Embassy of The North Pacific

[Comfed]

1. TEP did not hold cultural events with BOM, it just refused to ban BOM members from cultural events it held with others. Obviously this was still a point of contention, but the clarification, imo, is important.

I don't understand, why was it a point of contention that TEP wasn't abiding by sanctions that TEP hadn't signed onto?

We never expected TEP to do this.

[Vulbania]

We never expected TEP to do this.

Then why put it down on the reasons as to why The North Pacific was not pleased with The East Pacific?

[Arstotskiano]

loved the comedy article on the invasion of WZT, the constant pushing of the joke of BoM being obligated to assist in libs of WZT was hilarious
i commend the great jokes in this edition of TNS

[East Chimore]

In exchange for WZT's pilers and updaters in destructive raids, BoM refused to conduct liberations of their distressed friend, only promising to abstain from attacking the vulnerable region. They are not a reliable protector, as this invasion has so meaningfully demonstrated.

"There is an expectation for Malice to act as defenders^{[citation needed]}" - The North Star, gaslighting the way to ""the truth""

[The Phantom Gambler]

BoM does not defend. For any reason. And our treaties are very clear on that. You're "exposing" something WZT, and all our other partners, already know. Are you that short on writing material?


Of course, I'm not the FA authority.

[Comfed]

We never expected TEP to do this.

Then why put it down on the reasons as to why The North Pacific was not pleased with The East Pacific?

I was merely addressing the point Angeloid Astraea made, which seemed to imply that we raised this in our negotiations with TEP, when that is not the case. The part of the article being discussed provides context on why our regions may have drifted apart; it is not an authoritative statement on the specific causes of the breakdown.

[Ambis2]

Hello there! First off, congrats on a lovely paper. Enjoyed the read. Interview quite nice as well. Now, I'm sure you know why I'm here. That's right! I was mentioned and I'm a raging narcissist who has to respond to everything! (That last bit is a joke). So, let's get started. I'll spoiler this, as it's sure to be rather long, but I'll sum up my thoughts at the end.

the North Pacific Army (NPA) launched a surprise invasion of Warzone Trinidad (WZT)

Well, I do hope it was a surprise! I'm not sure who I would be more embarrassed. You, for leaking that, or me for letting it happen!

one of The East Pacific (TEP)'s embassy partners — caused a diplomatic incident which resulted in the repeal of the 10-year-old North-East Security Treaty (NEST) between TNP and TEP, whose impact will be discussed in our next article.

Whoopsies! Hate causing diplomatic incidents.

The WZT Corporation dutifully followed the treaty's requirement when BoM requested military support for their invasion - and eventual capture - of Alcatraz.

Good job us! Who's the best treaty partners? We are!

Yet still, the Corporation's association with Malice does not stop at a simple alliance: Much of their corporate leadership and the Mafia (WZT's regional military) are composed of cosmopolitan members of both WZT and BoM, or are in other raiding organisations loyal to BoM's interests.

LE GASP! My god! Who are these dirty traitors? Let me at them!

The most notable example of this cosmopolitanism is Ambis2 — who currently serves as both WZT's Director of Foreign Acquisitions and an Acolyte in Malice's employ.

Hey that's me! So, yes, I do serve as an acolyte. Was quite excited to join, to be honest. Impeccable theming. I also love the wording here. "Malice's employ." Makes it sound like I'm an overworked employee taking shifts doing assassin things. But, to be honest, I've not done all that much piling, and I think I listed as Lair of the Dragon last time. Speaking of, I'm surprised you didn't mention my position in Astoria, Lair of the Dragon, or Kantrias, all regions sympathetic to Malice. No, I'm not in Kantrias's military, but I am a citizen as of writing this.

A combined strength of twenty-two updaters from the North Pacific Army, Europeian Republican Navy, League's Defense Forces, and Balder Jomsvikings assembled at a secret, newly-created jump point, led by TNP's Minister of Defence Robespierre (Francois Isidore)

Can I get a number breakdown here? Of those 22, how many came from each. Am quite curious.

In contrast, a jump point created during major would not update until minor and vice versa, which was very useful for the invasion of WZT.

Or, you could do what we like to call "update surfing." Start in a later updating region (Balder or whatever), then jump to an earlier one after it updates. Works pretty well.

The surprise invasion was entirely unopposed, and WZT's Delegacy was successfully captured without incident.

Again with the surprise invasion! Also, smh of course you chose the one night we chose to sleep. If next time you could let us know so we could be on Brimstone, that would be fabulous. And you could brag more that you overtook us!

The leaders of the WZT Corporation were expelled en masse and fled into exile in Warzone Tobago, its other branch and vacation home.

Ah yes! All five of us were expelled en masse. Also, Tobago's great, y'all should come for a visit. Or don't, cause I'll just ban you.

in which the invasion was themed as a corporate buyout of the WZT Corporation by the Tobago Trading Corporation — coincidentally having the same name as the former's aforementioned vacation home.

You'll be hearing from my lawyers.

No relief attempt was made by BoM to dislodge the coalition from its position, which was slowly becoming more fortified each day with additional pilers from allied regions.

Hi, pardon me, do you mind linking me to where on earth this requirement was established? Because it wasn't. Ever. Malice doesn't defend. They raid. Also, once again I would heavily enjoy seeing a piler breakdown if you don't mind sharing it with me.

The focus of the coalition by then was to inflict as much damage against WZT as possible.

OH NO! OH GOD PLEASE ANYTHING BUT THAT!

The regional WFE and flag were replaced, over 200 natives ejected and banned (though a large majority of them were puppets), 55 pages of RMB posts suppressed

Oh no? We got back to full endos, our WFE is normal, our flag is normal, and the RMB pages, well... (see later)

and several embassies with raider regions and TEP closed. Minister Robespierre's decision to close these embassies — while keeping the rest intact — was controversial, as it was interpreted by many in TEP as a deliberate insult.

TNP: "oh yeah, we closed specifically raider regions and TEP."
TNP: "wait why is TEP mad at us?"
Like, what? Genuinely, laying down the mask that's I've had on, this confuses me. You kept open others and closed TEP. I would see that as an insult. Anyone would, probably. So, like, what?

The NPA-led coalition's departure from WZT was, much like the occupation, relatively peaceful and quiet.

Sorry, you didn't count the music I was blasting from my WZT branded speaker. Not peaceful, or quiet. Haha!

Eighteen hours after the withdrawal had ended, the exiled Corporation and its allies returned and regained control of the abandoned WZT.

Yay us!

While changes to the flag, WFE, embassies, and two RMB pages were soon reversed, 53 pages of RMB posts remain suppressed.

What the FUCK!? I need to fire someone, excuse me.

In his after-action report, Minister Robespierre sent his thanks to the ERN, LDF, and Balder Jomsvikings for their assistance in the operation.

We need an acronym for Balder. Maybe something like the BJ... on second thought let's not.

The invasion of WZT ended as a success for the NPA.

Yeah! Good job! You did... kinda nothing if we're being totally honest. You made a WFE and a flag, and clicked some buttons. Good job, I guess.

A BoM ally was directly attacked, and they did nothing to assist.

Ya, cause they're raiders.

Malice's unwillingness to rescue their allies has been exposed, and WZT's alliance with them proven an unequal one. In exchange for WZT's pilers and updaters in destructive raids, BoM refused to conduct liberations of their distressed friend, only promising to abstain from attacking the vulnerable region. They are not a reliable protector, as this invasion has so meaningfully demonstrated.

You exposed them for what, the third time now? Great job. "In exchange for WZT's piler and updaters in destructive raids..." let me finish that for you. "They provide us with pilers and updaters in return, as you so helpfully snipped out of our treaty at the top. The expectation was never that we would have defenders. We would have gone to the defenders if we wanted that. Except we didn't. Because y'all don't defend Warzones last I checked. So, the logical option was "if you can't fix the raid after it's done, make the raid never happen. That's why we went to Malice. Because allying with them meant that almost no raider would invade us. Of course, we didn't anticipate being raided... by defenders.

Alright, that was a lot. TL;DR, Ambis is a cosmo, WZT got utterly dunked on (but we didn't), TNP's confusion over the TEP situation is genuinely baffling, and we learned for the third time (I think) that Malice is not a defender region. Ok, bye, thanks for reading!

[Varanius]

snip

Generally when you’re responding to a post to discredit it, debunk it, quibble over details, really anything, you want to make the parts of your reply that actually try to make points comparatively more of your post than random nonsense. This usually makes your actual argument more effective, because people will actually get to it before their eyes roll far enough back into their head that their optical nerve severs. Hope this helps!

[Rosartemis]

I am truly thankful for the heartfelt mention by my good friends in The North Star, see you all in the April Edition!

[Ambis2]

snip

Generally when you’re responding to a post to discredit it, debunk it, quibble over details, really anything, you want to make the parts of your reply that actually try to make points comparatively more of your post than random nonsense. This usually makes your actual argument more effective, because people will actually get to it before their eyes roll far enough back into their head that their optical nerve severs. Hope this helps!

Well yes! That’s why I had the TL;DR.

EDIT: I could also bold the important bits. Would that help

[Picairn]

Hello there! First off, congrats on a lovely paper. Enjoyed the read. Interview quite nice as well. Now, I'm sure you know why I'm here. That's right! I was mentioned and I'm a raging narcissist who has to respond to everything! (That last bit is a joke). So, let's get started. I'll spoiler this, as it's sure to be rather long, but I'll sum up my thoughts at the end.

-snip-

Alright, that was a lot. TL;DR, Ambis is a cosmo, WZT got utterly dunked on (but we didn't), TNP's confusion over the TEP situation is genuinely baffling, and we learned for the third time (I think) that Malice is not a defender region. Ok, bye, thanks for reading!

TL;DR: Okay, I see mostly meaningless sarcasm and unfunny reactions in the spoiler. I'm disinclined to read a complaint that is filled with 10 variations of "Haha you're stoopid!", same as other agendaposts ITT.

[Angeloid Astraea]

Then why put it down on the reasons as to why The North Pacific was not pleased with The East Pacific?

I was merely addressing the point Angeloid Astraea made, which seemed to imply that we raised this in our negotiations with TEP, when that is not the case. The part of the article being discussed provides context on why our regions may have drifted apart; it is not an authoritative statement on the specific causes of the breakdown.

Let me make my point clearer, then! If one of the points of contention that caused TNP and TEP to drift apart beforehand was because TEP didn't ascribe to certain aspects of sanctions that TNP signed onto, despite the fact TEP never signed any of the sactions themselves, then that's not professional on TNP's part! If you feel tension with an ally because that ally is not marching in policy lockstep with you, in regards to things like banning certain people from their own regional events, then you should consider why you feel entitled to that. Maybe what you want isn't an ally, but a subject, like The Wellspring!

[Comfed]

I was merely addressing the point Angeloid Astraea made, which seemed to imply that we raised this in our negotiations with TEP, when that is not the case. The part of the article being discussed provides context on why our regions may have drifted apart; it is not an authoritative statement on the specific causes of the breakdown.

Let me make my point clearer, then! If one of the points of contention that caused TNP and TEP to drift apart beforehand was because TEP didn't ascribe to certain aspects of sanctions that TNP signed onto, despite the fact TEP never signed any of the sactions themselves, then that's not professional on TNP's part! If you feel tension with an ally because that ally is not marching in policy lockstep with you, in regards to things like banning certain people from their own regional events, then you should consider why you feel entitled to that. Maybe what you want isn't an ally, but a subject, like The Wellspring!

That is not what the article says. It discusses TEP's broader rapprochement with the raider unity sphere, and cites the issue of cultural ties as a minor detail to back it up. It does contain an unfortunate error of fact, which we are in the process of correcting, that may have slightly muddied the waters of how that article is understood, but the notion that we have ever felt "entitled" to TEP, or any region, signing onto the sanctions is just false.

I understand your interpretation of the article, but it's not an accurate representation of our position.

[Reventus Koth]

the raider unity sphere

Raidersphere, or raiderdom. These terms have existed just fine for many years. Please try to learn something about the people to spend so much of your time beating your drum about.

[Halsoni]

On behalf of my ministry, thank you for the compliments and corrections. We appreciate it, as always.

[Well-Sprung Jack]

Maybe what you want isn't an ally, but a subject, like The Wellspring!

Just popping in here to note that The Wellspring isn't a subject of TNP and indeed, rejected any and all attempts to make The Wellspring TNP's frontier incredibly early on in its history. The Wellspring follows its own foreign policy and is an independent region. You may disagree with the actions it takes, but it's no more a subject of TNP than Atlanticana is a subject of Sparkalia.

[Klaus Devestatorie]

Article One:

We attacked Warzone Trinidad! Other raiders didn’t do anything to dislodge us! We can’t imagine why they would do nothing to remove us and return the region to their friends! It’s not like Warzone Trinidad is a GCR that physically cannot be refounded, converted to a stronghold or otherwise permanently secured in any way without committing scores of pilers to sit there and do nothing until the sun runs out of hydrogen while the WZT government waits it out in their backup region, which they most certainly don’t have set aside for exactly this event! They must be terrible allies! We’ve suppressed no less than FIFTY THREE pages of RMB posts and tossed all their puppets! We can do this whenever they want!

Article Two:

The East Pacific has decided they don’t want anything to do with us anymore! They say it’s something about repeatedly attacking Warzone Trinidad, who they had a pre-existing friendship with before we invaded them. I can’t fathom why anyone would be bothered by us attacking Warzone Trinidad? They even get along better with the raiders now than they get along with us. It’s madness! Who could possibly find us annoying? It’s not like we’ve shaped our entire previous two years of foreign policy around the same thing happening to one of our friends!

The North Pacific would be outfoxed by the average team-purple CyberNations alliance. They wrote 1,836 words across two articles and made Lambeau Field resemble an assembly of Athenian philosophers. Babies sleep safe and sound with the knowledge that TNP is attempting to steal their candy. Bags of rocks aspire to be as dumb as this in a few million years. Mahaj could have avoided this one.

[Improper Classifications]

The Wellspring isn't a subject of TNP and indeed, rejected any and all attempts to make The Wellspring TNP's frontier incredibly early on in its history.

How early?
The NPA supporting The Wellspring makes it no more of a colony of TNP than Solidarity was of TCB! Oh wait...

[Well-Sprung Jack]

The Wellspring isn't a subject of TNP and indeed, rejected any and all attempts to make The Wellspring TNP's frontier incredibly early on in its history.

How early?

If it wasn't prior to the passing of The Wellspring's first charter, it was pretty soon after that. What started as an NPA deployment (and then friends and allies piling) that I secured because I recognised one of the nations in The Wellspring (Palcania iirc) as someone who had a weird hate boner for me and I figured it'd be funny to deploy there and snatch the region turned into, over the course of the regions early history, it's own distinct community with its own priorities and intentions. It's not an extension of TNP's foreign policy or beholden to TNP's whims in any way.

[Omnicontrol]

all i'll say, really cannot be assed to provide proper political commentary on a group of people being angry because another group of people lets virtual polsim graffitiers attend virtual hunger games

[Angeloid Astraea]

Maybe what you want isn't an ally, but a subject, like The Wellspring!

Just popping in here to note that The Wellspring isn't a subject of TNP and indeed, rejected any and all attempts to make The Wellspring TNP's frontier incredibly early on in its history. The Wellspring follows its own foreign policy and is an independent region. You may disagree with the actions it takes, but it's no more a subject of TNP than Atlanticana is a subject of Sparkalia.

I don't actually seriously believe The Wellspring is a "subject" of TNP, to be honest. I only added "like The Wellspring!" to that post at the last second for the memes. =P

[Jar Wattinree]

all i'll say, really cannot be assed to provide proper political commentary on a group of people being angry because another group of people lets virtual polsim graffitiers attend virtual hunger games

Instead of "screeching at the congregation", how about "the sky is wet" or "the water is blue" for equally nonsensical, redundant sayings?

[Improper Classifications]

How early?

If it wasn't prior to the passing of The Wellspring's first charter, it was pretty soon after that. What started as an NPA deployment (and then friends and allies piling) that I secured because I recognised one of the nations in The Wellspring (Palcania iirc) as someone who had a weird hate boner for me and I figured it'd be funny to deploy there and snatch the region turned into, over the course of the regions early history, it's own distinct community with its own priorities and intentions. It's not an extension of TNP's foreign policy or beholden to TNP's whims in any way.

Interesting

[Chipoli]

I know Issue 35 of the North Star hasn't (yet?) been posted here, but it's been published and advertised to other regions, so I wanted to address the NEST Article.

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispa ... 8#ARTICLE2

Most of this is true, I applaud Vice Delegate Chipoli for conveying the facts (and making accurate quotes from both sides, something I know regions at war don't always do). However, as someone who likes to call myself an NS journalist, I just wanted to recommend a couple corrections:

1. TEP did not hold cultural events with BOM, it just refused to ban BOM members from cultural events it held with others. Obviously this was still a point of contention, but the clarification, imo, is important.

2. "they did not believe they were obligated to respond to any possible attacks faced by the North from its enemies" is also untrue. To my knowledge, TEP indicated that it would respond to attacks on TNP (as it had in the past, such as when EPSA sent pilers following the initial BOM/TCB attack), but would just not go further than defense. I.e. not get involved in the war. So it's a difference between a defensive response and an offensive response. Again, this clearly was not satisfactory to TNP, and I won't comment on the truth of opinions, but I just wanted to clear up the description itself.

Overall a pretty good article. More concise than I could be lol

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We've taken the time to update the article to reflect these clarifications and provide our readers with the highest quality content possible.

[The Ever-Wanderer]

The Stealthy Sloop Gazette


[Image Attribution: Jurgen Appelo under Creative Commons 2.0]

The Sloop Editorial Plank's Endorsements, May 2024

The Editorial Plank (y'know, like a board, but ship-ier?) of the Stealthy Sloop Gazette has convened to issue recommendations for the May 2024 elections at long last. After extensive reading of campaign platform threads, listening to nearly two hours of Radio town halls, and luckily finding a copy of Simone's text-based town hall afloat in a corked bottle, we are confident that our recommendations come well informed.

For the position of Captain, the Sloop must heartily recommend in favor of Robespierre. While the Sloop vehemently denies the accusations of "being a mock publication funded entirely by the North's enemies," we certainly do think that Robes has the most interesting err least naive uhmm most credible platform for the war and activity as a whole. By comparison, Dreadton's platform of "double down, try to be more annoying, and hope that works" is unlikely to succeed, as is Simone's platform of "We'll offer them a chance to surrender, but if not, we'll win." The Sloop maintains concerns about the degrees to which Robes mocks certain former allies of the North, warns potential new allies not to expect serious relationships like embassies or treaties, and dismisses both ministerial concurrence and democratic reviews of the executive as mere obstacles to decisiveness. Nonetheless, we believe that Robe's campaign for captain is not just the North's best hope of clawing back some progress versus their enemies, but quite possibly the whole faction's. With innovative ideas like "maybe if we host events instead of just walking out of other peoples', the sanctions will work better" and "if our region is more active and does more fun stuff in general, maybe we can convince more people to update and actually win some libs," the North might actually stand a chance the next time it fires its cannons.

For the Captain's Mate, we must agree with Robes that Chipoli is the only sensible choice. While the Sloop suggests that Chipoli should consider making his VD reports monthly to avoid spending the first half of each one apologizing for missing the prior, there is no other candidate on the field better suited to the role.

Lastly, for the position of Quartermaster, we really couldn't be assed to determine the differences in how the candidates wanted to marginally unfuck the North's legislative procedures or exactly how they wanted to enable Deputy Speakers to open and close threads on time, so we choose to recommend "Noscar" entirely because the name made us think of a portmanteau of Nosferatu and NASCAR, whereas "Cloud" and "AraFuttio" just made us think of weeb shit. We believe that the North, particularly after nuking their bridges with TEP, is better suited by Vampire Stock Cars as a vibe than it is by anime.

Thank you for your readership, and remember to vote no later than Monday May 13th!!

May your friends' mugs have plentiful grog, and your enemies' plentiful bilgewater,

The Ever-Wanderer