1
Dispatch → Meta → Gameplay
by 
The Perpetual Revolution of Hulldom.
.
1 reads.
The Downfall of a Maybe Okay(?) Delegate, Part 2
As with part 1, the following notes apply apply:
None of this should be taken to be the direct opinion of, or endorsed by, any Government I may be affiliated with (The Pacific/New Pacific Order, The North Pacific, The League, The Wellspring). In fact, I dare say three of those would probably object to me discussing this in such detail as I plan to.
None of the facts I share should be construed so as to impugn the character of, or speak ill of, any individual I speak of. They are just that, facts. I don't wish anyone ill will and I hope that recounting these events won't necessarily cause too many people heartburn.
Obviously there are bits and bobs about my real life that played into these events I'm choosing to leave out. This is intentional. No I will not be elaborating if you ask about such and such a time in my DMs.
Finally, note that this is my experience and my recollection. I am not some omnipotent God-king. There may be things I forget or misremember (most importantly dates) and I certainly don't want to ascribe malice where there was none or really ascribe any motivation to anyone besides myself. I reaped the whirlwind, I can surely understand it now.
As a closing and minor author's note. Footnote numbers have carried over from the previous part of this series.
Finally, if you have not read it yet before finding this (I highly recommending reading it, at least Section 2 of Chapter 2), please see part 1 of this dispatch at the link here. This is part 2 of the oral history of the Hulldomian Delegacy. For events after the events of late March and early April, that is, the continuing fall out, see part 3 at the link here.
Chapter 3: Several Fine Spring Evenings
This chapter title is a reference to Movements II and III from Jules Massenet's Espada. They were pieces of music I fell in love with during the early and middle portion of my Delegacy and reflect that feeling quite well. It's not quite buoyant, but a sense of ultimate purpose and an acknowledgement that there are fights to come are evident in the piece. It's defiant but measured, playful, yet ultimately imbued with a bit of deadly seriousness. It's not my favorite classical composition, but it is one of my favorites conducted by the Estonian conductor Neeme Jarvi, whose recording showed up in my Discover Weekly in February, I believe.
Music is honestly one of my favorite things in this universe, same as it probably is for most of my readers. For me, I've always been, and encouraged to be, musical. I don't play an instrument, but I do sing, and I've been told I do quite well. On NS, I tend not to share too much about my personal taste except for in broad strokes. My personal taste is, I know, a lot more conservative than most players. I prefer vocal jazz, instrumental jazz from the Bop, post-Bop, and Big Band eras (though there are some incredibly interesting things going on in orchestral and modern big band jazz that I just don't have the time to surveil further!), and primarily choral music on the classical side, but I do have a special fondness for the late Romantics--Tchaikovsky, Glazunov, and Faure all have a special place in my heart. If you're looking for specific titles, I would encourage you to look at the Europeian forum's Republic Square. Under their Art & Culture section is a thread entitled Inish's Innovations where, for the better part of at least half a year, I gave weekly updates on the sorts of things I was listening to that week.
As mentioned in the above chapter, I firmly believed going into January of 2023 that The North Pacific was running out of options and fast. It's not so much that I believed that all options to achieve our major strategic aim of defeating the Brotherhood of Malice were off the table so much as I believed that the situation was rapidly falling out of control and out of our hands. I subscribe to the view Ghost does, perhaps surprisingly. We did not fail, rather we were failed.
In any event, when I came into office on January 11, 2023, I remember feeling very strongly that there were actions I could take day one that would make it easier for us to achieve our goals. First among those was making it easier for the ranks of our military to swell. Partially to achieve this goal and partially to achieve the changing of the guards I discussed in Chapter 2, Section 2, I immediately rescinded the One Org policy that the NPA previously had in place. Now that it was possible for members of foreign militaries to join the North Pacific Army more easily, I thought it would lead to members of our independent allies (and others) to join the NPA. I never anticipated that we would do many operations on our own. After all, the North Pacific's strategic interests at the time dictated that we participated primarily in liberations and detagging operations12 and in fact, I'm not entirely sure authorizing a raid during my time as Delegate. Perhaps there was one tag run or something, but that would have been about it.
In any case, the One Org policy that I had railed against for the last 18 months was no more. The metaphorical genie was let out of the bottle. The other set of actions I could do on day 1 was reach out to our allies--see what they wanted from us (this comes off brusque and I mean it in a positive manner) and what we could do for them. When I was Minister of Foreign Affairs, it was just as I was as Delegate. I reached out to every single Head of Government in each of the regions TNP was treaty allied to or had an embassy of any kind with, informing them of my election as Delegate and seeing what it was I could do for them. Familiarity may occasionally breed contempt, but I never experienced that, at least openly.
The first week of any new Delegate's term in the North Pacific is often filled with a variety of mundane tasks such as making sure certain items are updated (though the nice thing about TNP is that lots of our dispatches, at least at the time, were updated automatically) and that Ministers fill out the things they're required to fill out as the term starts and filling those out oneself. For me it also meant an operational review of several items we had. I am oddly proud of having reviewed and eliminated a lot of regions off the Retaliatory Recruitment list. While one notable region I shall not name sought removal from that list after I approached them about a concerning move I noted out of the North Pacific, I did not grant it, but otherwise, much of the "fat" of the list did come off--regions that had since died or were just pretty obviously not recruiting anymore.
The week after the 11th, Icarus finally came aboard. I can recall that day rather fondly because it meant that my friend was finally working with me (and she seemed excited about the prospect of doing that and running the NPA) and I finally had a full-time Cabinet. The fun could really begin if it hadn't already.
However, the first real issue of the term arose the week Icarus came aboard and into the next. One might recall the agreement I had made with the Rejected Realms. My team now fully in place, I got busy trying to make that change happen. I was able to garner the necessary support and bypass the West Pacific. I can recognize now that two things were wrong with this approach. Firstly, I ought to have either come up with a compromise that was sure to be amenable to all the MGC regions, bringing them into the discussion immediately, or only pressed forward with the amendment to the sanctions when unanimity could be found. Secondly, if neither of the previous suggestions were possible, I ought to have inquired further into what the consequences of not amending the sanctions would have been. I have the utmost respect for the Rejected Realms and their Government, but the whole episode leaves a sour taste in my mouth the further we move on from it.
I was also able to, relatively quickly into the term, patch things up with the East Pacific--who had taken a dislike of me into the term due to events I'm deliberately leaving out. We did manage to iron out our remaining issues with the government of the East and even extended them admission to the Heroes of Valhalla program. This was actually a slam dunk on our end. We wanted to do it and Balder and Europeia, both treaty allies, voiced no objections. And so TEP got probably the two biggest things it could ask for at the time--WA support (even if not full, and I will note this has deprecated in slight part since their admission) and it also was able to take advantage of cultural cooperation as my new Culture Minister Filibustra was still, at this point, firing on all cylinders.
February, though, was something else entirely. My real life was starting to fire up as we got ever deeper into the second semester. My days at this point consisted of getting up in the morning, going to the university to do my work and fulfill my duties/attend classes, and then returning home to the evening to basically then do NationStates stuff in the evening.13 The thing they don't tell you about actually running a Government rather than a community is that it's a full time job and not the most rewarding thing at that.
I remember one day during this time period I woke up to have only a single digit number of notifications across DMs and pings and kind of laughing in relief. If I were to make a guess, I think I averaged something like 13 pings when I woke up every morning. I'd go down for the night about 11 and then be up at about 7:15.14 Just imagine what it would have been like had I ever chosen to take an actual break!
Mind you, not every server I'm in is an NS server. I have a few servers that deal with things I'm interested in or are for other purposes. For instance, Dilber and I share a common server that deals with college football (not the Sportsbook or TNP's #real-life channel) and I share another sports related server with another NSer. I share one server that focuses on what's referred to as Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT, basically a fancy way to describe people who are incredible at geoguesser, know how to track planes, or want to show off their foreign language skills by following current events in other countries in their native tongues) with several NSers, even if I'm not terribly active there. There are other political servers I know I have in common with a few other NSers that are primarily interested in pro-European activism and politics. I may not be a European, but I am a Europhile. Same with the United Kingdom--I may not be English/British, but I am an Anglophile.
Anyways, February brought with it additional challenges on the foreign front. Now, there have always been raiders I've been friends with. When mixing in Gameplay circles, you are just simply going to meet people who you get along with regardless of what region you happen to inhabit. At this point, I would say two of my best friends on this game are raiders--Thorn and Jo. Thorn and I weren't as close back then, but he's someone I've always enjoyed getting to shoot the breeze with. He's great fun. Jo is also great fun and I've known Jo for a good bit longer. Him and I, I believe, came to know each other in 2022 through a combination of IRC VCs and his friendship with Vara. It didn't take long for us to hit it off as we have a very similar sense of humor and Jo, for his steadfast raider leanings, is probably one of the most reasonable and fair analysts I've met on either side of the R/D bit.15
Him and I had grown to be good friends at this point and simply because VCs in Lone Wolves United never fail to make me laugh, and back then they let me actually enjoy myself beyond what I was at that point accustomed. (To with though, I wouldn't say my time in the Delegacy was all misery, there were highlights I'll actually discuss, but LWU VCs were something that made it more bearable even if I could have indulged in them while not the Delegate.) In any event, I distinctly a remember a conversation with HumanSanity about this time that should have been the first flashing red light going off in my head. I forget what we had been discussing now legitimately, but he made a point I honestly will never forget. They insisted that I ought not work much in the Security Council with Jo because of his raider leanings and because he inevitably would look out for his interests more than mine. I replied that I knew this and acknowledged this, and indeed I know I've acknowledged this to Jo often, but that I enjoyed his company enough to mind. Such was the awful calculus I guess I needed to solve, but I've never been better than simply above average at math.
By the time this conversation happened, the actual seeds of my destruction had been sowed. In my mind, they were threefold. And so I shall discuss them each in turn, ending with the single most important item and leaving more formal discussion of the events of late March through to April 6 to Section 2. They really do fall into three thrusts: defense issues, the negotiations with 10000 Islands, and negotiations with The League. The second is probably the main one which allowed things to as sour as they did, but all three are issues which merit discussion.
Defense Issues
This was really two issues bundled into one. One was somebody's fault (my own, sorta) and the other was not really anyone's fault but a natural outcome of several months of grueling public service in Government. The first preceded the second, but the second was, I should stress, not directly caused by the first, so I think it's only natural I actually begin there.
The first issue related to the raid of England by the raider faction.16 I woke to the news of the invasion. I also woke up to news that I should have made more of an effort to verify before reacting to. I heard that, in trying to muster troops for the jumping effort, that a rather brusque, and in this ally's opinion an insulting, almost demanding, tone came in requesting a region's updaters for the effort. While I have, to this day, not been able to verify what exactly was said, I informed defender leadership that I was pulling official NPA support from the operation. I noted, though, that I would allow the NPA to continue actively supporting the effort as mercenaries and to continue to pull individuals from TNP to assist.
As I later found out, my concerns were overblown. I also had a very angry Minister of Defense on me from the moment she found out I had pulled the NPA officially off the operation. After talking with her that evening and then later confirming with the party who had received the messages that they weren't perhaps as bad as I first thought, I restored TNP's official support of the operation. I would imagine this is one moment wherein defender leadership lost confidence in me, had they ever had it, and I can't exactly say I would blame them were this the case. However, I think given what I originally heard, it would have been an appropriate reaction had the action taken place in the way described. In any event, the NPA would still have been allowed, and encouraged, to merc en masse so it's not as if numbers would have been lost.
The other event was losing Icarus to the throes of burnout as we got into the end of March. Having ridden that horse, and still riding it today, I can understand the desire to do one's duty and still feel as though much of anything would be better than it, that there are tons more important things to be doing with one's life (though this is just a universal truism), and that leaving on a positive note is better than sitting there doing nothing. I applaud those for whom that decision can be made and followed through on. Most of my resignations on NS have taken one of two forms: a deep disagreement leads me to leaving in a huff or I find myself lacking the self-confidence, and believing confidence has been lost in me, to do the job going forward. She asked to leave office near the end of March citing a variety of circumstances but namely that she wasn't sure she could give the position everything she had going forward without it being less than she had previously given. It was a decision I bitterly didn't want to make, but I also don't want to be the cause of another person's misery if possible and so I agreed to let her retire on her own terms. I know it's what I would have wanted for myself, but losing a friend and one of my best Cabinet Ministers was no less painful.
Defense issues contributed maybe 0.1% of my eventual decision to retire, the other 99.9% being the events in section 2, but they bear a small and important part to the story that I think needed to be told.
Negotiations with 10000 Islands
I have always had a bit of a confusing relationship with 10000 Islands. When I was newer to the game, I was awed by the power and might of them. I thought that TITO (who I know are lovely) were the best and most powerful military in the game and a force to be reckoned with. Both of those things were true, just with a measured grain of salt that my younger and less experienced self would blush to find today.
My first real interactions with them happened when I stashed a puppet in there in late 2020. It was because of sheer curiosity and genuine interest that I moved a nation there then. I had to remove said nation in the winter of 2021 (like February? as memory serves) when I joined Europeia's Watch. While Europeia may have warmer relations than some with XKI these days, that was certainly not the case then, and because of the sensitive nature of discussions the Watch would occasionally have, I was asked to leave XKI--a region thought to be somewhat hostile to Europeia then.
Later interactions with XKI the region and people have just reinforced my confusion. I don't recall talking to Lenlyvit overly much about many things once I converted over the SC Authorship Leaderboard to a forum-based record keeper in March of 2022. (Though I didn't actually use that Google Sheet so much as might be expected. Coding all that BBCode and getting items in order was largely a [redacted]'s knowledge thing.) However, we remained friendly and I might go so far as to call him an acquaintance. We've talked about items far afield from NS just as a matter of course and Lenly and I have never really been enemies or even remotely hostile to each other IC. The bulk of any interaction I might have hade with an XKIer period would have been with Astrobolt as he's a person I occasionally talked shop about the GA with.
Anyways, XKI approached us about negotiations first as I recall. XKI was unique among non-TNP treaty allies or even embassy partners in reaching out to congratulate me on winning the Delegacy. I think it was well known, or at least it should have been, that my R/D sympathies tended toward the defenders.1 In any case, they did reach out in early February asking if we were interested. Even given the historical antipathy between TNP and XKI, I accepted the offer. I thought it would be better to try to patch things up with possible partly because it was something that would be, well, new, and partly because I thought the original drama that led to the split in 2020 had been over something silly and both sides could be accepted to be grownups.
We pretty readily agreed to approach the whole thing with caution on our end. We would do nothing formal until we had reached a place where our end felt feelings had warmed to the point where that would be viable, but we also wanted to move forward. In fact, this would have likely happened earlier had it not been for a lengthy delay waiting for the necessary approvals to pass the Council of 9. I do not actually know if it actually took a long time for the Co9 to discuss the issue and approve it, but I just know that the actual negotiations with myself, Wym, and the XKI representatives were only delayed because of the RLs of individuals involved and those delays were not significant.
It was when we finally got the cogs turning in late March that this turned messy. They requested an embassy, Wym, who was traveling, was unable to move things forward as I had hoped and, to light a fire under him, I jumped the metaphorical gun. TNPers, who by and large are not fans of 10000 Islands, reacted negatively quite immediately. Eventually we had to pull back from working with XKI in a move that was disappointing for the both of us. Perhaps if I'd clarified they'd need to earn an on-site embassy we'd be in a different position today.
Negotiations with the League
The decision to proceed into negotiations with the League on formal, documented diplomatic ties was a decision that Wym and I made enthusiastically in early February. Both of us knew that the League was the rising power, if not already the preeminent one, in the defender sphere and so we wanted to unlock the benefits of a closer relationship with them to continue to ingratiate ourselves to defenderdom.
What followed can only be called the most prodigious headache I have ever known. (Ironic because probably the worst headache of my Delegacy came on a crucial day during these negotiations. One so bad I was photo-sensitive and laid on my apartment's couch my hand glued over my eyes while I discussed a key issue with Wym. Not even acetaminophen helped with that one.) The negotiations proceeded well enough at first. We presented our boilerplate Non-Aggression Pact text and asked for any comments. There were some that we were amenable to. There were several insisted on that would have been an issue in TNP--some of these resolved rather quickly but two of them became major bones of contention. They didn't actually matter to what happened, so I don't intend to say more on that matter.
The major bone of contention between the regions came on March 10. We were asked by the League to vote against Condemn Chef Big Dog. The brutal irony here is that Cain's commend was certainly in drafting by this point, but it was not originally at issue. Several events precipitated a couple of days delay in the negotiations. When Wym and I discussed it, we immediately agreed amongst ourselves that we didn't want to vote against if possible. After all, we saw no reason to anger LWU if it wasn't strictly necessary (and even then I know Wym would have had some pause). We made the offer on the 11th to Abstain on the proposal.
We knew it wasn't necessarily their most preferred option, but it was an option that we thought was fair. We wouldn't vote For the proposal and they would have a much easier time countering the other anticipated For votes. The other thing I will note here, briefly, is that if I had wanted the outcome to be for Abstain, it would have been almost trivially to make that happen. The fix was pretty much always in when a proposal hit the floor during my terms as WA Minister and I have not yet forgotten how to whip a vote. Just as in real life, it's not "I command you to vote [x] on [y]!" but "I would strongly appreciate an [x] on [y]".
The League returned several days later and said "we look forward to TNP's abstention" after making another case for an Against vote and we made a more forceful statement affirming that we would agree to Abstain. And so we thought that was the end of all that...until it wasn't.
To begin this section, I want to note the general roadmap: a general first section deals with Stargate, the second with Condemn Dream Killers, and the third with the events of March 25-April 6.
No major discussion of the topic of me being at others' mercy is complete without a discussion of the strategic position of Stargate. Something that later became a more minor bone of contention between certain members of my inner circle and defender leadership.
Stargate is an ancient region, dating back to 2003. I'm not sure when they were founded in that year, but it doesn't really matter. They were one of the small handful of founderless regions that still existed on NS, alongside luminaries like St Abbaddon. They also had long been an ally of the North Pacific--and had been for nearly a decade. To be completely honest, I don't exactly what know what started that, but I do know that a treaty was signed in the spring of 2012 and it endures to this day.
It's been a periodic raid target for most of that decade though, as unfortunately it fell into disrepair and, not having a founder, its Delegacy was a juicy target. The Democratic Republic, a region I was formerly associated with, actually raided it back in late 2019. Predictably, they got crushed at the first opportunity and I applaud the NPA for acting so quickly to crush some of the most incompetent people I know on this game. However, a more concerted targeting effort of the region began to take place in late 2021. Whether it was an honest error, an intentional effort to stir up trouble, I don't know, but I do know that Stargate began to be a lot more relevant to the North Pacific's foreign affairs in the late winter of 2021.
Then Monday Night Raiding started. Every Monday (or other Monday) for several months, like clockwork, Stargate would get raided by the Brotherhood of Malice. If I were to guess why, it's because Stargate was, at the time, TNP's one real vulnerability, and it made sense to raid the region for that reason alone. However, when I became Minister of Foreign Affairs we set about trying to find a solution to the thorny issue of Stargate.
We knew the F/S update was coming, and startlingly, even as a feeder, TNP's Government at the time was at least considering the option of running our own frontier. Certain people will feel that this is unfair, but our justification was that if anyone could get in on the Frontiers game, then why shouldn't a feeder unless it were expressly prohibited? Stargate, a pretty dead region with next-to-no natives, was an attractive option. While it would mean the region would need to put in significant energy into region building, it would also mean potentially eliminating the problem entirely.
And so we began to explore it tentatively with Casl. We'd bring up the idea, talk about it and what else we could do, and inevitably we'd get no where. Then Stargate would get raided, we'd think about it some more, and move on. Relations with the Brotherhood were like that as well--at least when I was Minister of Foreign Affairs, a considered up and down bobbing in a wave, the troughs resulting in Stargate raids and the troughs being more when we had the time to think about then far away (to our eyes) items like Frontiers and Strongholds. It's an idea I'm still of the belief should never have been implemented to this day, even if there were some good points like Governors and the growth of Carcasonne, the Wellspring, Community, and Valley of Peace.
The question of what to do with Stargate was still not settled as we came into my own term as Delegate. I was our "Casl whisperer" as I termed it in that I was the one official from TNP who could seemingly get a hold of him if needed. When my term came in, we drafted the Frontier Act in a matter of a week and were now ready to really more formally discuss things. Yet still Casl was non-committal. He indicated later, though, that becoming a part of TNP was never something he wanted and that, while he appreciated our assistance, that he wanted Stargate to still be independent. Contrary to what certain individuals have said in the past, Casl was never actually instructed to do anything on our behalf. We asked him to do things, but no attempt was made to have him do anything against his, and by proxy Stargate's, will.
Yet somehow no one had the brilliant idea that "hey, maybe Stargate should be passworded!" until Varanius did in late February. I asked Casl to password the region then and so he did. From then on, it was sort of understood that Casl could do what he wanted with the region as soon as he had purged it of any remaining known raider sleepers. I can't actually speak to the transition to a stronghold that Stargate has since done, but I feel confident in my guess that it was done at the impetus of the North's Government.
Other members of my inner circle also advanced the narrative, one whose veracity feels to me in doubt, that defenderdom never once defended Stargate and never did. I have no doubt that defenders lost Stargate a lot. However, the region was part of a long series of gripes that would boil over during later events.
Moving on from Stargate, which I only use to explain that my feeling of being kind of locked into a direction I thought about every time with resignation (pun absolutely intended), there was Condemn Cain. I don't believe that proposal, now immortalized as SC#456, was the reason my Delegacy ended the way it did--but it was ultimately the final nail in a an already pretty shut coffin.
I was first approached about Condemn Cain literally almost a month prior to the events of April 7 and 8. I was asked to read it over, give comment, and offer suggestions on the draft. I rarely, if ever, refuse such requests--especially when they come from people who are (a) confident and/or (b) my friend. I consider it common courtesy, and as an institutionalist who believes in the primacy of the Security Council as an institution rather than as simply a vehicle through which to achieve my ideological goals, I rarely object to helping good proposals. Condemn Dream Killers was no exception to this rule.
At first, my intention was actually not to co-author it. In fact, that was never really the plan until later. When the draft was shared with me, I made a few comments. I offered advice on a few transitions and language issues that really drew the teeth of Cain's "evil deeds" and made it clearer just what kind of a character the Security Council was dealing with. It wasn't major assistance at all. After reviewing them though, Jo and Tom (the other co-authors) asked if I wanted to be credited as a co-author.
Initially, I was reticent to take up the task. I knew what my defender allies might think if I decided to co-author a condemn of a raider, any raider, and after all, I personally wasn't entirely sure, beyond that, if my contributions to the draft were such that they had earned that credit. I demurred for a bit while I talked it over with Wym. His advice was to absolutely do it. I don't recall there being much more conversation between us on that, but I did take a day or two to think about it before agreeing to do it.
Surprising a certain person who claimed that co-authoring the proposal was being "taken advantage of", I don't necessarily think that was the case. As the final margin made clear, Condemn Dream Killers could have passed without me being attached to it. Of course I might have been likelier to support it had I been in the seat, but I had not given thought to whether I would let the reins sit loose on that one or crack my whip to ensure our support. On my own proposals, while I was Minister of World Assembly Affairs, I let a free vote take place--even if we never went against them then.
Now that the previous two issues have been addressed, I can discuss the issues of March 25 to April 6 from my perspective.
On March 25, Wym and I talked that afternoon about his impending reorganization of the Foreign Affairs Ministry to eliminate Ambassadors. He mentioned in passing that HumanSanity had done the same and given that this was something I had wanted to do, and that Wym also wanted to do, I DMed him congratulating him on the move. While I am a consummate bureaucrat, I can appreciate someone who wants to cut down on administrative bloat.
Several hours passed between our brief chat on that issue and the one that changed TSP-TNP relations forever--or at least for the next little bit. At approximately 8:30 that evening, HS again DMed me to broach the issue of the Chef Big Dog Condemn. I informed him of the deal that the League and us had made. I also informed him that, in my opinion, that us abstaining would likely be enough to kill it, just given the general numbers in the Security Council at the time. We went back and forth on that issue for several minutes before, noting that HS was insistent on the point, I made a counter-offer.
I would agree to come into the vote late if it were close. While not perhaps ideal if the vote were leading substantially (though I doubt it would have been--something I forgot about then and somehow neither of us thought of was that neither Osiris nor TLA would be likely to vote For it, Osiris because of their auld animosity with LWU, TLA because of their continued discontent over the defeat of Commend Llorens but they could be induced to Abstain), I thought it was a fair offer to make. In this case, I could avoid openly antagonizing Lone Wolves United at first while also respecting that it very well would have been possible (and dare I say likely) that we could have stayed out altogther--thus honoring our original deal.
After a minute or two's discussion on that proposal, it was then that HumanSanity made the now infamous threat on behalf of their government and those of the League, the Order of the Grey Wardens, and 10000 Islands.18 The North Pacific would need to vote against Condemn Chef Big Dog or the respective regions would vote against all condemns or commends of TNPers going forward. Now I, of course, knew about the already public proposal to Commend MadJack and I also knew of the, I believe at the time it was still private, effort to Commend Former English Colony. We went back and forth on this in a measured way for a bit before I agreed to the terms while registering "my strong protest at this given our consistent support of more positive...defender-led and promoted SC efforts". Which is true. Notwithstanding those proposals in which we were specifically asked by the defender author to flip to defeat it because the proposal was no longer necessary, the only defender-promoted and led effort TNP had opposed that all of defenderdom had promoted in the prior 18 months that I recalled was Commend Shizensky Prime. And that effort, as was Commend JoeBobs prior to it, was entirely due to the antics of the author.
In any event, I made the deal and then thought little of it but informed Wym. Wym was immediately upset with me, understandably, and told me that I should never have made it--strongly encouraging me to renege. And so I did. As the 26th wore on, my upset at both TSP and the other governments for getting us here grew really quite strong. If you've ever interacted with me when I'm truly angry, you'll know that there comes a moment when it snaps from a real rage to an almost preternatural calm,19 when I hit that point, I knew I needed a break. Washing my hands of the situation, I resolved to take a few days away. Partly to see if Wym could handle it, mostly because between all of this and my RL, I was increasingly irritable and I knew I needed to take a breather.
It was a breather I never got. I informed my Cabinet on the 26th that I'd be gone for probably the next 48-ish hours to be back some time on Wednesday. I told them that it would be best just to carry on as normal and that I didn't feel the need to invoke a formal absence because of the shortness of the period. I was also a bit worried about what might happen to my Cabinet if Gorundu had the opportunity then to act with the legal authority of the office.
I walked away from it for about 12 hours before I immediately had to attend to an issue raised by Wym. I had shared with Jo what HS had said. This was not because I wanted to start an argument but rather because, as it was his proposal, I felt he needed to know exactly what he was dealing with and why I had chosen to do what I had chosen to do--for then at least.
My break didn't last more than 45 minutes from that email. A break that probably could've, and should've, been a week long turned into maybe 18 hours. I launched back into the work still angry and frustrated and worn out and I genuinely could not make up my mind.
To assist in this, certain of my allies worked to create a coalition of regions who would be willing to back Commend MadJack. While this did not obviously include raider diehards, it included them (their region), of course, and the bulk of their allies who were solely their allies. The math with that, sadly, did not work in my head at the time. I thought the proposal would be lost if we insisted on moving forward with that coalition because I had very serious doubts about whether Europeia and Balder would stick by the North Pacific in the eventuality the defenders decided to vote against the proposal en masse.
As it turned out though, I definitely had the votes to pass MadJack in the end if I'd wanted to--Condemn Dream Killers passed overwhelmingly and with basically the same coalition that my allies had assembled minus Europeia and Balder. While they obviously voted against Condemn Cain, they likely would have voted for Condemn Dream Killers in the end. This was something I was assured of, well after the fact, by North East Somerset.
However, I'm reminded of a specific quote that frightened me at the time and made me think Balder's support wavered. It was made by the current Crown Prince to my Minister of Foreign Affairs--"Balder is unlikely to stick its neck out in a fight between feeders." A cowardly answer. But it made me believe that given the choice between the two that Balder was not likely to stand by its ally. While we were still vacillating, plans were drawn up to retaliate if necessary, though privately I knew that suck an eventuality wouldn't matter anyways because we could not possibly guarantee Europeian or Balderian support to retaliate on future proposals.
Eventually though, I reached my breaking point in trying to stop it. The League broke off formal negotiations with the North Pacific on the 31st. While no reason was cited in the post Quebec made, I can only assume it was due to the North Pacific (me) not being willing to play ball over Condemn Tom. In any case, during that same week, Ghost and I ended up in a call with Quebecshire wherein Ghost, and somewhat myself, read him the riot act over the whole ordeal. Far from being cowed, he was pretty defiant.
It was then that I knew that fighting this fight was not something I could do and the decision, gritting my teeth all the way, would need to be made. And so I pulled Quebec and HS into a group chat with myself and stated the following:
Quebecshire and HumanSanity,
To begin, an apology. I do apologize for flip-flopping on this decision. While I won’t delve into the calculus facing me and my region, it is indeed more complex than the notion of supporting defenders. It does indeed involve honoring long-standing relationships, it involves not angering current allies, and it involves preserving some modicum of independent (note the little i) thought and decision making.
That being said, I have decided that insofar as my Government is concerned, we would vote Against Condemn Chef Big Dog (Tom). It is not a decision I make lightly, and certainly not a decision I expect that many in my region would approve of. I expect that many of them, when they know the whole story, will reject the bargain entirely and be mad I even considered it. However, fundamentally, as I reiterated to Wym several times on Saturday night the 25th: losing the opportunity for MadJack and Eras to be commended would hurt more than giving in. It does not matter that it might happen in the future. I strongly believe in both current attempts doing the job and doing the job, crucially, extremely well. Continuing forward, this is an agreement that the next Delegate will be made aware of. It is up to them, whoever they are, to choose whether to honor it. I hope for all of our sakes that they do.
I can appreciate your position, there was no need to make such a threat, as it was not required. I know I’ve asked in the past for verification of Tom’s role in Lazarus and unfortunately did not receive it—however, [redacted] confirming that Jo blew up Tom’s role to fit his agenda was a final nail in the coffin so far as I was concerned. You all will, I hope, be aware of merits over morals policy. In this case, as in most, the merits of the case outweigh general poor feelings on the nominee among my populace—I need only point you to Commend Tim for evidence of that. That being said, there are however places where we would draw the line morally, I’m sure they’re almost the same lines that you have.
As for why we chose to vacillate, it is very simple: I felt threatened by your statement of the 25th. It very strongly upset me that a group of people who I had purposely cultivated good relationships with would participate in this behavior. I am still greatly aggrieved by the threat, and going forward, I, and certainly other TNP policymakers made aware of this, will feel differently. Given the historic relationship between the North and South Pacifics, regardless of past or present cold shoulders, there should not be a presumption of hostile intent. In choosing to Abstain previously, there was no hostile intent—nor in my compromise offer to come in later in the vote for the Againsts. What there was was a cognizant recognition of where TNP’s interests, as I saw them then, lay. Of course, given your stated intent to follow through with the goals of said statement of March 25 beginning immediately, the calculus changed. Perhaps clarification on that matter, that commitment must be made regardless of whether said vote would occur prior to nominees from the North Pacific hitting the floor, from the start would have made it very clear.
Now, perhaps against my better judgment and after further reflection, I do not intend to bring forward the statement of the 25th if none of the South Pacific, The League, 10000 Islands, or the Order of the Grey Wardens does not. Crucially, I will invalidate this agreement if it is referenced in much more than a vague public-facing way. I had earlier requested an apology, something I communicated through Quebec, for what I perceived as a threat. I would still like to receive one. Whether each region wishes to do this or you do this collectively, I do not mind.
I would also like to tell you all that I will be crafting a statement on the future of TNP FA that will be made privately to my Regional Assembly at the end of my term. As the chief officer involved in it for the last 12 months or so, I believe I have the crucial perspective necessary. Believe it or not, even given all of this, I will still be advocating for closer ties to defenderdom in said private address—not because I am dogmatically a moralist or even ignited by a visceral hatred of Koth and company, but because I believe it is the best forward-thinking move for the North Pacific. As an institutionalist, I am chiefly concerned with the ability to preserve the institutions of independent policymaking, not necessarily it dogmatically. However, I am also a realist who knows precisely what hurdles such a move would face. It would not be as simple as stating it. We could indeed follow “On Alignment,” but Regional Assembly members have more than a heckler’s veto.
Regarding certain concerns brought to me by Ghost from conversations with him and certain discussions I’ve had with other key allies, I want to re-iterate something that I’ve made clear on occasion to Jo, but was perhaps not apparent to you all given our friendship: the relationship that The North Pacific has with Lone Wolves United is the farthest this Government is willing to go. We are not interested in a treaty, we are not interested in real formalization of the relationship with metaphorical pen on paper. We recognize that time is, as always, a fickle bastard. While we firmly believe that some small semblance of a relationship with raiders is in our interests for leverage purposes, we also recognize that times and prevailing winds change, and what may be agreeable today may not be tomorrow. I have also spoken with Jo on occasion about his continued work with the Brotherhood of Malice and the Communist Bloc, both regions Quebec at least can attest to my very strongly-held opinions on. Jo is well aware of my opinion on those regions, as am I on his. We agree to disagree not because those opinions are necessarily conformable but because, as I said, leverage occasionally matters.
Lastly, regarding the England operation. I was finally able to hear [redacted]'s side of the story regarding Quebec’s communication on the England operation. It did not raise to the level of the reaction I had, but I, of course, recognize the right of [redacted] to take most any action it wishes to. I do apologize for pulling TNP out of officially sanctioned work in that operation. It was a rash decision. However, I am only as good as the information that is given to me. Occasionally we all make rash decisions, that was one of them. And I hope we all realize this. We are only as good as what we know. And more information is better.
As a note here, the statement I was to give to the Regional Assembly ended up in my resignation address--albeit quite truncated, and with more than quite a bit of egg on my face, some might say.
And so it stood. As Commend MJ went to the floor, I knew I had to contend with an angry ally and their allies, who flipped to vote Against, and I also had to deal with the situation with Tom. I never knew when he planned to submit it, but it felt like more than a metaphorical sword of Damocles to have that hanging over my head.
I spent the 5th of April largely quite excited. A game I had pre-ordered had finally come out and so I downloaded it. My Windows laptop started it up...and I couldn't get past like the first big screen. I tried several more times, to no avail. Par 3 Contest Wednesday was an absolute bust, and perhaps that was glorious foreshadowing for the rest of the week.
The 6th was an alright day as these things go. Scoring at the Masters was wonderful, the course was pristine and I was exceptionally excited to be able to watch my favorite tournament of the year. Storm clouds continued to brew just beyond my horizon. But I also felt very strong relief that, at the very least, I had secured the commendations of two people who I very strongly admired and felt were more than deserving candidates for the honor. I also felt relief that soon enough it would all be over. Yet the dread I began to feel that evening because of an RL circumstance not dissipating should have been a sign for me that worse things were still to come.
12 Ever the glorified policemen of NationStates in that regard. I think it passing odd that ~200 tags has been the remarkable low for detagging operations. I have no doubt that this is at least in part due to the resurgence of certain tagging orgs after periods of inactivity and is perhaps in other part due to existing orgs taking the time to do "glorified graffiti" just to keep everyone busy. But I still am surprised that number has never been lower. My challenge is to avoid rationing them, eliminate them entirely the next time they get that low.
13 Fun fact about me: I refuse to do school work at my apartment if I can avoid it. This is really for one reason and one reason only: I need a clear delineation between my personal space and my workspace. Anecdotal evidence of this can be found in my actual physical desk. Beyond a couple water bottles, the only things ever on it are academic texts, my phone, my computer, and a small brass cannon that I keep as the one tchotchke from home.
14 This will explain my poor record of stacking and stomping on things right on update if they weren't on the weekends. It was not that I wasn't interested in doing so, I was simply literally incapable of doing so. I'm not an insomniac, far from it, but I sleep relatively lightly, which in my experience has just meant I need more sleep than what's considered normal. Therefore, in order to meet all my obligations, which meant needing to be up in the morning half the week, I needed to be in bed by about 11. Let this be a reminder that Delegates have lives too!
15 Some will read this and perhaps question why more of my close friends aren't defenders. For one, fewer have made a concerted effort to reach out beyond what was strictly necessary. For two, even beyond that, the circles I've inhabited have tended to at best be lukewarm to them and there are less avenues for the kinds of social contact to facilitate that than might otherwise be possible if I'd been an FA official in, for instance, Europeia. That's not to say there aren't defenders whose company I enjoy--Westinor and Quebec, for instance. I would also note that, for the most part, since I've gotten badly burned in the NWE and Ascenthia, I've been reticent to invite people into my IRL confidence. There's approximately one NS player who knows me IRL and maybe one more who I would say is an NS friend, our interactions do not extend much beyond the perimeters of NS, on a primarily OOC basis, but that's about it.
16 I know at least one reader has commented that they dislike my use of this term, but in this case, it's what I have considering I do not recall which organizations were on the operation. Where possible I have tried to note which regions/people were responsible for a particular event.
17 No one will be surprised by this. While I am geopolitically Independent and wouldn't really do any different, I wouldn't personally engage in raids. I believe it is important regions have the opportunity to do more or less what they want, but what I personally would do may be different than my politics. I'd give an example there, but all the options I can think of are trite. I consider my defender leanings to even be a bit "moralist" in a way. Not in the way individuals like W&S might consider their defender leanings "moralist"--I tend not to think raiders are awful people for raiding--but rather I consider it simply a duty and right to defend native communities when possible. I don't object to the existence of raiders, no more than most of them would object to the existence of defenders.
18 Of course, as we later found out, the government of 10000 Islands, or at least their person most responsible for foreign affairs, never read the doubling down I refer to later (see the part 3 dispatch). I wonder if they had known precisely what was said in their name to begin with. Given the later contrition I experienced, I somehow doubt it.
19 Something Quebecshire amusingly called a "heated gamer moment" after I had one while Vice Delegate. In this event, a GA foe had argued that he could get the lemmings (the term most of us use to refer to non-Delegate, Uber-persuadable small Delegates and small region voters) to down a proposal backed by the feeders. I told him he couldn't and he also argued that he could coup TNP if he wanted. That was what set me over the edge. Let it never be said I don't have some loyalty in my body somewhere.
