[CAMPAIGN] American-Cascadia for Archon - An Old Face for a New East

[American-Cascadia]

Hello everyone. A lot of you know me as Dead, but on NationStates I go by American-Cascadia. For this campaign, I am going to go by American-Cascadia, as I would like to distance myself from my previous Delegate campaigns. You may ask why I am doing this, and that’s frankly because I am embarrassed by my past performance. I promised so much in my campaigns, but I did not deliver. I was too scared to be hated by the citizens of The East Pacific, so I just kept things the same. Yes, I did do some things, but nothing I am very proud of. I know this was only a year ago, but I feel like I have changed a lot and there’s a lot I would have done differently with my Delegacy.

In this campaign, I am going to detail promises that I will deliver on. I no longer fear what other people think of me, because I know what I’m doing is for the good of the region. Some people may not be able to see it, but I hope that I can get through to some of you.

I will be detailing my plans ministry by ministry, and then going into the overall identity of TEP.

Culture has been faltering for a while now. Many people have promised to revive it, and many plans have fallen through the cracks. The only consistent thing has been the Hunger Games, and even then it’s hard to find a host most of the time. Culture not only needs more staffers, but they also need someone who is dedicated to the role and dedicated to making Culture and TEP a better place through the events they do.

I plan on trying to scout out someone willing to put their whole heart into Culture. It’s going to take a while, so if elected, I plan on running Culture until I can find someone to take it off my hands.

Alongside this, I would like to start planning more inter-regional events. I personally believe that doing events/games with other regions helps deepen ties with our allies and regions we are growing relations with. Festivals are another idea that I love to throw around, and I want to help run more festivals in the future as well.

Foreign Affairs is a topic that I am not too familiar with, even with my time as Delegate. I have tried my hardest, but I am overwhelmed with everything that happens in the foreign sphere of NationStates. However, I do understand a lot more now than when I was Delegate. Because of this, I will use my FA Minister to help me understand everything FA-wise if I do not.

Personally, I think we need to focus more on keeping our old allies than gaining new ones at the moment. This comes with our new relations with TWP. I believe that we should do more events and army drills with our current allies to make sure that our alliances and friendships are solid, so that we may have people to help us in our times of need.

One thing that this brings to mind is LuckLife’s tour of all of our allies and embassies. This is something that I would like to keep up in my term as Archon. I would also include the Archon in this, connecting with other leaders to confirm our alliances and friendships.

Alongside this, I would like the Archon to be more involved in communication with other regions than the FA Minister. I believe that the Archon should be the face of TEP and should be the one contacting other regions whenever possible. I believe that this would increase TEP’s reputation and help in building up our relations with other regions.

I would like to discuss new alliances with old friends as well, but I would discuss this with my FA Minister. For my FA Minister, I would like someone with FA experience who knows everything, or almost everything, about NationStates politics and affairs. As well as the activity to keep up with the role.

The WA Commission has been doing great under Cretox. If elected as Archon, I would like to keep them in the role of WA Commissioner. As Archon, I would also support Cretox’s workshop to train and help new WA proposal writers and promote more TEP resident/citizen WA writers. I believe that this kind of workshop would be good for the region.

I would also like to keep up the voting on each WA proposal. It seems to have fallen off over the last two months, but I believe that this is a good way to promote involvement in the WA. If Aurora is not able to continue the position, I would like to find someone active enough to keep up with the WA.

Other than this, I would like to let Cretox take control of most things in the WA, as he knows more than I do. Of course, I will be keeping an eye on everything that is happening, but I trust Cretox enough to do most things on his own without supervision.

The University of TEP is a part of the region that is not really utilized as it is currently. I believe that if used correctly, UTEP could be a great asset to TEP.

I believe that UTEP should be somewhere where any TEPer could go to publish a work that they have written, which is what it is currently, but there is not a lot of visibility for UTEP. It’s there for people to use, but not a lot of people know that it’s there. I would like to increase the visibility of UTEP as a place where people can go to publish anything they write. I believe this can encourage writers within our community and make them more involved within TEP.

Sammy is still a great UTEP Chancellor, and I would love to keep them on as long as they are willing to help UTEP.

EPSA has been struggling, from what I have experienced, not because of a lack of leadership, but because of a lack of manpower from the citizens of TEP. Something that happened during my Delegacy that I would like to bring back if I am elected is the citizen militia. This would give people a chance to participate in the military even if they didn’t have the availability to be a soldier full-time.

I would like to advertise EPSA as much as possible. Maybe by including a little call to action at the end of each telegram or announcement on the Discord server. I would also like to send out an EPSA recruitment telegram once every week or two.

I would also like to play an active role in EPSA as Archon, as much as I can, as directed by the EPSA Admiral. For the EPSA Admiral, I would like someone who has been active in EPSA or another military for a long time, has proven their loyalty to TEP, and who has the activity and drive to run a whole military themselves.

MORR is a very useful ministry, and I plan on making more use of it if I am elected Archon. Their current work with the REWARD dispatches is amazing. I would like them to keep up their maintenance of all of the TEP dispatches as well as keeping them up to date with current TEP politics and policies.

The MORR Minister has to be someone who is active and knows their way around GitHub and NationStates dispatches. I would also like someone who is familiar with TEP’s dispatches and knows what they need to do for upkeep, or someone who is easily trained.

There is not much more I would like to say about MORR since they are mostly about upkeep, but it is still very important for the TEP government and should not be skipped.

News has been struggling for a while now. We keep losing Ministers, and then whoever comes in to replace them struggles to keep up, and they end up leaving. We need to find someone who has the drive and passion to compile the EPNS every month without delay. Right now our news, which was once award-winning, is nothing more than a shell of what it was.

I would like to step in as Archon to help revive EPNS. I would personally compile the edition at the end of each month until we find a good fit for the Minister role. I want to see EPNS reach what it once was. I want to have many different sections, from Worlds to Build to what’s happening in NationStates and TEP.

I want to advertise EPNS to TEP as a place where people can write articles about whatever they want, with limits, of course. I want people who love writing to pitch article ideas and have their work featured in the EPNS for all to see. I believe this would be good for TEP and the writers of our community.

One thing I would like to talk about here is the creation of an Oversight Council. The name is not final, but this council would be comprised of people in the government who are active in their roles and in the community itself.

The main focus of this council will be to oversee TEP’s activity and offer insight into how the Ministries and government can improve. They would create a report for me, the Archon, on what is struggling and the improvements they suggest. I would then take this report and go to my cabinet to discuss how we can fix these issues.

I feel like this could really help improve the efficiency of the government and the activity within TEP itself.

The TEP identity is very fractured as of late. Right now we have TEP Mainers, Urthers, and Valsorans. All feel like very separate identities only unified under the name “TEP”. It feels like these three communities are all disconnected. Some people even hold grudges towards people of other communities, which is embarrassing for a region that is supposed to be whole and united.

TEP should be united as one, where everyone can be proud to call themselves a member of the community. You should not be able to be involved in one part of the community without being involved in the whole. This especially goes for Urth, and this comes from a place of love; they feel the most disconnected from the community.

I believe that Urth should have its autonomy, alongside Valsora, but should be more connected to the community. They would keep their own moderation teams and cartographers; there would be no oversight from the government, but I would like them to be more integrated in the TEP community as a whole.

I believe this would not only help TEP become more active in general, but also increase awareness of these two RP worlds and help them gain some much-needed activity. I would also like to do weekly/monthly RP spotlights and/or RPer spotlights on the best of the best from both Valsora and Urth as voted on by people from the respective communities

I believe that having Urthers and Valsorans involved in TEP Main would be exciting and give the community a much-needed revival. I hope that doing this will also increase involvement in TEP cultural events like the Hunger Games. This would be an overall good thing for TEP.

I also believe that TEP should be a community for people who do not participate in NationStates. I believe that TEP should be a place for all, with a central community as well as a place for people who play NationStates.

This would include central channels in the TEP server and then specific NationStates channels that could only be viewed by people with a NationStates role. Of course, this sort of thing would take a lot of time, and I don’t expect it to be fully finished by the time I’m done with my Archon term, but I hope to get this process started.

In conclusion, I am running for Archon because I have fresh ideas for a TEP entering a new era, and I believe I can be the one to usher TEP into it. If I am not who you pick, I know that whoever you do will help lead TEP into this new era of the community.

[Lucklife]

Minor things to nitpick about EPSA - We do have civilian militia in the main server. Admittedly not well advertised, but it is in use.

Any future admiral would appreciate the support in advertising. A strong EPSA is a strong tool for FA.

But as Archon, you will not be WA locked. Would you be joining EPSA on the field? Would you be joining updates?

Seeing a commander in chief lead from the front is inspiring, if you have it in you to put in some elbow grease to learn the ways of update.

[American-Cascadia]

Apologies, I have not seen much advertising for the civilian militia so I did not know if it was still active or not.

Since I would no longer be WA locked I would love to join EPSA. As you said, it’s inspiring to see the commander-in-chief out on the field, but I also would like to learm more about R/D from the frontlines.

[Merlo]

I think it’s extremely bold to start a campaign thread by stating how embarrassed you are of your past performance - especially given you left office only 9-odd months ago.

It doesn’t inspire me with confidence, frankly. This is still a decently put together stock-standard campaign, but I’ve definitely got some questions.

1. You claim to have changed a lot since leaving office 9 months ago. Could you go into more detail on this? What have you worked on in TEP since leaving office, and what ministries / positions have you occupied? How would you say your character has changed in such a way that you believe you’d be better suited to the Delegacy for a fourth term?

2. You seem to insinuate an anxiety regarding what people thought of you and/or your actions in your previous terms. Could you elaborate on this? What was it you were scared to change that you thought TEPers would be opposed to?

3. Your plan for culture seems to essentially be maintaining the status quo until someone comes along who’s super invested in the role. That has been the plan since I was in office, and it hasn’t culminated in anything. Why do you expect that to change now? Tack EPNS onto this question, as it seems you have the same plan there.

4. You note that you’d prioritise our FA focus on retaining old allies instead of looking for new ones. Why? What regions are we at risk of losing our relationships with, and which ones would you seek to prioritise first?

5. You mentioned “discussing new alliances with old friends” Who are you referring to? Are there certain treaties you wish to remodel, or are we talking about regions we do not currently hold a treaty with?

6. Your Foreign Affairs plans present a bit of a paradox. You admit you’re overwhelmed with the FA sphere, and that you’ll rely on your FA Minister to help you understand what happens outside TEP. However, you then go on to state that you, the Archon, should be leading interregional communication and that you should be the face of TEP. If you are overwhelmed and aren’t familiar with FA, why would you be the face of the region’s foreign affairs projects?

7. This oversight council idea frustrates me. As Archon, you should already be acutely aware of the fact your ministries are inactive. Why do we need to establish a council to tell you this? Moreover, given this would presumably be staffed by established executive members, why on earth would we waste the little time they have to spend on executive activity on this? Would their time not be better spent just… working in the executive?

8. Your ‘identity’ area is filled with the right ideas of a shared regional identity, but has zero detail on how you’d go about achieving this. You want RMB and Forum RPers to use TEPMain more. Good, so how would you do it? Pretend I’m an RMB RPer. I don’t want to use TEPMain. It’s boring and inactive, no-one ever talks about Valsora, and all my remaining friends are in the Cafe. Plus, the government exiled all my other friends and I don’t trust or like them now. What are you going to change to remedy that?

9. I’ve questioned your planning regarding just handling ministries yourself until a new minister shows up, but I want to dig deeper. What are you actually promising to do during your term to bring back activity in the executive? We cannot just rely on people immigrating to TEP from other regions with executive experience and filling our roles. We don’t have interested TEPers from any source who are seeking to work in the government. Something has to change about our approach to staffing.

10. If you cannot quickly wrangle the staffing and activity problem in the executive, can you assure us you won’t quickly burn out when handling so many roles at a time?

11. If you cannot quickly wrangle the staffing and activity problem in the executive, would you consider closing ministries, merging them into one another, or anything of the sort? Would you, for example, close EPNS (even if only temporarily) if you cannot find a minister within the first half of your term? As we seem to be entering a low period in wider NS interest online, do you agree it would be wise to downsize the executive and cut down on less important areas?

Thank you for your time. I apologise for the length of my questioning, and hope I don’t come across too harsh. Best of luck with your campaign.

[American-Cascadia]

I’m sorry that it doesn’t inspire confidence. I just wanted to state the facts that I feel like I did not accomplish a lot in my Delegacy, as promised, and I plan to change that if I am elected Archon.

1. The only position I have held is Minister of Culture. I mainly feel like I have grown a lot as a person in general. Going to college and finally being away from my parents has taught me new things and helped me grow up and change a lot. Alongside this, holding real lige elected positions has taught me a lot about leadership and what I was doing right and wrong during my Delegacy. I have also learned more about NationStates than when I was Delegate, from R/D to Foreign Affairs.

2. I am a very anxious person in general, having been so for a while. I put a lot of focus into what people see when they look at me, which is something I am trying to change. I was just scared that anything I changed, such as creating new Ministries or changing our FA approach, would result in backlash from people I care about. I now know that as Delegate/Archon, people look up to you to create change in the region, 0and some people may not like what you do, but that’s okay, you can’t cater to everyone.

3. I’m planning on personally playing a part on their revival, I’m not just planning on keeping the status quo. I want to personally scout out someone who is motivated and would do well in these fields, I’m not just going to wait for them to come along by chance.

4. I don’t believe that we are at risk of losing any relationships with other regions, I just believe that if it comes down to it I would rather keep old friends than make new ones. I would like to prioritize our oldest relationships, and ones wr have recently rekindled, lime TWP.

5. There are some treaties I may want to remodel given the chance, but I was mostly referring to forming new alliances with regions we have been friendly with for a while, like with what has recently been done with Carcassone. Of course this is something to discuss with the MoFA and the Inner Council, but I would like to put it on their minds.

6. I apologize for the confusion. I more meant that I would like the Archon and the MoFA to work in conjunction. This means when one reaches out, the other should be there as well. So for example making a GC with the Archon and the MoFA. I just envision something where other region leaders know the Archon well enough and feel comfortable enough to reach out personally.

7. I wrote that idea really quickly while I was at work today so I did not really explain it properly. I wanted to use it more as a way to get ideas on how to revive the activity in the government and TEP. Just as a way to get outside opinions from people other than my cabinet. If no one likes the idea I am okay scrapping it, I just had the idea and wanted to share it.

8. Some members of TEP have had an idea to combine the TEPMain, Valsora, and Urth servers. I believe this would be the best way to solve our identity problems. This would include specific channels for Valsorans and Urthers, so if they would prefer to stay in their cliches they can.

9. I plan on actively scouting out people from other regions who may be looking to expand their horizons in TEP. This is because, as you said, there’s not many more people in TEP who are interested in the government who aren’t already involved.

10. I can assure you I will not burn out. I love to keep myself as busy as possible and helping the region is one of my many passions. I have plenty of time outside of work and school that I just fill by playing video games or doing other things that could be replaced by working in TEP.

11. I do believe it would be nice to combine Ministries, but I don’t believe we should be closing any of our current ministries without any plans to have others pick up their work. Activity is a struggle right now and if combining Ministries is necessary, I plan on doing that.

I appreciate all of your questions, if you have any more I am happy to answer them.

[Zukchiva]

Hey Dead, I also like your campaign design! Some questions:

so if elected, I plan on running Culture until I can find someone to take it off my hands.

1. Can you specify what you mean by running culture? Like what kind of events in how many times a month?

2. Couldn’t the oversight council’s work just be something MORR does? It doesn’t seem like MORR has much to do beyond maintenance and gathering data for presentation sounds like it could be a MORR thing.

Merlo covered all the other questions I could ask.

Good luck!

[American-Cascadia]

1. I mean organizing and running events; I will leave the hosting of the events mainly to other staffers within Culture if there are any available to do so. I will try to host wherever I can when there is no one else there to do so, but to me, that’s the hardest part to fit into the duties of an Archon. I would try to do multiple events a month: a contest, a tourment/game night, and a Hunger Games if possible, potentially more if there’s time and energy to spend.
2. That does sound like a good idea. From what I know, MORR only really does maintenance, so it would be nice to give them something else to do, like this job that I have described for the Oversight Council. I would most likely have them come up with ideas on how to revitalize TEP and give me the data on current activity, which I believe would be fitting for MORR.