NS History: You've Got Questions, We've Got Answers!

[Valentine Z]

I went to the Jolt archive to check, but apparently the first TET predated the Jolt forums, according to Reppy, it was purged at some point because it was killing NS's forum performance.

Gotcha covered! And yeah, a thousand-page thread did really start to break the old old forum software. I suspect a 1,000 page thread would degrade the performance of THIS forum! (Hence the 500 page cap.)

I'm a bit curious about this - and to be clear, NOT that I would try!

When you say that a 1000 page thread would degrade the performance of the forums, does that mean even one thread can cause it?

[Eluvatar]

Hiya! I'm researching quite a few things about NS regional politics and law at the moment, so I have several enquiries.

Are there any examples (preferably ones with publicly accessible sources/documentation) of very controversial/contentious:
[*] Regional elections (not counting R/D as an election) that saw high public participation/high turnout/razor-thin vote margins, etc., and if so, what were the central issue(s) revolving around those elections?
[*] Bills/laws/constitutional amendments/motions and other votes (e.g. impeachment/vote of no confidence) that saw extensive legislative debate/razor-thin vote margins/took months or even years to pass?
[*] Regional court rulings (because the ruling was widely unpopular/the court was highly split/etc.)?

Any help will be appreciated and I thank you all in advance!

I could give you loads of these. Here's two to start with:

Taijitu's January/February 2008 election came down to 2 votes between the top two tickets for Delegate and Vice Delegate. The confusion and anger around the results led to a proposal to replace Condorcet voting with Instant Runoff Voting and a rival proposal to switch to plurality voting. I'm not sure I could do justice to explaining the issues in the election, but the winning ticket had one of the region's original founders and a close ally, while the second-place ticket had a pair of newer members. The winning ticket was also controversial because the Delegate candidate had been part of the region's invasion of the Rejected Realms several months earlier.

The North Pacific's Court ruled in March, 2012 that Blue Wolf II was not recalled from office because the constitution required "a two-thirds supermajority of the Regional Assembly" and ruled that this did not allow for abstentions. The Court further ruled that abstentions could not be (dis)counted in all other cases (besides elections). Combined with activity requirements in the Regional Assembly then active, this meant that the Speaker's refusal to acknowledge abstentions based on this ruling meant that one had to vote yes or no or one would swiftly lose one's vote. To correct this, a massive Order of Succession, Executive Officer Selection, and Abstentions Omnibus Reform Act was soon enacted, which included violently specific language regarding abstentions.

[Aivintis]

Hiya! I'm researching quite a few things about NS regional politics and law at the moment, so I have several enquiries.

Are there any examples (preferably ones with publicly accessible sources/documentation) of very controversial/contentious:
[*] Regional elections (not counting R/D as an election) that saw high public participation/high turnout/razor-thin vote margins, etc., and if so, what were the central issue(s) revolving around those elections?
[*] Bills/laws/constitutional amendments/motions and other votes (e.g. impeachment/vote of no confidence) that saw extensive legislative debate/razor-thin vote margins/took months or even years to pass?
[*] Regional court rulings (because the ruling was widely unpopular/the court was highly split/etc.)?

Any help will be appreciated and I thank you all in advance!

Hi! I’ve loved your dispatches since 2019 btw. I can answer for TEP, although it's all from memory, so there aren't any citations. You can find all this on our forums, though. I can hunt for links at a future date as well.

Elections:

October 2019 — The race between Marrabuk and Davelands. Fedele’s chosen successor was Davelands, but Marrabuk represented an internal anti-Fedelist (a rather grandiose term, perhaps, coined by Libertanny) push. In the midst of the elections, Davelands, after breaking the endorsement cap, was ejected from the region by the Viziers, and filed an election complaint to the Conclave (court) claiming it botched his chances. That was likely not the case, given the anti-Fedelist sentiments, but for whatever reason Marrabuk won. Fedele refused to give up power and launched a coup d’etat alongside Davelands, Aleister, and Funkadelia. With help from allied forces, TEP’s legitimate government prevailed. More info on the coup can be found elsewhere, but the election is the single most important catalyst in my opinion.

June 2020 — The race between Libertanny and Zukchiva. Not necessarily dramatic or anything, but it was a very close race and featured some of the most detailed campaign platforms in TEP history. A big difference in policy there was Libertanny’s commitment to maintaining a semi-official Vice Delegate position, and Zukchiva’s commitment to the position’s abolition. However, Zukchiva also advocated for strong culture and recruitment plans, while Libertanny maintained unique ideas for FA and the World Assembly. It honestly could have gone either way. Unlike Oct 2019, there wasn't anything huge at stake for TEP with regards to its security, but interestingly, there was a potentially organized attempt by a number of foreigners, including a TWP former delegate, to vote for Zukchiva, which was perceived to be an attempt at creating a divide. As such, the two candidates voted for each other in a show of solidarity. Ultimately, Libertanny won, but Zukchiva was the Delegate after him, and both were amazing.

Other elections, such as The Atlae Isles vs New Leganes (June 2021) and Altys vs East Malaysia (Feb 2023), were pretty close, but less strong. Excluding these, generally TEP has one strong candidate running and then a few people running solely to have their ideas heard, plus a few joke campaigns.

Legislation:

In 2019, Delegate Fedele proposed the election of Ministers. Under our system at the time (and, spoiler alert, to this day), Ministers are appointed by the Delegate with no input from the Magisterium or the people. Fedele proposed that Ministers be elected – as they were in the South Pacific – in order to create more accountability among the citizens. Now this was a couple months before my time, but from what I've heard, it was an impassioned debate, and there was a lot of mixed ideas and viewpoints. In the end, however, the proposal either didn't go to a vote, or it failed.

In 2020, I proposed a new RMB Regulation Act which would expand IC RMB crimes to include a number of OOC offenses. I did this because TEP's OOC administration at the time had failed to ban a player who was being kind of shit overall, tbh, and the IC government was unable to do anything about it because the person was a citizen, who could not be banned without due process for a crime. This law was passed by the Magisterium but then VETOED by Delegate Marrabuk, leading to a huge debate over the place of OOC and IC regulation in our region. Now, thankfully, we have an OOC office designed for gameside matters, but it was a big point of contention around the time.

Another point of contention I admit I'm somewhat responsible for is the matter of regional identity. TEP's Constitution, the Concordat, has an Article on Regional identity, which sets the name of our government, our colors, and our emblem. I didn't really like that being in the Constitution, so I proposed its removal as part of a very extensive reform omnibus Amendment, moving some of it to a new preamble. That amendment failed, largely due to that part of it. A few months later, I tried a different approach, moving its text to a legislative Act and proposing a concurrent Amendment to remove it from the Concordat. The act passed with flying colors, but the Amendment was just barely defeated. As such, I pushed to repeal the Act for redundancy purposes. I still have my eye on that, and I still want to make that change, but I recognize it's not quite the right climate for it right now. This is a years long thing, and there's some other history, like attempts to add to the Article, for example, or previous Identity Acts.

Though perhaps less noteworthy, there was also a very controversial vote regarding Delegate Marrabuk's nomination of Wiranath to the position of Vizier in 2020. Viziers are our regional security agents and Wiranath, though a fervent RMBer, wasn't well known by much of the Magisterium, and was mistrusted by some of them for that reason. One Magister, A mean old man, who is notorious for his past crimes in couping or subverting other regions, said that Wiranath's behavior reminded him of a plant the Rahl Family (a crasher group) placed in Osiris. This suspicion led to the death of that nomination, despite a lot of debate on both sides – mainly, it was RMBers like Marra, Zuk, and I defending Wiranath, and non-RMBers raising concerns.

Court Rulings:

Okay, buckle the fuck up, I have the (dis)pleasure of explaining to you TEP's 2022 Constitutional Crisis.

We don't have any Court cases that are controversial (or really any at all), but our Court, the Conclave, mainly operates in terms of Judicial Review, answering questions on the Concordatiality (Constitutionality, but for our Concordat) of certain government actions.

In 2022, I was the Delegate, and I made the sore mistake of calling myself the 6th Delegate under the 2nd Concordat. See, in early 2020, the Concordat was completely rewritten and amended with that rewrite. However, Aelitia, the author of the amendment, called it a "repeal and replace". So I interpreted it as a new governing document.

The question was brought to the Court, our government plaza devolved into chaotic arguing about the constitutionality of repealing the constitution, or if "repeal and replace" was just an aesthetic choice of words in what was essentially a normal amendment. Eventually the court voted on it and just barely managed to pull a majority towards declaring the amendment unconstitutional, much to the objections of the Viceroy (leader of Conclave).

Unfortunately, what this meant was that every election and law and amendment after the illegal repeal and replace, followed it, and was thus equally unconstitutional. This set us back two years in terms of our government members and structure, including making my delegacy illegitimate and wiping out half the court. There was pandemonium for hours straight on our discord, forums, and RMB, but eventually, the ruling itself was deemed invalid due to not following proper procedure – the Court can't overturn the Concordat as being contrary to the Concordat, after all.

It still remains a point of bitter contention to this day, and cost many members of the court their membership, once their re-confirmation was up to a vote.

Major drama.

Other than that, though, there hasn't really been anything. It's noteworthy that the Conclave Act was deemed unconcordatial, but honestly, that was something the court generally agreed on and people took with minimal grumbling. There isn't much judicial drama in TEP overall.

I hope all that helps. I recognize it's all 2019 and afterwards. I know a lot about TEP history but I honestly can't remember anything of it being so controversial. I'll talk to a fellow historian and see if there's anything else worth mentioning.

[Zukchiva]

Hiya! I'm researching quite a few things about NS regional politics and law at the moment, so I have several enquiries.

Are there any examples (preferably ones with publicly accessible sources/documentation) of very controversial/contentious:
[*] Regional elections (not counting R/D as an election) that saw high public participation/high turnout/razor-thin vote margins, etc., and if so, what were the central issue(s) revolving around those elections?
[*] Bills/laws/constitutional amendments/motions and other votes (e.g. impeachment/vote of no confidence) that saw extensive legislative debate/razor-thin vote margins/took months or even years to pass?
[*] Regional court rulings (because the ruling was widely unpopular/the court was highly split/etc.)?

Any help will be appreciated and I thank you all in advance!

To add on to Aiv's in regards to TEP match ups to your questions,

On elections, June 2014 of Ramaeus v. Old Federalia was close by 3 votes? IDRK why though.

On legislation...

• Sovereignty Accords in 2014, which from what ik was a multi-pact alliance between GCRs that either failed at vote in TEP or never went through (I forgot which and I can't find a vote thread).
• There was also the Defender Act in 2014, which tldr TEP made an Act to be Defender and passed it, but for some reason or the other it got controversial enough that it got repealed and replaced via an act preserving TEP's neutrality (the voting threads are somewhere, but sadly a large portion of our legislative discussions in 2014 were accidentally deleted).
• 2019 was also a hotspot for legislative controversy, since another strong debate was on resident's rights.
• A few years later, a resolution to support a card org was controversial but passed by a very close margin (not that it matters since teapot's inactive now :y).
• I was checking our legislature thread and it does seem in 2021 that we had a big debate on Citizenship that led us to radically changing our Citizenship system at the time... discussion threads here, here, and here. It ultimately led to this discussion which saw the changes get passed.
• This 2021 discussion to instate removal procedures for high offices like the Delegate was apparently pretty active. Don't recall/know much of it though, which is ironic. The discussion got revived and failed again in 2023 in a different form.
• This omnibus to allow for RMB voting failed due to a tie. Luckily it did, though... wasn't aware of the potential security issues we'd have with rmb citizenship x.x

Regarding court rulings, the most controversial beyond the ConCrisis is Aelitia's pre-trial. IIRC, it saw him be removed as Delegate and be brought before the Conclave for holding two Citizenships, which was expressly forbidden by the law. The Conclave declined the pre-trial but Aelitia had to fight to get his Delegacy back. Aelitia then lost to Hobbesistan in the next election (Particularily notable as incumbents tend to do really, really well in our second elections).

While not court rulings, the Conclave also addressed two somewhat active advisory questions (matters wherein it had to give informal opinions) in 2019: one on a Citizenship denial and one addressing Fedele's removal of Viziers from Regional Officer positions.

---

I also have something from the Union of Democratic States, wherein in 2021 we had a Presidential election between Phoenix Coalition and Nuevo San Miguel. NSM won and it was 5 off, so not really close, but a somewhat small issue that was talked a bit was how NSM apparently recruited from RPers - which usually doesn't happen in UDS and probably got NSM the votes he needed to win. (Unfortunatley I can't find public documentation, the newspaper that posted on this closed and its website is shut down sadly)

[Reploid Productions]

Gotcha covered! And yeah, a thousand-page thread did really start to break the old old forum software. I suspect a 1,000 page thread would degrade the performance of THIS forum! (Hence the 500 page cap.)

I'm a bit curious about this - and to be clear, NOT that I would try!

When you say that a 1000 page thread would degrade the performance of the forums, does that mean even one thread can cause it?

More of a techie question, but if I'm recalling right, it has to do with how the forum loads a thread from the server when you click into it. I don't recall the specifics though. ^^;

[Entropan]

when (approximately) was the last coup of a game-created region?

[Fort Concord]

when (approximately) was the last coup of a game-created region?

Attempted? 2019 in TEP. Successful? 2018 in Lazarus.

[Durkadurkiranistan III]

when (approximately) was the last coup of a game-created region?

Attempted? 2019 in TEP. Successful? 2018 in Lazarus.

Seriously, it's been that long? Wtf are you guys waiting for. My recollection of NS is that many within the playerbase were narcissistic megalomaniacs. Where have all the megalomaniacs gone.

Anyway, yeah, get on with it already.

I’ve seen some talk about ‘Cormac’ on TRR’s RMB lately, who were they

Cormac was one of the most active and influential players of the 2010s and into the 2020s. It's hard to find even one battle from that time period they weren't in some way swept up in.

Cormac had a good understanding of people and a large circle of friends, I think. They switched regions and ideologies often, and were liable to blow up over even a small conflict. It was entertaining. One moment, you were friends with Cormac. The next, he was repealing your commendation. Or challenging your government position. Or staging a coup. Or defaming you in the NSGP Discord server. They were especially well-known for leaking private logs, often through The Miniluv Messenger.

They were active and interesting. But also a huge liability. Cormac did a suicide-by-mod a few years ago. Hence, the DoS.

Love Corm, one of the GOATs. Yeah, he had no principles or ethics whatsoever, but that squarely was his charm. Despite his myriad deficiencies, he successfully ladder climbed his way to the top over and over and over again, abusing the trust and naïveté of the gameplay crowd along the way. A lot of people are still salty about it to this day. Hail Corm! Free Corm from DoS!

[The North Polish Union]

Attempted? 2019 in TEP. Successful? 2018 in Lazarus.

Seriously, it's been that long? Wtf are you guys waiting for. My recollection of NS is that many within the playerbase were narcissistic megalomaniacs. Where have all the megalomaniacs gone.

Anyway, yeah, get on with it already.

The issue is that today the Admin-Created 'regions' are essentially all operated by the same clique of gangsterists who will attempt to shun any dissenters and tolerate no criticism of themselves. They have combined the worst aspects of Francoism and Onderism into an unholy self-serving alliance that lacks both the NPOs ideological rigor and Onder's rhetorical skill.

Any attempt to damage one of the clique's holdings is met with weeping and gnashing of teeth; as can be seen on the hyperactive panic that beset them when it was leaked that a raider group had merely discussed the possibility of couping b*ld*r (the hypocrisy that b*ld*r's jomsvikigs chief can openly flaunt his desire to coup osiris is irrelevant to them since Osiris remains largely outside the Francoist clique). In these days even del-tipping a region tangentially connected to the clique gets blanket proscriptions covering the entirety of all of the organisations that participated in the del-tip.

However, this authoritarian tendency is merged with a cult-like longing for a "rules-based international order" of sorts which prevents the clique from actually having any fun with their power. In their profoundly boring system they must administer their own regions responsibly as if guided by some sort of Confucian ideal and only when a region that has defied their clique becomes a viable target may they release their orgastic fury.

Despite the playerbase still largely being narcissistic megalomaniacs, this clique has a pronounced chilling effect on ACR politics. One may not rock the boat too much or face banishment to some 'lesser' (in their own minds) region where power is earned and not simply tarted for. The pervasiveness of this clique has also permitted for an Orwellian security apparatus to protect the clique, to prevent the narcissistic megalomaniacs from losing their power.

On the whole, ACTR politics is in a sorry state. All the regions may be run by different people but they parrot uniform views. This sort of stagnation, of course, was only to be expected from the disastrous decision to give new players spawns to the players who despite otherwise lacking any discernable talents are good at endotarting. The real driver of NSGP continues to be UCRs as it always has been.

[Jar Wattinree]

>whines about GCR stagnation being detrimental to NSGP activity
>says UCRs are the primary drivers of NSGP activity
>is of the big confusion

[NPU]

ACR stagnation (a constant since 2003) is detrimental to site health in that the ACRs funnel potentially-productive players in to the sisyphean inanity of Francoism. To acknowledge this regrettable fact while noting that UCRs are the engines of history (a Survey of this thread will confirm that) is hardly contradictory.

Indeed, I have never hidden the fact that I would like to see the ACRs abolished entirely on the grounds of game health.

[Kreigsreich of Iron]

What was the Kraken incident?

[Johodovill]

What was 'the Great Reddit Surge', back in 2016?

[Fachumonn]

Who is Ideological Bulwark #1?

[The Web Citadel]

what are the origins of the fake nation names used in issues, such as bigtopia and daguo?

[Sedgistan]

what are the origins of the fake nation names used in issues, such as bigtopia and daguo?

A small number are from Max's original issues (e.g. Bigtopia, Marche Noire), and the rest have been added by the Issues Editing team over the years, with occasional player suggestions making their way in too. This thread has a record of the various ones in use: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=423697

[Aivintis]

What was 'the Great Reddit Surge', back in 2016?

NationStates was brought into public light by a reddit post and there was a massive influx of new nations. I wasn't around then so unfortunately I can't speak much to it, but I believe there were two such events. They are similar to the Drewpocalypse of 2020, though, when YouTuber Drew Durnil made a video about NationStates and we got so many new nations that major/minor update doubled in time, the site went down at least once, and more. I don't know how strong the Reddit Surge was. I also think there may have been a slight surge due to a TikTok? I don't remember where I heard that and honestly I didn't remember it happening, so I may just be crazy, but basically NS is no stranger to the outside internet giving us a bump in numbers.

The issue is that today the Admin-Created 'regions' are essentially all operated by the same clique of gangsterists who will attempt to shun any dissenters and tolerate no criticism of themselves.

Yeah. I killed everyone who disagreed with me when I was Delegate and I've been killing ever since. I'm actually the leader of TEP's super secret police, which enforces the divine rule of the Horsefather, Marrabuk, who is secretly pulling the strings over the whole region as dictator-for-life. Merlovich is just a puppet.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

Also honestly, I feel like the narcissistic megalomaniacs are more content with soft power nowadays. Just like real life, I suppose.

[The Ice States]

Who is Ideological Bulwark #1?

That would appear to be Enn.

[Unibot III]

Who is Ideological Bulwark #1?

That whole thing began because of some dumb comment I made fifteen years ago.

[Albjasnia]

Mmm what is the best way to make to boost the best posible my nation economy (my nation is fasist)

[United Calanworie]

Mmm what is the best way to make to boost the best posible my nation economy (my nation is fasist)

Not a question for this thread.

[Stratonesia]

1. What's the biggest thread trawl?
2. Who is considered the "most dangerous" NS player—i.e., the player that caused too many trouble that they became the most notorious one?

[Jar Wattinree]

1. What's the biggest thread trawl?
2. Who is considered the "most dangerous" NS player—i.e., the player that caused too many trouble that they became the most notorious one?

1): If you're asking about moderation stuff, the only things that come to mind are the May Massacre (Reploid Production's post on the topic) and the Predator scandal (Sedgistan's post on the topic). There may be more recent things but I'm not versed in other parts of the site.
2): This cannot be meaningfully answered in an OOC context, as all such players are DOS. For an IC context, and as per my own bias, the most notorious player of all time would be Francos Spain, founder of the New Pacific Order. Here's his detailed post on the subject on our 20th anniversary last year.

[Foxyshire]

Thank you for answering my question about the Skeleton Army!

Now I have another, what is Fox Rite, exactly? I am getting this raider vibe from it and as a fellow fox, it piques my interest.

[Applebania]

Thank you for answering my question about the Skeleton Army!

Now I have another, what is Fox Rite, exactly? I am getting this raider vibe from it and as a fellow fox, it piques my interest.

I had the same question ten years ago almost to the day. Here's an answer from their best-known former member. If you want a perspective from one of their old enemies, Sedgistan has you covered.