Osiris | Danburg Seized!

[Reventus Koth]

The "overwhelming majority" of like 5 people who were useless anyway. That coup was addition by subtraction and you're living proof.

Well would you look at that, active members of the region and its forum are considered part of the community. I think it was a little more than 5.

Let's go down the list of people who actually posted stuff on the resistance forum during that time period:

Ainocra: Was retired before the coup. Came back to support Whale.
Tomb: Was actually pretty decent, I'll give you this one just to make you feel better.
Gradea: Stuck around and was actually a very productive member of the new regime for a while.
Festavo: Addition by subtraction in every way.
Whale: Obvious reasoning here.
Andrew: Had other obligations that made his many Keeper terms very inactive, through no fault of his own. He wouldn't have been a big factor no matter what way the pendulum swung.
You: Opportunist extraordinaire. Do not want.
Who Me: Didn't even reveal his name, so who cares.
Kajan: Legitimately forgot this guy existed until I went looking.

[Ikania]

And this has what to do with what the community is like and what it wants? On one hand you're trying to characterize the people in the region and how you're giving them what they want, and on the other you're saying you really don't need those people and they weren't any loss. Sure, the remaining population and the new people you've attracted since then may hold that opinion, but that doesn't really enter into the picture. You're cutting a chunk out of it and calling it whole.

Regardless, I'm not sure about what you're trying to characterize as the region's community- the people in the region who agree with you? The site-exclusive players who endorse whomever they're told to and don't give a damn? The active contributors? Great, you've made Osiris paradise for the people who agree with you. Obviously you can speak for those people.

Now, regardless of who defected to your side afterwards whether it was opportunity, power, fear, whatever drew them in, the fact is plain as day that the people made their voice quite clear before you decided to ignore it. Don't try to say you know what they wanted. In enough time, you'll grow to be correct since Osiris is now full of yes-men. But what you're saying now is a crock of shit.

[SYG]

I take it that Lazarus is not treating you well enough that you just have to keep this going? Not the least bit surprising.

* Hands Ikania a one way ticket back to the Lazarean Salt Mines™ *

[Ikania]

I take it that Lazarus is not treating you well enough that you just have to keep this going? Not the least bit surprising.

* Hands Ikania a one way ticket back to the Lazarean Salt Mines™ *

Salt only flows when someone spills the shaker.

[Canton Empire]

I take it that Lazarus is not treating you well enough that you just have to keep this going? Not the least bit surprising.

* Hands Ikania a one way ticket back to the Lazarean Salt Mines™ *

For the record, it would be Lazarene, not "Lazarean"

[Ikania]

I take it that Lazarus is not treating you well enough that you just have to keep this going? Not the least bit surprising.

* Hands Ikania a one way ticket back to the Lazarean Salt Mines™ *

For the record, it would be Lazarene, not "Lazarean"

It's only fitting if they're gonna get on your ass for 'Osiran' vs 'Osirian'.

[Todd McCloud]

Since we're in the spirit of the NS World Fair, and since the subject of past history in Osiris has been brought up, I found this piece I wrote a while ago on the state of affairs in Osiris, circa early 2014. I read over some of it, and it's interesting to me that the region has in some parts changed, while in other parts remains the same.

[Sygian II]

It's only fitting if they're gonna get on your ass for 'Osiran' vs 'Osirian'.

Then I suppose that it is somewhat acceptable that I tend to get those mixed up as well?

[Glen-Rhodes]

Osiris probably won't ever succeed unless it's purged of these types of people and the community starts over from scratch as a true democracy.

Been there, done that. The OFO 1.0 was not as much of a failure as Cormac made it out to be -- it did what it needed to do for its time. The problem is that the people of Osiris want a strong autocrat to tell them what to do, they always have. With the caveat of course that they wish one day to be that all-powerful autocrat. This doesn't describe every Osiran ever, of course, but the region always seems to drift towards that crowd no matter how many times the reset button is pressed.

You misunderstand me. You're included in "these types of people." Your coup was and is part and parcel to the kind of selfish fiefdom-building that's plagued Osiris its entire existence. Osiris needs to be purged of people who want autocrats, and most importantly purged of people who want TO BE autocrats.

Osiris isn't a community. It's a region over which people are vying for power. That's the problem. You and Venico and the OFO coup didn't create a community. You just wrested power for the sake of having power.

[Unibot III]

Osiris isn't a community. It's a region over which people are vying for power. That's the problem. You and Venico and the OFO coup didn't create a community. You just wrested power for the sake of having power.

I don't think that's a fair criticism of Koth and Venico at all. I think they were tired of the disintegrating political situation in 2013 - as was almost everyone. With the fall of the KRO, Osiris was in worse shape than ever. They didn't continue the coup in a manner that suggested a lust for power, they approached the task basically as guardians of a new and democratic order.

OFO 1.0 was not the failure that it's being made out to be. In many ways, the baby was thrown out with the bathwater.

[Tim-Opolis]

OFO 1.0 was not the failure that it's being made out to be. In many ways, the baby was thrown out with the bathwater.

As somebody who served as Pharaoh of OFO 1.0 for nine total months, meaning I also happen to be Osiris' longest serving Pharaoh when it's all tallied up, I can assure you with great confident that OFO 1.0 in the end was a failure. That does not mean it was bad, of course, it had many a positive, but OFO 2.0 is a significant improvement on the system and has done a lot more in eradicating the faction politics that previously dominated the region than any other efforts did. KRO was a failed state, OFO 1.0 was an improvement on that state which had some significant bumps in the road, and I'm confident that OFO 2.0 will be able to iron out those bumps.

Of course, I'm sure you know more than I do about how Osiris works.

[Reventus Koth]

I'll respond to GR and co. in a bit, I've been running around all day >_>

And this has what to do with what the community is like and what it wants?

My post was in response to "I think it was a little more than 5." I didn't bother responding to the other part of your post because I have no intention of indulging in your false equivalence argument. I'll expand on this below.

On one hand you're trying to characterize the people in the region and how you're giving them what they want, and on the other you're saying you really don't need those people and they weren't any loss. Sure, the remaining population and the new people you've attracted since then may hold that opinion, but that doesn't really enter into the picture. You're cutting a chunk out of it and calling it whole.

This is the false equivalence. The sides of the coup were not "democracy freedom fighters vs autocrat yes-men". My argument was that Osirans like to be told what to do by a strong leader, my use of the word autocrat was in context of the current situation, but whether the Pharaoh was an elected representative or an appointed ruler my point is the same: Osirans have always relied heavily upon their leader. This was the case with the resistance as well. You crumbled in days when your champion, The Almighty Jesus Whale, disappeared off the face of the Earth. You, an opportunist who shows up wherever he thinks he can grab an easy position of power, are the kind of person that follows these strong figures...though it would be a stretch to include you under the "Osiran" umbrella at all. You are trying to twist my argument into something else, and I'm not here to be a catalyst to your never-ending hissy fit.

Point is: The resistance, as a group, are not an exception to my argument.

Regardless, I'm not sure about what you're trying to characterize as the region's community- the people in the region who agree with you? The site-exclusive players who endorse whomever they're told to and don't give a damn? The active contributors? Great, you've made Osiris paradise for the people who agree with you. Obviously you can speak for those people.

I characterize the region by its active participants. As do most people, I figure. Those who aren't relevant don't really have much to contribute to the culture, do they?

I don't speak for anyone. I have 0 government positions in Osiris, my role in the region is purely administrative. Practically nobody there agrees with me anymore -- again, I'm not here to serve as some easy target for you to foam at the mouth towards.

The coup began and ended with this sentiment, and you can pervert it however you want but it won't make it true: the over-competitive nature of the Osrian delegacy led to a toxic backroom-centric community of people who didn't trust each other. By taking away the delegacy as an option, Osiris would become less likely to be torn apart by the choice of leader (who, as I've said earlier, plays a massive role in the very culture of the region). And the seven months of autocratic Cormac were very, very successful. Not because the only people left were the ones that agreed with him (LOL), but because there was no toxic politicking over control of the region.

Now, regardless of who defected to your side afterwards whether it was opportunity, power, fear, whatever drew them in, the fact is plain as day that the people made their voice quite clear before you decided to ignore it. Don't try to say you know what they wanted. In enough time, you'll grow to be correct since Osiris is now full of yes-men. But what you're saying now is a crock of shit.

I stopped reading after the bolded part because I was laughing too hard to continue. Really? Ikania, one of NationStates' premiere opportunists, is going to take some high-tower position on Osirans? Like you were some big long-time contributor to the region before Whale started vying for power? Oh man, I need a minute.

Whew, okay. Got it all out. Anyway, of course I know what your side wanted. I disagreed, though I was not too happy to go the route we did, it had to be done. Osiris is just as diverse as it ever was, now happily with one less Ikania.

[Unibot III]

OFO 1.0 was not the failure that it's being made out to be. In many ways, the baby was thrown out with the bathwater.

As somebody who served as Pharaoh of OFO 1.0 for nine total months, meaning I also happen to be Osiris' longest serving Pharaoh when it's all tallied up, I can assure you with great confident that OFO 1.0 in the end was a failure. That does not mean it was bad, of course, it had many a positive, but OFO 2.0 is a significant improvement on the system and has done a lot more in eradicating the faction politics that previously dominated the region than any other efforts did. KRO was a failed state, OFO 1.0 was an improvement on that state which had some significant bumps in the road, and I'm confident that OFO 2.0 will be able to iron out those bumps.

Of course, I'm sure you know more than I do about how Osiris works.

Yeah about that: any system that has the Empire leading Osiris again is not a "significant improvement." I might know fuck all about Osiris but I know that much. OFO 1.0 may very well have had "faction politics," which is common in a democratic society as are opposition parties, general dissent and civil rights, but OFO 2.0 already bears some significant fracturing related to the most recent unilateral transition of power (from the sounds of various leaks) in addition to now being led by the game's all-time maestros of social and political discord in what I can only presume is a 00's reunion concert for charity.

[Tim-Opolis]

As somebody who served as Pharaoh of OFO 1.0 for nine total months, meaning I also happen to be Osiris' longest serving Pharaoh when it's all tallied up, I can assure you with great confident that OFO 1.0 in the end was a failure. That does not mean it was bad, of course, it had many a positive, but OFO 2.0 is a significant improvement on the system and has done a lot more in eradicating the faction politics that previously dominated the region than any other efforts did. KRO was a failed state, OFO 1.0 was an improvement on that state which had some significant bumps in the road, and I'm confident that OFO 2.0 will be able to iron out those bumps.

Of course, I'm sure you know more than I do about how Osiris works.

Yeah about that: any system that has the Empire leading Osiris again is not a "significant improvement." I might know fuck all about Osiris but I know that much. OFO 1.0 may very well have had "faction politics," which is common in a democratic society as are opposition parties, general dissent and civil rights, but OFO 2.0 already bears some significant fracturing related to the most recent unilateral transition of power (from the sounds of various leaks) in addition to now being led by the game's all-time maestros of social and political discord in what I can only presume is a 00's reunion concert for charity.

Sorry that you still have years-old paranoia about them, some of us have chosen to move on. Some of us were actually heavily involved in regions that were affected by them, and still we move on rather than try to bang the Empire drum for political points. And yes, that's true, you do know fuck all about Osiris. As the Pharaoh who proposed the pardon of those individuals, fought for it tooth and nail, and got it passed through the legislature, I remain confident about that decision to this day. Since being unbanned, those individuals who have chosen to become involved in the region again have proven their worth, regardless of whether they pass your lofty expectations or not. As someone who was actually involved in the KRO, the OFO 1.0, and the OFO 2.0, the OFO 2.0 is the most stable and healthy regime for the community we have seen yet, improving on the previous issues and ironing them out.

[Reventus Koth]

Been there, done that. The OFO 1.0 was not as much of a failure as Cormac made it out to be -- it did what it needed to do for its time. The problem is that the people of Osiris want a strong autocrat to tell them what to do, they always have. With the caveat of course that they wish one day to be that all-powerful autocrat. This doesn't describe every Osiran ever, of course, but the region always seems to drift towards that crowd no matter how many times the reset button is pressed.

You misunderstand me. You're included in "these types of people." Your coup was and is part and parcel to the kind of selfish fiefdom-building that's plagued Osiris its entire existence. Osiris needs to be purged of people who want autocrats, and most importantly purged of people who want TO BE autocrats.

Osiris isn't a community. It's a region over which people are vying for power. That's the problem. You and Venico and the OFO coup didn't create a community. You just wrested power for the sake of having power.

You're literally wrong, cut and dry. So no point in really going deeper than that. but this is the Gameplay forum, so I will anyway!

We truly, 100% believed at the time (Venico and I still do, you should have seen his face the other day when I told him the Empire was back in Osiris and that NK was the delegate. He was about ready to WA up right then and there) that the OFO would heal the region of its toxic sickness. The problem we corrected was the KRO's oligarchy which was centralized in the administration. What we were wrong about at the time was Osiris' ability to have a Pharaoh election without wanting to kill one another. If we wanted power so fucking bad, we wouldn't have BEGGED the community to run for Pharaoh. Once Lord Ravenclaw was elected, we were happy as hell to get the hell out of power and enjoy the new, Empire-free Osiris.

[Ikania]

snip

Sick burn, bro. I'm glad to learn that I'm just some opportunist who wants nothing but power and glory. If you wanted to say people want a strong leader, you should've said it instead of implying actual tyranny.

The disappearance of AJW was not the catalyst for the collapse of the opposition, it was a symptom. It was already hopeless when you got the monopoly on power and made it clear that you wouldn't restore the lawful and democratic government. If you don't remember that well, we were all perfectly willing to settle for someone who wasn't him, even just a caretaker delegate like Zaolat. But I guess that doesn't matter, because we were all part of a personality cult. You didn't need to negotiate when you had the monopoly on power.

the over-competitive nature of the Osrian delegacy led to a toxic backroom-centric community of people who didn't trust each other. By taking away the delegacy as an option, Osiris would become less likely to be torn apart by the choice of leader (who, as I've said earlier, plays a massive role in the very culture of the region). And the seven months of autocratic Cormac were very, very successful. Not because the only people left were the ones that agreed with him (LOL), but because there was no toxic politicking over control of the region.

This rings too true. One thing I've come to realize is that the Delegacy is not the be-all, end-all of a region, especially over my time as a citizen of Balder. However, the role of the Pharaoh as instituted by the new regime is not in any way just a safeguard against coups. It is the role of a political leader. With the state of the legislature which, according to the standard set by this coup does not factor into any decisions if the Pharaoh disagrees strongly enough, simply a position to enforce an agenda. And that's exactly what we've seen so far, in Cormac's various rage fits against whichever player/group he wants to get rid of.

I don't have a hyperpartisan complex of wilful ignorance, I can very much acknowledge the lack of infighting post-coup, and increased activity. But I wouldn't correlate that with the removal of democracy, I attribute that to competent leadership. Cormac is, and was, a competent leader, and that's why he was actually elected multiple times. But to me, the blatant disregard of the democratic institutions and overall behavior during the affair is just incredibly... sad? Awful? Offensive? Et cetera. Maybe if it was some kind of revolution to overthrow a tyrant, the institutional part could be disregarded. But it just went to show there is no standard that cannot be broken, no level that cannot be sunk to. No smear campaign that can't be run, no loss too sore. No mountain high enough. No valley low enough. No river wide enough, to stop me from getting to you, babe. ☮

Regardless of what you think the political benefits of your new system is, it could just as easily have been achieved without rewarding the sheer toxicity and Trumpishness of Cormac's campaign, as well as his miserable attempt to remove the elected Delegate from office. The character assassination and scapegoating of AJW is absolutely unacceptable and rings a lot like McCarthy, too much for me.

On that note, while I by no means expect anything in the way of reform on behalf of NK, an Empire leader, nor do I expect anything in particular one way or another, I would certainly hope that in the near future, the Osiran leadership moves to depoliticize the Delegacy and return power to the citizens. A protector Delegate instead of a leader Delegate would serve stability well, while the institution of democracy within Osiris can flourish without all the hassle of coup talk and toxicity. A more restrained management of the region that doesn't fall on either extreme of the authoritarian/democratic scale.

And don't for a second try to say that was exactly the intent, because it very clearly wasn't. The toxicity didn't die because the troublemakers were removed, it's because the troublemakers took power and purged noncompliant elements. Best of luck to the new administration, I'm really hoping for a shift towards the aforementioned governing style of diversity and stability, without the emotion-drive despotism of the Pharaoh. But I won't hold my breath.

[Unibot III]

Yeah about that: any system that has the Empire leading Osiris again is not a "significant improvement." I might know fuck all about Osiris but I know that much. OFO 1.0 may very well have had "faction politics," which is common in a democratic society as are opposition parties, general dissent and civil rights, but OFO 2.0 already bears some significant fracturing related to the most recent unilateral transition of power (from the sounds of various leaks) in addition to now being led by the game's all-time maestros of social and political discord in what I can only presume is a 00's reunion concert for charity.

Sorry that you still have years-old paranoia about them, some of us have chosen to move on. Some of us were actually heavily involved in regions that were affected by them, and still we move on rather than try to bang the Empire drum for political points. And yes, that's true, you do know fuck all about Osiris. As the Pharaoh who proposed the pardon of those individuals, fought for it tooth and nail, and got it passed through the legislature, I remain confident about that decision to this day. Since being unbanned, those individuals who have chosen to become involved in the region again have proven their worth, regardless of whether they pass your lofty expectations or not. As someone who was actually involved in the KRO, the OFO 1.0, and the OFO 2.0, the OFO 2.0 is the most stable and healthy regime for the community we have seen yet, improving on the previous issues and ironing them out.

Not only is this steaming bullshit, it's disingenuous and vindictive. Although, that having been said, nothing I wouldn't expect from you. I've never gotten a single "political point" from "banging the Empire drum" - it's an exhausting and humiliating ritual I do every couple of years with the hopes of reversing their political progress and informing new players that they can't trust the Empire to have their interests in mind. They're not your allies, they're not your friends and they're not your pawns either - they love someone trying to play with them just as much as they love a fool - the only course of action to stopping their contamination is excluding them full-stop and convincing others to do the same.

[Tim-Opolis]

Sorry that you still have years-old paranoia about them, some of us have chosen to move on. Some of us were actually heavily involved in regions that were affected by them, and still we move on rather than try to bang the Empire drum for political points. And yes, that's true, you do know fuck all about Osiris. As the Pharaoh who proposed the pardon of those individuals, fought for it tooth and nail, and got it passed through the legislature, I remain confident about that decision to this day. Since being unbanned, those individuals who have chosen to become involved in the region again have proven their worth, regardless of whether they pass your lofty expectations or not. As someone who was actually involved in the KRO, the OFO 1.0, and the OFO 2.0, the OFO 2.0 is the most stable and healthy regime for the community we have seen yet, improving on the previous issues and ironing them out.

Not only is this steaming bullshit, it's disingenuous and vindictive. Although, that having been said, nothing I wouldn't expect from you. I've never gotten a single "political point" from "banging the Empire drum" - it's an exhausting and humiliating ritual I do every couple of years with the hopes of reversing their political progress and informing new players that they can't trust the Empire to have their interests in mind. They're not your allies, they're not your friends and they're not your pawns either - they love someone trying to play with them just as much as they love a fool - the only course of action to stopping their contamination is excluding them full-stop and convincing others to do the same.

lol, okay Unibot. This clearly isn't worth pursuing with you any longer if you're going to have such a cheery demeanor. Enjoy your armchair.

[Unibot III]

Not only is this steaming bullshit, it's disingenuous and vindictive. Although, that having been said, nothing I wouldn't expect from you. I've never gotten a single "political point" from "banging the Empire drum" - it's an exhausting and humiliating ritual I do every couple of years with the hopes of reversing their political progress and informing new players that they can't trust the Empire to have their interests in mind. They're not your allies, they're not your friends and they're not your pawns either - they love someone trying to play with them just as much as they love a fool - the only course of action to stopping their contamination is excluding them full-stop and convincing others to do the same.

lol, okay Unibot. This clearly isn't worth pursuing with you any longer if you're going to have such a cheery demeanor. Enjoy your armchair.

It's a couch, thank you very much. And Happy Easter.

[Glen-Rhodes]

It's painfully obvious that Empire has reared its head again, and it's hard to see how that pardon really did anything good for Osiris, let's be honest here. Those logs that went around showed just how manipulative NK is, and that's Empire MO 101.

[Cormactopia II]

I'm going to address the OFO 1.0 vs. OFO 2.0 debate in a minute, right after I address this specific issue:

On that note, while I by no means expect anything in the way of reform on behalf of NK, an Empire leader, nor do I expect anything in particular one way or another, I would certainly hope that in the near future, the Osiran leadership moves to depoliticize the Delegacy and return power to the citizens. A protector Delegate instead of a leader Delegate would serve stability well, while the institution of democracy within Osiris can flourish without all the hassle of coup talk and toxicity. A more restrained management of the region that doesn't fall on either extreme of the authoritarian/democratic scale.

That isn't going to happen, and I'll tell you why. An apolitical, "protector Delegate" -- essentially a constitutional monarchy like Balder's -- was exactly what Tim wanted and what I was leaning toward when we overthrew OFO 1.0. It was Neo Kervoskia and Dalimbar who convinced us otherwise, and it has been NK every step of the way who has encouraged me to make the office of the Pharaoh more powerful and to deeply involve it in every aspect of regional governance. As even the recently leaked logs show, it was NK who insisted a few months ago when I wanted to step back and take on a more figurehead, advisory role, and let the elected Chief Vizier take primary responsibility for governing, that I could not do that, and that if I insisted on doing that I should instead step down because, in his view, a less powerful and involved Pharaoh was a bad thing. And eventually I did step down when the daily stress of governing Osiris became too overwhelming.

So you can hope for reform toward a more truly constitutional monarchy all you want, but you're not going to get it from the architect of the near-absolute monarchy that currently exists, the one who decided to revive talk of Francoism in his inaugural address. The office of the Pharaoh is already more powerful than it was before I left office; now NK is not even regularly consulting his full Council of Viziers on important matters, as I did, and there is absolutely no consultation of the citizenry. They're just told how it will be.

---

In regard to the debate over whether OFO 1.0 was a failure and by how much, and whether OFO 2.0 is an improvement, I doubt there is anyone more qualified to weigh in than the person who wrote both systems' constitutions and was actively involved in both (including while I was banned from OFO 1.0) for nearly the entirety of their existence up until now.

OFO 1.0 was a failure in the end, but was not a failure from the beginning. Certainly, it initially achieved what it set out to achieve: It purged those most responsible for community toxicity from the region, and it ushered in a new, more democratic, and more cooperative government and community. Actually, I'm not sure that describing it as a failure is even accurate or fair. It isn't OFO 1.0 that failed -- there was nothing inherently wrong with its system of government -- it was the community of Osiris that failed. In the end, and this is really the bottom line for Osiris, there is no conceivable system of government that will fix a community that does not truly want to be fixed. There is no government system that can facilitate a less toxic, less factional, more merit-based community if the community actively resists being less toxic, less factional, and more merit-based. So that is the only failure of OFO 1.0. It failed because the community preferred to revert to KRO toxicity, factionalism, and factional patronage, not because of any inherent failure in the system. Nonetheless, it was replaced in April of this year by a system that we believed would better eliminate toxicity and factionalism and better promote merit-based advancement, so in that sense we regarded OFO 1.0 as a failure that needed to be replaced.

OFO 2.0 is already a failure. Similarly, it isn't because there is something inherently wrong with the system, but rather because of the way the community of Osiris is using the system. OFO 2.0 had much potential to do everything we set out for it to do, if the Pharaoh could rise above factional politics and govern as a truly unifying institution. Neo Kervoskia is not doing that. Outwardly, it will probably appear for some time that factionalism is no longer a problem in Osiris and that toxicity has been reduced, if not eliminated. But that's because there is no longer any room for overt factionalism. The only faction that will ever have any power will be the faction the Pharaoh favors. The system, which was designed to prevent factionalism, can just as easily be manipulated to install a particular faction into all important offices to the exclusion of any other faction, to the exclusion of any dissenting views. This is how NK and Empire will use the system to govern. And this is why OFO 2.0 will fail, because without any overt way for anyone to meaningfully express dissent, dissenters will either vote with their feet (i.e., leave), pursue illegal means to make themselves heard (i.e., coup d'etat), or manipulate their faction into power by pretending to support the Pharaoh but covertly undermining him, working toward the office of Heir Apparent, and then making drastic changes when their Heir Apparent assumes office as Pharaoh, which is what NK has done as my successor.

The system that OFO 2.0 was meant to be, and the system that NK and Dali talked us out of implementing at the eleventh hour, was constitutional monarchy, and I remain convinced that system would have worked better toward our goals. Establishing the office of the Pharaoh as an apolitical, unifying, and strictly limited institution would have permitted the development of healthy politics -- the space for Osirans to disagree with each other, to express dissent in regard to government policy, and to robustly contest elections without fear of political reprisal from the top, civil war, or coup d'etat. The problem in Osiris is not that factional politics exist -- they exist in all regions -- but rather the willingness of Osirans to use the Delegacy to make factional politics a zero-sum game, and the ease with which that has always been accomplished.

Constitutional monarchy or even a parliamentary republic with the Pharaoh as more of a figurehead presidential figure, properly designed so that the Pharaoh is not at all involved in factional politics, would be the best possible fix for what ails Osiris. An even better fix would be to accompany constitutional monarchy or parliamentary republic with a program that encourages and provides incentives for WA nations to accumulate endorsements at a much higher limit, much closer to the Pharaoh's endorsement count, which would make it difficult if not prohibitive to successfully overthrow the government (essentially, the TNP model). I would encourage Osirans to pursue a more constitutional monarchist or parliamentary republican system, with a robust WA participation program, whenever Empire gets bored and moves on. Whatever you do, do not return to a full or semi-presidential system with a politically involved Delegate and expect it to work just because it works elsewhere. It won't work in Osiris.

[Neop]

What I see is Cormac with a lot of solidly laid out ideas, but oddly enough turning away from Osiris when he writes an essay on how to improve it.

[Cormactopia II]

What I see is Cormac with a lot of solidly laid out ideas, but oddly enough turning away from Osiris when he writes an essay on how to improve it.

It was made quite clear to me by the Pharaoh that he would not purge me from Osiris, but that I am no longer welcome there. These ideas would not be welcome there either. And if I continued to advocate them, or continued to express consistent dissent of any kind, I would eventually be purged. NK just prefers "self-deportation" because it looks better for him, but if I had stayed and my dissent had become at all politically threatening to him, I would have been exiled. Arguably, I shouldn't have given him the easy way out, but I don't feel like another toxic fight to fix Osiris prolonged over the course of months, if not years. Been there, done that. It's someone else's turn.

I hope the ideas I've contributed will help provide that someone else, should anyone else step up, a way forward for the future. But like several before me who tried to fix Osiris only to be repeatedly burned and see all their work go up in smoke, held in the most toxic contempt by the very people they were trying to help, I am done. And that's for the better; any solutions implemented by me would be, at best, questionable, while the exact same solutions implemented by someone else would be broadly hailed as progress. So my hope is that when Empire gets bored, whoever replaces them will think back to some of these ideas and pursue them. But maybe they'll have better ideas. I wish whoever that person turns out to be all the best.

[Glen-Rhodes]

Interestingly, what Cormac's talking about is exactly what we did in TSP after Hileville's coup. There's much less pressure in our system, now that the Delegate is a figurehead, elected to a relatively long term (6 months), and held by a responsible person. True power lies within the Cabinet and the Prime Minister, with a healthy dose of checks and balances, which creates an incentive to maintaining order on the forum. A coup would need the cooperation of both the Delegate and the Prime Minister, rather than an all-powerful Delegate using his position to command cooperation from his Cabinet.

[Ikania]

I'm going to address the OFO 1.0 vs. OFO 2.0 debate in a minute, right after I address this specific issue:

On that note, while I by no means expect anything in the way of reform on behalf of NK, an Empire leader, nor do I expect anything in particular one way or another, I would certainly hope that in the near future, the Osiran leadership moves to depoliticize the Delegacy and return power to the citizens. A protector Delegate instead of a leader Delegate would serve stability well, while the institution of democracy within Osiris can flourish without all the hassle of coup talk and toxicity. A more restrained management of the region that doesn't fall on either extreme of the authoritarian/democratic scale.

That isn't going to happen, and I'll tell you why. An apolitical, "protector Delegate" -- essentially a constitutional monarchy like Balder's -- was exactly what Tim wanted and what I was leaning toward when we overthrew OFO 1.0. It was Neo Kervoskia and Dalimbar who convinced us otherwise, and it has been NK every step of the way who has encouraged me to make the office of the Pharaoh more powerful and to deeply involve it in every aspect of regional governance. As even the recently leaked logs show, it was NK who insisted a few months ago when I wanted to step back and take on a more figurehead, advisory role, and let the elected Chief Vizier take primary responsibility for governing, that I could not do that, and that if I insisted on doing that I should instead step down because, in his view, a less powerful and involved Pharaoh was a bad thing. And eventually I did step down when the daily stress of governing Osiris became too overwhelming.

So you can hope for reform toward a more truly constitutional monarchy all you want, but you're not going to get it from the architect of the near-absolute monarchy that currently exists, the one who decided to revive talk of Francoism in his inaugural address. The office of the Pharaoh is already more powerful than it was before I left office; now NK is not even regularly consulting his full Council of Viziers on important matters, as I did, and there is absolutely no consultation of the citizenry. They're just told how it will be.

Damn, now you're just depressing me.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been.'