1. My intention as Citizen-Delegate would be to carry out the ideas of Sovereigntism. This includes forging alliances with regions that feel similarly about the sovereignty of others as we do, and creating embassies with regions that are similar to us, though maybe not close enough to pursue treaties with.
As the Citizen-Sergeant is, ultimately, the commander-in-chief of the Taijitu Militia - not the delegate - I would work closely with Funkadelia to encourage a Sovereigntist outlook militarily as well though the final say on all that is up to him.
2. When I began working on this treaty in December, I was excited to get to work on it. As I got more involved in North Pacifican politics, and eventually became Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Communications, I began to become frustrated with the way the system works over there. There are a lot of things that I think could be improved - in many ways it reminds me of the old Taijituan Republics.
Currently Funkadelia, an upstanding Taijituan as well as an old and dear friend, is facing extremely vitriolic rhetoric over his role as a Court Justice over there. The words that some North Pacificans have been speaking about another person would make the worst argument in the Citizens' Democracy look like a friendly debate. Part of me seriously doubts that Taijitu and the North Pacific will ever be so alike as to make me love this treaty, or that region.
Part of me also sees the use in the treaty, politically. The NPA helped Taijitu on many occasions, especially when the founder nation died several times during our long periods of inactivity. The support of the treaty is nearly unanimous in the North Pacific - they clearly think highly of us. And the region does have its redeeming qualities. It is stable and a real, though flawed, democracy - despite my occasional words to the contrary. The proposed treaty isn't drastically different than the one we have now, either. Aside from a few espionage clauses, we are not committing ourselves to this alliance any more than we were before.
When the treaty goes to a vote, I will likely vote for. But that does not mean I am enamored with TNP by any means.
3. In my campaign thread, I talk somewhat extensively of this. I would like to reorganize the Liaison office into something like the Foreign Service - tasking the Liaison with helping me come up with programs to direct people to the forums while leaving the everyday tasks - guiding new people, etc., to the Liaison's subordinates. As silly as it is, I admire the simplicity and ease of "theme weeks", which other regions have tried. Essentially, the region's WFE and visible members of the government would change to fit the assigned theme of the week - whether it be a movie, event, or other piece of popular culture.
I would also like to start a program to encourage WA membership and the endorsement of the delegate. A side effect of this would be getting people involved in the in-game World Assembly, and would hopefully both increase the region's WA influence as a whole as well as spread influence more equally between nations. I am indeed a dirty, dirty, WA socialist.
Finally, I'd like to discuss an overhaul of the worldbuilding section. New subforums, comprehensive guides, and maybe even occasional seminars from experienced worldbuilders on how to be a better writer. I'd like to either leave this in the hands of the Liaison, appoint a second Liaison especially for this, or pass a law to allow the Liaison to nominate someone for this task.
4. I think the Citizen-Delegate has a role in promoting discussion in the Ecclesia; however, I think this role comes from their duties as a citizen, first and foremost. I'd rather encourage all citizens to become more active in the Ecclesia - though we are by no means lacking in activity there - than put that in the hands of the Delegate alone. It feels rather autocratic.
5. I have mixed feelings on this operation. I think, as a philosophy, Sovereigntism survived its greatest test yet - but not without being bruised in the process. We alienated ourselves from the Unibot-sect of defenderism, though our manifesto did a long way towards accomplishing that months ago. I think we all knew from the start we couldn't count on the defender community at large to support our actions there - defenders raiding raiders, after all, is what the term "fenda" was invented for.
The first few days of the op went well. I think the one thing no one was expecting was the sheer ugliness that is the NS gameplay community. Generally defenders can count on each other for backup, not only in the actual update, but in the inevitable posturing that follows. In this case we were completely unshielded from the rhetoric that some people were spewing, and it wore on all of us. I like to think I'm a pretty good trash talker, but even I was feeling kind of tired of it all. Cormac and BT, who were really at the center of the operation, recieved unreal amounts of painful attacks against their character.
Yesterday evening we were all tired, sick of the lack of support we were getting from NationStates at large, and wanting to just give up. When we heard that Unibot was organizing a liberation against us - against defenders - TaiMil quickly became split between people - including myself - wanting to troll the operation channel a bit and people wanting to let things be. In retrospect, we probably should have not started playing around with our opponents, if only so that TaiMil could present a unified force. We showed our weakness - our factionalism - and we paid for it. We lost the op and the Militia itself was nearly fractured. Looking back, though I always encourage some good old Taijituan trolling, I regret my actions last night.
Given another chance at raiding a raider region, I would probably do it. But I would rather we go into it knowing what to expect and knowing how outnumbered we are. Keeping a thick skin in this game is important, and if anyone in the gameplay community finds a hole in your armor they'll stab you through it.
