EPNS Edition 22

Aurora_Yukihime · January 5, 2023, 8:10pm

The East Pacific News Service

December 11, 2022

Charity Across Spheres - NS Christmas Charity Fundraiser Unites All for Christmas Giving
By https://www.nationstates.net/nation=albrook

Spoiler:

The NationStates Christmas Charity Funraiser (NSCCF) aims to bring together regions and organizations, raiders and defenders, allies and enemies, gameplayers and casual players, in unity for a good cause each year. This year, participating parties wish to support The Trevor Project, an American nonprofit focused on preventing suicide amongst LGBTQIA+ youth.

NSCCF invites everyone to participate by spreading the word and enjoying the promotional festivities, including watching the livestreams, which last year included NSers being forced to sing during the broadcast and a live demonstration of R/D gameplay from the players’ perspective.

The East Pacific has pledged its participation and will be holding a series of events on the TEP Discord Server. Stay tuned within for information on the festivities.

Do check out the official dispatch below for information about official Fundraiser events and livestreams, and information about the fundraiser itself: https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1808991

Security Council De-Tagged of Ever-Wandering Souls: Prolific Raider Un-Condemned
By https://www.nationstates.net/nation=albrook with editing assistance from TEP FA

On November 23, 2022, the authors Quebecshire and Writinglegend succeeded in repealing Condemn Ever-Wandering Souls, a Security Council Condemnation written in September 2020 by Refuge Isle. Quebec cites “Souls’ legacy is one dogmatism, alienation, and liability. He is neither efficient nor fearsome, and therefore he is not condemnable.”

The text of the resolution may be read here: [link]

https://www.nationstates.net/nation=Ever_Wandering_Souls ‘s response to the proposal suggests he doesn’t mind losing the Condemnation, as with or without it “[he] will still be out there raiding…with ease…badge or no badge”. A later post from Souls suggests this proposal serves as a landmark referendum about the validity going forward of NationStates’ Raiders being recognized in the Security Council.

Between substantial debate, where proponents of the repeal criticize the raiding community’s abundance of responses for a condemnation the target doesn’t even care about, Souls jokingly offers “the real [condemnation] badge [was] the friends we made along the way”. Our reporter suggests the authors instead believe the authorship badges are the real badges that will stand the test of time.

Both sides, various WA blocs including the Modern Gameplay Compact and WALL vs the forces of raider unity, are campaigning via telegram and ally contact to seize a close victory. Public reports indicate WALL-allied WA leaders have chosen to override typically democratic structures to vote FOR after allied contact.

The East Pacific has chosen to stand with its allies and vote for the proposal.

In light of escalating Security Council politics, TEP insists that its WA vote shall remain sovereign and at the discretion of the Ministry of World Assembly Affairs democratic vote. All Hussars of the East are permitted to participate and vote along with the Ministry on the TEP Discord Server.

Happy Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving Week Regional Flag Results
By https://www.nationstates.net/nation=albrook

Late November - December 2022 Regional Affairs Report
By https://www.nationstates.net/nation=albrook

In response to Delegate Eastern Alksearia’s request for input from the various ministries and Executive activities, the following is available for report from the Chief Ministry of Regional Affairs:

Culture is focused on the planning of the Harry Potter & the Festival of Friends festival and has had great success in the latest Delegate and regional flag contests

World Assembly Affairs is maintaining manual upkeep of proposal discussion and voting with the Emjay Bot’s outage. This bot used to automatically share information and host votes for each proposal, and each proposal as it became the resolution at vote respectively, prior to its absence.

Outreach is planning its strategy and dealing with internal technical issues. TEP Admin plans to consolidate the Concierge and Discord Masker roles into a Welcome Team for Outreach’s continued operations

News reports that authorship of EPNS issues has resumed, featuring more “headline news” than in-depth articles with the EPNS Lite label. The Minister cites that, lacking the staffing numbers from previous years, these articles are much more simply written, edited, and released in a timely manner than the larger previous issues.

Commentary from the Chief Ministry of Foreign Affairs was present, but not substantial in a way to warrant more inclusion than this mention and the premiere article of this issue.

TEP Haiku Contest in Review
By https://www.nationstates.net/nation=albrook

[OPINION] Security Council Repeals are not political tools for escalation
By https://www.nationstates.net/nation=Aivintis (Edited by https://www.nationstates.net/nation=albrook)

Recently, as has been covered by EPNS in this very issue, the World Assembly Security Council voted to repeal “Condemn Ever-Wandering Souls”. Why? The resolution itself states that Souls is unworthy of a condemnation, and that the specifically cited clauses were not of significant condemnability. However, this coincides suspiciously with the Modern Gameplay Compact’s sanctions of the Brotherhood of Malice and The Black Hawks, two organizations which Souls is or was a significant part of. With the push to repeal coming mainly from BOM’s and TBH’s enemies, one wonders if it’s true Souls didn’t deserve a condemnation, or if the surge of Anti-Raider sentiment is targeting their enemies’ condemnations.

The point of a condemnation is that it is a badge of honor for being a widely-opposed raider. If opposing Raiderdom means repealing raider condemnations, then what value do condemnations have? The way the Security Council was designed was to play into the hero and villain narrative central to Raiding and Defending. If condemnations are not given to the villains because they are villains, then it undermines that very premise. It is this same sentiment seen in Raider opposition to my own failed attempt at a Security Resolution, a declaration which would declare regional destruction (griefing) a condemnable action.

Why, on both sides of the R/D spectrum, do people refuse to conform to the SC’s moralist ideas? Do raiders not want to be the villains? Do defenders not want to be the heroes? I don’t think it can be attributed to that, although I find that this becomes the possible perception when faced with this. No, I think the root of the problem is that the only way to further escalate this ideological conflict is to remove the separation between In-Character (IC) and Out-of-Character (OOC). This is the flaw with extreme moralism, which teaches that Raiding is an OOC evil action, but it applies to the Security Council as well.

It’s not that people see Commendations as a badge of OOC good and Condemnations as a badge of OOC evil, not at all. If you ask anyone in R/D or the World Assembly community, you’ll see that is very much not the case. But they’re becoming OOC tools of IC agendas. Repealing a condemnation becomes the default IC punishment for IC evil, rather than passing one. The natural evolution of this, then, is a Defender effort to repeal every military based condemnation and a Raider effort to repeal every military based commendation. This is the opposite of what the game mechanic is supposed to entail.

The Security Council is meant to be an arena for pushing political agendas, but it’s meant to punish IC evil with condemnations and reward IC good with commendations. It’s not meant to punish with repeals and reward with passed resolutions. Doing that goes against the separation of OOC and IC within the conflict, and risks inviting more OOC escalations of IC conflicts, which is a path that I believe no one should wish to walk.