Cormactopia Prime wrote:They deserve people who are actually dedicated to Balder and its interests leading their government, not people who are more concerned about what benefits Europeia, The LKE, or the IJCC. When people are spending more time on other regions than they are on Balder, they are in fact neglecting it. When they're running the IJCC (Solorni) or still in the leadership of The LKE (Onder) or running intelligence for at least three regions (NES), they aren't giving everything they can to Balder, and they aren't giving Balder what Balder deserves.
We neither spend more time on other regions than Balder, nor serve the interests of any other region when making decisions on behalf of Balder.
Solorni commanding IJCC forces is very far from not spending time on Balder. The IJCC is Balder's military (as much as it is Europeia's military or the LKE's military). IJCC has no aims or resources of its own beyond those of the three regions, so it is wrong to consider this as a separate entity. As for decision-making authority, the Queen of Balder holding the Chairmanship of IJCC would rather seem to give Balder authority over the LKE and Europeia's militaries, not the other way round. In terms of the LKE, while it is my home region and I retain a say on decisions there as Emperor Emeritus, I have spent very little time on day-to-day business within the LKE since my abdication (partly to its detriment, in recent months when Emperor Theoden has been unavoidably absent, creating a gap at the top), whereas I am actively involved in running the internal affairs of Balder on a day-to-day basis. In no way have I neglected any of my governmental responsibilities. I think it no exaggeration to say that I am one of the most hands-on Statsministers, in terms of the activities of the government, that Balder has ever had. Like the Queen and myself, North East Somerset is more involved in Balder than he is in either Europeia or the LKE.
Inconveniently for our foreign critics, this tale of neglect is just not borne out by the reality of the situation.
It is absurd to see people with no or minimal connection to Balder question the dedication and commitment of those who have served Balder for years. Balder will make decisions based on the views and interests of our own community, rather than being affected by critics with no stake in our region. In all frankness, Balder could not be less interested in the opinions of the part of the gameplay community which intensely dislikes us, however nosiy it is.
The Church of Satan wrote:And for the record there are those of us in TRR that
want things with Balder to be better. They've been aware of this for a while now. To my knowledge they've disregarded that entirely for as long as they've known.
Firstly, Balder has received no contact from The Rejected Realms on this. It's not our job to prompt TRR into doing something that most of its members don't want to do. If TRR did want a change, it is for them to contact Balder first; not for Balder to see that there is an internal debate there and contact TRR. Balder will not interfere in TRR affairs. As far as Balder is concerned, relations are not going to improve until and unless there is an end to unprovoked hostile and disparaging remarks from TRR's executive government officials and official outlets about Balder. I doubt that is going to happen because there too many people who dislike Balder in TRR. If there was a change in TRR's attitude, we might entertain a change, but as things stand, Balder is content with the existing state of affairs. We are not going to try either to affect, or allow our own policy to be affected by, internal discussions within TRR.
Secondly, as I mentioned in the previous discussion, Balder was re-considering the proscription status of The Rejected Realms as part of an effort to review and trim the number of proscribed regions. However, as TRR thinks it is acceptable to make casual remarks about couping Balder, that won't be going ahead.