TSP is a vast region - the third largest in the game - of roughly eight-thousand nations, over eight-hundred of them being WA member nations. It's also a diverse region, with almost as many playstyles as we have players. We are a region of roleplayers, spammers, generalites, defenders, raiders, debaters, WA authors.... we have players who mainly talk on the RMB, on the NationStates forums, on TSP's government forum, on our Discord Server. We have players who like to roleplay as future tech star empires, as fantasy kingdoms, as modern tech nations. Players who spend all day posting in the fifth-dimension, players with thousands of posts on our government forum and players with none.

Our diversity is self evident. No two of us are the same; we have different ideas, different priorities. We want different things from this game and from this region.

What unites is simple; we have all, every last one of us, chosen to make TSP our home. We have chosen to place our nation here - either remaining when founded, or coming here from a different region. I myself came to TSP in 2011, three years after I first started playing NationStates. What unites us is that choice, that we have chosen TSP over every other region in the game. We don't have to live here, but we do; because we all value the ideals and principles that TSP has made it's own over the last thirteen years.

Tolerance. Democracy. Diversity. Pluralism. Friendship. Openness.

TSP is a democracy - NationStates oldest democracy. We are a region governed on the basis of consent, of accountability - that the government must be answerable to the people. We have, for a very long time, been a shining example of this in NationStates. A region open to all, accepting of all, where every last player has the same rights, the same say, in how the region is run.

We are a community.

We fight, we argue. We get upset, we make mistakes. But we forgive, we move on; we try to do what is best. My vision of TSP is a simple one; one great, vast community, united in our diversity and built upon the basic principles of democracy. That everyone should have a say in how the region is governed. That decisions should not be made by a small group in secret, but whenever possible by the general population. I trust in the ability of the average citizen of TSP to make wise decisions, to choose who governs them, to decide what laws we have, what standards and rules our community will be run according to.

In 2017, we need to do more than we already are. We have new ways of running our region, new ways of holding votes, of conducting democracy. We need to find a way to use them, and open up the decision making to all of TSP. In 2017 voting should not be a right restricted to two-dozen people on the government forum, when it could be one enjoyed by hundreds of players directly as part of the in-game region.

This is my vision for TSP; a vast community, united in our common values - because of, not despite of, our diversity. I don't know the best way to get there - I'm not arrogant enough to think I have all the right answers, but I am trying to ask the right questions. How do we expand our democracy? How do we engage regional WA members in our decision making process? How do we make our government more accountable? I don't know. I would like to find out, and that is why I have spent 2016 asking these questions and campaigning for these ideas, first as an ordinary citizen and for the last six months as a Local Councillor.

No one should vote for me in the belief that doing so will answer these questions; it won't. Even if I knew how to move forward and build a diverse and democratic TSP, the Delegate does not have the ability to do so by themselves. No one can attempt such a thing by themselves; it's something we all have to work on together.

I ask you all to join me on this great adventure, to join me in building a new TSP for a new year.