Embassy of The East Pacific: April Edition is Out Now!

[Vussul]

However, the problem with TNP Government has been accumulated differences due to NSGP actions, in which we have seen that TNP Gov does not want to rescue (and recognizes) that relations are already irreconcilable as they are now.

NSGP struggling to understand this as the reason why the treaty is being repealed is on-brand. Nothing less from a society that has the capacity of Mr. Bean.

[Dreadton]

I like TEPs spin on this as bad and fictional as it is. TEP has gone from a decent friend to a spoiled teenage whom only cares for itself, then gets mad when others wont cater to it. But they are very good at playing the victim

[Podria]

EPNS February 2024 Edition

Very well written issue! I was a particular fan of the piece on regional activity, reminded me a lot of Llorens' work with NationStates Today. Really glad to see TEP in good health and with great success!

[Angeloid Astraea]

I like TEPs spin on this as bad and fictional as it is. TEP has gone from a decent friend to a spoiled teenage whom only cares for itself, then gets mad when others wont cater to it. But they are very good at playing the victim

Responding to a treaty repeal by personifying TEP just to insult that personification is the kind of weirdness I read these forums for. Thank you Dreadton. =P

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

I like TEPs spin on this as bad and fictional as it is. TEP has gone from a decent friend to a spoiled teenage whom only cares for itself, then gets mad when others wont cater to it. But they are very good at playing the victim

"Just in case the bridge wasn't fully burned, I'm here with some napalm!"

[Rosartemis]

Great read as always! It is nice to see TEP in good health

[Merlovich]

Great read as always! It is nice to see TEP in good health

[Bhadeshistan]

Good read, gonna need it for my English class though since I have a bad grade there.

[Eastern Pacific News Service]

EPNS March 2024 Edition

HOME | LATEST | ARCHIVES | STAFF

Contents:

• Delegate's Update
• Magisterium Update
• Culture Update
• Grand Vizier Address
• The Foreign Newsstand
• Secretariat Member Removed, NationStates Protests

Delegate's Update
By: Merlovich

Hello TEP! Welcome to another Delegate’s Update and another edition of the EPNS.

This last month brought about the biggest interregional event TEP has taken part in for some time, as we planned and enjoyed Rogue Rendezvous 2024, alongside our friends in The Pacific and Carcassonne. The event ran over a full weekend, from Friday the 29th of March to Monday the 1st of April. We held all manner of events, from a pirate-themed version of our monthly Hunger Games, to a Pirates of the Caribbean watch party, to a Pokémon showdown night (side note: i suck at pokémon)

The event was heaps of fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed being part of the planning team. We faced a couple struggles in getting the event off the ground, but with good work from the entire team we were able to have a well-planned and enjoyable event. Big thanks to all the Captains, as well as everyone from TEP, NPO and Carcassonne who turned up and had a swashbucklin’ time with us.

The executive has seen some strong progress this month. That EPSA questionnaire I touched on last time I addressed you was a great success, with over 110 responses. We were able to get a good idea of where people’s thoughts and opinions lied regarding the regional military, and with that info, we’re much better equipped to hit the ground running over the next month. The theming poll was a close race, with navy pulling off a narrow victory. Army, Special Forces and Space Navy didn’t finish too far behind. Given this albeit narrow result, we’ve decided that our region's military rebrand will be naval themed! We’re currently brainstorming some names, I’ve been cooking up a new emblem, and we’ll be structuring ranks and creating posters and dispatches in no time.

We’re looking forward to the revitalisation of our military, and I can’t wait to see things kick off. It’s been one of the top priorities of my Delegacy, and I’m super pleased to see it taking shape. Our FA restructure, another goal I had for this term, is also coming along smoothly. I’ve decided, after discussion with the Foreign Affairs Council, on the return of the ambassador system. We’ll be assigning FA staffers to certain regions as ambassadors in the coming weeks, to help manage workloads and ensure every regional relationship is attended to and working well. I am hopeful that the changes we’re working on will ensure every region we hold relations with will not only receive consistent updates from us, but frequent check-ins, a closer friendship and overall better ties. The program will be frequently monitored to ensure success, and we’ll make changes if necessary to ensure our friends and allies are well looked after.

Alongside these revitalisation efforts, I’ve got a new project we’ve started work on. Operation Propeller is intended to upgrade the REWARD program (our native endorsement program). While the current system works fine, and is capable, I believe it can be made better. Our current endorsement levels are well behind the figures boasted by other feeders. In regards to a % of the region’s WA members endorsing the Delegate, The East Pacific ranks lower than any other feeder.

Only 68% of TEP WA members endorse the Delegate, while that figure is 76% in TNP and the NPO, 78% in TSP, and 80% in TWP. Operation Propeller seeks to kick-start our endorsement culture in the East, encourage more users to not only join the World Assembly, but endorse the Delegate, Viziers and other members of the region. Awards will be given out for the best performers monthly, and we’ll have ‘Winged Hussars’ as a step above the Hussars of the East you’re familiar with today. We’re working on card raffles to further encourage individuals to take that step and join the WA, as well as badges and ribbons for our dedicated Hussars. I’m hoping that by the end of this term in mid-June, we can find a 3% boost in our figures, from 68% - 71%. If that goal is met, I’m hoping to build further on that result in future months.

In more game-related news, TEP also took part in the April Fools event this year. While we were a little late to the party (thanks timezones) we (i) decided upon our spectacular new wonder. After about thirty seconds of deep, serious and important thought, I figured what better wonder to represent TEP than the grape. ‘haha grape’ is a favourite saying of TEP, don’t ask why, we don’t know. I can’t even remember where it came from at this point, but in the spirit of our region never taking anything seriously, I thought why not. And thus the Statue of Graperty was born.

It was an arduous few days, we experienced ups and downs, the statue went from the peak of popularity to the depths of the dislike rankings. We battled day and night with pesky card farmers to keep our beautiful statue afloat. Despite being hilariously outgunned, we persevered and ended the event well into the green. We were downvote bombed until the very last second, but with hard work from our native population, as well as a few dedicated puppet-masters, we were able to keep the statue standing. While we didn’t end the event with a victory, we still had fun, which is all that matters. We ended the event as the second most controversial wonder (spicyyyyy), only narrowly overtaken in the final moments.

Thanks for reading, I look forward to speaking to you all again next month. Ciao!

Magisterium Update
By: Dremaur

Hello readers,

The March magisterium was productive, ending in the election for the 61st Provost (spoiler: I secured another term, so you’re all stuck with me readers for the next three months).
The Votes:

• [A-2024-14] Amendment to the Punishment Justification Act
• [R-2024-15] Repeal of the North East Security Treaty
• [P-2024-16] Admittance of Pauline Bonaparte
• [R/A-2024-17] Repeal of the Regional Message Board Regulation Act and Amendment of the Treason Act

The Election:

• [VOTE] Provost of the 61st Magisterium

Culture Update
By: Tommo

March was a busy time for the culture side of TEP! For the first time ever, along with The Pacific and Carcassone, we proudly hosted Rogue Rendezvous, a pirate-themed spectacle that involved a games night, a Pirates of the Caribbean watch party, and the March edition of the Hunger Games! I am very happy to report that the event was a tremendous success, and I am very very thankful to everybody who helped set up the event, as well as everybody who participated. You all made it worth the while!

Moving on, please keep an eye out for future events and happenings as we have many many more planned further down the line for the spring and summer. Let’s make it a memorable year for TEP, eh? With love, from Tommo <3

Sidebar Content

A Worlds to Build Update
By East Malaysia

Hopefully, someone has missed our dedicated all things Urth, Valsora, and Worldbuilding section of EPNS! Due to foreseen circumstances, I could not be the driver behind this section as usual, so there will be plans for the next edition of EPNS to have a massive Worlds to Build section to make up for the last few editions.

If you have any ideas for this section or would like to contribute please send a message my way on NS or Discord (@.emjay).
For now, let's look back at our standalone editions and Happy Worldbuilding!

Grand Vizier Address
By: Aivintis



Over the course of March, the Citizenship Office denied two faulty citizenship applications and granted citizenship to four residents of The East Pacific. The Grand Vizier encourages all residents to apply for citizenship and to keep an eye on their telegram inboxes in order to ensure that we maintain continual growth in our citizen numbers. Citizens receive the right to vote in Delegate elections and referendums to amend the Concordat.

There are no new events of note from the Praesidium, Eastern Pacific Police Service, or the Citizenship Office.

By: Altys

The Foreign Newsstand
By: Aivintis

Hello and welcome to the Foreign Newsstand.

We in The East Pacific’s FA Watch are tasked with discussing and debating news of global significance within NationStates Gameplay (NSGP). With an eye on the forums and the news reports of our allies, we see discussion on a wide range of interregional political topics, and I have used this perspective to create the Newsstand, summarizing the goings-on of NSGP.

This Newsstand is fact-checked by TEP’s Foreign Minister, but nevertheless, I am human, and make mistakes. As such, I encourage people to reach out if there are factual errors, and I invite any NSer to reply in this thread adding any events I may have missed. It can help me figure out what my blind spots are, and ensure accountable, factual reporting. Without further ado, here are the major events of March 2024:

• Atlanticana has rebranded their official government, the “Skylands,” as the “Cosmic Dreamscape.”
• Two Fascist regions have been successfully brought down by an anti-fascist coalition including raider regions such as Voidcall and Astoria, led by the Crimson Crusaders.
• Lenlyvit has taken over the office of the Chief Executive within 10000 Islands, as Markanite steps down from the position. Lenlyvit has experience as a Delegate of XKI and a New Republica South Senator. The latter office, which Lenlyvit has only just vacated, now opens itself up to a competitive election between Wazeww and The World Defense Organization, newcomers to XKI’s political scene. [1]
• The North Pacific led another successful raid on Warzone Trinidad, the newest Warzone, which maintains an embassy with The East Pacific. TNP cited WZT’s connections with regions that initiated the delegate bump in the region Europe, as cause for the invasion.
• Partially as a result of the raid on Warzone Trinidad, although citing grievances spanning well over a year, The East Pacific has withdrew from the North-East Security Treaty with The North Pacific. TEP still maintains an embassy with TNP. [2]
• The record-breaking, prolific tag raiding and Independent military organization Lily has returned to the GP scene after a months-long period of inactiviity. Alongside Lily giants like Sweeze, the organization has brought on new members, such as prominent Brotherhood of Malice member Volstrostia. [3]
• The Festival of the Perfections was hosted by the West Pacific.
• TNP Deputy Speaker MadJack brought charges of espionage and fraud against Rand, a Europeian, for allegedly using a post from a private citizens forum of The Rejected Realms to discredit a North Pacifican. These charges were dismissed, as Rand holds no citizenship within The North Pacific and the crime was not committed on TNP-owned platforms. [4]
• The Charmony Festival, a spring event, was held by Atlanticana.
• The Region That Has No Big Banks has established embassies with the South Pacific. Behind Lazarus, this is TRTHNBB’s second GCR embassy. TRTHNBB also maintains a consulate with The East Pacific.
• Europeian World Assembly Delegate and Foreign Affairs Minister UPC was elected President after a race against Minister of Culture Ellenburg, who has experience as a Prime Minister of Lazarus. UPC and his running mate, newly elected Vice President Sanjurika, ran on a strong cultural platform, with Recruitment Nights, a “Frontier Fest”, and WA education events listed among others. [5]
• Archkeeper Rosartemis of Astoria has released a ‘roadmap’ for her next term in office, focusing on the hiring of new recruiters for Astoria as well as the forum-discord merger initially promised in her previous term, further listing goals of a regional newspaper called the Word of Hermes, a ‘House’ faction system, and regional ‘Exaltations’ and ‘Damnations’ as a microcosm of WA C/Cs. [6]
• Zerphen has been elected the Forest Keeper of the region Forest, as announced by Foreign Affairs Minister Jutsa on the newly revived Forest GP embassy. Jutsa has also announced a chess event with The Region That Has No Big Banks and weekly trivia.
• The Brotherhood of Malice launched a delegate bump on the frontier Concord, a leading defender power as a constituent of the Republic of the League and Concord (TL&C). [7][8]
• In response to the delegate tipping of Concord, the Coalition of the South Pacific, represented by Prime Minister HumanSanity, released a statement applying full proscription to members of Astoria, The Black Hawks, The Brotherhood of Malice, Lair of the Dragon, Osiris, Sparkalia, and Warzone Trinidad. [9]
• The raider region Ijaka has updated their World Factbook Entry to indicate that they have indefinitely shut down.
• During the repeal of the Security Council resolution Liberate Realm of the Whispering Winds, the region in question (R2W) was raided by Lone Wolves United and the West Pacific. On passing, the resolution restored the password the region previously held, preventing further liberation. This was met with new proposals for restored liberation and an added injunction.[10] Some natives objected to these tactics by defenders, who they felt failed them militarily.[11]
• The Lair of the Dragon has signed a treaty with Atlanticana, which mandates diplomatic recognition and encourages cultural cooperation. [12]
• Warzone Spokane has been named the new CEO of Warzone Trinidad, as the sole candidate for the office.

References:
[1] https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=2004425
[2] viewtopic.php?p=41413514#p41413514
[3] viewtopic.php?p=41399504#p41399504
[4] https://forum.thenorthpacific.org/topic ... t-10674171
[5] https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=2008346
[6] viewtopic.php?p=41428976#p41428976
[7] viewtopic.php?p=41447654#p41447654
[8] https://forums.europeians.com/index.php ... .10065951/
[9] https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=2012078
[10] viewtopic.php?p=41463267#p41463267
[11] viewtopic.php?p=41479326#p41479326
[12] viewtopic.php?p=41467813#p41467813

Secretariat Member Removed, NationStates Protests
By: Aivintis

The East Pacific knows Wallenburg as a former Arbiter and Viceroy, as well as the first Chief Minister of World Assembly Affairs, and the longest standing WA Minister in TEP history. The wider NS community knows Wallenburg from the fourteen World Assembly resolutions he has authored or from his 2020 commendation. Or, most likely, they know him as a member of the WA General Assembly’s Secretariat.

The General Secretariat, or GenSec, is the six member body dedicated to approving General Assembly resolution proposals. These are the GA legal experts – often prolific authors themselves – who review each proposal and declare them either legal or illegal according to the rules of the GA. The first members of GenSec were appointed by NS Moderation, but all those appointed since have been chosen by the existing members.

On March 15, only a few months after the GenSec’s appointment of Kenmoria, Demosthenes and Burke, and The Ice States, three prominent GA members, The Ice States opened a new thread in the General Assembly forum, entitled “2024 GenSec Nominations.” In the original post of the thread, Ice States announces that Wallenburg has been removed by Moderation and Administration (M/A), despite objections from the GenSec itself.


Current GenSec Members

This announcement was met with confusion by the public, especially members of the General Assembly community. Rarely is a member of the site staff team removed by the Moderators – in recent memory, only Game Moderator Jakker was removed, alongside a swift announcement indicating that OOC issues had arisen which made Jakker worthy of not just being stripped of his title, but granted DOS status. With Wallenburg, however, no such announcement was made.

Over the course of several posts from The Ice States, other GenSec members, GAers, and Wallenburg himself, it soon became clear why – Moderation did not remove him for any OOC misdeed worthy of deletion. In fact, Moderation seemingly removed him for no reason at all, other than that he strongly objected to a proposed site change which would make the quadrannually elected Secretary-General (an April Fool’s addition similar to the Wonders of the World we saw recently) more powerful in the GA.

More insight comes from a post by Sedgistan, Site Director, who said “[Wallenburg’s] conduct has failed to meet the standards we expect from staff”. In response, Wallenburg claimed that the conduct they referred to was his signature snark – something not uncommon in NS spheres – and that he was removed even after he “agreed to comply with [Sedge’s] onerous standards in the future.”

A discussion thread was made before posts about Wallenburg’s removal clogged the thread. In this thread, The Ice States acknowledged that the “internal consensus within Gensec was resolutely against Wallenburg's removal”, calling the reasons for his removal “banal.” Though other GenSec members were less vocal, it wasn’t long before the GA community came out in force to support Wallenburg.

It started with retired GenSec Bananaistan, with the three words: “I nominate Wallenburg.” This would begin a site-wide resistance. “I fail to see why it's inappropriate for him to continue in the role,” the WA author explained in his nomination. Shortly after, Utecna seconded this nomination. Legene and Idinist Imauggland indicated support for it as well, then The Chuck. Not even two hours after the first nomination, Cessarea nominated Wallenburg again. Then The Overmind. And Kranostav. Corporate States of Europe. Castille de Italia. Langburn. Ignis Ferreus. Repreteop.

What followed was a long chain of nominations from all over NationStates, but especially from The East Pacific. WA authors, RPers, GPers, and more came together. West Pacificans and Easterners, Defenders and Raiders and Independents. All of them chanted the same thing. “I nominate Wallenburg.” When TWPer Varanius reported the dozens of posters for ‘spam,’ Game Moderator Goobergunchia declined to act without the consent of GenSec. The Ice States soon replied, saying they “would strongly oppose, removing those posts. I am unconvinced that anyone else on Gensec would want them removed.”


Graph of SecGen nominations, courtesy of The Ambis

With grace, Wallenburg accepted his nominations, and the thread exploded from there. At the time of writing, eleven pages stand, with 261 posts. Well over a hundred of them nominate Wallenburg for the open GenSec position. The community has seen the actions of Moderation/Administration and rejected them in a resounding display of support for Wallenburg’s continuation as a member of GenSec.

When asked if the GenSec would consider Wallenburg for the position, given the support from all of NS, The Ice States said, “If it were up to us whether he's in Gensec then he would still have the pink jacket” – pink being the color of the GenSec role on the forums. Demosthenes and Burke was, though not less supportive, openly pessimistic about Wallenburg’s chances. Even if Wallenburg were chosen as his own replacement, the GenSec argued, it would be easy for Moderation to simply not grant him on-site permissions. If they refused to nominate anyone else, Moderation could just appoint their own member, or remove the GenSec in its entirety.

Players were shocked to discover that Wallenburg was banned from discussing the matter by Moderation and Administration, over cited concerns of security, under potential threat of DOS (delete on site) status. GenSec member Imperium Anglorum, however, publicly replied that, as a GenSec member, he could see no aspect of the interaction behind closed doors which would prove a security threat to the site or its members.

In an apparent attempt to end speculation, Technical Moderator Refuge Isle released a statement declaring that Wallenburg was removed due to “unacceptable hostility to staff” and a refusal to comply with acceptable standards of behavior “without caveat”. Some NS members expressed that the explanation was sufficient, although some bemoaned the lack of transparency from the start, which only fueled speculation and misinformation.

However, the story does not end there. Wallenburg continued to deny any unwarranted hostility on his part, challenging the factual basis of certain information shared by the statement by M/A, such as declaring Sedgistan’s plan for the Secretary General a presentation by the M/A team rather than an independent, personal idea. Imperium Anglorum further threw into question the integrity of this moderator statement by requesting to release the messages by Wallenburg which M/A found questionable to “put to bed all this calumnious speculation”.

The Moderation team refused, locking the discussion thread with a final statement from Reploid Productions. Invoking FAQ language of Max Barry’s “very own father knows best state” and claiming M/A’s hands are tied by his will, Reploid denounced “bad faith” arguments within the thread. The statement further claimed NationStates was far more transparent already than it has to be, and justified M/A’s decision by asserting “Staff positions are not up to a popular vote.”

Finally, Reploid directed all “valid concerns of moderator abuse” to the Getting Help page, describing the M/A approach to these reports. As they describe, “Site staff cannot edit, delete, or otherwise alter the contents of your GHR, and mod abuse reports are flagged for immediate admin attention.” Forum threads, the statement says, are not the appropriate place to bring complaints.


Flag of support made by Libertanny

Throughout the event, the NationStates community came out in force to show their support for Wallenburg and the General Secretariat. From all over the site, the people came together to declare their unwavering commendation of one of the most prolific WA authors, GenSec members, and discussors in the game. Whether this is an instance of the trampled community rising up against an indifferent and corrupt moderation, or of a petulent community defying basic standards of conduct, however, is up to the observer.

Nevertheless, before final statements were even out by the M/A team, many NSers had already taken their stance. In one notable example, East Pacifican former Delegate Libertanny designed and flew a pink flag with the phrase “Wallenburg – GenSec of our Hearts.” Bearing a similar protest style to other flags of solidarity made in the past, such as the “Fram Balder” flag flown by many East Pacifican officials upon the leak of the Brotherhood of Malice’s Operation Ragnarok, this flag was less widespread, but indicated a similar sense of unity.

This is not the first drama relating to Moderation and Administration, and it may not be the last. It is clear that Wallenburg’s days as a General Secretariat member are over, for good, no matter what the rest of NS or the GenSec wants. The NationStates community needs to adapt, and face the next drama with a measured understanding of where it will lead, and an evaluation of whether their solidarity is effective and just in the end, or simply disruptive, as some will undoubtedly believe.

Sources:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=547893
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=547900
NS World Assembly Discord Server

[Rosartemis]

It is great to see that EPNS is still uploading on schedule, this new minister is doing well!

[Dreadton]

TNP Deputy Speaker MadJack brought charges of espionage and fraud against Rand, a Europeian, for allegedly using a post from a private citizens forum of The Rejected Realms to discredit a North Pacifican. These charges were dismissed, as Rand holds no citizenship within The North Pacific and the crime was not committed on TNP-owned platforms. [4]

I am going to correct this one, the charges were dismissed because Rand was not a resident or a citizen at the time of the offense and the crime was not committed on TNP owned platforms.

[Aivintis]

TNP Deputy Speaker MadJack brought charges of espionage and fraud against Rand, a Europeian, for allegedly using a post from a private citizens forum of The Rejected Realms to discredit a North Pacifican. These charges were dismissed, as Rand holds no citizenship within The North Pacific and the crime was not committed on TNP-owned platforms. [4]

I am going to correct this one, the charges were dismissed because Rand was not a resident or a citizen at the time of the offense and the crime was not committed on TNP owned platforms.

My mistake, apologies.

[Dreadton]

I am going to correct this one, the charges were dismissed because Rand was not a resident or a citizen at the time of the offense and the crime was not committed on TNP owned platforms.

My mistake, apologies.

No biggie, many people in TNP struggle with our legal code

[Eastern Pacific News Service]

EPNS April 2024 Edition

HOME | LATEST | ARCHIVES | STAFF

Contents:

• Delegate's Update
• Magisterium Update
• Culture Update
• Grand Vizier Address
• The Foreign Newsstand
• Worlds To Build

Delegate's Update
By: Merlovich

Hello TEP! Welcome to the April Edition of the EPNS and another Delegate’s Update.

What an odd month April turned out to be, hey? We were without NationStates for 10 days, though what was merely a week and a half felt like an eternity for a lot of us. Me personally, I started having withdrawals by about the sixth day.

In reality, I enjoyed a nice vacation from Delegacy work, and have come back refreshed and excited to see the month out with a bang. While there are still several crucial elements of the site that are yet to be returned to normal, we’ve been able to continue with our current projects, and make good progress.

Firstly, let’s introduce the ‘East Pacific Sovereign Armada’, TEP’s new refurbished military. Last month, we held a regional vote to decide upon the military’s theme, from which navy was chosen. Behind closed doors, myself and some members of Cabinet worked to decide upon a name, time-period and rank hierarchy. We came down to two time-periods, being the Napoleonic Era or the Spanish Treasure Fleet’s of the late 1500s. Napoleonic Era won, and thus when one sees TEP’s navy they shall think of 19th century sailing boats and sharp dress uniforms. Over the next few weeks we’ll set the new rank hierarchy in stone, and begin the process of redesigning and creating dispatches and of course the EPSA Discord, which will get a full facelift. Once complete, the recruitment drive will begin.

In another area of government, I’ve worked to set up the new FA system we’ve been pursuing for some time. With the return of NS this week, I’ve rolled out the ambassador system to the FA Ministry, and we’re already close to finalising our FA sheet and sending out our new ambassadors. The new assignments will be a mixture of FA Councillors and FA Ministry staffers. TEP’s allies, crucially, shall retain experienced and long-serving FA Councillors to ensure our most trusted relationships are given the attention they deserve. I am very excited to see this plan come into action, and I look forward to seeing how it is received at home and abroad.

We had a single Cabinet change this month, with Minister of Outreach Romanoddle resigning this week to focus on real-life matters. I have been able to immediately fill this vacancy, with New Westmore coming on board. Westmore took over the ministry on Tuesday, and I’m very excited to see what we can get out of Outreach with an enthusiastic new face. A very big thank you to Romanoddle, who served diligently and capably as Minister of Outreach for the last term and a half. I will miss looking at the RMB and being asked what my favourite fruit or cardinal direction is. (I still cannot believe apple of all fruits won)

Lastly, I should touch on the progress made in the REWARD revamp. Last month I spent a couple of days slaving away at reinventing our REWARD dispatches, modernising and elaborating upon the existing infrastructure. This month I’ve taken a backseat, and Cabinet Advisor Vussul has worked day and night to set up the automated coding for our new endorsement initiative. I hope to see things up and running by the end of this new month, and we’ll ideally see some positive signs in our regional endorsement count and WA participation rates before the end of this term. You may also see our new friend Shahzada on the RMB and in TEP’s discords, don’t fret, they don’t bite. Shahzada will be gathering message numbers in TEP’s various discord servers, and they’ll be helping RMB’ers up their endorsements with automated endotarting on the RMB. Simply ping the Shahzada nation and write ‘tart’ and you’ll receive an instant list of those you haven’t yet endorsed. You’ll also see them welcoming newbies every couple hours, which is a nice feature. Big, big shoutout to Vussul for doing the hard coding work I am far too dumb to understand.

That about wraps it up for me this month, I’ll keep you posted as things progress. Enjoy this edition, and I’ll touch base again next month

Magisterium Update
By: Dremaur

Hello all! The Magisterium was rather quiet this month, with only one vote started during the month that is still ongoing. The Magisterium leaves April with 20 active magisters, 7 suspended magisters, and over 36 slices of cake devoured.

Ongoing Vote:
[C-2024-18] Confirmation of McStooley to the Praesidium

Culture Update
By: Tommo
Howdy TEPers! Here’s your monthly culture update.

Although April was a quiet time for culture, we’ve now introduced a Culture Calendar! Each month we’ll be keeping track of events such as game nights, watch parties, and other spectacles, which you can view here!

Second of all, we’re introducing weekly game nights in the discord server! Every Friday night at 11pm GMT, we will be playing games like King Of The Castle (which seems to be a regional favourite), Cards Against Humanity, and other Discord games such as Putt Party and Gartic Phone! These will also be hosted on Tuesdays to keep the games active

Thirdly, the Hunger Games returns on Sunday 7th May! Make sure to sign up as either yourself or a character of your choosing and see if you can outlast 30+ other tributes!

Finally, over the next week we plan to host three Eurovision watch parties! Two for both of the semifinals, and one on Saturday 11th May for the grand final. For more information be sure to check out the events tab in the TEP Discord server!

That’s all from culture. Hope to see as many of you as possible at the game nights, Hunger Games, and the watch parties!

Love, Tommo <3

And now, a message from the Westmorian Ministry of Cultural Outreach...

---

Song of the Month (Reborn)
By New Westmore

---

Hymne à L'amour (Hymn to Love)
Edith Piaf
=

---

Artist: Edith Piaf
Genre: Chanson
Released: 1950
Runtime: 3:25

---

Make all the Fr*nch jokes you want, but nothing you say will never beat out this classic chanson song by France's endearing Little Sparrow, Edith Piaf. Written in 1950 as a love song to her lover an husband, Marcel Cedan, who died a year earlier on an Air France plane crash, Hymne a l'amour stands as a heartfelt song of everlasting love, and stands with Edith Piaf's most famous songs as a classic that no true Frenchman should ever forget or never bother listening to.

Like many of Edith's other songs, such as La vie en rose, Hymne a l'amour has been translated and re-adapted for English-speaking audiences, some of the most notable being Geoffrey Parsons's If You Love Me (Really Love Me), which was propelled into stardom in 1954 by other American artists of the time.

Grand Vizier Address
By: Aivintis



Over the course of April, the Citizenship Office granted citizenship to three residents of The East Pacific and processed two clerical changes. I recognize the hard work of Citizenship Officer Vulbania in addressing these forms, while I have been partially inactive to deal with OOC matters.

Due to the very same inactivity, I had been unable to update the Citizenship list since February, but it is now up to date, with 79 citizens. Unfortunately, time constraints have left me unable to update the forum group masking, but I fully intend to accomplish such in May. Furthermore, I intend to perform an audit in the week or weeks preceding the June Delegate elections.

In the Praesidium, Vizier and former Grand Vizier Dragons Blood recently CTE’d, shortly before NationStates experienced downtime. Dragons Blood had not received the proper email notification of impending CTE, but reacted quickly upon the CTE’s discovery, reviving his nation and endotarting again. Due to automatic removal procedures for ceasing to exist, Dragons Blood has been re-nominated to Viziership, which remains under discussion in the Magisterium.

No further events of note have occurred within the Praesidium, EPPS, or Citizenship Office.

By: Altys

The Foreign Newsstand
By: Aivintis

Hello and welcome to the Foreign Newsstand.

We in The East Pacific’s FA Watch are tasked with discussing and debating news of global significance within NationStates Gameplay (NSGP). With an eye on the forums and the news reports of our allies, we see discussion on a wide range of interregional political topics, and I have used this perspective to create the Newsstand, summarizing the goings-on of NSGP. It’s light reading this month, as a chunk of the time we could have had big events was bitten off by the sharks which chew on internet cables in the ocean.

This Newsstand is fact-checked by TEP’s Foreign Minister, but nevertheless, I am human, and make mistakes. As such, I encourage people to reach out if there are factual errors, and I invite any NSer to reply in this thread adding any events I may have missed. It can help me figure out what my blind spots are, and ensure accountable, factual reporting. In addition, this accounting is without bias, framing, or agenda. Straight facts, straight news. Readers are encouraged to direct opinions to threads relating to the individual events.

Without further ado, here are the major events of April 2024:

• The Washington Federation, Prime Minister of The Region That Has No Big Banks delivered the Spring State of the Region Address, celebrating their recent spike in diplomatic activity, among other regional work, such as in the Parliament, wherein the first ever veto in regional history was used on a piece of legislation which aimed to eliminate the veto power altogether. [1]
• Quebecshire, who had been contracted by Balder to serve as their War Minister and revive the Jomsvikings military, has resigned without a statement or announcement. The timing of this led to a lack of clarity on if it was an April Fool’s Joke, but appears to stand as of the end of the month. [2]
• After HumanSanity brought a recall motion against Prime Minister Drew Durrnil [3], the Prime Minister of The South Pacific resigned and issued an apology for inactivity as a result of IRL conflicts and a lack of willpower. [4]
• Conch Kingdom elected Patolia as Prime Minister, Charville as Domestic Affairs Minister, and Socialist Platypus as Foreign Affairs Minister. They are elected to a three month term each.
• Flemingisa, former CEO of Warzone Trinidad, has left WZT and NS, citing toxicity from NSGP and a lack of future projects they are passionate about. Flemingisa is missed by the entire WZT community. [5]
• The raid on The Realm of the Whispering Winds has been ceased following the Security Council Liberation and Injunction.
• The Brotherhood of Malice has led a raid on the region Eclipsis. As of writing, the region has been refounded in the midst of a Liberation resolution vote in the World Assembly Security Council.
• The Free Nations Federation held a Hanasaki party for the end of President Weatherwand’s last consecutive term in office. Between the regional crisis and a second term, she has served for about a year.
• In United Kingdom, newly elected Prime Minister Cody Cavendish-Beauclerk resigned. In his place, Deputy Prime Minister Samantha Cahill-Mountbatten has taken up the mantle of Acting Prime Minister, with Home Secretary George Stewart being named Acting Deputy PM.
• Archkeeper Rosartemis of Astoria announced that she would be stepping down at the end of her term, delivering her final address in the monthly foreign update. [6]
• The Enchanted Accords of the Sparkling Grove, a mutual defense treaty, has been signed between Sparkalia and The Black Hawks.

References:

[1] https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=2014506
[2] viewtopic.php?p=41477368#p41477368
[3] https://thesouthpacific.org/t/2415-mr-m ... he-pm/5427
[4] https://thesouthpacific.org/t/resignation-as-pm/5451
[5] viewtopic.php?p=41488196#p41488196
[6] viewtopic.php?p=41543729#p41543729

Contents:
——————

• Turning A Chapter: 20 Years of Roleplaying
• A Guide to Speak Weirdly
• Urthvision
• ValsoraWiki

STUDY: MGC Sanctions Widely Unpopular; Marginally Effective
By: Gem
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=550023

Turning A Chapter: 20 Years of Roleplaying
By East Malaysia

I started this journey in the latter part of May 2004. The East Pacific has always been synonymous with roleplaying since the beginning. By the time I joined the community the roleplaying map was going strong. When I joined NationStates I had a thing for skyscrapers and loved the way the Petronas Towers of Malaysia looked. You should have seen my LEGO twin towers I made trying to copycat them. Actually, they looked terrible plus I'm from a generation where my first cell phone was a Nokia phone without a camera. Nonetheless, that's where my first chapter started with roleplay: East Malaysia. The Star Empire of East Malaysia.

East Malaysia, a tropical paradise, with aliens always on the watch for the evil West Malaysians across their stellar empire. The first leader of written East Malaysia was Emperor Ty Bishop, he was a poor leader, and don't worry I took care of him with some help. Assassination by foreign power. As I expect there will be only a few to none that might be familiar with my early cringe writings. I'll let you know what happened to the next Emperor, also assassinated, so for a while, everyone thought I liked to kill off my leaders after that one. Since 2005 I have had the same leader, Empress Glendale Jung, Enda "Glendale" Jung if you would like the Conlang modern name update.

From the 2004 map through Urth map years East Malaysia was the name I went by on the roleplay map. TEP Evolved, as TEP roleplay was once known, allowed future tech, but the technology levels scaled down to modern to post-modern. By the graciousness of the cartographers to grandfather some of old East Malaysia to the new. This marks the start of my second chapter of The Empire of East Malaysia. Later I rebranded it as Peregrinia to take a real-world reference off the map.

Peregrinia, a tropical paradise, with aliens that lost their technology. This is around the time I got more into worldbuilding over roleplaying. Might also have something to do with it seemed like every time I started a roleplay I had to cancel it because of a retcon. Yet the beauty of it was it gave me an opportunity to open my eyes to new possibilities by creating a familiar yet different nation. I moved to preserve areas on the map that I worried Hoopland and Free Pacific States could vanish from the map. I swapped aliens for elves, decreased human population, and added Nekomimi plus a couple of other minor species. I also started a conlang with the Kilumi you see today being the final product. Shoutout to Sammy for helping me with conlanging and all those pings over the years.

Next thing I know I'm de facto in control of Free Pacific States, Lyon and Peregrinia. Free Pacific States' name got updated to Free Pax States for some spice with Packilvania. Last year I shared with the original Free Pacific States a draft of my reimagination of Free Pax States, the UrthWiki page, and he liked what I was doing. So I decided to move forward with a reimagination. I was going to roleplay them together but one thing led to another and another retcon and I felt stuck. I didn't know what I wanted to do, I had all these great ideas, developing words for Kilumi yet no outlet it seemed. A nightmare scenario for a conlanger, roleplayer, writer, and worldbuilders.

So I did what every mediocre writer does. You push off the problem for several months until you address the problem. I had de facto too much land, it was tiring having the same shape for 19 years, and needed something fresh. I put in a request that the amazing cartographers helped me and it opened up more land for new players. Plus Oan allowed a border update with Packilvania. Out with Peregrinia and Lyon and in with Free Pax States and Tarseen. That brings me to my final chapter. The Imperial States of Free Pax States.

You might be wondering how I know it's my final chapter. No, I'm not retiring, but I'm not going to make any major changes to what I have now. Species population breakdown is the only major consideration. Outside of that the name, shape, language, religion, culture... it finally feels right and all that I need to do is complete the details in the middle.

Free Pax States, officially known as the Imperial Alliance of Free Pax States (FPS) (Kilumi: Ynseyes Px’il’vn’ia Kiramise (YPK)), is a country in Southeast Yasteria and Cereneria. Free Pax States is a federal monarchy comprising of five states, three special administrative regions, a territory, and controls the contested Tarseen territory. The nation is situated in Southeast Yasteria, just south of Packilvania, north of Jusdelva and west of Wealden in Cereneria. The nation shares a land boarder with Packilvania and Jusdelva though the Free Pax States is largely comprised of an archipelago. The nation has a mostly tropical climate with the exception of the Pontuarya Desert in the northwest and Kaoghoni Desert in the southwest. The Imperial Alliance has a diverse consolidated population of approximately 209 million.

While there is no way to know what the future will bring and it could be another 20 years before I am finished. What I do know is none of this would have been possible without our community being so roleplay centric. I am honored I had this opportunity to spend this journey with so many great roleplayers. Thank you for having me for so long!

con·lang
/ˈkänˌlaNG/
a language that has been artificially created; a constructed language.
Definition from Oxford Languages and Google

A Guide to Speak Weirdly
Word Formation in Cukish, TEP’s First Commended Conlang
A Tower of Conlangs Special by New Leganes

Hi, I’m the owner of the oil-loving, many-islanded, musically successful, sportly unsuccessful, weirdly-languaged country. Apparently now WA-loved as well. Námerek, we’re about to speak in Cukish.

8 years ago I was having breakfast and I decided to create a language. It just happened. My brain decided to be efficient. Actually it was part of my return to NS, a moment in which I decided to worldbuild every aspect I could of my country, the by then (and still in NS) called New Leganes and now named Cooperative Commonwealth of the Impelanzan Ocean. I had been wanting to create my own language for quite a while, and even made some little attempts as a child. But this time, I wanted a language I could write a whole text in, so I threw some words here and there and I wrote a paragraph which Tunsé knows where it may be now, but probably has little and yet a lot to see with the current shape of my conlang. That’s how the Cukish language first came into life.

So that’s the step I always advise new conlangers to begin their conlangs with. Try making some words. The goal of this is to evaluate what sonority they like the most, either in their personal taste or if they already have an idea in mind of what they want it to look like. You won’t end up using most of those words, but they’ll give you hints of your language’s phonetics. Everything right up to this point: then it went downhill for me. The next step should’ve been creating some vocabulary, at least the basics. I did create some very basic vocabulary, such as “hello”, “good morning/afternoon/night”, or “thanks”, but I jumped into what really makes me passionate about conlanging: grammar. I spent a couple of years designing a full grammatical system that could work on its own (with the proper exceptions) and you can see the result here.

Now I have created a language that works properly as a language. Small issue: where’s the vocabulary? I am the creator of this language, and I have not ceased to be. Languages still come up with new terms, whether it is by borrowing words from other languages or by creating its own, new ones by derivation, compounding, and so many word formation processes. RL languages are the product of different societies and of thousands, sometimes millions of people, interacting with each other everyday. Replicating that on my own is an utterly impossible task, so I soon had to overcome my desire of spending several afternoons sitting at my desk solely creating new Cukish words. Instead, I realised I hadn’t been as wrong as I thought, and I kept the method of casually creating the words I specifically needed in each RP post or wiki page.

That’s how we arrive at the point I want to bring to EPNS in this article. Some time ago I read that Tolkien constructed his own languages by devising hypothetical ancient roots first, making them evolve into current forms and branching the evolution in order to create language families. That’s the most realistic way of creating a language, making it undergo the same processes as RL languages. However, it is a difficult task, and one my circumstances (and probably everyone else’s) don’t allow me (us all), so for Cukish I follow a middle ground: I create roots, then develop them backwards and forwards. Backwards into the past, original roots; forwards towards modern words derived from those roots. Let’s take a look at the document I take my notes on for my RP content:



As you can see, my notes are bilingual, sometimes in Spanish and others in English, and it’s the way my mind works as well. Blame TEP for that. I want to take a look at *mu first. I devised that root after a word I created for the RP I’m invested in, Nárilethál: that word is “mórna”, and it designates the ruler of Matorélik, an ancient state in the modern-day Oblivion Islands. I envisioned this ruler to act as a supervisor over the different islands and towns of the archipelago, holding ultimate (and somewhat divine) authority over the rest of local rulers. Supervisor is a Latin equivalent for “overseer”, an individual who sees what the rest are doing, so I came up with mórna with the intention for it to literally mean “with eyes”. -ne is the suffix used for the Cukish accompanying case, while the remaining root, mor-, ought to be either the word for “eyes” or a very similar term to it. So I came up with the ancient root *mu for “eye”, while mo and mor would mean “eyes” nowadays. That way I also decided that “u” phonemes followed by liquid consonants (“l” and “r”) would eventually evolve into “o” as a general rule in Cukish. That shouldn’t happen with a grammatical marker as the plural -r, but humans usually have two eyes and the plural could really become soon part of the root itself.

Not long afterwards, I realised about a word I created in the very first days of Cukish, “etomúrni”, which meant “forgotten”, “oblivion”, and I had later substituted by etonári, with the opposite meaning of “unforgotten”. I had made this change after I first began writing Nárilethál and made the title mean “the song (hál) of (archaic genitive -let) the forgotten one (nári)”. That -múrni element in the original word had such a striking similarity with mor, and I wanted to rescue etomúrni and link it with mor. I thought about how you remember something because you’ve perceived it with your senses, most of the times you’ve seen it, and -múrni and mórna look alike. I decided that múrni could be the archaic spelling of mórna, evolving in a different branch into a meaning of “memory”, using one’s brain to see what has previously been seen with the eyes. In the same way, when you forget about someone or something, you even forget its appearance or its shape, becoming blank or void. That’s the meaning of etomúrni (literally “without eyes” but now meaning “without memory”, thus “forgotten” or “oblivion” as a noun). But I still had etonári without a proper etymology, so I delved into the matter of how nári had come to mean “forgotten” together with etomúrni. Once again, Dua Lipa possessed me and said “let’s get (meta)physical”: I drew into the “void memory” concept I had explored before and thought it could be cool to have the word mean “void”, with an original *narid root. Sammy from the past can explain it better in those Spanish notes, which read “*narid -> void. Someone or something that “is void” may be because it’s been forgotten. It exists and doesn’t at the same time. What defines that being (its look, its meaning) has been lost and remains void. Nepámir [that is, Nárilethál’s protagonist] (and all the Matoréliker) is nári because everything that had defined what he was (his house, his parents…) has been lost and he goes gathering the pieces of his life during his quest.”



What you see above is also derived from a RP. Not a deep, literary RP as Nárilethál, but one would probably never expect (except if they know me well enough). The biggest of TEP’s RPs: the Urthvision Songfestival. In the last edition I hosted, Urthvision XVIII, I wrote some Cukish lyrics for one of the interval songs while in public transport, which granted me the strange glance of a passenger, wondering what the hell was the language I was writing in. Honestly, it would’ve been funnier if it had been my linguistic notes: even less understandable. These are the lyrics I composed, with their literal translation:

Ifárye zhénka li vatéra
Vedéreo, vedéreo hwóife se uhín
Nemíspo olonízhka éto
Yónar-e, yónar-e domilástiro
Védek armífa
Védek firníka
Védek mízherka,
Védek téna iqránka!

"No worries on where to,
They will, they will be at home in there
There is no sadness nor pain:
Both, certainly both were left behind
You'll be happy / There's joy for you,
You'll be amazed / There's amazement for you
You'll be expecting great stuff / There's expectations (of something good) for you
You'll be dancing and singing / There's dance and song for you!

The grammatical analysis absolutely wasn’t on my mind when I composed the lyrics. I guided myself by the mere phonaesthetic I got when listening to the song the lyrics are based in (IRL, Igranka by Who See), what fitted the most with the sonority and with my own sonority, together with a little poetic component in the repetition of -(k)a in the last four verses. -ka, by the way, is normally the equivalent to “and” in English, but in this case, it is better left untranslated since it simply marks the repetition of a structure (“védek [element]-ka”, “[element] [is]* there for you”).

* There is no verb “to be” in Cukish. It’s one of some inspirations Cukish has in Arabic and other Semitic languages; if you think about it, if you put something into words, it exists simply by itself, even when it just belongs to the world of words.

Some time after I had written the lyrics, the analysis began. Once again, backwards evolution into the roots and elements these words would have evolved from, their relation to other words, the different meanings these words can have, and their function within the text. Here’s a translation of my notes in the screenshot (and for “ifárye”, which appears in the previous screenshot), with my own italics and clarifications for the purpose of this article added between [ ]:

• Ifárye
   ◦ -ye -> suffix (not used any longer) for “absence of”.
   ◦ Ifá -> thing, matter [ifár in plural].
   ◦ Ifárye -> “with nothing”, unworried, relaxed
• Éto indicates opposition (sort of a disjunctive) [it usually is used negatively in Cukish, meaning simply “no”], -ye indicates absence [of something]. -rye is for non-excluding disjunctives [that is, like “or” in English. Ifárye uses -ye instead of -rye, since the -r- is just the plural suffix for ifá].
• [I mentioned this above already] “When a U is followed by an R, U becomes O” [I translated “becomes” because I’m not sure if “timbre” in English is a proper linguistic term, lol].
• *jen -> “near”, “next”, “after”. If you go from a specific point [abstractly], what is nearby is also what comes next. It evolves into zhén, “afterwards”, “next”, and zhénka, literally “also near”, “about [something]”.
• Li -> preposition of direction.
• *vat -> “rock”
• Váter -> “rocks”. Vatérna, vatéra -> place [-na is an archaic and lexicalised accompanying case, so vatérna literally means “with rocks”, “among rocks”. Consider how Cukish was (and is) spoken by people living on small volcanic islands in the middle of the ocean, so where there are rocks, that’s the only place you can stay at. Any place that is not the ocean is rocky].
• *uovi -> “life”, “to live” [it’s frequent in Cukish that the same term can be used as different grammatical categories]. Hwói, “life”, “to live”. Hwóifa, “house”, “home”.
   ◦ -fa -> suffix for function/role (as -tor in Latin) [Terminator is “the one who terminates”. Hwói-fa is “the place used for living”].
• Uhín -> demonstrative pronoun [like “this” or “that” in English, but meaning “that place” and therefore “there” in the lyrics’ context].
• Nemíspo
   ◦ Nemíspo -> “inner pain”, “sadness”. Literally “turn/twisting of the mind/stomach” [the mind was thought to be in the stomach by the ancient Cukish: when you’re worried or sad about something and you keep on thinking about it, your belly hurts. That’s where the association comes from].
   ◦ Nemí -> “mind”, “conscience”, “stomach”.
   ◦ Íspo -> “turn/spin”, “to turn / to spin around”.
• Olonízh -> “physical pain” [as opposed to the inner pain of nemíspo].

There’s some words I didn’t analyse there. You can find the pronoun vedéreo and all the different pronouns in the language’s wiki, while se just means “in” or “into” (in this case, “in”), with the same function as in English. Yónar means “two”, “the two of them” or “both”, and -e is an emphatic suffix (I translated yónar-e as “certainly both”) For the rest: that’s a surprise tool that will help us later!

—

Now to conclude, there are many conlangs sprouting on Urth at the moment. Some pretty and equally ambitious projects. I hope this article inspires worldbuilders in TEP and out of it, and that it’s useful for them. Sharing ideas is a great part for our own ones to grow. My current approach to word formation, after several failed attempts, has been very successful, in ways such as my last delegate campaign, TEP’s first campaign ever in a conlang (and, if I’m correct, the first in a language other than English ever in our two-decade history!). These little words and texts (and lyrics) have slowly formed a coherent structure for the building Cukish is turning to be, recently allowing me to write a full more-or-less complex text entirely in Cukish. I have used the grammar and vocabulary I had already created, and I’ve come up with new words when needed. As slowly but firmly as I have been doing over these eight years, my target is to build a solid foundation for new vocabulary by creating a large amount of roots, so Cukish keeps its consistency and doesn’t run into many dangerous duplicates or incongruent words. This is definitely the next step: when this is done to a significant degree (it may never end), Cukish will not just be a language you can write some little texts with, but one I wish I (and some other people, given the case) can even speak! It may sound ambitious, but as I said, it’s just a wish, one that may never happen. However, creating a language used to be just a wish for me…

—
Previously featured languages: Jidduanese, Ayaupian, Kuduk, Kilumi

Urthvision XX: Coming Soon
Hosted By American-Cascadia in Korćetta, Urth

With 36 nations sending singers and bands from across Urth to take part in Urthvision XX in Korćetta. If you asked the locals about what they might see in Korćetta they might tell you the national motto "Evergreen drzewa tak daleko, jak oko może zobaczyć" which translates to "Evergreen trees as far as the eye can see." Korćetta or officially the Korćettan Republic is a nation in the Kaskada region of Southwest Gondwana with a population of 23 million. It borders Stražsko to the south, Aivintis and East Cerdani to the east, and Zemeprievadai to the north. The nation borders the Sea of Gondwana to the west. Urthvision XX is expected to take place End of May / Beginning of June.

Valsora Featured
——————
Zemedievai (WIP), ValsoraWiki
By Aivintis
The Directorate, officially The Directorate of Zemedievai, is a small country in Northeast Yastreovakia, located north of the Congregation of Brethren. A formerly isolationist nation, the Directorate has a population of 27 million, most of which identify with Slaviskas ethnicity, speak the Slaviskas language, and practice some form of Dievinism. Farmers and fishers make the majority of the rural population, while urban centers are more industrial and developed.
————
LegendAir
By New Westmore

————
Map of Antarctia
By Terreich und Preussen

ValsoraWiki
By Empire of Dabiristan

The idea of an external wiki resource for Valsora has been tossed around for well over a year. Although initially it did not seem that there would be one, a year later “ValsoraWiki” has become a reality. ValsoraWiki is a new initiative to help roleplayers on the map have a resource where they can write down all of their worldbuilding.

Traditionally, Valsora has been strictly set in NationStates with the only external resource being Discord. The issue with NationStates is that it is limited in its capabilities of hosting worldbuilding. Let’s face it, working with NS dispatches just isn’t that fun and often doesn’t look that aesthetic either. ValsoraWiki uses MediaWiki which is the same software Wikipedia uses. If you’re a Wikipedia user or have ever used Wikipedia before, you’ll know how much easier it is to work with. Providing an easier way for roleplayers to write down their worldbuilding aims to help them be more encouraged to write more.

Whilst the wiki is still in its early stages, expect a lot of features to be missing/not working/breaking. If you are a user of ValsoraWiki and ever notice one of those three things ever happening, let the cartographers of Valsora know what the issue is and we’ll make sure to get it resolved as soon as possible. It is a top priority to make the wiki as usable as possible and so expect the wiki to be looking and functioning much better in coming times.

"CountryRepublics" Suffers Catastrophic Failure
By New Westmore

Servers for Popular Online Game “CountryRepublics” Suffers Catastrophic Failure; Cause Traced to Spectacular Failure in One of the Drives
Players of the popular online game “CountryRepublics” by renowned Westmorian author Baxter Merrington may finally rest tonight after parts of it came back online after a catastrophic failure crippled the game’s servers for a number of days. The game, which allows you to build a nation in likeness of your own political stances, suddenly went offline without warning on the 15th of April and left many of its players stranded without an explanation as to what happened.

Around the time the failure occurred, multiple reports of an explosion in a building in New Marais, a district of the City of Dalesburg, were phoned into the district’s fire department. It was found that the explosion had come from one of the server drives that CountryRepublics had used - it had quite literally failed and exploded in a violent manner and had started a fire as a result. Miraculously, it was only that drive that was destroyed in the explosion and fire. It is believed that a hamster may have had something to do with the catastrophic failure, as hamster droppings were found near the burnt-out server drive by firefighters.

“We don’t know exactly how much data has been lost in regards to numbers and how far the damage goes, as we are still attempting to retrieve as much of the data as we can.” A spokesperson for CountryRepublics told the public in an official statement. “What we do know as of now is that we have lost every telegram API key we have issued, lost a significant amount of poll data and may have lost upwards to a year’s worth of card data. As we work to restore the lost data that we have reclaimed, the game will gradually return to full functionality in stages - most of the game’s functions, like the Regional Message Boards and Factbooks, will be open for everyone to use again, but Telegrams and Cards will remain locked away from our users until we are confident that they are in functioning order once more.”

“We encourage users who previously had an API key to contact the moderation team through a GHR to get a new one issued to them. We are also working with the game’s card-collecting community to help mitigate and repair some of the damage they have suffered, as it was their community that was hit hardest the most by the database failure.”

Many users, disheartened by the potential prospect of losing their cards, have asked the administration team of the game about potentially providing reimbursement for their troubles. No guarantee has been given, but it is unlikely that reimbursements outside of refunds for people who spent money that has now been lost will be pursued. Questions have also been asked about the redundancy of the disk, and as to why it did not have up-to-date redundancy copies - it is now publicly known that the last backup the disk had was back in May 2033. The CountryRepublics team has stated that the lack of redundancy on the disk was an oversight on their behalf, and have promised that this won’t happen again.

CountryRepublics’s admin team has not given an exact number as to when users can expect the game to return to full functionality. It may take a long time for the longstanding issues in the cards and telegram systems of the game to be ironed out.

Baxter Merrington has not commented on the event at all.

Within the online space of CountryRepublics, protests jokingly advocating for the worldwide genocide of hamsters have sprung up in many of the game’s “regions,” such as the East Demetric, where the region’s delegate published a statement condemning the culprit hamster for nearly destroying their whole game.

[Omnicontrol]

when i came for my monthly nsgp and tep news i didn't expect to spend a few minutes reading about making languages, but damn, that was a great article.

overall amazing read, thanks!

[Rosartemis]

Great work as always from the news team!

[East Chimore]

10/10 news article, and big congrats to the EPSA for getting a rework done for revitalization - cannot wait to see what y'all bring to the table.

[Quebecshire]

[*]Quebecshire, who had been contracted by Balder to serve as their War Minister and revive the Jomsvikings military, has resigned without a statement or announcement. The timing of this led to a lack of clarity on if it was an April Fool’s Joke, but appears to stand as of the end of the month. [2]

I didn't resign.

There isn't anything else to say about it but I'm pedantic + you actually put effort into these so I figured I'd offer the correction.

[East Chimore]

[*]Quebecshire, who had been contracted by Balder to serve as their War Minister and revive the Jomsvikings military, has resigned without a statement or announcement. The timing of this led to a lack of clarity on if it was an April Fool’s Joke, but appears to stand as of the end of the month. [2]

I didn't resign.

There isn't anything else to say about it but I'm pedantic + you actually put effort into these so I figured I'd offer the correction. :P

Just for my clarification (and also the editor's), was is that you were let go, or some sort of term limit? [genuine]

[Aivintis]

[*]Quebecshire, who had been contracted by Balder to serve as their War Minister and revive the Jomsvikings military, has resigned without a statement or announcement. The timing of this led to a lack of clarity on if it was an April Fool’s Joke, but appears to stand as of the end of the month. [2]

I didn't resign.

There isn't anything else to say about it but I'm pedantic + you actually put effort into these so I figured I'd offer the correction.

My mistake, apologies for the assumption. Thank you for the correction.