Spiritus Foreign Update: The Rise of the Potatoes[/size]
Hello, friends of Spiritus! Over the last two months, Spiritus has seen some dramatic changes. These changes can all be found in this issue of the Foreign Update! And don't worry about the potatoes, they don't bite.
Spiritus Government Listing
Jedi Order (Executive Branch)
Grand Master of the Spiritan Order (President): Blitze
Eminent Master of the Spiritan Order (Vice President): Wuufu
Jedi Master (Minister) of Holocrons (Culture): Wuufu
Jedi Knight (Deputy Minister) of Holocrons (Culture): Blitze
Jedi Master (Minister) of Aggressive Negotiations (Defense): Sovreignry
Jedi Knight (Deputy Minister) of Aggressive Negotiations (Defense): Tangaroa
Jedi Master (Minister) of Peacekeeping (Foreign Affairs and Information): Blitze
Jedi Knight (Deputy Minister) of Peacekeeping (Foreign Affairs and Information): Dawsinian
Jedi Master (Minister) of Initiation (Integration): Blitze
Jedi Knight (Deputy Minister) of Initiation (Integration): Phonexia
Jedi Knight (Deputy Minister) of Initiation (Integration): vacant
Jedi Master (Minister) of Galactic Republic Affairs (World Assembly Affairs): The Salaxalans
Jedi Knight (Deputy Minister) of Galactic Republic Affairs (World Assembly Affairs): vacant
Jedi Shadow (Executive Advisor on Regional Security): Rogamark
Galactic Senate (Regional Assembly)
Supreme Chancellor (Speaker): Toms
Senator (Representative): Tangaroa
Senator: Phonexia
Senator: Tim
Senator: Floompland
Jedi Investigations (Supreme Court)
Chief Jedi Investigator (Chief Justice): Rogamark
Jedi Investigator (Justice): Sovreignry
Jedi Investigator (Justice): Guy
Election update 
A fight to the death between the two Presidential candidates for the Presidency In their last elections, Spiritus bestowed upon the region elections for all positions, as occurs every four months. President Rogamark had been lodged in the Presidency for long enough that his term limit came into effect. Two tickets emerged from the dust to challenge for the right to hold the Executive office: one was the ticket of former Speaker Blitze and former President Wuufu, running for President and Vice President respectively, while the other ticket was former Speaker RedDusk running for President, accompanied by Tangaroa for Vice President.
The two tickets promised various things. RedDusk/Tangaroa promised to breathe back life into the region by getting more people involved, while Blitzfu promised to help get new people into the region, while providing some ideas on how to increase numbers within the SDF. In the end, Blitzfu pulled out the victory.
In the Regional Assembly elections, seven people competed for office. Four of the five previous members of the Regional Assembly seeked re-election. The members seeking re-election were Speaker Toms, Tangaroa, Phonexia, and finally at the time, Vice President Legonimis. Three other faces appeared from the woodwork to challenge for a spot in the five open seats for re-election. The founder Tim, Minister of Foreign Affairs Blitze, and a newcomer Floompland all ran for election. At the end of the tallying, the Regional Assembly saw all members seeking re-election, except Legonimis, be re-elected. Tim and Floompland, who had not served in the Regional Assembly in the last term, were also elected to serve in office.
In the final job up for election, it saw a battle of Legonimis running for re-election for the Warlord of Hobo Squids. Guy challenged Legonimis, however, in the end, Legonimis prevailed in his bid for re-election, as squids turned out in massive numbers for a final push to give Legonimis the victory.
Regional Assembly Update 
Regional Assembly members discussing topics diplomatically Unfortunately, the Regional Assembly had to bear witness to a resignation during the last term. With a little more than 3 weeks left in the term, Vice-President Legonimis resigned. In his stead, Tangaroa was elected to the Regional Assembly, as he was the only person to run in the special election.
To begin last term, the Regional Assembly elected Toms as Speaker. The Regional Assembly also had the honor of electing a Deputy Speaker for the first time ever. This Deputy Speaker would take over for the Speaker if the Speaker were to go missing. To this position, the Regional Assembly elected RedDusk.
In the last term of the Regional Assembly, the legislature passed a fair number of pieces of legislation. It began with a proposal to give a Commendation Award to Speaker Toms for his outstanding contributions to Culture. The Commendation Award is awarded to any recipient that the Regional Assembly of Spiritus feels is deserving of the award for specific reasons. The only Spiritan, up to that point, who had been awarded the Commendation, was Wuufu. After a short discussion, the Regional Assembly voted to give Speaker Toms the commendation award.
Another smaller Constitutional Act that was passed during the term was to make it so that a Guardian of Spiritus could legally become Election Commissioner when the Spirit was not around, so that they could administer the election without having the Spirit appoint them beforehand. Furthermore, there was an attempt, led by Speaker Toms, to abolish the Presidential term limit, which prohibits a President from being President for more than 3 consecutive terms. Each term was four months long. This attempt, however, failed, and the term limit remained in place.
There were two final votes that passed during the term. The first was to confirm Guy as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, as Libertarian Librarians had resigned earlier on. The other legislation provided for five members of the Regional Assembly to be in this next term for the Regional Assembly.
Executive Update 
President Rogamark leaving the Presidential office Before leaving office, President Rogamark decided to do a final few acts before leaving office. First, outside of Minister of Integration Tim and WA Delegate Salaxalans, Rogamark dismissed the entire cabinet.
Furthermore, one of the citizens of Spiritus, who was amazingly active in the SDF and a great person in the region, Storm, had been missing for quite some time. Informed by another member of the Spiritus community, President Rogamark informed the entire region that it was possible that she may never be able to return to Nationstates due to real life circumstances. Considering all she had done for the region, President Rogamark granted her honorary citizenship.
After Blitze was elected, new cabinet members were appointed. Sovreignry and Blitze were both given back their old spots, which had been given to them by the Roganimis Presidency. Culture saw Vice-President Wuufu take over as Minister, with President Blitze being his Deputy. Tangaroa was appointed to serve as Deputy Minister of Defense. Meanwhile, the Executive saw a new face appear into the cabinet, as Phonexia took the position of Deputy Minister of Integration. And finally, Dawsinian began serving as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.
New Award and Recipients 
The recipients receiving their awards at the ceremony A little over a month ago, RedDusk kindly created an award for the Executive. It was called Spiritan Award for Outstanding Achievement, which would be given out for excellence in gameplay. The outstanding contributions could mean a multitude of things, and would be left up to the person awarding the medal to interpret this meaning. This award could be handed out not only by the President, but by a Field Marshal, or the Minister of Defense. Here is the graphic for the award.
Before leaving office, President Rogamark gave out one final award to his Vice President Legonimis. This award was given out to Legonimis for a multitude of reasons. Legonimis helped throughout a full year as a trusted advisor to Rogamark, while also helping with the cultural aspects of Spiritus, and the community as a whole. Also, he was quick to remind people that Spiritus was much more than a gameplay region, and also served on the Supreme Court and as a Regional Assembly Representative. For this, Rogamark awarded him the Exaltation of Spiritus.
When President Blitze assumed office, he had quite a few awards to hand out. First, he awarded former President Rogamark with an Exaltation of Spiritus for his fantastic work as President over a full year, and his contributions to the region during his Presidency and before it. From being a Regional Assembly Representative, to Speaker, to helping out the SDF whenever asked.
The second award went to former President the Salaxalans, aka Mr. Potato (head). This award that the Salaxalans garnered was The Service to Spiritus Medal, for the second time. His earning of this award came because of his run for WA General Secretary. This election saw the Salaxalans bring home the title of second place overall, which greatly improved the name recognition of Spiritus around Nationstates. It also brought upon a slew of diplomatic applications to the doorstep of Spiritus, and provided a great cultural activity for all Spiritans to take part in.
The final two awards that President Blitze decided to present to members of Spiritus, were both the Green Heart Award. He awarded Tim this medal for all his work supporting the run of Salaxalans for Secretary General. He sent out countless telegrams to people to promote the culture of Spiritus and the delegate, while hoping they might vote for the Salaxalans. Tim put in countless hours to this cause to help it forward. The other Green Heart awardee was Phonexia. He also was awarded the Green Heart for contributions relating to the General Secretary campaign of the Salaxalans. He provided the Salaxalans with the SalaxPAC, while also creating numerous campaign ads. Phonexia did everything he could to help promote Salaxalans in the campaign for Secretary General.
Blitze’s Tea and Cake
Blitze's Tea and Cake are my personal remarks. These remarks are not necessarily the opinion of the Spiritan government or the cabinet. They are also not my official Presidential or Ministerial opinions.
Blitze's Tea and Cake is replacing Rogamark's Remarks now that Blitze writes the updates fully Friends of Spiritus, when I took a look at the past Foreign Updates, I noticed that Rogamark almost always had a spot for his comments. He first mentioned when he started it, that he would post about something NS-related, or not, depending on what crossed his mind. I took a careful look over the updates and noticed a trend: Not a single one of them was not NS related. I took some time and thought about things that I could talk about that were Nationstates related and came up with Zilch.
I then decided to look back a bit further, and noticed that Horse had always put his stamp on the Foreign Affairs updates in his way, and Tim did once too. I then realized that I didn’t have to make it about something Nationstates related, and I didn’t have to make it the way Rogamark had always done. I carefully thought of something that I had found out about or something I could talk about that would interest Spiritan friends. Again, I came up with Zilch.
Then, I finally decided that there might be something worth talking about. That subject was the Presidency.
When I assumed the office, I figured that it would be like the Speakership in a way. Time consuming during certain periods, but if I put my mind to it, I would be able to get everything done and it would be not too hard. All I had seen during my time in Spiritus was Rogamark as President. And he made it look quite easy. So, when I finally was elected, I got quite the shock. I finally understood a lot more of what Rogamark had to do on an everyday basis, which was a lot.
At first, I felt a little bit overwhelmed and didn’t know what to start on first. So I decided to slowly take it one thing at a time, and realized that it takes time and effort, and it ain’t exactly easy, but things would get done, and I would learn and grow once again. As I had, with ever newer and higher office I took. Not all Spiritans may have seen some of my growing pains in the Presidency so far, but they have been there at times.
One of the things that I fully now understand is how much Rogamark must have appreciated me doing the last Foreign Update. They are time consuming and it is not easy to craft a good one.
I came into this game as a young and ignorant brat really, but with all of the help that I gotten from people Spiritus, not only have I grown as an NS’er, but I have grown as a person. For all that they have given to me, now it is time for me to give back to them.
Thanks for reading the Spiritus Foreign Update!Authored by President Blitze
Edited by Vice-President Wuufu, Chief Justice Rogamark, and WA Delegate The Salaxalans
