The Rejected Times

[Onderkelkia]

I forget nothing and no one. I am much more aware of Funkadelia's knowledge of the situation than you are

I wasn't talking about Funkadelia when I said that "you are forgetting those who opposed assimilating Lazarus into the NPO from the outset".

I know perfectly well that Funkadelia was prepared to allow the NPO to exert its influence over Lazarus until the latest incidents.

If you have evidence that Funkadelia was aware of the NPO's ultimate intentions to assimilate Lazarus as the NLO, then by all means produce it.

Rather than being a defender of Funkadelia, I have criticised him for having turned a blind eye to the NPO's actions in Lazarus. The "PRL-in-exile" is illegitimate and deserves no sympathy. Yet that is different from the claim that Funkadelia foresaw the NLO's creation. Can you support this?

Aside from this, the quotes you have pulled out of context do not refute my point.

The post to which AMOM was replying was in my post, not just his response, as was a link to his original post if you want to follow the context up further.

The NPO does not utilize or possess regions. The NLO is a full partner of the NPO, it has been assimilated, yes, but not as a colony to be used as a mercantile property, but as an equal.

If I believed this, I would be lacking as much "discernment" as the defenders who refused to see what the NPO was doing before the latest coup.

[Pierconium]

I forget nothing and no one. I am much more aware of Funkadelia's knowledge of the situation than you are

I wasn't talking about Funkadelia when I said that "you are forgetting those who opposed assimilating Lazarus into the NPO from the outset".

If you have evidence that Funkadelia was consciously aware of the NPO's ultimate intentions to assimilate Lazarus as the NLO, then produce it.

To be clear, I am not defending Funkadelia - on the contrary, I have criticised him for having turned a blind eye to the NPO's actions in Lazarus. The "PRL-in-exile" is illegitimate and deserves no sympathy. Yet that is different from the claim that Funkadelia foresaw the NLO's creation. Can you support this?

Aside from this, the quotes you have pulled out of context do not refute my point.

The post to which AMOM was replying was in my post, not just his response, as was a link to his original post if you want to follow the context up further.

The NPO does not utilize or possess regions. The NLO is a full partner of the NPO, it has been assimilated, yes, but not as a colony to be used as a mercantile property, but as an equal.

If I believed this, I would be lacking as much "discernment" as the defenders who refused to see what the NPO was doing before the latest coup.

I know to whom you referred, which was the reason for the second part of that statement.

As to evidence on Funkadelia,why? I have nothing to prove to you or anyone else. I don't actually care if you believe me about it as it makes no difference. I was just granting you an opposing position. Obviously you can choose to ignore it as you like, the end result is the same.

In regards to your lack of discernment, we will simply have to agree to disagree. I do not lie as I have no need to, the region backs my position by virtue of the Delegate's position. Your opinion, or the opinion of any other region/nation outside of that is immaterial.

To state definitively that you can not believe me simply because I have stated it is an asinine point of view in my opinion and reeks of the elitism that you and others seem so quick to push onto us.

[Onderkelkia]

I know to whom you referred, which was the reason for the second part of that statement.

The second part of your statement was:

and the masses are free to move regions and endorse whatever governmental structure that they like if they are unhappy with the legitimate Delegate's policies.

When I said that "you are forgetting those who opposed assimilating Lazarus into the NPO from the outset rather than merely after the unveiling", I wasn't talking about "the masses" of the nations of Lazarus either. I was referring to neither "the masses" nor Funkadleia.

I was talking about those purged in September 2013 and the vocal critics of that purge since then, as those familiar with the context would know.

As to evidence on Funkadelia,why?

As it would be damning evidence against him if what you were saying is true.

I have nothing to prove to you or anyone else. I don't actually care if you believe me about it as it makes no difference. I was just granting you an opposing position. Obviously you can choose to ignore it as you like, the end result is the same.

If "it makes no difference", there is no reason for you to say it. It wasn't "an opposing position" because I simply said I didn't know whether your original claim, that Funkadelia was aware of the plan to establish the New Lazarus Order from the outset, was true but that in any case he was at fault in my view.

In regards to your lack of discernment, we will simply have to agree to disagree. I do not lie as I have no need to, the region backs my position by virtue of the Delegate's position. Your opinion, or the opinion of any other region/nation outside of that is immaterial.

What would be lacking discernment, as I said, is if I bought the NPO's claim that the NLO is an equal partner rather than a colony. It would be frankly as foolish as the conduct of those you have been criticising for drinking "their own kool aid" in blanking out Lazarus's link to the NPO in the last couple of years.

The fact that the Delegate of Lazarus agrees with your assessment is unsurprising when he has been doing the NPO's bidding.

To state definitively that you can not believe me simply because I have stated it is an asinine point of view in my opinion and reeks of the elitism that you and others seem so quick to push onto us.

It would indeed be asinine for one to state that simply because you stated a view it inherently cannot be believed.

However, I merely commented on the credibility of the statement itself; I made no comment about the fact you were the person who made it.

[Pierconium]

You do make some valid points, and I would like to give them my full attention, therefore I will delay a reply until tomorrow since it is late here and I am soon to sleep.

[Pierconium]

You do make some valid points, and I would like to give them my full attention, therefore I will delay a reply until tomorrow since it is late here and I am soon to sleep.

Well, on the surface of it I seem to have been wasting my breath defending the position of those in Lazarus so I am not certain my input is warranted here any longer unless the situation shifts.

[Lazmac]

Well, on the surface of it I seem to have been wasting my breath defending the position of those in Lazarus so I am not certain my input is warranted here any longer unless the situation shifts.

Congratulations on your regency.

[Glen-Rhodes]

Well, on the surface of it I seem to have been wasting my breath defending the position of those in Lazarus so I am not certain my input is warranted here any longer unless the situation shifts.

Congratulations on your regency.

I'm starting to think Krull doesn't know what a regent actually is

[Pierconium]

Congratulations on your regency.

I'm starting to think Krull doesn't know what a regent actually is

He certainly does. Unfortunately, the Regents have been the issue.

[Kazmr]

I'm starting to think Krull doesn't know what a regent actually is

He certainly does. Unfortunately, the Regents have been the issue.

April 2015, the month of three Regents.

[Pierconium]

He certainly does. Unfortunately, the Regents have been the issue.

April 2015, the month of three Regents.

Third time's the charm.

[Lazmac]

I'm starting to think Krull doesn't know what a regent actually is

He certainly does. Unfortunately, the Regents have been the issue.

You can only appoint so many bad Regents before it's hard to argue that the Regents are the sole problem. Krulltopia is the Emperor and he is the one who has appointed these people, the one who has, at the very least, failed to supervise and bring to a halt their heinous actions against the sovereignty of other Feeders and Sinkers. Does the buck stop with the Emperor, or not? Is it not the purpose of the institution of the Emperor to guarantee order in The Pacific and to prevent this kind of chaos? By the NPO's own ideology, Krulltopia is negligent in his duty to the nations of The Pacific, which is the duty to prevent lawless disorder.

On a separate note and in the interests of full disclosure, since Senator Pierconium's "close associate" Gracius Maximus was so keen to hint at using this information: Earlier today I recommended that Feux surf out of The Pacific between updates in order to retain his endorsements, in the hopes of overthrowing Krulltopia and the NPO. I'm not sorry about it, I'm only sorry that Feux declined to do it and decided instead to remain loyal to those scapegoating him for their own expedient benefit. I don't recognize the NPO as a legitimate government and I have no qualms in advocating regime change. Neither should anyone else.

[Zemnaya Svoboda]

He certainly does. Unfortunately, the Regents have been the issue.

April 2015, the month of three Regents.

Thank you for that Kazmr. You brought a smile to my face.

One can only wonder if the NPO will experience its own year of four emperors some day.

[Onderkelkia]

As others have observed, the NPO are now punishing Feux and AMOM for their ultimate failure and their personal blunders leading to that outcome, but the NPO tolerated their underlying actions over the last two years, to the point of announcing Feux's elevation to the regency just as the NLO emerged. If Feux and AMOM had been successful in carrying out their vision for the NLO, there can be little doubt that the NPO would be responding to this very differently.

The NPO now faces a full-scale political catastrophe, with its grand plans for Lazarus ruined and its reputation in shreds. The NPO's diplomatic relations with its fellow game-created regions have crashed and all for naught, after years of work, going back to the unlawful purge of Griffin and NES in September 2013 (indeed preceding that). One can only imagine the anger and the despair currently being felt in the upper echelons of the NPO over this outcome.

Probably partly because it feels aggrieved by their incompetence and partly because it is politically convenient, the NPO is placing the blame for what occurred squarely on Feux and AMOM. The fact that the NPO is scapegoating us should not blind us to the fact that the individual roles of Feux and AMOM in the NPO's role in Lazarus were great. They were clearly the instigators of the plot and Feux was warmly rewarded (until it all went wrong) for his troubles. So while we should recognise the NPO's propaganda tactics in blaming them, at an individual level, they bear the heavy responsibility for what has occurred.

Yet the culpability of Feux and AMOM does not excuse the NPO establishment. On the contrary, again as others as noted, the pattern is all too familiar - what we are seeing now is the Gaspo treatment (which NES highlighted as ludicrous at the time, partly leading to the tensions which existed with the NPO in Lazarus), although it is possible that Feux at least might be subsequently be rehabilitated at a future point, albeit it is unlikely that the NPO establishment will ever trust him in the same way again (certainly they would be fools if they did). For the NPO establishment to allow its chief servants to run around like this without its sanction, it would have to be be totally incompetent and negligent. Regardless, while Feux and AMOM deserve much blame, the NPO establishment let them do it. If it had worked, the NPO establishment would have gained. Now it has failed, the NPO establishment should bear the cost of the disastrous policies, from the NPO's Retort (indeed, predating it) onwards, which Feux and AMOM pursued on their behalf and in their name.

[The Rejected Times]

Kazmr on the Lazarus Liberation
INTERVIEW | UNIBOT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF


"Lazarene soldiers march into Emerald City."

Less than twenty hours have passed since Lazarus was liberated by the government-in-exile; Unibot speaks with the Underground's 'Man-On-The-Inside', Kazmr, former PRL Chairman, who made the whole thing possible...

Unibot: Lazarus has been liberated! Of course, in no small part due to your efforts. How does it feel right now to know Lazarus is free at last?

Kazmr: A huge relief. The past week and a half or so has been incredibly emotionally draining. Knowing that I was going to betray people I considered friends, in [Milograd]'s case for the better part of maybe six years, and having to contribute to a cause I was very against was brutal. Now that its all over, it's like a 1000 pound weight is off my chest.

You infiltrated the New Lazarene Order – whose plan was that? When did the plan come into being?

The idea was mine. I had been inactive for several months when I was contacted by Funkadelia soon after their first moves began. He wanted to retrieve deleted bits of the constitution from the backups I had. I obliged, and then lurked for several days. When he asked me on the 11th if I could contribute some more help since I still had influence on my nation, I suggested going undercover as I figured that would be better than just being an influence drain. I was willing to wager that [Milograd] would trust me implicitly, and that bet paid off.

Give us a bit of insight into what went on last night behind the scenes when you were informed by NPO’s leadership that you were going to take the delegacy? Who did you contact? How long did you have to prepare? What was running through your head?

Well, I opened up my laptop in class (9:30ish am out here in pacific time) and found that Milo had indicated in the NRL subforum that they were planning a major operation tonight with my name in the thread title. For the past couple days I had been in much closer contact with a handful of LUS members, notable Funk, Eluvatar, Asta, and a few others, and I informed them right away.

When Milo brought it up in the inner-circle Skype chat I had been added to a couple days prior (it included himself, Feux, Stu, their RL friend Sweet Leaf, and AMOM), it was confirmed.

We basically spent the rest of the day preparing. We contacted no one ahead of time, but prepared all of the posts and TGs we would sent out, spend hours pouring through endorsements and creating lists to ban, gathering intelligence to leak in order to sabotage their efforts, and more. Major [update] was roughly twelve hours away, so that's how long we had to prepare.

It was basically just a blur up until the last hour or so... longest hour of my life!

Did you ever consider supporting the New Lazarene Order? Others did, some quite loyal to PRL even...

I will be honest and say I thought about it. Never leaned in that direction, but I thought long and hard. Been through a lot with Milograd over six years, including the TSP coup before I really knew much about gameplay, and the whole history of the PRL, not to mention RPing days. I knew I was making the right choice, though, when I started writing Gazette articles for them. Something just felt off. Can't really explain it, but I couldn't really put my heart into it.

Meanwhile, some of the underground writings I did, like the Manifesto and various posts for after the victory, just plain felt good to write. Oddly enough, the only post for the NLO I somehow enjoyed writing was a Gazette post I knew would never see the light of day: the announcement to go along with the successful purges from last night.

Now that the New Lazarene Order has been deposed, what’s the immediate plan for securing Lazarus – are more reinforcements needed? How can others help the cause and who should they contact?

Right now we need to consolidate and ban the last remaining NLO troops. With Yao DEATed, plus Stujenske and AMOM banned, the majority of their strength in the region is gone. Pergamon seems to be stubborn, but his time will come. We'll also be sure to clear out the puppets we identified to prevent future sleepers.

At this point, I think we're somewhat good, but any endorsement will help us end it quicker. I would recommend contacting Funkadelia about that as he is the head of the Lazarene state, though if anyone wants to come and endorse of their own volition, the WFE gives a good indication who to look to.

Seems to me, history is written by the victors. What do you think the future has in store for the New Pacific Order?

At least for now, they'll go dormant. They faced a lot of attrition from this one. Feux was far and away the most active senator, and with his fall they'll lose a lot. For the meantime I sincerely doubt they'll get support from the international community. For the future, though, who knows? NS seems to have a terribly short memory sometimes. I hope others don't make the same mistake Lazarus did.

You’ve published a paper, ‘The Kazmrian Manifesto’, a statement of principles on building a balanced sinker democracy. Could you explain that some more for our readers? What's your vision for a future Lazarus as it moves forward?

Well, as I said at the top of that, it isn't something to impose on the region. I wrote that while I was undercover basically to keep myself sane. It contains a lot of ideas and principles I think would be great for a stable, democratic sinker which balances both the game side and forum. Some ideas are radical, some run of the mill. I really don't expect anyone to agree with all of it, but I really hope my fellow Lazarenes take it into account while we chart our future course.

Finally, if someone were to try to commend you, would you refuse it? Hah!

Haha, I think I would take it. I guess I can take a bit of selfish pride.

Much deserved pride! Thanks so much for the interview, Kazmr. If you've got any last remarks for our readers, you've got the floor. Good luck with the rest of the liberation effort.

I really want to thank the incredible outpouring from the international community. There were several regions who worked tirelessly the whole time, and the LUS was supported by more than just Lazarenes. Furthermore... 200 endorsements in a day. Wow. We couldn't have done this without the rest of the community responding so incredibly quickly.

[Todd McCloud]

Rather interesting read, thanks. Takes a lot of dedication to follow through with a plan 11 months in the making as well. Good luck to Kaz and Laz.

[Unibot III]

Thanks Todd.

[Bhang Bhang Duc]

Good interview, enjoyed it.

[The Candy Lane]

Good interview. I wish Lazarus the best of luck and congratulate all those who helped/are helping restore order and legitimate government.

[The Rejected Times]

Issue XXXVII | April 28 2015

TBR Becomes Founderless; LKE and TBR embroiled in Recruitment Scandal
Founder nation deleted for 'Illegal Script Usage'
COMMENTARY | THE CHURCH OF SATAN, CORRESPONDENT

Earlier today, Sedgistan, Senior Game Moderator, posted a startling revelation on the NS forum and it is, by no means, a joke. Brace yourself: The Black Riders' founder nation has been deleted for 'Illegal Script Usage' in addition to using scripts made and provided by delete-on-site user, Frak/Anur-Sanur. The illegal script allowed users to send automated telegrams as though they were manually-recruited messages - which gives the users a serious advantage in terms of speed and response. The moderators are currently considering whether to declare Bob Moran (The Black Riders) delete-on-site and have requested that he make a full public apology for his actions immediately.

Sedgistan, publicly addressing the matter, noted that "it is absolutely prohibited by the Script Rules to use a script to fake manual recruitment, and the only reason for doing so is to cheat the game and disadvantage legitimate recruiters." In addition to the ban on the Black Rider's Bob Moran, the Black Riders and the Land of Kings and Emperors have been banned from recruiting via telegram for the duration of the next three months and any attempts to get around it have also been signaled out by Sedgistan, when he stated in the decision that the ban 'includes recruiting via API, manual telegrams and stamps. The punishment has been enacted already by the administrators and starts [immediately]. Any attempt to evade this [ban] (for example by recruiting for 'proxy regions') will result in an extension of the block by one month per attempt, as well as severe punishment for all players involved.'

With Bob Moran's deletion, the Black Rider's founder nation was also deleted, along with who knows how many other nations. At this time it is unknown whether Bob Moran will return to NationStates.

Sensing an opportunity for revenge, nations from all over NationStates have arrived to The Black Riders' home region to lay siege to it in the biggest backlash of karma perhaps NationStates has ever witnessed. The new arrivals are apart of a broad coalition of players from mostly User-Created Regions, lead by 'The Insane Region' and its industrious founder, United German Regions. The attack on the Black Riders has been organised by an anti-TBR organization (one of many) that calls itself the 'Black Rider Unit'. The 'lead' nation for this operation has amassed an alarming 143 endorsements as of the writing of this article and at minor update, gained the delegacy of the now founderless region.

The local Regional Message Board for the Black Riders has been a site of both panic and disarray, as the Black Riders respond to the unexpected occupation:

STACK, STACK, F*****G STACK, RIDERS.

GET YOUR WA IN HERE AND ENDORSE MY NATION, nation=ridersyl, AND ANY OTHER TBR NATIONS THAT TURN ENDORSABLE, UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

WE'RE FIGHTING ON THE HOMEFRONT NOW.

@ ALL BLACK RIDERS:

Marshals The Marshal of Gest and The Chief of the General Staff of Kknight are now in The Black Riders Supreme Command.

The Black Riders under attack. All WA-nations remain in their assigned places unless otherwise ordered by Supreme Command.

The region maybe lost, but the organisation is not.

- Cora -
Secretary of The Black Riders

Troops from the Black Riders are currently being told to station their nations in DEN, one of the former headquarters of the DEN Army - while the command has called it the 'new Black Riders operating base' - it is unclear whether this is simply a temporary measure or the Black Riders might take on the namesake of DEN. Meanwhile, a symbolic WA Liberation of the Black Riders, 'seeking to take every opportunity thwart the region that has been shown to be built on lies and unethical tactics,' currently sits in the queue in the WA Security Council with a massive 261 approvals from delegates -- if it is not deleted, it will go to vote after 'Commend Sciongrad'; the anti-TBR campaign has also produced two other proposals, 'Commend United German Regions' and 'Repeal "Condemn The Black Riders"' (the latter, perhaps prematurely) which, while not having reached the queue, very well could reach quorum sometime soon. It's gonna be a busy week in the WA Security Council!

While United German Regions has listed a number of high profile regions as supporters of his operation, it should be said that when the Rejected Times began contacting regions on the list, not all the regions on the list were aware they had been listed while others denied involvement in the operation. For example, the Lazarene Liberation Army (LLA) is prohibited by law from participation in the operation, according to its leader, Funkadelia, but Lazarus was still listed erroneously as a supporter region - so too, was the North Pacific, despite the North Pacific claiming neutrality on the matter.

'The North Pacific has received requests from both TBR allies and TBR enemies asking us to support them,' explains Tomb, Delegate of The North Pacific to The Rejected Times. 'For now and until further notice, TNP remains neutral on this, because there is no interest for TNP in both sides.'

Readers are therefore urged to take the United Germans Regions' list of supporters with a 'grain of salt', so to speak. And if you were wondering, the Rejected Realms Army (RRA) has also decided to remain neutral on the invasion, with RRA Commander Frattastan noting over IRC that 'for what has been decided so far, TRR will not intervene in TBR.'

As far as the Land of Kings and Emperors is concerned, Josh Sebastian of LKE released a statement claiming ignorance of Bob Moran's use of the script in question as well as denying knowledge of its existence; he adds 'The Imperial Government of The Land of Kings and Emperors did not authorize Bob Moran to use any script/recruitment program, nor had we any knowledge that he had access to such tools.' The official statement proceeds to confess that the region is 'shocked and dismayed' by Bob Moran's actions, however whether or not either part of the statement or the statement in its entirety holds any truth is unknown. As one might expect, LKE has cried ;wolf; with regards to the decision by NationStates Administration as evidenced in their official statement, arguing 'but now, to learn that we too must be penalized for the actions of another, which we had no knowledge of nor have we endorsed, is a great disservice to due process. To ban an entire region, on account of one nation, acting independently on his own, is a rather unfair and unjust ruling.' The final paragraph of the statement claims they are willing to work with the administration team to clear their name, 'We remain committed to having this matter resolved, not only to clear our name from this, but also to ensure a fair and competitive environment for recruitment for everyone. We are open to working with the moderation team to investigate further on this matter, in the hope that a full and fairer accounting be done.' However it remains to be seen whether they are even remotely innocent; nonetheless, the Land of Kings and Emperors has indicated that it will pursue an appeal of the moderator decision.

After everything is said and done, however, I would argue the Black Riders' time has come. Defenders and natives that fell victim to TBR raids have long dreamt of this day. IRC channels all over NationStates have seen comments akin to 'TBR is getting what they deserve' or 'This is gonna be fun'. The Black Riders hadn't imagined this would happen in their wildest dreams -- the small, 'newbish' coalitions of anti-TBR forces leading a genuine occupation of the Black Riders -- holding their home region in a state of panic and confusion.

---

Elegarth Unilaterally Dissolves TWP Legislature!
COMMENTARY | UNIBOT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF



Shocking developments from Administration Island have emerged over the past few hours. Throughout this week, Llamas and Elegarth have been competing in open elections for the role of Prime Minister – while the first election ended in a tie, 10-10, the second election also, astonishingly, ended in a tie, 10-10, earlier today. While it is to some extent a generalisation, Llamas campaign appears to have attracted newer members of the West Pacific, while Elegarth’s campaign has been more popular with regular mainstays from the community (not to mention the Guardians, including Westwind and Eli). Incidentally, Llamas actually would have won the first vote if he had voted himself – he and Elegarth had abstained from voting (presumably out of tradition), but Elegarth had voted for himself in the last few moments of voting before Llamas could respond in kind – creating a tie.

Elegarth, who also serves as Speaker in the West Pacific, said the result of two tied votes, 'borders the ridiculous'. To add to the wildfire of whirling drama, however, ‘That Called the Vlagh’, aka. Pierconium, newly appointed Regent in The Pacific, intervened as Minister of Legislative RP and declared that given ‘at least half of the HGA do not wish to see Elegarth replaced as Prime Minister’ that Elegarth’s past resignation as Prime Minister would be rejected and Elegarth would be reinstated as Prime Minister. However, there was no explanation provided as to why Elegarth was favoured over Llamas, when neither candidate had received any less votes than the other, nor why the abstaining voters were lumped together with Elegarth’s supporters as ‘those who do not wish to see Elegarth replaced as Prime Minister’.

What was Elegarth’s first action as Prime Minister (again)? Dissolving the West Pacific’s legislature unilaterally and announcing an immediate constitutional convention. ‘It is my belief that our current set of laws and constitutive documents have too many holes and missing details that would need to be fix,’ writes Elegarth, ‘And that the best and optimal way to solve it is through the creation of a new Constitutional document.’ This action was criticised by some and praised by others – many saw the need for constitutional reform, especially in light of a recent proposal for a new constitution written locally by Archsium, but at least one member was outraged that the West Pacific’s legislature could be unilaterally dissolved in such a manner.

The move has a few in the West Pacific speculating about the intentions of Elegarth and Vlagh in the West Pacific – only a few days have passed since the New Pacific Order’s occupation of Lazarus collapsed – many still are questioning whether Elegarth and Vlagh can be trusted and whether or not they might be acting on behalf of the New Pacific Order to advance plans to assume control of the West Pacific. Stujenske, only two weeks ago, unilaterally dissolved the Lazarene Congress and the constitution, the timing of which certainly cast doubts on Elegarth and Vlagh’s actions in the West Pacific now. However, several members of the community in the West Pacific have publicly defended Elegarth and Vlagh and cautioned others of ‘paranoia’ surrounding the New Pacific Order. A motion to recall Vlagh based on his participation in the New Pacific Order was soundly rejected.

Not to abuse a journalist cliché too much here, but ‘what remains to be seen’ is how a constitutional convention can prevent this kind of deadlock in the future. Save not holding elections at all, if a public is divided, it strikes me that it imminently follows that the vote will be divided! I can’t, personally, see how constitutional reform could magically prevent votes from tying or make Elegarth or Llamas more popular; the cynic in me wonders if a constitutional convention is nothing but a conjuring trick to force self-interested proposals onto the public in the West Pacific, while distracting from Elegarth’s absence of any strong claim to a legitimate mandate as Prime Minister. Meanwhile however, Darkesia has reminded others that a ‘delegate transition will happen on schedule regardless of the chaos in which the forum exists’ – leaving doubts as to who the new delegate of the West Pacific will be and what kind of state the region will be in when they inherit the West Pacific from the outgoing Guardian…

---

Moderator Interference Proves Troublesome with 'Non-Interference' Proposal
COMMENTARY | OMIGODTHEYKILLEDKENNY, EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

In what must have been a botched training exercise for improving moderation in the General Assembly -- because really, their timing could not have been worse -- a wrongful deletion of a proposal on monitoring elections cast a pall over GA mods' recent attempts to reach out to players for suggestions on how they could do better.

Just hours following the submission of Bananaistan's Non-interference in Elections, and after 1,400 stamps had already been purchased to advertise the proposal to delegates, the proposal was removed from the queue, with the only advisement from the moderation team being a form telegram helpfully informing the author that he should draft his proposal in the GA forum -- even though he had already been drafting the proposal there for months, with no mod input -- and a vague note that his work supposedly duplicated Elections and Assistance Act. (For those not in the know, duplicating past resolutions is illegal.)

When Bananaistan asked for clarification, another telegram was sent from the mods, informing him that his proposal also duplicated Rights and Duties of WA States. As it became apparent that the proposal didn't actually duplicate either resolution, Mousebumples and Mallorea and Riva, newly appointed Game Mods, promised more clarification, just as soon as they could huddle together to figure out what exactly was wrong with the proposal (which might have been a useful discussion before they abruptly deleted it, really).

As players began to chide the mods for seemingly demonstrating why a conference with players over improving GA moderation was so badly needed -- allegedly uninformed actions/rulings based on mods' refusal to interact on the drafting forum, and essentially 'deleting proposals first, asking questions later' -- the mods quickly issued another ruling that the proposal was legal after all, but still needed work (ostensibly to make it even more legal).

With Bananaistan left to lick his wounds after spending money to campaign for a totally legal proposal that the mods nonetheless deleted, GA regulars continued to hound the Secretariat over an embarrassing SNAFU that easily could have been prevented had they set out to do what they've been promising to do over the past couple of weeks: increase their presence in the GA drafting rooms, lest there be any more unnecessary mishaps after proposals are submitted.

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Between Two Sapient Potted Plants: An Interview With Sciongrad
INTERVIEW | GRUENBERG, CORRESPONDENT

The Rejected Times was able to get some time on the record with Sciongrad, the newly elected Delegate of the International Democratic Union. One of the most prolific WA authors ever, Sciongrad is also a former Deputy Minister of WA Affairs for The North Pacific, a member of UNOG, and the artist formerly known as Connopolis.

He agreed to sit down for a few questions, in exchange for helping Ambassador Santos sell a cache of unmarked automatic weapons to a group of dodgy third world rebels.

You are currently running as a candidate to become delegate of the International Democratic Union (again). Do you have any particular plans if elected delegate?

Absolutely, I do. Perhaps the most pressing issue facing the region currently is stagnation - most of us aren't even motivated to post more than a couple times a year on our forum. If I'm elected again, I'd make it a priority to dedicate a lot of resources towards recruiting new members and breathing some life into the community. But while most of our members face stagnation, I'm also aware that our region is the most legislatively active in the entire game, and plan on working to ensure that our region is comfortably supported by some of our larger allies as the WA continues to gradually fall under the influence of GCRs and other large regions.

IDU is probably the most legislatively active region in the WA, yet it has a very low gameplay profile and even prominent NS players may be unfamiliar with the region. Do you think this is a bad thing for the region?

Unfortunately, yes, I do think that's a bad thing. For better or for worse, the gameplay world essentially controls the WA with its absolutely massive sum of votes, and it's really quite frightening that the region that has pumped out dozens of resolutions in the past couple of years is almost completely unknown to those voting on them. There was even controversy over whether or not the IDU - even with its expertise and historic ties to TNP - should be admitted to WALL because we lacked the gameplay profile that the other charter members had. So I think the IDU needs to make a serious effort towards developing its profile among the gameplay world and establishing its presence in major regions so that we can properly capitalize on their influence. Similarly, if the gameplay world is truly interested in passing quality legislation, then working to develop closer relations with the IDU is a no-brainer.

Do you think the WA forum is actually of any real use in drafting proposals?

Absolutely not. As a matter of fact, I post there only to hear the criticism of a select few players. The vast majority of regulars are abusive, uninformed, hostile, unhelpful, and not representative of the actual voting demographic. That is, when they post in drafting threads at all. Often they're either too busy insulting new players to make substantive posts or are posting every resolution in the submitted proposal list to the Silly/Illegal thread to bolster their own sense of intellectual superiority. The GA forum is a toxic environment that truly serves no purpose for drafting beyond a core group of regulars, and to suggest it has any influence on the quality of a proposal (beyond a select few players) or the likelihood it will pass is risible. Now, this is not to say that the forum can't or shouldn't be important - theoretically, I think that the forum is the most useful tool to any new player, and trying to get involved in the GA game without it would be very difficult. But it needs to see an internal cultural change away from noob-shaming and intellectual elitism if it wants to remain an active part of the game (if it can even still be called that).

You've been involved in the WA for years. Do you think that the moderation of the WA has improved in that time?

I think it's regressed, actually. I've only been around since about 2011, but the moderator presence on the forums has since been reduced to almost Ardchoille exclusively - and she does a good job managing the ship almost by herself. The other mods who supposedly contribute to GA rulings are mysterious and abstract concepts rather than actual people. Kryozerkia hasn't posted in the forum as a moderator since Woodrow Wilson 50th birthday, Flibblites is hardly active (which may be through no fault of his own, but I'm trying to demonstrate the efficiency of GA moderation), and Mousebumples and Mallorea and Riva, while wonderful people and active from time to time on the forum, are reactionaries who have only exacerbated agitation from critics who claim that GA moderation is not meant to represent a judicious way of applying rules but to preserve traditional aspects of the game. On top of all that, rulings recently have been wildly inconsistent and the process has been disturbingly opaque. I'm not sure what the solution is - attempts at adding more moderators and engineering some way of standardizing mod rulings have failed. Perhaps adding more diversity to the GA mod team and creating a truly transparent process will silence critics.

What's one change you would like to see made to the WA, whether in the form of a change to the rules, categories, or mechanics?

The environmental category! For God's sake, we don't want you to add plastic making, or oil refining, or cigar making subcategories. We'd like graduated strengths. That's it. Please. Please...

You've campaigned more than once for the WA to regulate the arms trade, with a stunning lack of success. Why do you think the WA is so resistant to legislation in this area?

I think that the NS world is dominated by a younger player base that takes an immaturely hard line, NatSov approach to most resolutions, but is suddenly reminded that they're supposed to be obedient liberals when voting on third trimester abortion and incest. And it's not necessarily their fault - younger players don't really know how to feel about arms trading or legal rights. But either way, it's really a logically irreconcilable position to pass a law on neutral rights by less than 3% and then to vote a resolution that allows unrestricted access to abortion until the infant is birthed "resolution of the year" if you're a self-proclaimed "NatSov." Combined with a disturbingly militaristic timbre that has been developing over the past few years (which is an issue worthy of its own analysis) and a naively NatSov Gameplay-sphere, passing an arms regime has been almost impossible, and will continue to be without a focused long-term effort.

You've have two very different public profiles in NS, first as Connopolis, later as Sciongrad. Was it difficult to make the transition to a new identity?

Yes, I have. Although to be perfectly honest, I saw Connopolis as less of an alter ego and more of an immature and unrefined version of Sciongrad. We differed on policy and WA ideology - as Connopolis I was unabashedly liberal and IntFed to the extreme, compared to the more moderate Sciongrad - but I think moving from Connopolis to Sciongrad was more of me trying to prove that I was a serious player and not an antagonistic One-Worlder who wanted to force nations to have social security systems dictated by the WA. I think the transition was difficult - it took a lot of time to establish myself as an evolved and more mature player, and I made a few embarrassing blunders along the way - but ultimately, I think I've succeeded.

Do you have a favourite WA resolution?

This might be a rather boring response, but my favorite resolution is probably GAR#199 ("Sustainable Fishing Act") because well written environmental legislation is a rare treat in the WA.

Would you rather the WA voted on a proposal about duck-sized horses, or horse-sized ducks?

I'm a very small person, so a duck-sized horse would make me feel large and fearsome. So I would say a resolution on a duck-sized horse would be preferable unless a resolution on a horse-sized duck was failing, in which case that would suffice.

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Anti-Muslim Player Destroys Islam
Natives Surprised Despite Warnings
COMMENTARY | CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATS, REPORTER



Following an absence of almost five years, Islam's founder returned on April 13. Now, normally, the return of a founder is a cause of joy for a region, especially a region that has been the victim of repeated tag raids and a number of high-profile occupations. Iron Bark, however, is no normal founder. Upon rejoining Islam, he immediately ejected and banned the entire population -- more than 40 nations in all -- and, subsequently, claimed Islam as a protectorate for his home region, Nazi Europa.

Originally founded in 2003, Islam has been the home for dozens, if not hundreds, of Islamic nations during its history. In its first seven years, it saw many ups and downs in its activity and in the size of its population, hosting almost 50 nations at some points and as few as one or two nations at others. Likely attempting to enhance its security, Islam refounded in 2010; but the new founder, Iron Bark, ceased to exist only weeks later, opening the region to an invasion and occupation by the raider organization, Crusader of Injustice (sic). Following the imposition of a hidden password by Crusader of Injustice (COI), The Kaaba, an ostensible native of Islam, proposed a resolution to the Security Council to liberate the region under his puppet nation Justice4Islam. He quickly secured support for the liberation proposal from such prominent World Assembly members as Charlotte Ryberg, Sedgistan, Naivetry, Moronist Decisions, and The Rich Port.

On May 11, 2010, the Security Council passed Resolution #25, 'Liberate Islam'. Shortly thereafter, forces from the 10000 Islands, led by Anime Daisuki, poured into the region and expelled members of the COI.

As a newly liberated region, Islam more or less continued as it had existed before its 2010 refounding. Its activity and numbers underwent constant fluctuations as the interest of community members waxed and waned and raiders came and went. In March 2012, Feux and A Mean Old Man brought new, troubling information to the attention of the Security Council, however. They shared with the world that Islam's 2010 refounding, invasion, and liberation had all been a ruse orchestrated by Iron Bark and The Kabba, who were, in fact, the same player. That player, Oh My Days, was an anti-Muslim troll and a former delegate of Nazi Europe (the predecessor of Nazi Europa). (In his career, Oh My Days has also held citizenship in the East Pacific and Osiris.) Over objections raised by Warzone Codger, Improving Wordiness, Ballotonia, and others, Feux and AMOM managed to push through Resolution #84, Repeal 'Liberate Islam,' 7327 to 2896 on April 6, 2012. '[T]o build a stable and legitimate community,' they argued, members of Islam needed to 'refound [again] to attain a new, 'native' founder nation,' thus freeing the region from the threat posed by Oh My Days during a time while he was absent from the game.

From April 2012 to April 2015, the nations of Islam never took the Security Council's advice, apparently out of ignorance of what could happen should the anti-Muslim, Nazi nation return. Islam natives worked for years to build up their religious and cultural community, all the while believing wrongly that Oh My Days had left for good.

Regrettably, the founder revived his nation Iron Bark and, then, purged the regional population, saying, 'If you thought I'd gone, lol, I'm back. BYE!!!!!' The Nazi Europan flag now flies over Islam while the most active members of the ejected community have relocated to Islamya, left reeling by the sudden event. So ends Islam's twelve year history.

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GA Moderation Reform: Why Everybody Is Wrong About Everything
OPINION | GRUENBERG, CORRESPONDENT

Mallorea and Riva, newly promoted to Game Moderator and freed of his R/D obligations having inexplicably announced his "retirement from active gameplay" - something no other gameplayer serving as a game mod, from Tactical Grace and Myrth to Sedgistan and CrazyGirl, has ever done, admittedly none of them having been the subjects of massive outpourings of rage having tried to harass a roleplay region using the Liberation mechanism - has begun a conversation about reforming GA moderation.

Mallorea is an unusual choice to lead the conversation, having posted just once in the GA forum in the last seven months - despite his GA activity and credentials being much vaunted at the time of his initial appointment as Forum Moderator a year ago (see TRT XIX, "Nepotism At Its Finest"). It's also unclear why, having rebuffed complaints about the poor quality of GA moderation for so long, there would be any reason for the moderators to now expect players to trust they are seriously open to any meaningful changes.

Predictably, the deluge of suggestions has failed to make much impression. Players have quickly fixated on the completely pointless agenda of having all moderation discussions on proposal legality open to the public, something that is not only unrealistic given there would be no means of preventing private discussions in the moderator subforum from happening anyway, but that wouldn't serve any practical purpose. A proposal is either legal or illegal: knowing that a minority of moderators disagree with the decision doesn't in any way change the impact of that decision being made.

Another hobby horse has been the rulings archive. An ill-fated project initially suggested by Glen-Rhodes - who, when he saw how completely it had been skewed and abused by the player who ended up running it, dismissed the enterprise as a "farce" and said that he wished he had never suggested it in the first place - the archive petered out to meaninglessness when its maintainer ceased to exist, meaning no new rulings could be added. It wasn't much of loss given it had only been sporadically updated, and with extreme partiality, before then anyway. These problems were predicted at the time by those of us who pointed out it could only work if it were run by a moderator, but we were ignored; now it has been restarted - by a moderator. "Perhaps if they'd listened to us the first time around" is a pretty common theme when it comes to the problems the GA faces.

Even restarted, the archive is unlikely to solve any problems. Its previous iteration led to not one single ruling conflict being resolved, and the archive still contains multiple contradictory, out of date, or questionable rulings, without doing anything to sort any of them out. But more importantly, even if we entertain the highly fanciful notion that it will be faithfully maintained, that every one of thousands of rulings that complement the GA rules base will be added, there is simply no reason to think that the moderators will use it.

Some suggestions have ventured even further into the wilds, such as randomly anonymising moderator decisions (quite what the fallout from moderators publicly offering their opinions would be remains unclear), to having all GA moderation discussions take place in a special subforum, to having moderators issue minority dissenting opinions with no force whenever a contested decision is made. In the background, The Dark Star Republic is rabbling on, loud, insistent, and also completely wrong. It won't be long before someone starts suggesting that VORP is an improper way of measuring moderator contributions and that rWAR would be a much better system.

Not that the moderators have offered anything of substance in response. In a remarkable assault on reason, Ardchoille penned a vicious, steaming rant putting all the blame squarely on the shoulders of players, even claiming that the only reason the rulings archive had failed was because players hadn't submitted enough GHRs pestering moderators to resurrect it, and employing approximately the same logic as someone blaming police shooting victims for not diving out of the way of bullets fast enough. Sedgistan suggested that the GA should just scrap all its rules, ignore the category system, permit lying in repeals, and generally become more like that fountain of sense and wisdom, the SC. And from the main GA moderator? No response at all.

Here are, in our opinion, five suggestions that would have more practical impact than the mostly irrelevant din clamouring up the discussion thread:

1. Cross-post every ruling to the forum.

When the rulings archive was first conceived, one of the points made against its utility was that most rulings weren't even visible to players to archive: they are delivered by telegram to players who will probably never post on the forum. The majority of GA proposals are removed, for reasons we never find out. But there is nothing confidential here: telling the forum that a proposal on arms regulation was miscategorised or that an environmental repeal was honestly mistaken is not betraying any player secrets. All rulings should be posted to the forum, regardless of whether they are also delivered by telegram or whether the proposal in question was ever posted on the forum.

2. Respond to queries in a timely fashion.

It has become common for legality queries to take three, four, five months to receive a response. The completely bizarre new method of deciding legality queries - refusing to give a response and instead holding a private discussion to which all GA moderators apparently have to weigh in before a decision can be promulgated - obviously does not help in this regard. But as well as aggravating for players who have to twiddle their thumbs or who may see the legislative landscape change in the time they're waiting, it's also bad practice. A WA proposal has 4 days to make quorum, and another 4 at vote, after which point even the moderators cannot remove it should it pass: hence when the illegal resolution Max Barry Day passed, it had to be removed by a repeal, wasting another 4 days of WA time. From submission to final passage, a proposal has about 8 days during which a decision can be made (sometimes more should there be a long queue, sometimes fewer should the proposal reach quorum quickly). If moderators cannot get into the habit of routinely responding to most legality queries within a similar timeframe, then their system is fundamentally broken.

3. Turn the Illegal Proposals thread into something useful.

The Silly and Illegal Proposals thread was once a humorous diversion that provided light-hearted relief; it has turned into a mean-spirited spitefest where players with nothing to contribute to the game bitterly snark at new players, and where literally any proposal submitted without a forum thread is automatically assumed to be illegal purely for the crime of existing. There is no penalty for getting legality queries completely wrong, which they frequently are, no moderator presence meaning there is no means of telling whether such reports remotely correlate to why a proposal was actually removed, and no overall point to the thread. It should be closed down, and replaced with a simple thread for cataloguing proposal legalities, with moderators responding, correcting inaccurate reports, and creating a living archive of far more use to new players trying to understand the complex rules.

4. Remove Kryozerkia as a WA mod.

Kryozerkia is the most active GA moderator: during the last Game Mod Olympics cycle, she was responsible for removing more proposals than all of the other moderators put together. The only time in recent memory that the proposal queue has reached 3 pages long - still incredibly short by the standards of days past - was when she was suspended for abusing her moderator status, and was thus not pruning the queue. Yet despite all of this, she has not made a single GA forum post this year. Nor did last year see her exactly active, save for popping in to spit disgusting bile at players and accuse those lodging the very legality queries that other mods have always pleaded with them to submit of "using mods as weapons", a remarkable piece of invective for which she received no rebuke despite it being edited out after the event by Cogitation. At times, Ardchoille and Mallorea have literally had to act as interpreters for Kryozerkia, passing on her curious rulings by a process of Chinese whispers. She is clearly either unwilling or incapable of engaging with the most basic duty of GA moderation: being present in the GA forum. Coupled with her history of bizarre rulings and the fundamental untrustworthiness of someone willing to abuse their game mod powers for personal benefit, her services should no longer be required. With the US election season coming up, there should be plenty of General debate to moderate instead.

5. Publicly redraft the rules in full.

The most helpful change - and hence, least likely to happen - would be to do what The Most Glorious Hack did ten years ago: rewrite the proposal rules to reflect the changes in the game. The process he oversaw was remarkably open, fair, and responsive, and while no one player was probably completely satisfied, everyone got their chance to make their case. Such a redrafting would reflect just how far the GA has changed since 2005, to dispense with the albatross of precedent weighing down most legality discussions, and to remake the rules in the image of what the GA actually is today, not a mutant combination of what we half-remember it was meant to be a decade ago and what it's sort of turned into through a mixture of institutional drift, apathy, and occasional bouts of sheer incompetence.

In truth, these changes would likely be little more than a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. [violet] killed off the WA community in 2009 with her brutish imposition of the Security Council. Ever since, the GA game has been a shadow of its former self, and CPR can only be performed so long before you're just pounding dead flesh. But if the moderators really want to do more than just their usual show of pretending to listen to complaints, quickly followed by a regression back to the norm of complete ivory tower delusion that they are doing anything approaching a competent job of running the GA, there are serious changes they should consider. Whether they discuss these changes in public, in private, or on the seventh moon of Saturn should be the very least concern.

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Glen-Rhodes Declared TSP Foreign Minister
COMMENTARY | UNIBOT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF



What a way to beat the odds! Glen-Rhodes has defeated his competitors, Punchwood and Evil Wolf, for the coveted position of Minister of Foreign Affairs in the South Pacific's recent special election. Commentators and critics had almost universally assumed this special election would prove a close race between Glen-Rhodes and Evil Wolf given the previously botched general elections had officially been declared a tie, 24-24, between Glen-Rhodes and Evil Wolf. This special election however ended with a decisive mandate for Glen-Rhodes: voters backed him, 23-14 against Evil Wolf and 22-9 against Punchwood. As a relatively inexperienced and mostly local candidate, Punchwood, also surprised commentators with his success against Evil Wolf; voters had preferred Punchwood over Evil Wolf, 19-16 – many of Glen-Rhodes’s supporters had selected Punchwood as their second preference over Evil Wolf. Some have argued Evil Wolf’s controversial decision to not create a new platform for the special election may have cost him the election; instead Evil Wolf forwarded curious voters to his previous platform from the general elections which could have left others to question his commitment to the position when his competitors had built new platforms for these elections specifically.

Glen-Rhodes was certainly surprised, when we spoke with him earlier this week, to see Evil Wolf in last place. ‘Additionally, turnout was around 20 players less than the election just a few weeks ago,’ adds Glen, ‘It was surprising the see that kind of dramatic shift in turnout.’

He admits that this electoral victory appeared to be at one time a forlorn hope as the verdict of the general elections had been tied up in the High Court.

‘When the court cases were being pursued, I had believed that it was very likely I would lose in a run-off election against Wolf,’ says Glen-Rhodes, ‘However, I wanted to ensure that our elections were conducted fairly and according to the law, rather than according to how one person dictates what the law says and doesn't say. So I stuck with it, and weeks later the special election was finally announced.’

But the special elections had gone surprisingly well for him, he acknowledges.

‘Lots of people were nominated, but it came down to just Wolf, Punchwood, and myself,’ says Glen-Rhodes, ‘Wolf wasn't around to campaign, but did ultimately just tell people to go read his old campaign. I thought that would ultimately hurt him a lot, so I grew more confident in my chances by the time voting actually started.’

In selecting Punchwood as their second choice, once more the South Pacific’s voters have confirmed the old folk wisdom, ‘the South Pacific does love a good greenhorn’. Glen-Rhodes’s campaign too tugged on the traditional heartstrings of the South Pacific: a focus on culture and cooperation. Indeed, Evil Wolf had emphasised the importance of using foreign policy as a vehicle for regional security and building alliances with invaders and defenders to ‘render the region more coup-proof’. Whereas Glen-Rhodes had bluntly decried this in his campaign as ‘wrongheaded’, emphasising instead a need for a more ‘multidimensional approach’ which accesses the potential for cultural and political cooperation with a region, where, he argues ‘cultural ties […] are stronger than simple military commitments’. Glen-Rhodes also touched on the need for greater GCR cooperation and an emphasis on allies who excel at ‘inter-regional cooperation, cultural development, and peace-based diplomacy’, dropping names like Taijitu, Greater Dienstad, and the International Democratic Union as potential future allies for the South Pacific. Glen-Rhodes also suggested he would to like to see diplomacy between the South Pacific and other roleplayers regions occur at a niche level to pave the way for innovative regional diplomacy.

In the long term, Glen-Rhodes noted that he’d like to explore with relations with more user-created regions. ‘I mentioned in my campaign Taijitu, Greater Dienstad, and the IDU. I'll be in touch with TSP's roleplay community to see what kind of bridges we're able to build between other roleplay communities,’ he notes. Lazarus, however, even with its recent liberation, will remain a major site of crisis for every foreign delegation to consider, including the new foreign minister, especially as regional powers turn to the difficult task of politically isolating the New Pacific Order (NPO).

‘My immediate concern is seeing how our allies and partners can collectively respond to NPO's imperialist adventurism,’ he acknowledged. ‘Turning Lazarus into a client state is perhaps the most serious threat to GCR sovereignty in many years. We're very eager to work with Lazarus and our allies on coming up with a response to the NPO's aggression, and finding ways we can all mutually work together to contain the threat and ensure there's not a repeat of what happened anywhere else. TSP looks forward to the Lazarene Delegate seat once again being under the control of their legally elected leader..’

Glen-Rhodes emphasised the role that the South Pacific played as a diplomatic middle power during the crisis, offering legitimacy and capital to the People’s Republic while working on multilateral cooperation between other Game-Created Regions to resolve issues. ‘I see TSP's place more along the lines of a middle power --- more a diplomatic role,' says Glen-Rhodes. 'Should the NPO continue on with its imperial ambitions, enshrining GCR Sovereignty will become an important task for all independent feeders and sinkers. That's something I've been saying is important for a while now.’

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An Apology from Anders Blakewood
OPINION | ANDERS BLAKEWOOD, GUEST COLUMNIST

I am Anders Blakewood, known by a few other names that don’t matter right now. You probably know me as the interviewer of, or remember an interview I did with The Communist Bloc’s Zenya. First and foremost, I would like to apologize to everyone. Not just those who read the interview, but all of those affected by it, online and in the real world. Certain topics are difficult to include in any sort of parody or satire, it takes skill and wit beyond my current measure to tactfully make a meaningful point in such a way as not to offend. Some would argue that it is impossible to make a point about some serious topics through the tool of satire, but that is an argument that this piece isn’t worried about, nor is this the right place or time to debate that. My intent was not to cause distress or stir the pot, but good intent does not make good. I spent weeks thinking about what I did, and why I acted that way. In real life I’m a college student, looking for a job, I have some friends, I have a girlfriend. I’m a laidback person, why would I act like this? Immaturity, impulsivity, and toxicity. I was petty and immature, holding onto grudges in an online game. Impulsive, I, and no one else in the “paper” we wrote, thought about how what we wrote would affect anyone. Toxicity, personal attacks and remarks have no place in Gameplay, yet seem to be usual pattern of Gameplay rivalries anymore.

We were perpetrating that same toxicity so many before me have spoken about. Why is what I’m writing any different? Because I’m admitting that I screwed up, I can’t promise I’ve had major personal growth between now and 6-7 weeks ago, but I realize how I screwed up. I’m a soon-to-be 19 year old, playing at being a statesman in an online game, and I betrayed ideals I hold very dear. Those ideals include being well-spoken and making sure what you say matters, being outspoken about things that are passionate to you, and trying to do what is right and help others. I’m imperfect and doing my best to improve, and keep close these ideals. Taking out the human factors, impulsivity and immaturity, the one problem that NS GP brings forth is toxicity. Yes, this is just a game, but the realism can bring personal remarks closer to home, and things can happen in a game that affect you in the real world.

The problem on an institutional level was, is, and shall likely remain to be toxicity. In a game like NationStates, a political simulation with competing communities springing and hanging off of it, it heightens the realism. It’s not something you can turn off or ignore, there’s competition, and competition allows rivalry. Rivalry is not inherently bad, and in fact, increases the caliber of all regions competing for the favor of new and old players. This is where things get even more realistic, and a more complex level of political simulation grows. Add cash, in the form of telegram stamps into the mix, with some being ill-informed or unable to use other forms of recruitment, and you continue to close the gap and increase the realism. Now, instead of simply competing for the favor of the masses so you can accomplish your goals, you’re competing with those who may have more cash or resources than you.

The inherent nature of the game within a game, that is NationStates Gameplay, nurtures this sense of rivalry, and when tempers go unchecked, you have toxicity. Mudslinging, the worst of real world politics brought into a political simulation. This may seen a nihilistic view of Gameplay. I mean, surely there’s a way Gameplay can continue without toxicity? Being considerate, and reminding yourself that the nation or person you’re talking to or arguing with, is more complex than the ideology they believe or promote, or whatever issue it is that puts yourself and this other person at odds. Anonymity, and not seeing the person’s face you’re saying this to, depersonalizes them and makes it easy to apply essentially any adjective, that may fairly or unfairly label them, on them without a second thought. This again is human nature, and only adds to the cycle. Not much can be done to change this either, right? I’m just adding my voice to dozens saying the same thing? Wrong, a movement that both expresses individuality and unity could help break this pattern. A shared signature line, or shared flag, and an individual's voice speaking their beliefs, invader, defender, or neutral both show solidarity with others that feel the exact same way that you do about this trend in GP, and allow you to express yourself as an individual and as part of a group.

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The April Lecture Series: Because What NS Gameplay Really Needs Is More Speeches
COMMENTARY | GRUENBERG, CORRESPONDENT



The Rejected Realms will host a diverse range of speakers on a variety of topics spanning R/D and region organization, issues and game mechanics, the World Assembly and the Security Council, for its "April Lecture Series", taking place from April 27 to May 3. The forum is intended both as an exercise in regional community building and to share insights with the wider world, and will seek to answer questions such as: what is the future of defending? How do regions define their identity? Is it possible to predict answers to issues?

One question that may remain unanswered by the end of the lecture series, though, is: what is the point of it all?

NS Gameplay does not exactly lack for long-winded bloviations spewing forth. Few have had any noticeable impact on the game. The footsoldiers from the Black Riders, who while not shy of a little propagandising have never produced anything on the order of General TR Franks's lecture on R/D play, have far eclipsed him in terms of in-game notoriety. The many tomes devoted to mythologising Francoism came about in hindsight: NS gameplay has never really had its own Communist Manifesto or April Theses; rather, analysis has come about after the fact. In the WA, the Modern NatSovs finally got around to writing a manifesto of their own - and yet have not authored a single resolution since.

Given the nature of NationStates - a political simulation game primarily played by school and college aged young people - it should not be surprising that pseudointellectualism abounds. And given it is indeed a game, such trading of one set of hot air for another is basically harmless. In the case of the April Lecture Series, its value purely in terms of fostering regional community or promoting The Rejected Realms might be enough to assuage any concerns that the lectures themselves are of little inherent consequence. The lectures should be entertaining and the speakers are clearly earnest and committed. They may spur discussion and debate, even cause a few people to reexamine some of their beliefs or reconsider some of their actions. They will be filed away in the Library of Spurned Knowledge. They will gradually accumulate dust. And when the next Lecture Series is held, they will be seen to have made very little difference to the everyday playing of NationStates.

Gruenberg, among others, will present his lecture, 'The Rules Of The Game: A Comparative Study Of Two NS Communities' for the April Lecture Series on April 28.

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Communism and NationStates
OPINION | DR GEORGE, GUEST COLUMNIST

Does 'communism' exist in NationStates? Our resident nation-builder, Dr George, explores the stats behind left-wing nations...

Virtually all players of NS realize that there are 27 (3 x 3 x 3) types of nations in the game, but none of them is explicitly labeled 'Communist.' Three are some variety of 'Socialist,' but that's like communism's older, better looking brother. There are several types of nation with 'Democratic' in their titles, too, but I would submit that two thirds of said nation types are some variant of democracy (having medium or high Political Freedoms), so the term is so diffuse as to be virtually meaningless.

IRL, of course, as we look for communism among major countries, we look for details going back to Marx and then his early disciples: radical equality between all people, a command economy, a dictatorship of the common person, exporters of revolution, etc. Just as there were differences of opinion among Marx's first followers, so, too, did the 20th century see examples of communism that varied enormously from nation to nation and often within nations between times, too. We note the radical differences between Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, China under Mao Zedong, China since Deng Xiaoping, Pol Pot's Cambodian genocide, Stalin's genocide against the Ukrainians, Poland under the influence of Solidarity, Cuba under Castro, North Korea under Kim Jong-Il, etc. Note, too, that since the collapse of the Soviet Union, most RL communist countries have introduced at least some components of capitalism; North Korea may be the sole exception to that trend and thus the only "true" communist nation left IRL among major nations.

In NS terms, I would assert that communism can have Political Freedoms that are mid-range Medium down to Extremely Low and I would say much the same of Civil Rights. Where it gets tricky is assigning a value to Economy and Economic Rights (recall they are not the same--your Economy is what appears at the top of your screen between your CRs and PFs and is not necessarily the same as your Economic Freedom, which can be inferred from your government type); conventional wisdom in the West is that command economies are not as efficient as market economies (and that may generally hold true), but the Soviet Union and communist China fought the West to a stalemate in Korea, actually prevailed in Vietnam and Indochina, took an early lead in the space race, and generally were somewhat economically and aggressively militarily competitive with the West until circa 1990, 45 years after the end of WW II when we were allies together against Nazism. Today, of course, China is the second-largest economy in the world and closing in on the first, the USA; one could argue that China has abandoned the economic face of Communism. I will leave that question for another time and treat it as an extreme example of what Communism is capable of doing. Therefore, I would say Communist Economic Freedom and Economy can run through the entire range from Extremely Low to Extremely High with a predilection for medium or low. Therefore, under ideal conditions, one could expect at best an unlikely Capitalist Paradise (M, H, M), while in ordinary-to-poor conditions, more likely a Psychotic Dictatorship (L, L, L)--think North Korea for that one. I think in NS terms, China is probably a Compulsory Consumerist State (M, H, L). Today's Russia is a poor shadow of the Soviet Union (John McCain called it "A gas station pretending to be a country.") I would speculate it is an Iron Fist Consumerist (L, M, L). Today's Cuba appears to be trending upwards from Corrupt Dictatorship (M, L, L) to Democratic Socialist (M, L, M).

Long-time players will notice an element missing from the above analysis: isn't communism supposed to be far-left even as fascism is ultra-right? (In NS terms, left-leaning and left-wing states have civil rights greater than their economic rights, right-leaning and right-wing vice versa.) In a word, no. I don't think that the old-fashioned understandings of 'liberal' and 'conservative' have much meaning in today's political conversation. 'Conservatives' in Russia long for the old days of communism in the Soviet Union, while America's "Compassionate Conservative" president started a reckless, needless, expensive (both in treasure and human lives) war in Iraq and put it ON THE CREDIT CARD, something an old-fashioned conservative Republican like Eisenhower would never, ever have done. I once programmed a robot script (they are fondly called 'bots' by many players of NS) with code I thought would make it a hard-left Left-Wing Utopia (H, L, H); its first priority was to have a left-wing ideology, followed by high CRs, PFs, and an aversion to capitalism and business. It didn't stay in any one form of government too long; it was indeed at times a LWU, but it was also a Civil Rights Lovefest (H, M, H), a Left-Leaning College State (H, M, M), and most galling was that it spent extended periods as the ultimate form of centrist state, an Inoffensive Centrist Democracy (M, M, M). What I hadn't anticipated was that while it was promoting left-wing freedoms like abortion, it was also busily outlawing right-wing freedoms like gun ownership, hence the tendency towards the middle. Other bots I programmed with CRs and PFs first and left-wing ideology later tended to become Anarchies (H, H, H) or CRLs, but almost always to the 'left' of the first bot. I am currently RPing a nation trying to emulate the old Soviet Union--it is currently a Corrupt Dictatorship.

I alluded to income equality above and a few more words should be said about it RE: communism. It is not commonly known in the West that there was significant income disparity in the Soviet Union and probably in most communist nations in the 20th century (and in those countries since). At least in the case of the USSR, tourists were not allowed to see those areas and I don't think NGOs like Doctors without Borders and the Red Cross (or Red Crescent) were allowed there except possibly during the aftermath of a natural disaster. My understanding is that the southern and eastern republics of the USSR had particularly high poverty rates, especially among citizens who were not ethnically Russian. I have not yet done an analysis of income equality among leftist nations, but I have noted anecdotally that more leftist states in NS tend to have more income equality, say for the sake of argument in the single digits down to virtually zero, while rabidly capitalist states in some cases have income inequality in the thousands! For RL comparison, according to the Pew Research Center regarding the USA (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/12/05/u-s-income-inequality-on-rise-for-decades-is-now-highest-since-1928/):

In 1928, the top 1% of families received 23.9% of all pretax income, while the bottom 90% received 50.7%. But the Depression and World War II dramatically reshaped the nation’s income distribution: By 1944 the top 1%’s share was down to 11.3%, while the bottom 90% were receiving 67.5%, levels that would remain more or less constant for the next three decades.

But starting in the mid- to late 1970s, the uppermost tier’s income share began rising dramatically, while that of the bottom 90% started to fall. The top 1% took heavy hits from the dot-com crash and the Great Recession but recovered fairly quickly: Saez’s preliminary estimates for 2012 (which will be updated next month) have that group receiving nearly 22.5% of all pretax income, while the bottom 90%’s share is below 50% for the first time ever (49.6%, to be precise).

Note the above, except where noted, is strictly my own analysis and does not necessarily reflect the views of this publication, nor anyone else besides me. I welcome your feedback, either as a publishable letter to the Editor or a non-publishable TG to me, Dr George.

[Gradea]

Fascinating issue, I didn't realise the Black Riders were in such a mess now. It's good, as a TSP citizen, that the Foreign Affairs election is now finally over and it was another interesting piece from Dr George.

Nice work guys!

Gradea

[The Rejected Times]

Added Omigodtheykilledkenny's article, "Moderator Interference Proves Troublesome with 'Non-Interference' Proposal".

[RiderSyl]

Heh, my panic-induced comment was quoted in the TBR article. Not surprised... It was very genuine at the time.

Even I'll admit we're getting our comeuppance there. I showed some decent sportsmanship to the BRU due to that impressive pile, before leaving for DEN and letting them have their fun.

By the way, the group that remains within has left the region for good, and is ditching the namesake of TBR due to its association with Halcones. We will come back, in some form. Just not the one y'all have been used to for the past 3 to 4 years.

[Morndul]

By the way, the group that remains within has left the region for good, and is ditching the namesake of TBR due to its association with Halcones. We will come back, in some form. Just not the one y'all have been used to for the past 3 to 4 years.

Then it's truly a new era.

[Louisistan]

While United German Regions has listed a number of high profile regions as supporters of his operation, it should be said that when the Rejected Times began contacting regions on the list, not all the regions on the list were aware they had been listed while others denied involvement in the operation.

On this note, I would like to add that although the 10000 Islands are listed, the Tenthousand Island Treaty Organisation did not issue any orders to get involved there and - to my knowledge - no TITO member nations are currently in that region. Furthermore, the Council of Nine has not issued anything on the matter of The Black Riders and such, any nations who may have jumped from XKI to TBR (if anyone even has) are acting on their own and not on behalf of XKI or TITO.

~Louisistan
TITO Tactical Officer
Senator of 10000 Islands

[Lapeirousia]

Who was involved from XKI and how is the TO denying rresponsibility?