I know many of you have likely wondered, and perhaps been baffled, about my recent actions. You probably asked yourselves why I – who until very recently had my WA in Lazarus, served as Prime Minister for over a year, and remain an off-site member of the Lazarene Security Council – would decide to transition my focus to The East Pacific.
To be quite frank, throughout my years-long tenure in Lazarus and in every other region where I have had the pleasure of being a citizen, my goal has always been straightforward: to soar to new heights together, to climb to the summit of Mount Olympus, and to realize the region’s potential for greatness. It’s really that simple. I want to see everything that could be improved be improved to its maximum potential, and for the region to be the best version of itself for everyone trying to enjoy themselves playing there.
After all, why be second-rate when, employing a modicum of effort, you could be first-rate? Why be weak when, with a spark of initiative, you could just be strong? Why lose when, with a little bit of effort, you could easily win across the board? You may think I am joking or being overly dramatic, but make no mistake: I have asked myself these questions.
There is a popular myth that Restorers are inactive by their very nature; I disagree. Just because nations are refounded there does not mandate that the community be dormant. Lazarus itself has experienced periods of sustained, extreme activity, like during the era of the People’s Republic of Lazarus. If Restorers are doomed from the jump, how is it that other regions with far less history and prestige can do much more with far less?
No, inactivity is not a fundamental or inescapable law of Restorers. Any stagnation we see stems from a general mindset of complacency within the leadership. It’s reminiscent of a lethargic dragon that, instead of expanding its hoard, simply sits atop a mountain of gold and sleeps. And this is fine, if others are content to play at a slower pace. My personality drives me to constant activity, constant analysis, constant action: traits better suited to The East Pacific than the current environment in Lazarus. I still love Lazarus and my good friends Roger, Wang Yao, and Feux. It’s just that there is nothing left for me to do.
So, that explains why I have transitioned my focus away from Lazarus, but why join The East Pacific? For me, there is no other place besides a Feeder region, a region that is just active by nature. Of the Feeders, The East Pacific was the obvious choice. During my time as Prime Minister of Lazarus, I had nothing but many positive interactions with the East Pacific. I viewed The East Pacific and Lazarus as, for the most part, having each other’s backs and being on the same page – on the same page when it really mattered.
I make no attempt to hide my friendship with A Mean Old Man; from the moment I met him in late 2024, I knew that we would get along well. And I won’t deny that playing in the same region as AMOM was not a contributing factor, but it was not the only one.
For months, even before my transition, I had been contributing to The East Pacific in small ways, such as voting myself out of citizenship when I thought the law change was justified, voting with the region in critical votes in the Magisterium, developing and sharing Anarcha (recruitment tools for the executive and endorsement tools for the Viziers) and, overall, contributing to the security and development of this region. In that time I became accustomed to the people here, who have been nothing but nice to me, and the region’s government, which suits my play style better than anyone else’s.
At the end of the day, it’s honestly that simple.
With that out of the way, let’s discuss the plans for the future:
For far too long, The East Pacific has been viewed by certain foreign actors as their personal sandbox. We have made tremendous steps already towards changing this fact by making it harder to influence us – i.e. HoGs, etc. Now that we are in a better position internally, we can focus our efforts externally and regain our place in the sun.
To accomplish this end, our focus should be on building relations with new and up-and-coming UCRs. Not just via treaties, but by actually engaging their communities and building bona fide relationships with their members. To wit, I propose reforming what it means to be an ambassador: not simply posting updates (though, no doubt, some will), but by actually engaging with the assigned community. Naturally, all of this will support cultural efforts described below, as a part of this effort would be hosting events such as game nights with interested UCRs.
We will continue developing and improving the other relationships we have but our primary focus should be building a new Foreign Affairs with contemporary regions.
Culture has always seemed strange to me in this region. The last few governments seemed to have also struggled with it. In my opinion, regular voice chats, game nights, and trying to engage other regions in these activities (as explained above) are the general foundation of culture on NationStates. Besides this, as detailed below, our focus should be on internal engagement.
There is also a project in the works to mirror the RMB to Discord, which should help us keep track of and better moderate the RMB.
While manual recruitment is important, especially while we do not have an API script up and running, once this is achieved (i.e. AMOM finally sets up my script), manual recruitment will become less of a priority. Furthermore, the returns on manual recruitment are so low that it is not really worth spending too much time on it, when it can be automated – I would know since I created my own recruitment bot. Indeed, there are other avenues of engagement that will be far more rewarding to spend human resources on.
Notably, internal recruitment. That is, sending telegrams to nations while they are online to join the World Assembly, apply for citizenship, etc. I am already working on a bot that will send us Discord notifications when a nation creates a happening, so that we can immediately send them a telegram.
Overall, I am not looking for any major overhauls of ESPA, as it has been running well on its own (with a few exceptions). To be honest, while I am a member of ESPA, agree that we need a strong military, and support the continued building of the organization, I am not very interested in being “Admiral,” nor is it “my project.” I would rather leave the daily operations of ESPA to the professionals, though major operations would have to be run by me and the FA department.
Can we close this? Are other people okay with that?
I feel like, as it stands, EPNS is very forced, in the sense that we have to come up with things to say just to meet some arbitrary quota. That’s why, as Minister of News, I have only released a single edition regarding Cordone, because that’s something people will actually read about. I believe we can make the format more concise. My idea is that EPNS should be a short, bulleted list of things that have happened, without any fluff. For major newsworthy items, we can publish detailed articles. And, of course, people who want to write more extensive articles can still submit them. I was also thinking about making a bot where people could submit articles and have them reviewed internally.
Regardless of the results of the election, I will continue developing new and innovative tools to make everyone’s lives easier, as well as maintaining the current tools I have already created, such as Anarcha. Currently, I am in the process of making a bot that will help out with, among other things, citizenship audits, mirroring the RMB to Discord, and, as explained above, internal engagement. I am open to suggestions for new tools. If you need anything, please let me know. I cannot promise a quick turnaround, as there are many projects already in the concept phase.
We will continue to our efforts in the World Assembly as we have had decent success in recent months. There have been some wins on proposals with TEP authors, targets and co-authors, such as Commend Brethren, Repeal: “Condemn Lone Wolves United,” and the soon-to-be passed Daybreak. We will continue to support TEP authors and co-authors who want to draft proposals in the General Assembly and Sec Gen. Overall, the WA Ministry has been doing good work, and I hope to continue this trend.
On the tech side of things, I am working on tools for the WA to help us campaign and the likes. Some of it is ready, and some of it is just in the concept phase.
In conclusion, I would like to automate NationStates as much as possible, while supporting business as usual. We are here to socialize and have fun, as well as engage in legal reviews and other fun stuff. The less time spent on mindless and monotonous clerical or admin work, the more productive we can be on things that actually matter. Again, I have no plans to pause any of the bot work if I don’t win. If I do, however, having the authority to make decisions could speed things along. From tools that help us automate citizenship audits to those that monitor the RMB and make creating news easier, all of these initiatives will greatly improve our daily experience.
Thank you,
Domais