Obviously, we want better in-game involvement. How exactly this is achieved has been a great source of discussion for the better part of a year now. I'd like to throw an approach out there for discussion.

Let's reimagine the relationship between the region and its government a bit. As it is, the Coalition of the South Pacific is the government, ruling over the region, the South Pacific. This has been the case for nearly 14 years now. However, the Coalition wasn't always in control of the region. Coups in 2003, 2011, 2013, and 2016 vested control over the actual region from the Coalition, but they were always ill-fated and the Coalition regained, as it should, its position as benevolent entity watching over the region and acting in its name. Read a bit between the lines here, though - this shows that while the Coalition is a central part of our region and its culture, it's also something that is somewhat removed from it - above it, you could say. Maybe we can take this as a cue to think of it differently - the Coalition of the South Pacific is an extraregional organization, with the South Pacific as its principal member.

This has several implications. One prominent one is that this implies that more regions could be part of the Coalition, and this is something I will get to at a later date. What I specifically want to talk about today is that this leads us naturally to a federated model of relationship between us forumites (Coalition) and the RMBers (region), similar to what Glen's been advocating for a while now. 

Given this, does the Coalition want to be so heavy-handedly involved in the region as it is? Federated systems typically allow its constituent entities much more say in their own rule, but we haven't really been following that mantra in our discussions. Some want to bring the Coalition and the region even closer together, in a way gutting the Coalition in favor of the region. Some want the Coalition to reign supreme with absolute authority. Some like the status quo, which mostly has the Coalition reigning supreme but gives the region a token say through the heavily regulated Local Council. I say we take the concept seriously and free our region to be an entity in a true benevolent federation.

What does this entail? A few things. The region needs actual governance, and it shouldn't be the kind of governance that the Coalition enforces on it. However, we can't just say "hey, you're on your own now" either, though. What we can do is look at regions like The Western Isles, a large region with completely in-game based governance, and gather some inspiration. Using that, we can craft a set of laws to start with for the Local Council (or whatever it could be called), with guidance and input from interested RMBers. This set of law would include recognition of the Coalition as the federal government, as well as things such as how in-game officers are elected, how in-game law can be changed, how disputes are resolved, and other such things. We then give these laws to the region for them to hold their elections and get their government set up, while we completely strike down most (if not all) provisions in our Coalition body of law regarding the Local Council and other such in-game matters. 

I believe this grants the region much, much more liberty than looking for ways to have the region somehow get involved with the forum-based governance. This is giving the region its own governance, while it delegates those things that are irrelevant to it but required for a feeder such as ours to the Coalition. In other words, a truly free system.