCRs such as TNP, TSP, and Balder having WA programs. If possible, is there any special unique feature you plan to put into TEP's WA Program, which our fellow GCRs have not added within theirs?
Libertanny: I wouldn't say so. The East Pacific doesn't have its own resources to have a Development Program, so we are really relying on r3n from The North Pacific here. We're basically making a copy of TNP's program. What we are adding, however, is membership in EPSA as part of WADP. In order to encourage people to participate in EPSA without them feeling like losing cool badges from WADP, we will be adding EPSA related categories. Thanks to Evri, we now also have an autoupdating dispatch, that pings WA Residents not endorsing me once a day (if I'm not wrong).
Zukchiva: Well, for better or worse, having a World Assembly Development Program is gonna make our region stronger, that's for sure. One important campaign promise you made is that you are willing to form a treaty with the region of Thaecia. How is the progress on that? If you haven't started negotiations, when do you plan too?
Libertanny: We haven't began talks yet, as we are pretty busy, as in, both regions are. Thaecia's just gone through elections and we started so many tasks at once. So I would say, as soon as situation gets calmer for both regions, we will start treaty talks with Thaecia. Hard to say when, excatly. But in less than a month, I hope.
Zukchiva: Mhm. Interesting! One thing you've always been interested in is Magisterium activity as you've been a Magister for a long time before becoming Delegate, and in many other regions the crafting of legislation plays a big part in the executive leader's role.As Delegate, do you see yourself pushing for any specific piece of legislation, or general changes to our current law?
Libertanny: I don't think we should determine this per me serving our region as Delegate now. I have always been into Magisterium and I have always been more or less active there, even as non-Magister. And I do intend to be active, when some things calm down and I have more time. I do not support anything specific law as of now, but I am in general support of (1) making laws less complicated, (2) making laws shorter and more universal (i.e. no refenreces to Concordat or other Acts, unless totally necessary) and generally (3) laws to boost security and (4) laws to boost democracy.
Zukchiva: All of those are very strong goals regarding our legislation. o-o Now to take a small shift in direction: what do you think has been the greatest challenge (insofar) as Delegate that you have dealt with in these last two weeks, if any?
Libertanny: Frankly. VC has been the biggest achievement imho. I havent seen such activity in Cabinet yet. And we managed to prepare a rather detailed idea for WADP during 90 mins. So it seems like something so simple, but yet so efficient and fruitful.
Zukchiva: The Voice chat was pretty cool, ngl! I especially liked the fun we had in it. So, another question I have is, why did you decide to stick with the masonry theme and why did you make it a large part of your campaign? Many other Delegates in TEP have experimented with TEP's theme, why not you?
Libertanny: It is a very simple question and a very simple answer. Keeping masonic theme is remembering about past heroes of our region, that server under the Compass. We also remember about Loop, who is more or less the Father of current East. This also seems to be simply "our" Eastern theme. When you think about freemasonry, you think about TEP. And that's also because I'm a regionalist, so keeping traditions is kind of a part of my ideology. And as a last note. Last time we changed theme we were couped
Zukchiva: Lol, yeah that's a pretty strong point ->- Speaking of coups, it has only been eight months since the coup occurred. While TEP is pretty strong now, it may not be as security-protected in the future. What do you think is the most largest long-term threat to TEP's security, how do you propose we solve it, and is there anything you plan to do now as Delegate to lessen said threat in the future?
Libertanny: Oh the solution is pretty simple. We need to stop making overly complicated laws and make them all more universal. What killed us the most were so many non-updated or overly complicated laws. Coupers didnt care and were doing their thing, whilst we were debating in Conclave and Magisterium things like "is stopping a coup legal?". I dont have a direct solution, as I dont see a direct threat. We can never know what is gonna happen tommorrow. But having simple, universaland understandable laws is probably the main self-defence mechanism.
Zukchiva: Hm, that's quite a unique take. But, it does make sense. This next question is a bit different from the others. The Vice-Delegacy was a new position created by Delegate Marrabuk, in which you served for around a few months. Do you think that your tenure as Vice-Delegate has helped you acclimate into your role as Delegate? And do you think it has, in some way, prepared you for your current job, and if so, how?
Libertanny: Well. It for sure did help me prepare for Delegacy. But I wouldn't say it played an important role. It's role would be just equal to being Minister of Info in past, or MoFA or Magister. Delegacy is being fluent in or at least similar with a lot of spheres of GP. So that was a nice addition, but I don't think it prepared me for being Delegate more than any role I had before. What was awesome about being Vice-Delegate is that, you had more freedom in doing things, than when you were a Minister. So that for sure boosted my GP activity even more.
Zukchiva: And it seems I'm running out of questions, and we've both got places to be. So, it's time to conclude this interesting interview! But on a last note, as is custom, do you have a general message you want to share with EPNS's readers?
Libertanny: Pax Fruits are a cheap replacement for Italian pasta. Gooses taste the best grilled. Besides that. I think not.
Zukchiva: Well Lib, this has been a fine interview, besides the threat on my species and way of life O_O Thank you for having me, and allowing me to bombard you with my questions!
Straight from the Horse’s Mouth: An Interview with Marrabuk
By Atlae | Interviewer’s Note: This interview was held with the outgoing Delegate Marrabuk on June 29th and June 30th, 2020 via Discord Direct Messaging. The following is an unedited transcript of said interview.
Atlae: On a scale from 1 to 10, how would you rate your delegacy and why did you choose that number?
Marrabuk: 7. I chose that number because even though I felt like I have done well, there are always room for improvement and always more things to accomplish. As a matter of fact, I didn't even manage to complete the consortium project.
Atlae: Is The East Pacific better now than it was before Fedele?
Marrabuk: Personally, I believe so, yes. The region is more stable and unified. There are bound to have disagreements like all families do. But at the end of the day, we will die for one another.
Atlae: What was the best thing that happened during your administration?
Marrabuk: To be honest, there's too many to list. For starters, loyal TEPers banding together to help fight against the coupers was and will continue to be one of my fondest memories of our great united region.
Atlae: What was the worst thing that happened during your administration?
Marrabuk: There were a few notable ones. For instance, the whole AMOM being appointed as Senior Commander of EPSA and releasing an official statement has caused such a huge uproar amongst our allies and potential allies. We could've definitely handled that better, but I still believe we managed it well enough given the cards that were handed to us. Atlae: What would you say is TEP’s position on the interregional stage?
Marrabuk: We have a treaty with every single GCR except Lazarus. A treaty with strong UCRs such as XKI and Europeia, building stronger relations with many stable and upcoming UCRs like Thaecia, for instance. So I say, we're pretty strong in the interregional stage
Atlae: What do you think is the general direction and outlook for the future of TEP?
Marrabuk: Reforms internall post coup has been tremendous. Activity has went up tenfold and the unity of the region is now unparalleled. Keeping our region's activity high, unifying our region further and strengthening our influence in the interregional stage via the consortium is the direction I feel our region need to continue.
Atlae: What obstacles will Libertanny have to overcome in order to be a successful Delegate?
Marrabuk: Libertanny has a tendency to work and focus on too many things at once. Personally, I believe Lib's biggest obstacle to prioritizing and recognizing what needs to be worked on first and be able to complete it before moving on to the next project.
Atlae: How will you stay involved in The East Pacific now that your term has ended?
Marrabuk: I have recently just been confirmed as a Vizier and have also been nominated for forum Global moderator role. I am still an advisor to the cabinet and my DMs are always open if Lib or fellow TEPers need advice and guidance.
Atlae: As of now, you have around 100 endorsements from the nearest Vizier, Zukchiva, as well as a boatload of influence. Will you repeat the decisions of your predecessor?
Marrabuk: Not sure, I understand this. What decisions did my predecessors do?
Atlae: What did your immediate predecessor do when he was leaving office :p
Marrabuk: Coup? Yes, definitely and I am certainly planning to coup. Thanks for asking.
Atlae: Thank you for letting us interview and thank you for the service to our region.
We’re a little TEAPOT
By Evrigenis
Within TEP, interest in NS trading cards has been brewing for several months, and it has found its culmination in The Eastern Association of Pacifican Ornamentation Traders (TEAPOT). The new body has struck out from existing cards organizations by deciding to be independent of regional government while simultaneously being the region’s official cards association. In addition to being able to sign up on the East Pacific’s regional forums, residents can apply by pinging the official TEAPOT puppet on the regional message board with the pledge to abide by the Charter. The full text of the Charter is available here. How did the tea come to be? On the 6th of June, the Vizier and Arbiter Goose Zukchiva fielded the idea to make the Association official. They then promptly wrote the first draft of what was to become the Charter. This spurred on many questions about what the foundling organization was to look like: Would it be part of the government or independent? How should leadership be structured? While the legislative debate was developing, another important question was asked: What should it be named? Feu de Glace, also known as Sakana, CAME UP with the current name to hearty approval. Rateafication on the 13th was unanimous. Thus, The Eastern Association of Pacifican Ornamentation Traders was born. Who serves the communitea? In the wake of the Delegate election, the cards community held its own tea party leadership contest. Nominations were plenteaful; however, the election boiled down to former Overseeing Officer of EPSA, current Minister of Regional Affairs, Feu de Glace/Sakana and Deputy MoIC and cards enthusiast Evrigenis/y0. The campaigns focused on who the Steward should be and how the Association would strengthen TEP, respectively. Both campaigns were well received, and on the first day after voting was opened, “abstain” led. In the final analysis, the results were 3 abstensions to 3 votes for Sakana to 4 votes for y0. With y0 taking a sliver of a lead, they became Steward. How tea get started? Evrigenis’ first action as Steward was to appoint Feu de Glace Deputy Steward. y0 also set up the beginnings of the structure for the TEAPOT, going through with their campaign promises to hold a contest for a new puppet and open a heisting reports thread. What’s next? We’ll soon find out!
RMB RP Spotlight: A Civil War
By Osterreich und Ungarn
During the month of June, an arresting development took place in the TEP’s Regional Message Board Roleplay. What occurred was a major geopolitical crisis in the world superpower Osterreich und Ungarn in the form of a military coup directly followed by a civil war. The Kaiser (the leader-in-exile) rallied his supporters and tried to fight the new military government, but a lack of professional soldiers along with a socialist uprising in the West quickly caused the Kaiser’s front to collapse and for him to flee into the wilderness. After the Kaiser’s disappearance, the socialist faction and the military government continued to fight, causing untold amounts of destruction to multiple cities, small towns, and landscapes. The newly fledged military junta was, however, soon hijacked by an ultranationalist and expansionist group called the Honor Party, which rallied its supporters and took charge of the junta. During the later stages of the war, the socialists began to run out of food, oil, and most importantly, morale. In a desperate attempt to salvage their goal, the socialists spread their troops out and consequently overextended their front. This decentralization of socialist forces allowed the Honor Party to crush the socialists once and for all, take control of the nation, and establish a new totalitarian state. Now, the nation rebuilds itself as the world prepares to deal with the war's unprecedented outcome. Whatever may happen next, the future of Osterreich und Ungarn, both as a world superpower but also as a bastion of democracy, has now been irreversibly changed.
The East Pacific’s Urth Roleplay: A Newbie’s Perspective
By Art
Roleplay. According to Wikipedia, it is “an activity that is the changing of one's behavior to assume a role.” In NationStates, one assumes the role of multiple identities. You assume the role of not just the leader, the congress, or the senate of a nation but the nation as a whole. As someone whose only roleplay experience was playing at Garry’s Mod DarkRP servers where everything was basically just “make money and then shoot people”, Roleplay in NationStates, in general, was a culture shock to me. I was first introduced to NationStates by the Youtuber named Drew Durnil. As an RTS enthusiast, the idea of controlling a nation tickled my brain and led me to join NS. Upon fiddling with ideas for a nation name, I settled on the name Sokala and from then on I discovered The East Pacific(TEP)’s different roleplays. From Urth’s intricate history to Valsora’s futuristic world, TEP’s roleplays were filled to the brim with pages upon pages of worldbuilding and hours of effort by the creative minds of Roleplayers in the East Pacific. During my time roleplaying on Urth, TEP’s Forum Roleplay world, I found out three things that made Urth different from other roleplays in TEP. The first thing that differentiates Urth RP from other RPs was that it had a very long history spanning almost two decades. Urth RP, formerly known as The East Pacific RP, was created by One Infinite Loop in 2003. Until today, lore created by nations in 2003 is still used in today’s Urth RP. One such example is the Urthian race of Nekomimis, a race of cat people made by Loop himself, which still populate many nations in 2020 Urth. Another example is that some nations like Bai Lung, Kelssek and even Xiopothos that were from the original map still exist today on Urth.
A picture of TEP RP’s ‘Asia’ map. Est. 2004-2008
The Megathread uprising of 2020
By La xinga
On the night of Sunday, Jun 21, 2020, Administrator and Senior Game Mod Reploid Productions locked the Right-wing Discussion Thread and the Left-wing Discussion thread, places which were meant for you to discuss about, well, left-wing politics and right wing politics! The mod's reasoning for the lock can be found here. United muscovite nations was the first nation to post. UMN was a person who posted on the 4 and a half year old threads frequently. He even put in his forum sig: "Grumpy Grandpa of the LWDT and RWDT". To quote UMN himself: "Congrats on [REDACTED] over a huge portion of the user base. Think I'm gonna head off the site for good, since LWDT and RWDT were the only halfway decent things to do on this site. Go ahead and deat me so I don't have a reason to come back." Once he realized the mods were not deleting him, he spammed and flamed his way into deletion. UMN was warned for spamming, didn't care, got a three-day ban for flaming, posted against it, and finally got the DEAT. The first FOUR posts were different posters attacking the mods for their actions. People demanded that the mods say how they got to this decision, and also claimed GHRs don't work. People questioned: "What happens if a mod breaks a rule? Can't they just delete the GHR? Oh, admins answer them? What happens if Admins break the rule?" Conspiracy theories ran rampant: Did the mods have some biased thing that no one knows about? The Archregimancy insisted that was not the case, yet, sadly, no one listened to Arch. People also claimed the mods didn't want people to chat, and one nation claiming that "the mods took smaller threads and merged them into bigger threads, and now they're getting rid of the big threads? Two nations decided that since there was no more RWDT or LWDT, they'll create a less broad new one. Nouveau Quebecois created the Authoritarian Right Discussion Thread I, while South Odreria 2 created the Authoritarian Left Discussion Thread I, both immediately locked by moderator Sedgistan, since they didn't meet the guidelines for megathreads. Whether or not that was a bad thing to do or a good thing, the users of RWDT and LWDT were not happy. People wanted other threads in NSG locked, some not even Megathreads. Nations did receive warnings, bans from forum for a certain amount of time, and even a DEAT. Reploid Productions repeatedly stated: “Once again, the topic is the megathread closures and requests for review of other megathreads. It is not for loaded questions about unrelated cases, hence the continued removal of posts as bad faith.” Yet again, when people are mad, they go over the line. People are free to criticize moderation, but mods are still players behind the screen, users that play NS too, like all of us.
The Enemy of the People
By Inquisitive Examinations (Editor's Note: This article is a work of satire. None of these views represent the view of the Eastern Pacific News Service as a whole.)
On June 22, a scandal erupted that would change free press forever. Our step sister-twice-removed organization, NationStates Today, released information of a threat from Lazarene Prime Minister JoWhatUp not to publish a leak from a citizens-only channel about certain treaties. JoWhatUp’s worst crime - besides the capitalization of their name - is that he expected that this threat to NationStates Today would not be leaked, saying “I trust this will not be leaked.” This is an outrage for any believer in free press, who have for years advocated the god-given right to leak. One notable critic goes on to say that “[Lazarus] effectively criminalized routine investigative journalism,” which is verifiably true! According to NationStates Today, this leak came as a result of an article about the Better Together Accords and the Treaty of Skandia between the New Pacific Order and the regions of The West Pacific and Balder, respectively. These treaties were publicly posted in the Gameplay forum on June 10 and June 13, 2020. NationStates Today supposedly contacted JoWhatUp about leaked statements regarding these treaties at or around June 16, 2020, when JoWhatUp refused to comment on these statements and blackmailed NationStates Today. NSToday came forward with this behavior on June 22, and to this day there hasn’t been an article about these treaties yet. Or at least I can’t find it. I’m smelling censorship, though. When NationStates Today came forward with these allegations, Gameplayers blasted NSToday for accepting the leak. Some even went so far as to call them a security risk, suggesting that they were inside governments and watching! This accusation is absolutely absurd. The trench-coat wearing NSToday reporters hanging outside the region’s government buildings are not dangerous! If you go to them and ask about their day, they will probably sit down with you and explain for hours on end showing you pictures of their spouse and kids, as well as their loyal pet, probably. None of these Gameplayers have asked these spies how they feel. These people that they’re calling security risks have lives too. A young aspiring security risk walked into my office today. When they aren’t busy spying on other regions, they settle down in The East Pacific and write roleplay posts. I played Secret Hitler with another security risk, and although he was literally a fascist, I could tell that he enjoyed having fun and organizing the game. These security risks interviewed GCR Delegates like Marrabuk in an interview for a podcast. They literally recorded every word they said and no one raised any objections over their Delegates being bugged. If these people keep going on censoring the free press, who is next? The good people at Inquisitive Examinations will not bow down to this pressure and will continue to examine inquisitively! JoWhatUp, don’t comment on this article. We in Inquisitive Examinations do not like comments from people with random capitalization.
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