It’s already election time again, so once more I come before you humbly asking that you support me for Delegate of The North Pacific. In my last campaign I addressed the fact that I am asking a lot of you to give me any additional terms in this office, given the fact that it removes an opportunity for other potential newcomers to the office to serve. That is still true now, but just as true is the fact that now is a time for experienced leadership. And having held down the fort fort in TNP for the last 4 months, I believe that we must continue the work that has already begun and maintain the course that we have been on.
We have seen some important successes in the term that is about to end. In our various exchanges with those who would test our resolve and our strength, we have clearly proven both and have come out ahead, and things are continuing to trend that way. We have secured new and significant alliances with like-minded regions in the form of the Pax Polaris Occidens and the Modern Gameplay Compact. These commitments add additional protection for all our allies, give us a fruitful opportunity to work more closely with two traditional adversaries/rivals in the form of the New Pacific Order and The West Pacific, while strengthening our bond with our old allies Balder and Europeia; and renew the Independent sphere and announce to the world that despite our recent move toward more defensive operations in R/D and our opposition to the worst impulses of raiding in these current times, we look no more kindly on a gamestate where even the targeted and justifiable raiding we do would be challenged. These treaties are still new, and the relationships and dynamics they bring are still taking shape. I would expect any delegate following this term to see where they lead and to continue the groundwork that has been laid, but ultimately the best way for that to happen is for this current government to continue as it has been these last four months. I am far from finished in advancing Independence in this new form, and in making sure our military alliance continues to serve as a deterrent to those who would think of standing against us or our allies.
I believe that the various areas of our government, when working at their best, tend to blur together and cross boundaries. I certainly pride myself on the natural overlap that comes from projects involving multiple ministries. So with that in mind, I will label the following sections according to the ministry they are most-related to, even though there’s probably going to be bits and pieces from different ones in each section.
We’ve been tested, not just by other people and places in this game, but by time itself, from scheduling to the number of people available to carry out all the tasks we have before us. Everything hasn’t gone exactly as planned, and we haven’t always had perfect landings, but I think we’ve done a great job navigating these challenges and responding to the moments that demanded our attention. I think there’s a lot of value in speaking to what has happened so far and what will happen going forward, from our accomplishments to our plans. But the true value of any campaign is in how it responds to the voters. Our questions, your concerns, your own takes on these things I have said – this is where we get to the meat of the matter. There is a lot to unpack, and I won’t know how much of it you are able to follow along with and how much remains unsaid between the lines, unless you point it out or ask me. So please, I encourage you to do just that. Thank you in advance for your support, and I look forward to your questions and comments.
We have seen some important successes in the term that is about to end. In our various exchanges with those who would test our resolve and our strength, we have clearly proven both and have come out ahead, and things are continuing to trend that way. We have secured new and significant alliances with like-minded regions in the form of the Pax Polaris Occidens and the Modern Gameplay Compact. These commitments add additional protection for all our allies, give us a fruitful opportunity to work more closely with two traditional adversaries/rivals in the form of the New Pacific Order and The West Pacific, while strengthening our bond with our old allies Balder and Europeia; and renew the Independent sphere and announce to the world that despite our recent move toward more defensive operations in R/D and our opposition to the worst impulses of raiding in these current times, we look no more kindly on a gamestate where even the targeted and justifiable raiding we do would be challenged. These treaties are still new, and the relationships and dynamics they bring are still taking shape. I would expect any delegate following this term to see where they lead and to continue the groundwork that has been laid, but ultimately the best way for that to happen is for this current government to continue as it has been these last four months. I am far from finished in advancing Independence in this new form, and in making sure our military alliance continues to serve as a deterrent to those who would think of standing against us or our allies.
I believe that the various areas of our government, when working at their best, tend to blur together and cross boundaries. I certainly pride myself on the natural overlap that comes from projects involving multiple ministries. So with that in mind, I will label the following sections according to the ministry they are most-related to, even though there’s probably going to be bits and pieces from different ones in each section.
In the World Assembly, Hulldom and myself successfully repealed and replaced our ally Europeia’s commendation. This was just the opening salvo in what we aim to be a series of resolutions celebrating our allies and ourselves, to reflect not only the great things we accomplished in the past, but what we continue to accomplish with the newer generation of players who have made names for themselves in this game. This term saw some of the best WA cooperation with TWP, of all places, and we are pleased to see more authorship both successful in terms of passed resolutions and works in progress. Our continued partnership through PPO and MGC also creates an opportunity for TWP’s engagement in the GA, something I hope will bear fruit in the months ahead. The last time I was delegate we saw the possibility of such a thing during our talks around the WA Symposium. To foster greater participation and acceptance of the WA is a good thing, and if one of its biggest critics can find common ground with WA players, that can only be a benefit for that part of the game. I still believe WA participation, and all of our experience and tools for WA tasks, can be a big part of foreign policy but also a key way to engage players on the home front. We’ve learned a lot about community engagement from our friends in TWP and Europeia, and I think it’s time we moved away from being purely analytical and cerebral in how we approach WA votes, and be more willing to cut loose and have fun with them. I will be the first to admit my approach has been at odds with that idea – look no further than how I responded to the declaration on pillows, or the prospect of commending IA twice. Seeing the WA with fresh eyes, and accepting that it can be more than just model UN, could unlock better understanding, better participation, and better enjoyment in general as we continue to engage with it.
That long-standing treaty with TSP is also cause for celebration, and a cultural event highlighting that treaty and our relationship with TSP will be the heart of our culture team’s work in the month to come. We hope to expand on the kind of activities and engagement we saw with our successful A Drop in the Ocean events in the past. Our team is also perfecting the setup for future gameside-centric events to bring all our players from the different sides of our community together. The first foray into this was Miami: the Magic City 1980s, an event that is still ongoing as this election opens. We are keeping a close eye on it, and should it delight roleplayers and casual players alike, it will serve as a model for further gameside engagement of the same kind. We already saw from our successful Pride Month event that our gameside players are more than happy to get in the spirit when we call on them to do so, and our partnership with The West Pacific has been very useful in further identifying ways to activate and entertain this aspect of our community. Between efforts to entice them as well as our offsite players, we saw the largest response to a Democracy Day pocket constitution giveaway in the last 3 years. Culture also notched another milestone in the project by contributing to new designs and add-ins that did not require Kickstarter to include with the constitutions. We hope this is just the beginning in further adding to the project and if all goes well, we can hopefully see similar physical media be made available to our players on a more consistent basis, so that our Culture ministry can see their designs and art come to life in a way they never have before. And for those whose creativity is more focused on videos, radio, and print media, we want to create a big opportunity to engage in those areas and to showcase our collective knowledge and skill in that area, and compare notes with similar players in other regions, just as we did with the WA and with cards, by holding a communications symposium in the next term. We have always been inspired by this kind of work abroad, and a few years go proudly inspired others with the changes we made to our own media. I hope we can recapture that spirit again, and that the event will if nothing else be a boon for content creation!
Culture, and everyone else for that matter, has had their work cut out for them though. When I ran for this office in May, I put forward another major shift in how our government is structured by having Culture absorb the Ministry of Media. It’s been a challenge for that staff to juggle all the projects that come from such a move, but it’s not a challenge unique to their ministry. I have seen people cite summer slumps, blame people or going to school or not going to school, but the truth is, we simply must motivate our players better. I am incredibly proud of the work our staff has done with their various projects, and I know that when we embark on projects and see them through to the end, TNP produces some very impressive results. Though it was late in the term, we saw the fruition of two long-planned broadcasts, the next in our popular series of roleplay reading, and what I felt was one of our best news shows in recent memory. But there is never a good time to get complacent. There are talented individuals happy to help and produce the output TNP is known for, but they can only do so much on their own, and it is not fair to ask more of them when they have no support and when everything already falls on them. TNP has been lucky for a long time that we have recruited some of the best talent in this game, but that recruitment can never stop. Home Affairs has been studying this problem, with an ongoing survey to gauge the continued efficacy of our lists but also to find out which areas of this community need more love, which activities or projects have the best responses, and what forms of engagement we can improve on. TNP has grown and changed a lot from its earliest days, but also just from the days I first became active in it. Old barometers of success, old tricks and methods that did well for us in the past may not still be working as well as they can or should.
Culture, and everyone else for that matter, has had their work cut out for them though. When I ran for this office in May, I put forward another major shift in how our government is structured by having Culture absorb the Ministry of Media. It’s been a challenge for that staff to juggle all the projects that come from such a move, but it’s not a challenge unique to their ministry. I have seen people cite summer slumps, blame people or going to school or not going to school, but the truth is, we simply must motivate our players better. I am incredibly proud of the work our staff has done with their various projects, and I know that when we embark on projects and see them through to the end, TNP produces some very impressive results. Though it was late in the term, we saw the fruition of two long-planned broadcasts, the next in our popular series of roleplay reading, and what I felt was one of our best news shows in recent memory. But there is never a good time to get complacent. There are talented individuals happy to help and produce the output TNP is known for, but they can only do so much on their own, and it is not fair to ask more of them when they have no support and when everything already falls on them. TNP has been lucky for a long time that we have recruited some of the best talent in this game, but that recruitment can never stop. Home Affairs has been studying this problem, with an ongoing survey to gauge the continued efficacy of our lists but also to find out which areas of this community need more love, which activities or projects have the best responses, and what forms of engagement we can improve on. TNP has grown and changed a lot from its earliest days, but also just from the days I first became active in it. Old barometers of success, old tricks and methods that did well for us in the past may not still be working as well as they can or should.
One area we clearly saw this was in the NPA. I am no stranger to the pros and cons of leaning too heavily on one dedicated and skilled individual, as I had to navigate an army without the experience of the long-term minister of defense at the time, Gladio. The only way out of such a situation is to train up new talent, and that takes time. Even when you have promising new talent thriving in the role, if you do not have a broader talent bench waiting to relieve them, you will find yourself in the situation we did this term, when we suddenly lost Cretox. For a time we saw an exciting new potential in the NPA, and a stronger NPA in chasing operations. This would go a long way toward expanding our skills but also our role in R/D in the current gamestate, but it relied entirely too much on one person. Training new talent from our existing soldiers is priority number one, but at the same time, recruiting new soldiers is just as important. If we’re rethinking how we do things, that will certainly have to apply to the NPA. The cosmetic changes and new organizational chart were important but they will not address these needs.
In a more long-term sense, this term has been instructive about what we can do and what we need to prepare ourselves before executing. Stargate, and what to do with it, has been top of mind probably longer than it ever has been in the past. We have a robust defensive network to help protect it, we have soldiers to pile as needed, and we always respond swiftly when action is needed. But our army cannot do that the same way forever. There has been some trouble keeping enthusiasm going when the frustration of indefinite defensive posturing becomes a recurring thing. I am pleased that this term we have a better handle on how to engage with Stargate moving forward. While our treaty network offers it more passive protection than it had previously, we have established the start of a strategy that first and foremost involves Stargate taking a bigger role in its own defense and will lead to greater growth and more sustained population going forward. Casl sees the necessity in forging a new and different path, and this also creates potential cultural cooperation opportunities as we see Stargate make a play for greater activity. The most immediate result of our talks, however, is that the NPA will no longer need to consistently pile and retreat to a defensive posture in Stargate.
In a more long-term sense, this term has been instructive about what we can do and what we need to prepare ourselves before executing. Stargate, and what to do with it, has been top of mind probably longer than it ever has been in the past. We have a robust defensive network to help protect it, we have soldiers to pile as needed, and we always respond swiftly when action is needed. But our army cannot do that the same way forever. There has been some trouble keeping enthusiasm going when the frustration of indefinite defensive posturing becomes a recurring thing. I am pleased that this term we have a better handle on how to engage with Stargate moving forward. While our treaty network offers it more passive protection than it had previously, we have established the start of a strategy that first and foremost involves Stargate taking a bigger role in its own defense and will lead to greater growth and more sustained population going forward. Casl sees the necessity in forging a new and different path, and this also creates potential cultural cooperation opportunities as we see Stargate make a play for greater activity. The most immediate result of our talks, however, is that the NPA will no longer need to consistently pile and retreat to a defensive posture in Stargate.
As we are confronted again and again with the reality that we must not just think outside the box, but change the shape of the box itself, we must be willing to shake things up even more. I briefly mentioned a plan to see if gameside engagement in WA voting could be explored in my last campaign. Not only do I still want to see this through in some form, but I want to expand on the idea. Seeing our personnel issues, and how the gameside community reacts to game events that have taken place this term, I am increasingly convinced that our infrastructure and automated tools are not enough. Press releases are not enough and TNL RMB posts are not enough. Even events like the one we’re still holding on the RMB are not enough. If the staff won’t come to us, we must come to the staff. In the months ahead, I hope to combine RMB posting, group TGs, and gameside polls to bring the gameside community further into the fold and to give them an opportunity to participate in our executive staff. The gameside advocates and HA will need to refine these methods and craft a plan for how to implement it most effectively, but I hope this will pay off much more than AMAs and concerted efforts by cabinet members posting periodically on the RMB ever did. And if we can get additional staffers, we can get additional soldiers. I believe the auxiliary can play a crucial role in giving our gameside players a way to get involved while also introducing them to the NPA circle. Ultimately, increased engagement can and should lead to some of these players dipping their toes in the offsite aspect of the community, and if even something like 1% of the active gameside players end up joining up with our offsite staff, that will make a huge difference in our staff manpower.
One way we have continued to see success in pulling in better engagement from gameside players, or even prominent players outside our region, is our Cards Guild. The benefits and advantages of membership in the guild have convinced many players to at least become citizens and sign on the guild. For this reason, it is important that we continue to advance the cards ministry. We have started two new pilot programs this term, one to inflate the value of guild member cards, and another to seek out missing cards from guild members’ collections using our in-house cards staff. We hope this continues to provide an incentive for membership, while also allowing our guild members concrete goals and tasks to perform that lets them do what they do best without spinning their wheels waiting for season 3 to come. There is also a possibility to expand these projects, if the demand and manpower ever grows sufficient, so that we can bring those benefits to allied regions who may not be members of our guild. I see this as a long-term prospect, however. But what we have done so far, I believe is enough to keep the cards ministry going into next term.
When I last ran for this office, I made a point to speak to legislative activity on the part of my government. I highlighted the ongoing desire in the region for judicial reform, and I am proud to say we achieved our goal of passing legislation that would improve on the system we built in the wake of the AGORA Act. We now have a bar commission with a full set of rules and procedures, and the capability to admit prospective prosecutors into that bar, while also creating a new office that can serve as the universal standing that can better address r4rs that have eluded us since the office of the Attorney General was abolished. But that is not the only issue at the forefront of our minds. Despite the passage of the Citizenship Reform Act during MadJack’s tenure, more work must still be done to further perfect what we have done so far, and to better accommodate players in a modern world where our old ways of handling checks from the admin’s perspective just don’t cut it anymore. The previous act took pains to avoid undermining the admin’s check as much as possible and did not fundamentally question the check itself. Since seeing the new law in action several times, it is clear there is still a major divide among our citizenry as to whether it is worth the exclusion of likely-innocent players to protect against the possibility someone may be able to use a second account on our forum. If there is no good way to bend the admin check to be more accommodating to players who, through no fault of their own, do not have wired internet connections, then we may indeed be looking at a more fundamental shift in how we approach the admin check, and the solution may not be a simple exemption. When we tackled this issue earlier this year, I expected it to be a long and drawn-out process for that reason, and I am not surprised we found a more restrained way of going about it. But we may have to take a leap of faith on this one.
Whatever we end up doing, it will be after exhaustive effort to get it right and hear everyone out and will require a great deal of input from all of you. Drafting language that will address everyone’s concerns will be challenging, but I feel it needs to be a legislative priority for this government in the term ahead. I have taken a step toward this end already, in proposing the Accelerated Admission Act, which would reduce the total time the Speaker and admins have in which to pass their checks, while also accommodating exempted citizens who find themselves able to pass the admin check and allowing the Speaker to remove citizenship from those who received it in error. These are quality of life improvements, but they inch us closer to a better citizenship system and guarantee that a much more complicated and drawn-out bill is not the only chance we have to further refine it. I hope that regardless of how this election plays out, this bill will be passed by the next term.
Whatever we end up doing, it will be after exhaustive effort to get it right and hear everyone out and will require a great deal of input from all of you. Drafting language that will address everyone’s concerns will be challenging, but I feel it needs to be a legislative priority for this government in the term ahead. I have taken a step toward this end already, in proposing the Accelerated Admission Act, which would reduce the total time the Speaker and admins have in which to pass their checks, while also accommodating exempted citizens who find themselves able to pass the admin check and allowing the Speaker to remove citizenship from those who received it in error. These are quality of life improvements, but they inch us closer to a better citizenship system and guarantee that a much more complicated and drawn-out bill is not the only chance we have to further refine it. I hope that regardless of how this election plays out, this bill will be passed by the next term.
We’ve been tested, not just by other people and places in this game, but by time itself, from scheduling to the number of people available to carry out all the tasks we have before us. Everything hasn’t gone exactly as planned, and we haven’t always had perfect landings, but I think we’ve done a great job navigating these challenges and responding to the moments that demanded our attention. I think there’s a lot of value in speaking to what has happened so far and what will happen going forward, from our accomplishments to our plans. But the true value of any campaign is in how it responds to the voters. Our questions, your concerns, your own takes on these things I have said – this is where we get to the meat of the matter. There is a lot to unpack, and I won’t know how much of it you are able to follow along with and how much remains unsaid between the lines, unless you point it out or ask me. So please, I encourage you to do just that. Thank you in advance for your support, and I look forward to your questions and comments.
