Official Embassy of Ainur

[Mekhet]

Ainur's self-designations 'Game Player' and 'Imperialist' are contradictory between each others, if Ainur is forced to take TEK-like approach of 'Anti-TBR' (essentially meaning 'Anti-Purist' here) approach to the gameplay, particularly to R/D.

Not specifically TEK, but technically raiding raiders and anyone else make you a pure raider. Ideally a Purist Raider sees everything as prey, including it's own.

[Emrys Mercer]

Fourth Foreign Update
of the
Kingdom of Ainur

Dispatched on: X July 2014

The Current Ainurian Government
HM The King: Augustus
HRH The Prince Consort: Aubrey

Steward of Ainur: Bayard Smythe
First Minister: Amanae Smythe

Speaker of the Senate: Firebrand
Senators: Crushita and Sector ZYX



Greetings from Ainur

Hello again! A lot has happened in Ainur since the last update; our regional population has remained fairly steady, but we've gained a lot of new members on the forums! The Government have been passing laws to facilitate our new colonial systems, the Knights are a-raiding, and the RPs are a-RPing! We recently celebrated our 2nd Anniversary, and were happy to see some of you there! Without further ado, the update!

Come stop by our forums!



Elections
Our first regularly-scheduled elections since the end of the State of Emergency were held between 13 and 15 June for both the Senate and the Steward.

The Senate election saw an interesting race which involved newcomer Sector ZYX against Senate veterans Firebrand and Bayard Smythe, as well as Crushita looking to make his return as a legislator. In a closely-fought race, the election concluded with Bayard Smythe losing his Senate seat to Sector ZYX. Although this proved to be somewhat of a surprise at the time, it's not affected the functioning of the Senate, and has led to an infusion of new blood into the place.

In the Steward race Sector ZYX challenged the incumbent Bayard Smythe for Steward. Both candidates addressed a variety issues important to the region and offered a fair number of proposals in their well-written manifestos. Sector ZYX, an accomplished raider, focused on expanding the Knights of Ainur and discussed engaging citizens in some of the newer or less-used areas of our forums; especially the Politics and World Assembly subforums.

Bayard Smythe's manifesto included a proposals for the planning of the 2nd Ainur Day festival, as well as benchmarking for foreign affairs and cultural aspects of the region. Both candidates articulated their positions well with solid arguments. Ultimately, voters chose to continue with the known and the trusted, electing Bayard Smythe by a tally of seven votes to one. The performance of ZYX in the campaign and his subsequent activity in the region leads us to believe that we will be seeing much more from this promising young upstart in future elections.



The Knights of Ainur Ride Into Battle!



The Knights of Ainur have swept through NationStates! During the past few weeks we have captured, refounded, and created a colony of The Caucasus. Just for laughs, we also stopped by Warzone Australia, creating a poll for the natives and generally having a decent time with them.

Following hot on the heels of a short mission in Austria was our latest raid, that of The Banana Republic. Sadly our presence in this zanily named region was short-lived. The return of the founder meant an unfortunate early end to proceedings when our forces were expelled.

Despite this minor setback, the Knights continue to make progress on the world stage, with several raids in the pipelines.

The following Knights were instrumental in the operations:
The Causasus – Firebrand, Sector ZYX, Maximilian, Bayard Smythe, Galleria Marlon
Warzone Australia - Sector ZYX, Maximilian, Bayard Smythe
The Banana Republic - Bayard Smthe, Sector ZYX, Firebrand, Charlie Sheen

In addition, the following Knights have been promoted to the rank of Private:
Firebrand, Maximillian. Sector ZYX has been promoted to the rank of Sergeant.



Legislation
In our last Update we spoke of the Conditional Citizenship Decree and whether is should become law (as it was enacted during the State of Emergency). In the end, the Senate decided not to formally enact it, and it ceased to have effect on 19 June, thus making it one of the very few pieces of legislation passed in Ainur to be effectively repealed.

In anticipation of the upcoming 2nd Anniversary, the Senate passed the Ainur Day Resolution, establishing 30th June as a regional holiday, to be celebrated by joy and merriment between Ainur and her allies at the festival grounds. The festival went off without a hitch, as you can read below!

To encourage military participation and activity, the Knights of Ainur Recruitment Resolution was passed, to establish a program to recruit members of the region into the Knights of Ainur. Since the passing of this resolution, two new members have joined, with many more to follow as the program gets on its feet.

The biggest legislation to come out of the Senate would be the 4th Constitutional Amendment, giving the King the power to establish colonies and colonial governments. The first colony to be affected by this amendment is The Caucasus, being refounded by the Knights of Ainur and on its way towards becoming a functional colony. The King is expected to make Royal Decrees related to the government of the colony shortly.



2nd Annual Ainur Day Festival
Earlier this month, we, and some of you, celebrated the 2nd Anniversary of the founding of Ainur. Two years is a long time for a region to exist, much less than thrive as we have! The festival grounds were visited by members of the region, as well as diplomats from abroad. Taking eternal glory with him, HM The King, Augustus Anumia won the "Festival Points" thread, wherein every post adds one to your score, winning with a grand total of 15 in a tight race against Bayard Smythe.

The other active topic of the festival, "Count to 100 before a Royal posts" was beaten within the hour, whereby the king raised the limit to 1000, before taking mercy on his subjects and lowering it to 200. The number was reached with a tiny bit of help from the King on the last day!

The biggest attraction of the Festival had to be the awards show though. The winners were voted for by each citizen, and the results for each category are as follows:

Best Newcomer: Sector ZYX
Best Politician: Bayard Smythe
Best Roleplayer: Ashton Mercer
Most Congenial: Aubrey
The Potato Award for Most Entertaining Ainurian: Who else but Crushita!
And last, but certainly not least, the award for Ainurian of the Year went to
Greyvendal Saxton.

The 2nd Annual Ainur Day Festival was a rousing success, and we hope to see you all again at our 3rd, 4th, and every year after!



The Caucasus


The view over the vast icy wilderness of Ainur's first colony.

Recently, members of the Ainurian government have taken in interest in imperialism. With the passing of the 4th Constituional Amendment, The Caucasus has become the first colony of Ainur. More ideas are being brought up every day on what should be done in the colony. Stay tuned for more!



Events, dear boy, events
So many things happened in Ainur over the past month and a bit that it's been difficult to condense them all into this update. Mindful of not wanting to bore our friends and allies, here's a quick run through of some major events that haven't been made into articles:

Amanae Smythe joins her husband Bayard in the Executive of Ainur, taking over as First Minister from Galleria Marlon. She is responsible for a whole gamut of things in Ainur, including the proofreading of this Update!

HRH The Prince Consort has been appointed and confirmed as Ainur's 2nd Chief Justice (and the first under the Monarchy).

Thank you for taking the time to read this update from the Kingdom of Ainur, we hope you've enjoyed it!

[Sector ZYX]

Noice I like this emoticon, we need to add it