NationStates

For the visually impaired: Most of this post is images. Essentially it says "Reforged and Renewed, The United Defenders League begins the New Year with Fresh Faces and Honored Veterans. Our purpose? To protect, free and restore regions all across NationStates from senseless invasions." Here's a link to our forum and here's a link to instructions on how to join us.

Happy (belated) New Years, everybody. The United Defenders League's New Year resolution is to be bigger, better and more resilient than the year previous.

It’s been some time since our last update. As I said, I was away for a week or so, then we spent the rest of this week preparing The United Defenders League for its annual reboot – with a darker backstory, a Hans Zimmer soundtrack and ninjas, I would say we’re well prepared for the coming year. Kidding of course, Hans Zimmer wasn’t available, but we will be approaching our organization’s administration differently this year. The message I will be conveying to our Chiefs of Staff is this list of priorities:

First, we need to continue our recruitment efforts by spreading the message of the defender cause, but likewise, we need to change minds. Recruitment, in years previous, was a more dependable process because the defender ethos pitched a compelling argument and, subsequently, a larger tent. This requires a more robust communications program. Instead of having an individual Press Secretary, our Press Secretary will now be a NationStates account which can be used to post many different articles on certain subjects from approved commentators.

Second, we need to innovate technologically – conduct studies to optimize timing. Ultimately, what works for invaders, will not work for us. We’re constrained by larger troop selections which cannot perform the same maneuvers; therefore we need to tailor our timing system to fit what we do and how we do it. But likewise, we need to innovate in how we think about defenderism. Defenderism isn’t some distant or contained ideology within a sphere of other ideologies, it’s an understanding of liberty, freedom and peace that has roots in many political ideologies (i.e., Liberal Democratic thought, Christian thought, Libertarian thought) on the political “left” and “right”. This has major implications for our foreign affairs – our natural allies are those regions who are already comfortable with being ideological.

Since the fall of the Red Liberty Alliance, the moderate left has often been overlooked; with our new foreign affairs attaché, Eggy216 (who some may recognize from Social Liberal Union where he serves as Minister of Foreign Affairs), I hope we can convey a new spirited message of commonality. Our values of self-determination, liberty and freedom of speech are their values. Likewise, I am happy to expand our base of foreign affairs attachés to include: Synaxis (delegate of the defender-catholic region, Coalition of Catholic States), Ognjen Ahmadinejad (a strong voice against invader oppression in the Muslim community of NationStates, who is also serving as the delegate of Islamic Republic of Iran) and Afforess (more known as Capitalist Paradise’s Secretary of Interior and Forums). These appointments reflect some major developments for defenderism in the Christian, Islamic and Libertarian communities, where we also share values of peace, bellum iustum and the just acquisition of property.

Innovation requires creativity, drawing connections and paying close attention to developing trends for emerging demographics. As a first step, I have created an entirely new discussion thread for The United Defenders League to begin the New Year.

Alright, enough of this blathering. What have we been doing here besides talking? Well we just had a very successful liberation last night in RORMs. The community of Region of Reunited Muslim States moved to RORMs to flee the destruction of their original region at the hands of The Black Riders, now The Black Riders were back to finish “the job”. But The United Defenders League with the help of The South Pacific Army, Right to Life Army, Coalition of Catholic States, Medjai Guard, The Founderless Regions Alliance and The North Pacific Army, was able to liberate RORMs in a decisive 30-22 victory. RORMs is “ever grateful,” explained Johor, the native delegate, “to its powerful and loyal allies. Thank you, liberators”. You are welcome, Johor. All participating soldiers will receive the following military ribbon:



Additionally, The Greenwood Band was involved with support missions in The Pacific and United Kingdom, where we helped neutralize threats to regional security.

* Neavilos showers Luna with fun.
<Jormengand> Hmm. Uni said that I should go here to talk to, and I quote, "The gang." Some gang right here.
* Luna sighs
<Luna> I am tough
<Luna> Like any gang member
<Luna> GRRR!

<DeCole> So, what do i have to do now?
<Unibot> Decole, you apply for membership here: Kantrias
<Unibot> Erk
<Unibot> No
<Unibot> Copy/Paste ERROR
<Tim> D:
<Tim> Bad UNIBOT
<Tim> BAAAD
<Earth> XD
<Earth> BAHAH
* Tim troutslaps Unibot for this
<Unibot> http://s4.zetaboards.com/UDL/topic/8778084/1/ < this is where you apply, DeCole
<Tim> ^yes
<Tim> there
<Prussia> xD
<Prussia> There we go

Ah yes, the joys of recruitment. As I said, we’re looking to expand and we’ve welcomed a lot of new members in the past week to The United Defenders League. Welcome to Democratic Republic of United Koryo, Imbrinium, Andarium,SCONN,Nationalist Eminral Republic,Arcomo,Jormengand and DeCole. Additionally, we’re welcoming back Belschaft this week, who has decided to rejoin us. Likewise, we are just in the process of greeting A Mean Old Man to The United Defenders League. A Mean Old Man has a respected history in the intelligence field, since he was the one who led the investigation that eventually identified Frak (a couper) as Haxstree, a member of The South Pacific. Others may know A Mean Old Man for his distinguished delegate service in The East Pacific or his career in The World Assembly, where he was eventually commended. A Mean Old Man has taken on the role of Chief of Intelligence for our organization and will be working with his newly appointed Vice Chief of Intelligence, Lieutenant Mahaj. In additional news, we have announced that Lieutenant Cormac Stark has ascended to the Hall of Honour in recognition of his past service and furthermore, Strawberrry Fields has received the Order of Danmarkland for his fortitude in the face of Hippiedom's continued occupation.

<Unibot> I want to hug Mahaj until he's blue
<Mahaj> oh well in my culture being blue is one step closer to godliness

Hmmm, Culture. It is my esteemed pleasure to announce the formation of the Chieftaincy of Culture which Lieutenant Earth (aka Lyanna Stark) will be leading. Culture is often an unappreciated focus in NationStates, but it’s probably one of the more vital ones in all actuality and I’m pleased to have someone so experienced in the field leading the task. You can expect more events like the Christmas events to take place in the near future.

Speaking of Earth and Christmas. Guess what Earth got me for Christmas?? EEK. Look at it in all of its glory:



Okay, I’m done writing. Love you all. Here’s your Moment of Zen:

<Asta> I went digging through logs for Earth's quote about driving her sister's vagina
<Asta> and searching "vagina" pulled up *way* too many false positives to use
<Asta> :|
<Asta> We... may have an obsession >_>

Why are you starting a new thread, and what happens when UDL inevitably changes command? You are going to have to edit those beautiful images like every 3 days...

Eist wrote:Why are you starting a new thread, and what happens when UDL inevitably changes command? You are going to have to edit those beautiful images like every 3 days...

New year, new thread. Also the images are probably stored with blank untyped versions somehwere... That'd be the commonsense solution, anyway.

Good luck this year, guys!

Eist wrote:Why are you starting a new thread, and what happens when UDL inevitably changes command? You are going to have to edit those beautiful images like every 3 days...

We're starting a new thread because we have no control over the OP in the other one. Additionally, I'll have you know that the Chief who retired from his post, Eluvatar, was Chief of Intelligence since the very beginning of The United Defenders League.

Good luck this year, guys!

Thank you, Topes!

Holy shit. AMOM is UDL now? What the hell kind of plot twist...

/me walks away mumbling.

Weed wrote:Holy shit. AMOM is UDL now? What the hell kind of plot twist...

/me walks away mumbling.

New Year, New Surprises, New Badasses joining the Band

Whoa

Elu stepped down? I never thought I'd see the day. Furthermore, I would have never expected AMOM to replace him.

The new thread theme is fancy, but I honestly preferred the old format.

Sweet, a completely empty OP. I keep trying to tell people being blind has unforseen (haha) benefits.

Still good luck for the new year UDL.

Cerberion wrote:Sweet, a completely empty OP. I keep trying to tell people being blind has unforseen (haha) benefits.

Sorry Cerberion, I'll put in a little invisible blurb.

EDIT: How's that?

Unibot III wrote:

Cerberion wrote:Sweet, a completely empty OP. I keep trying to tell people being blind has unforseen (haha) benefits.

Sorry Cerberion, I'll put in a little invisible blurb.

EDIT: How's that?

I liked it how it was.

Still, as you asked, it reads like this:

Code: Select all

For the visually impaired: Most of this post is images. Essentially it says "Reforged and Renewed, The United Defenders League begins the New Year with Fresh Faces and Honored Veterans. Our purpose? To protect, free and restore regions all across NationStates from senseless invasions." Here's a [color=#f5f7f4]link to our forum and here's a link to instructions on how to join us. [/color]






So You've probably got some broken tags in there.

The UDL update is up!

EDIT: Thanks Cerb. I think I've fixed it all.

Thanks for the update and I'm glad to see the UDL doing so well. I do have a few questions, I hope you won't mind; and I want to say in advance that no hostility is intended here so if my post comes off as hostile at any point, I apologize. Some of these are tough questions but there isn't any malice behind them.

While I see some changes in personnel and possibly to the aims of the various Chief positions, I'm curious what changes are being made if any to address the issues that caused so much upheaval within The UDL at the end of last year and the beginning of this one. I'm referring to the pre-defense of Christmas, the Osiris coup debacle, the loss of Christmas to The New Inquisition while it was under UDL protection and the presence of raiders and or leaks to raiders within The UDL's IRC channel where operations are conducted. I see that most of the same Lieutenants are in place now as before and I don't see any announcements regarding command structure, operational reform, etc. that one might expect to see after such a series of incidents. Are any reforms of this nature in the works but haven't been announced yet, and if so when might they be announced?

Unibot III wrote:Since the fall of the Red Liberty Alliance, the moderate left has often been overlooked; with our new foreign affairs attaché, Eggy216 (who some may recognize from Social Liberal Union where he serves as Minister of Foreign Affairs), I hope we can convey a new spirited message of commonality. Our values of self-determination, liberty and freedom of speech are their values. Likewise, I am happy to expand our base of foreign affairs attachés to include: Synaxis (delegate of the defender-catholic region, Coalition of Catholic States), Ognjen Ahmadinejad (a strong voice against invader oppression in the Muslim community of NationStates, who is also serving as the delegate of Islamic Republic of Iran) and Afforess (more known as Capitalist Paradise’s Secretary of Interior and Forums). These appointments reflect some major developments for defenderism in the Christian, Islamic and Libertarian communities, where we also share values of peace, bellum iustum and the just acquisition of property.

I have some questions regarding some of these appointments. First, you call Coalition of Catholic States "defender-catholic" -- but it's my understanding that CoCS has raided before. Has the region gone exclusively defender?

Second, you have appointed Ognjen Ahmadinejad. As you note he is the Delegate of Islamic Republic of Iran, which in turn is in an alliance with the region RORMS. RORMS and some other Islamic regions (though by no means all) have in the past been associated with extreme, intolerant and even violent rhetoric. How will The UDL handle such rhetoric if it arises in the future and how will you be able to distance yourselves from such controversies with a foreign attaché who is so closely connected to these regions?

I'm also curious on what basis you refer to these appointments as outreach to the "moderate left," when in fact with the exception of Eggy216 all of these appointments are rather far right.

---

In any event, those questions aside I wish The UDL the best of luck and once again, thank you for your recent involvement in the security operation in The Pacific that you reference in your update.

Cormac Stark wrote:While I see some changes in personnel and possibly to the aims of the various Chief positions, I'm curious what changes are being made if any to address the issues that caused so much upheaval within The UDL at the end of last year and the beginning of this one. I'm referring to the pre-defense of Christmas, the Osiris coup debacle, the loss of Christmas to The New Inquisition while it was under UDL protection and the presence of raiders and or leaks to raiders within The UDL's IRC channel where operations are conducted. I see that most of the same Lieutenants are in place now as before and I don't see any announcements regarding command structure, operational reform, etc. that one might expect to see after such a series of incidents. Are any reforms of this nature in the works but haven't been announced yet, and if so when might they be announced?

Well as you well know, the officer who could have prevented the Osiris incident has left The United Defenders League. The only two officers at the time were also newer officers and normally would not have been the ones making such politically difficult strategical decisions -- and were likewise, misled by a corrupt administration in Osiris.

A repeat of Osiris seems unlikely since it was 1. Organized on the day where the most people would be away, 2. Specifically planned to be on a day where neither Earth or I would be present (which is unusual), 3. Featured a highly corrupted and infiltrated administration in a feeder or sinker government -- Biyah had influence in nearly every level of the government and was willing to burn most of that political capital for a very brief coup.

I'm not going to go out of my way to appoint veteran players (if this is what you're suggesting) outside of the UDL since that would be exactly the sort of thing that would make the organization much more likely to be influenced by Biyah in the future (Osiris fell trap to this, unfortunately). I do think that the appointment of the intelligent and always diplomatic, Hileville as Chief of Feeder and Sinker Affairs will help to address similar problems as these. But, it also won't be as well known in the future when I will be away.

However, I will point out that UDL is naturally protected. When I am away, the effectiveness of gaining troops goes down, so although Biyah was able to bully some of my junior lieutenants into ordering a call they shouldn't have .. the UDL's involvement was ineffectual.

I have some questions regarding some of these appointments. First, you call Coalition of Catholic States "defender-catholic" -- but it's my understanding that CoCS has raided before. Has the region gone exclusively defender?

It may still invade Nazi regions, I can't speak exactly for their policies other than that they do tag their region as a "defender" region and have introduced themselves as defender to me.

Second, you have appointed Ognjen Ahmadinejad. As you note he is the Delegate of Islamic Republic of Iran, which in turn is in an alliance with the region RORMS. RORMS and some other Islamic regions (though by no means all) have in the past been associated with extreme, intolerant and even violent rhetoric. How will The UDL handle such rhetoric if it arises in the future and how will you be able to distance yourselves from such controversies with a foreign attaché who is so closely connected to these regions?

I see RORMs as the victim of extreme, intolerant and even violent rhetoric. Likewise, I think it is silly to highlight the Islamic community as "being associated" with extreme, intolerant and even violent rhetoric. Basically every religious community has extreme, intolerant and even violent members. Ognjen is a gentlemen who has been spreading words of Muslim solidarity in the face of oppression and I think that in him, The United Defenders League, has a career diplomat who will be able to reinvent defenderism for our eastern friends.

I'm also curious on what basis you refer to these appointments as outreach to the "moderate left," when in fact with the exception of Eggy216 all of these appointments are rather far right.

No you misunderstood: the three diplomats I named are to approach three different communities; two of which are right-wing (Muslim, Christian) and Afforess who is from Capitalist Paradise which I would call neoliberal, capitalist or libertarian. Eggt216 will be our main appointment to approach the moderate left, but he will be assisted by the Chief of Foreign Affairs, New Bazlantis (former delegate of Democratic Socialist Assembly), who will lead the Chieftaincy of Foreign Affairs. Since the moderate left is a larger community than the moderate right community (but also a lot less divided -- I mean, the Christian and Muslim communities aren't networked or anything) -- since this is NationStates (LIBERALS UNITE), I don't think that the platform is biased to one political side.

- Uni

Are you really going to beat the 'Raiders HATE MUSLIMS' drum again, Unibot? You broke that drum months ago.

It has been conclusively proven that there's no indication that Muslim Regions are specifically targeted because they're muslim. Moreover, its Islamic regions that tend to have the most amusing and over the top reactions to raids - even more so than you, which is surprising, because you're a great recruiting tool for Raiding (Its what made me as Extreme as I am. )- that draws repeat raids, in addition to the fact that they keep letting themselves be founderless.

You have seen no indication of anti-muslim rhetoric or belief by raiders. A raid does not indicate political beliefs or religious beliefs, etc - at least not when it is done by a professional raider organization. A group like TBR is a professional raider military, and it raids regions on the metric of: How much of a challeng it is, likliehood of amusing reactions from the locals, how likely the Defenders are to liberate (since they seem to like the challenge) and other specifically in-game things.

As Koth pointed out in the Malicecast, the raid on Holocaust Memorial had nothing to do with Anti-Semitism or being Holocaust-den-y or whatever. It was just a founderless region.

Now, if it was some raider group that in its name or stated beliefs gave hints of being anti-muslim (Say that called themselves 'Fox News' or 'Republicans' or 'The Tea Party') or targeted ONLY muslim regions (TBR targets gobs and gobs of regions), then maybe you'd have a little traction.

By reverse, this ridiculous 'Anti-Islamic' rhetoric you bring out (and DEN was anti-Catholic when it raided Catholic too...hm....I smell even more BS...even though a number of people involved in Catholic had recently raided an Athiest region...) just makes you look like a political hack. Which is perfect, because that's exactly what you are.

AMOM a UDL member now?

Wasn't he the one that until recently acted against the UDL?

Obviously, the UDL went out to try to recruit him. One has to wonder why they went out to recruit for such a position rather than promote one of their hard working members. Surely such a move would damage the integrity of such an organization. Why defend for the UDL when you clearly will never be good enough for the upper echelons? Was it for his feeder influence?

Who does your images and where can I get some just like them

As Koth pointed out in the Malicecast, the raid on Holocaust Memorial had nothing to do with Anti-Semitism or being Holocaust-den-y or whatever. It was just a founderless region.

I believe it was me who was angry and ranting about =P But the point still stands

Solorni wrote:Obviously, the UDL went out to try to recruit him. One has to wonder why they went out to recruit for such a position rather than promote one of their hard working members. Surely such a move would damage the integrity of such an organization.

To be fair, most UDL officers were promoted after working very hard for the organization. I've followed the UDL pretty closely from the beginning, seeing as I was one of the first people to know about it, and I would hardly say that it's common for people who haven't contributed much to the organization to get promoted to important positions. I remember watching people such as Ravania, Zwangzug, Campinia, Sovreignry, and Solm work their way up in the organization from the very bottom. It usually takes a lot of time, effort, and dedication to the defender cause.

Solorni wrote:Was it for his feeder influence?

It's possible that AMOM was promoted for his feeder influence, yes, but I also think that it's fair to say that AMOM was promoted to Chief of Intelligence because of, well, erm, his intelligence about intelligence. He knows his stuff and is one of the best out there.

LOL AMOM how does it feel to report to Unibot?

I was pretty damn surprised at that appointment. Nevertheless congratulations.

Cerian Quilor wrote:-snip-

The original RORMs invasion did involve "extreme, intolerant and even violent rhetoric" against Muslims, that's an nonnegotiable fact -- conveniently for invaders, the region was destroyed and the RMB was lost. However, my views on whether all Muslim regions attacked by The Black Riders are part of some islamophobia bent are always developing. All I said was that RORMs had been the victim of "extreme, intolerant and even violent rhetoric" -- anyone who had seen the RMB at the time would know this.

Likewise, attacking a Holocaust Memorial -- even a virtual one, is not a classy move, Cerian Quilor. It shows very little respect to holocaust victims to put a silly game ideology (attack -all- da regions) above respect to them. And then to invade it again? That's purely ignorant and callous.

Solorni wrote:Obviously, the UDL went out to try to recruit him. One has to wonder why they went out to recruit for such a position rather than promote one of their hard working members. Surely such a move would damage the integrity of such an organization. Why defend for the UDL when you clearly will never be good enough for the upper echelons? Was it for his feeder influence?

Intelligence is a different field than standard military operations -- requiring different experience. I asked AMOM to join UDL as Chief of Intelligence before the UDL was created and before he was a hardly even a feederite (I don't think he even been accepted to The Pacific yet). He turned me down at the time and I met Eluvatar when I helped him refound Taijitu. I've worked with in the past with him on intelligence missions and liked what I saw.

Furthermore, promotions in The United Defenders League occur all of the time and I think the institution does a fine job at promoting interorganizational talent. Talent from other players like Cf. Lt. Solm (a roleplayer) or Lt. Sovreignry (a WA Author) would have likely had gone unrecognized in other Gameplay organizations. When I promoted Cf. Lt. Solm, people's reactions were "Solm? Who?", but I can't imagine anyone else being my second-in-command now and regions are constantly bidding for his technical assistance.

I was there Unibot. You can make shit up all you want - it doesn't change the nature of reality.

And the Holocaust memorial was/is a virtual region in a game. By the very nature of a game, things aren't to be taken as seriously as you do - such as this case. You say its not classy, I say its Raiders being raiders. It was not honoring anyone who died during the holocaust - we have REAL memorials for that. Just as Antifa doesn't honor the people who have died fighting fascism, a region that calls itself 'holocaust memorial' isn't a memorial. Naming something doesn't make it so.

I mean, you can call yourself an inteligence, reasoned human being. You are only one of those three things.