Cretox 4 Delegate | Together We Rise
Friends, colleagues, and AMOM: I’m Cretox and I’m running to be the next - and potentially last - Delegate of The East Pacific.
In case we don’t know each other yet, allow me to introduce myself. I’ve been serving as TEP’s Minister of World Assembly Affairs / WA Commissioner for nearly a year, when I was summoned from the grave by terrible WA legislation, rejoined TEP’s Discord unsure of what I wanted to do next, and promptly got interviewed and hired by @American-Cascadia and @Aurora_Yukihime. Since then, I’ve had the distinct pleasure of working with them and the government as a whole as part of both @American-Cascadia and @A_mean_old_man / @Dremaur’s administrations. Together, we’ve done our part to move this region forward. Today, TEP is an ascending power with an exceptional community, strong institutions, and the potential to rise even higher. I believe TEP is uniquely positioned to become a dominant superpower, and I think that we have the perfect storm of opportunities to make that happen.
I also believe that my personal experiences make me well-suited to serve as Delegate at this critical juncture in both the region’s and the site’s history. Prior to serving in TEP’s cabinet, I was TNP’s Vice Delegate, Minister of World Assembly Affairs, and Minister of Defense. Between TEP and other regions, I’ve also held Deputy positions in pretty much every area and picked up an SC commendation at some point too. I’ve passed 25 World Assembly resolutions both alone and with other authors, particularly newer ones. 6 of those proposals passed during my time in TEP’s cabinet, with another 4 headed to vote soon (or whatever counts as “soon” in this nightmare queue). I’ve also written nearly a dozen published issues. There’s scarcely a part of this game that I haven’t been involved in, or a government role that I haven’t performed.
All that aside, I wasn’t planning to run in this election, and I certainly didn’t plan to declare this late. Even as I started to seriously consider it, I went back and forth on whether I even wanted to run myself or just work with whoever gets elected to implement whichever of my ideas they think are good. Consider that the Cretox Promise: while I would of course love to serve as your Delegate, should I not be elected, I will gladly continue working with whoever is to make the region a better place.
However, I feel the nature of this election is very unique. We’re not only on the cusp of ending the executive Delegacy, but we’re in the midst of an FA realignment while also being perhaps the best-supported region in the entire game in terms of passing things in the WA, a body getting reset alongside a site-wide election on July 1st, the day that this upcoming term is scheduled to end in the current version of the HoG bill. Whoever wins this election will end up navigating TEP through a historic time, both for the region and for NationStates. And together, we can rise to the occasion.
Also, it looks like I’ll actually have the time to be an effective del, which was the one overriding concern preventing me from running before.
When developing this platform, I wasn’t just thinking about this upcoming term, but how to create a foundation that future generations of HoGs can build on. As such, I’ve focused my concrete agenda items within that broader framework, and included the reasoning behind each part of my agenda. I’ve also included my planned approach to the various parts of the job. The first part of this platform won’t be organized in the traditional ministry-specific way due to the intersectional nature of a lot of it.
Above all else, I feel it’s critical for any regional leader, Delegate or otherwise, to listen to people, to seek feedback and opinions, and to recognize where they lack expertise or simply need a different perspective. I’ve tried to embrace that philosophy both in TEP and in NS as a whole.
Because of how ridiculously chonky this thing is, I’ve put each section in a spoiler.
The End of the Executive Delegacy
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I continue to support the HoG amendment. I think that it’s a well-reasoned change that will improve the region’s security, lower the perceived barrier to mounting an election campaign, and avoid the usual pitfalls of having a non-Delegate HoG by leveraging our indomitable Praesidium to hold the ingame seat. Let’s just make sure the name’s as cool as possible.
While I won’t continue to be a Magister as Delegate, I will have veto power. Considering the important bills that are sure to come to vote this term, I feel it prudent to talk a bit about my veto philosophy. Basically, I think Delegate vetos should be used sparingly, and deployed in two main circumstances: where a bill is inherently adversarial (such as being rammed through over good-faith objections, or blatantly ignoring commentary, or something else Going Horribly Wrong), or where new information or context comes to light, such as a Viziers voicing important information regarding a Praesidium-focused bill. The best example of a good veto I have happened in TNP in mid-2020, when then-Delegate Prydania vetoed a blatantly adversarial bill imposing retroactive “declassification” requirements on the Security Council (TNP’s Praesidium) after members of the Security Council voiced their concerns. Unfortunately, the bill’s author proceeded to use manufactured panic about the SC secretly acting against the region to get a “compromise” version of the bill through, which later forced me to chase down people who hadn’t been in TNP for over a decade to get their consent to publish records. Fun times.
Additionally, the Delegate is naturally tapped into the workings of the executive government, and can and should offer perspective on relevant legislation without stepping on the Magisterium’s toes.
On that note…
Ingame Responsibilities and Sweaty Voting
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A key part of the position that’s likely going away after this term is its ingame role. Currently, an elected Delegate needs to tart into the ingame seat and be a reliable voter. At the moment, I’m sitting just shy of the endocap, and that’s only because I actively suppressed my endorsements to stay underneath it. I also have extensive experience with endorsement campaigns, and hope to work with the Praesidium on expanding our regional endorsement infrastructure, such as through dispatches and TG campaigns for specific individuals. Needless to say, it should be a speedy transition, and any infrastructure improvements that come out of it could be beneficial for the future. I think that the current approach of gaining endorsements being an individual’s responsibility is a huge missed opportunity.
Another one of the Delegate’s key ingame responsibilities is WA voting. Well, I’m a huge sweat who loves voting first. Here are some screenshots, just look at all these sweaty screenshots. A vote for me is a vote for all our votes hitting like a truck.
Additionally, I’ll resume the practice of sharing WA approval campaign TGs I receive in the Discord WA forum since I think that’s beneficial for transparency and engagement. I made a thread for that under dead, it went well, then it fell by the wayside this past term.
Regional Officers
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We’ve run up against the site’s RO limit more than a few times. I’ll try to find a way to add a second “Regional Nation” for important non-WA-related regional comms if possible. If I can’t find the space, it’s not a big deal.
Discord Executive Structure
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We tried using an executive Discord forum; it didn’t work. Channels all the way. I’m a big fan of allowing every executive staffer to contribute to any Ministry at the ground level, with a private channel for senior staff in each Ministry as needed and obviously the Cabinet on top of that. One of the first things I did in my current position was get a WA Commission channel for high-level discussion there (after getting the WA Commission created, of course). Something I would like to work with the admin team on is structuring the executive channels better and patching any deficiencies like the former lack of an internal WA channel. Currently, every single executive channel plus the Magisterium channels and the RMB and general government ones is stuffed in the same super-ultra-mega category like a really fat bureaucracy-flavored turkey. That isn’t good for readability or navigation.
The Nature of Activity
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One of the very few things I disliked about this last term was an overreliance on DMs and group chats. I strongly believe in a mercantilistic, TEP-centric approach to activity, not just for executive business but in terms of NS activity overall. We should be consulting with stakeholders and having ad-hoc discussions in government areas, and chatting with each other in public spaces. We already do this, but we could leverage it even more. For example, we could encourage foreign WA authors to come to our public WA channel to discuss their proposals by actively discussing WA proposals there ourselves. This sort of thing is already part of the DNA of this region. If there’s a single region that deserves to be called a world port, it’s TEP.
Feel the Weight of Our Presence
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REWARD and STEP are a bit outdated, and I plan to work on refreshing them. They’re critical onsite infrastructure, after all.
More broadly, I plan to focus heavily on developing public resources that expand TEP’s presence in the wider game. Specifically, I’d like to use the TEP World Assembly HQ nation to host a new Passed GA Resolutions thread to replace the old one that was unceremoniously locked and unpinned, along with a modern dispatch-based guide to WA authorship. I also plan to work with the FA ministry on creating a TEP World Factbook, which will be a collection of basic information such as government structure, alignment, and leadership on every significant region in the game, especially our diplomatic partners. The end goal is to have this be a pinned thread in the GP forum.
All three of these resources would be frontloaded in terms of effort. They’d likely take a significant chunk of the term to put together, but should be straightforward for future governments to maintain.
VC Good, VC More
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I actively scheduled the first 2 UTEP “Tea Time” VCs, which are open chat sessions for the region. Both were very successful, with Todd memorably showing up to talk about NS history. Unfortunately, I then set them to an automatic weekly schedule rather than continuing to actively maintain them. I’ve scheduled another active one for tomorrow and would love to expand both this program and the broader remit of UTEP as Delegate. More on that later.
I’m also a big fan of cabinet VCs, which we did a few of early in AMOM’s term before petering off. Expect those to come back with a vengeance.
Internal Affairs Council
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TEP’s executive government is known for its adaptability and innovativeness. The new RMB Council, WA Commission, and Clerical Agency are proof of that. Over the years, ministries and departments have come and gone. A core addition I’d like to make is an Internal Affairs Council, to serve a similar role for the internal ministries as the FA Council and WA Commission do for their respective areas. The IA Council will serve as a backbone for the internal ministries, providing a pool of experienced people for the relevant Ministers to leverage and a channel for high-level discussion. Whatever new internal ministries or programs, from the areas of Culture to Recruitment to Clerical to something truly out there, that a future HoG decides to experiment with, the IA Council will be there with a built-in source of expertise and institutional memory to help make them successful. It’ll also provide a readily mobilized manpower pool for various efforts, such as hosting an event or writing an EPNS article.
In that vein, I’d also like to restructure the WA Commission. It’s worked well so far, but it’s just a fact that not every experienced WA voice in TEP is also willing or able to perform the role of a Deputy WA Minister, particularly managing the voting threads. The Commission will be replaced by a WA Council, with Deputy Ministers and Ministers also being on the Council but not every member of the Council being a Deputy Minister. It makes sense to ping @Aurora_Yukihime for thread updates. I love @Mangegneithe, but it doesn’t make sense to ping him.
Advisors to the Delegate
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People providing valuable input without necessarily being involved in day-to-day governing business isn’t just a WA thing. I’d like to appoint advisors, called either Advisors to the Delegate, Executive Advisors, Regional Advisors, or just Advisors. These people would have cabinet access. They’ll be like the IA Council but for future HoGs, who will enter office with a ready source of expertise and institutional memory. I’d like to establish an unofficial tradition where former HoGs in good standing are at the very least incorporated into their successors’ cabinets as advisors, both for institutional memory and for continuity.
Regional Advocates, Recruitment, and Integration
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While @Ulmer’s been doing a great job with both sending recruitment TGs and contacting new arrivals, neither recruitment nor integration can rest on the shoulders of one person.
On the recruitment side of things, to quote The Muppets Take Manhattan, we need more frogs and dogs and bears and chickens and… and whatever! I’ll actively promote recruitment and post a weekly leaderboard of top recruiters. I’m unimpressed with card giveaways as an incentive for regional activity, but if people want that then I’m not opposed to setting something up.
On the integration side, that’s where things get interesting. I want to establish a group of Regional Advocates who will operate out of a channel on the Discord and contact new members of the region, for integration and as mentors. They’ll also be tasked with RMB promotion, whether for joining a ministry, participating in an event, reading EPNS, or something else. Ministers will be able to go to the Advocates’ channel and ask them to promote a certain event or program, with that potentially being expanded to members of the region in general down the line. Due to the nature of their role, Advocates will liaise with the RMB council, and I’m very keen on using them to promote Valsora and Urth.
As Delegate, I’ll also personally reach out to new citizens until the Advocates are up and running if Lowen doesn’t beat me to it. Depending on how successful the Advocates are, I could see Mentors getting split off into their own thing down the line.
Branding
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I’ll shamelessly take credit for the current regional flag and banner, as well as the Delegate role icon on Discord. I’d like to create variants of that icon for other executive roles including Minister, Deputy Minister, Executive staff, and eventually HoG. I’d also like to develop seals for each of the ministries.
Now For the Ministries
We’re doing well… but we could be doing so much more.
I’m not going to mandate ministers do roll calls or demand every minister spend time on an opening statement or promise anything insane like weekly government updates. However, I do intend to post a consolidated midterm and end-of-term report, to be published as part of EPNS and posted on the TEP forum for future reference.
One thing I’ve spoken with people about is that we don’t really have much of a pipeline for training and promoting people. Typically, people rise from staffers to deputies to ministers. However, aside from the phenomenal aurora (who isn’t a new member of the region) and the rest of the WA Commission (who technically double as deputies), I don’t really see that system at play. What I’m saying is we need more internal discussions and we need to be better about recruiting, onboarding, and promoting talent. Interested staffers should become deputies really quickly. I hope that the creation of the IA Council will help matters there, both as a source of expertise and as a taskforce to mobilize where manpower’s needed.
World Assembly Affairs
A chicken in every pot and a badge on every nation
Given my background, it shouldn’t be surprising that I’m doing this first. As I mentioned at the beginning of this platform, TEP might currently be the best-supported region in the game in terms of passing WA proposals. I’ve been working on getting several TEPers their first GA badges and intend to expand that effort to the SC. At this point, the question for me isn’t whether I can pass a proposal but whether I can get 20 or 30 through before the reset.
Speaking of which, there’s a real big f-ing deal. The General Assembly will be reset on July 1st, which is incidentally the same day that this del term will end under the current HoG amendment. I call my WA plan “the Final Ride,” and plan to continue submitting and assisting with proposals at a rapid clip right up to the reset. Every TEPer who wants to be a WA author is in an amazing position to become one. Depending on how things progress, it may even be worthwhile to have a second WA forum on the Discord, not for voting but for authorship.
Additionally, July 1st is important because that’s when the new Secretariat system will come into effect. There will be a site-wide election for 5 Secretariat members, who will be able to promote official voting recommendations right on the WA voting page. I think TEP could readily get a spot on that body, whether it be me or another TEP author. It would go great with our own transition to a new system of government and make for an awesome way to close out the term. It also goes hand in hand with the focus on TEP’s outward presence that I mentioned earlier.
I don’t intend to shake up voting threads beyond encouraging people to get involved with them. However, I will make sure that WARs (WA Recommendations; no way am I going to keep calling them IFVs) go out for every TEP proposal at vote, of which I expect a lot. We resurrected the TEP WAHQ nation and hammered out a great new format a few months ago, which got a lot of positive feedback. We just need to start doing them again.
Foreign Affairs
All aboard the gravy train
Our FA has really taken a turn lately, and our diplomatic position is extremely solid. I plan to continue developing ties with TWP and wrap up talks with TNP, and I’ll always be on the hunt for diplomatic opportunities that serve TEP’s interests first and foremost. After being elected, I’ll do a tour of all our partner dels/HoGs, inspired by @Lucklife’s remarkable initiative on that front.
FA will also work on putting together the TEP World Factbook that I talked about earlier, which will be a one-of-its-kind resource and hopefully provide FA staffers with something new and interesting to do. I firmly believe that every ministry should have some ground-level activity that eager new staffers can contribute to, and the TEPWF will provide that in spades.
Culture
A message from our sponsors
Culture has done good work on the event side, with a small hiccup concerning event promotion and MGC sanctions. Frankly, I don’t think the issue is the sanctions or the event, but rather the way the event was promoted and suddenly un-promoted. I think the best way to avoid similar incidents in the future is to have a sponsorship program already in place where people can bring up their or their region’s events and we can decide whether or not to sponsor them based on input from FA and Culture. This goes hand in hand with the focus on developing internal activity that I mentioned earlier.
Additionally, while dead in particular gave out a lot of awards, we haven’t had an OGO or OPM or OGC or whatever we end up calling it awarded in over 4 years. I’d like to work with the Magisterium on awarding that honor again, and would love to see legislation that authorizes the Delegate to issue the honor subject to Magisterium confirmation in addition to the Magisterium continuing to be able to award it on its own. There’s really no NS award like it, and it’s a great way to tee up future SC commendations. Potentially, commendations could even mention the award directly (there’s more of that presence thing).
UTEP
MAXIMUM CHONK hey where'd the clerical agency go
This might be the oddest part of this platform, which is saying something. My vision for UTEP is for it to become a chonky juggernaut the likes of which NS has never seen. It’s a very TEP institution that has withstood the test of time, and I think it’s only fitting for this oft-neglected body to take a leading role.
As mentioned, I intend to have weekly Tea Time VCs hosted by UTEP. So far, these have been open chat sessions either for resWA+cit or open to the public. Should this iteration of them be as successful as the first two events, I plan to expand them into a program where we have speakers giving brief talks at the beginning of every Tea Time on various aspects of NS, such as issues or the WA.
Additionally, I would like to fold the Clerical Agency under UTEP and have UTEP formally in charge of maintaining our educational dispatches. The Clerical Agency has been inactive for a bit now, and I don’t think it really warrants being its own cabinet-level body. I don’t think my proposed Regional Advocates should be under the UTEP banner at least at first, both due to part of their role being promotion and because I want to see how things shake out.
Depending on how powerful the Chancellor ends up being in practice by the end of the term, I might be interested in subjecting the position to some political buffering via a Magisterium confirmation vote. We’ll have to see.
Were this an earlier time in the site’s history, I’d absolutely be interested in having TEP host the first WA Symposium in a long time. However, I’m unsure what the engagement there would even look like, considering the sad state of the GA. I think the looming reset makes it worth discussing, at least.
EPSA
Is it ehp-sah or ee pee ess ayy?
I love EPSA. I love how far it’s come and I think its structure is a great model for pretty much any org. Due to the post-shutdown update order reshuffle, I’m obviously interested in doing mass founds for lotsa backup JPs. As always, I’m also interested in making sure training materials are comprehensive and up-to-date.
The main change I’m proposing for EPSA is that I want TEP to have NS’ first WA approval umbrella. Basically, EPSA would continue to stack their WAs on TEP’s del when not engaged elsewhere. However, we’d also have pairs of sailors assigned to secure EPSA-held regions sporting TEP propaganda. When a WA proposal by TEP or one of our partners needs approvals, especially in the Security Council, we’d “open the umbrella” and push it straight to vote. This would also give us some valuable buffer against quorum raiding and proposals naturally falling out of queue due to oversaturation, particularly in the GA.
Such a plan would have some moving parts to work out with EPSA brass, but I’m confident that at least a limited version of it would be feasible.
I also need to mention that I’ve recently been appointed as TNP’s inaugural Minister of Military Affairs. My objective there is to (wait for it) implement structural reforms. If people feel that me having that position is a deal-breaker, I’ll gladly work something out with Ruben.
EPNS
Maximum firepower
We’ll get issues out. I also want to promote people’s RP, either as part of EPNS editions or as a separate publication. The Regional Advocates will help out by promoting editions-in-progress to members of the region who might be interested in writing and promoting editions when they’re published.
I’d also like to run brief recaps promoting TEPers’ efforts in the WA, and continue the excellent interviews with members of the region (hi Lowen 
).
Together We Rise
I hope I’ve articulated a decent - if belated - case for why you should put your trust in me. Together, we can develop what we’ve already built into something truly magnificent, and lay new foundations for future generations of East Pacificans.