End of Year - Autumn/Winter Review

Editorial

As we open this, our twenty-fifth issue of the Southern Journal (at least, that’s what the title says - a recent work by Pencil Sharpeners has suggested that we might have missed out issue XX by mistake…? If you can find it, give us a call!), I just wanted to say a few words about Journalism in the South Pacific, bothin general and, specifically, during this term.

When we last left Journalism, there was a great debate about whether or not it was right to continue publishing it in a multi-article, regular issue format or whether publishing article by article was the right approach, as suggested by then Minister of Regional Affairs, Spenty and his deputy in charge of Journalism, Punchwood. The debate was started by an announcement, almost at the end of Spenty’s turn, that issue-based journalism in the South Pacific was dead, but, by the time the dust had cleared on the ensuing back and forth, the term was over and no single-article publications had happened.

And so, to my term. When I ran for the office, I made the following promise:

“I want to explore new ways of building our journalism. We have let journalism in TSP stagnate to an unacceptable degree and this is something that has been happening for as long as I have been in the region. I didn't do enough to halt its decline last time and I want to rectify that now. I will reach out for articles from both 'sides' of the region and use our relationship with FA to encourage both news and talent to flow in from outside the region as well.”

I still agree with the first part of that statement, but, as you’ll be more than aware, I haven’t succeeded in fulfilling the promise itself. The reasons for this are manifold, but the most prominent are my focus on various events since the start of the term and my failure to secure enough articles or any commitment to finishing articles to get anything published. I have been trying, but, I suspect, not hard enough.

What follows, then, is a truncated issue borne out of those articles I have secured, from both forum users and an RMB regular, to cap off the year and, hopefully, set a trend for the year to follow. I need to do better at ensuring there is some form of quality journalism in the region and I will try my best to make sure that there is at least one more issue of the Southern Journal before the term ends. There will also need to be another discussion about splitting the Ministry, only this time that discussion needs to have more teeth and a willingness to propose solutions, since last time it petered out without any action.

Thank you for bearing with me this term, and please enjoy the following few articles.

With Halloween having come and passed this year, so did the annual Nationstates Halloween Event. Z-Day, as the event is called, was first trialed as a Nationstates April Fool’s Day Event in 2013 before becoming its own established event on the days of Halloween. As such, it became the first-ever annually repeated event in Nationstates history. While the event started off relatively easy in years past, each successive year has seen a progressive ramping-up of the difficulty by the NationStates Admins, in an effort to make the event more engaging.

The general mechanics of the event, however, have stayed the same. Regions, including Game-Created ones, may put a no-cost password on their region for the duration of the event. Nations may opt to pick one of three options once Z-Day begins: Cure Research, Extermination, and Embracing. Whichever choice a nation picks will either result in contribution towards the research of a cure, exterminating that nation’s Zombie population, and embracing the apocalypse to speed up the spread of Zombies. In addition, each of the options comes with a progressively upgraded “superweapon” which allow nations to either launch cure-filled missiles at their neighbors to heal their populace, exterminate their neighbors’ zombies, or send hordes of zombies to infect them further. Ultimately, the way for a region to “win” the event would be to fully cure their regional population before they’re overwhelmed. As cure research is proportional to the cumulative population of a region’s nations, it generally becomes more difficult the larger a region is.

During this year’s event, Nationstates Administrators announced that the powers of nations who Embraced the Zombie Horde would be significantly amplified, and that was readily demonstrated. The South Pacific, having chosen via a region-wide poll to attempt researching the Cure, clearly felt the difficulty of managing such a large population during the event. While a great number of people were coordinating through The South Pacific Discord in launching cure missiles and identifying targets, the region never attained the population proportion of Cure Researchers it needed to see a successful widespread cure effort.

With this latest Z-Day strain appearing to be stronger than in years past, coupled with the improved power of the hordes, and the massive population size of a feeder region, the epidemic spread through The South Pacific and its sister Pacifics as expected, ravaging the population and giving little to no chance of a success for the cure effort. The event also tends to disenfranchise newer nations, as their small populations have no effective impact on cure research, forcing a lot of the expectations onto more established players and their multitudes of puppet nations.

Regarding the 6.95 trillion cumulative population of The South Pacific’s nations, the effects were brutal. With most of the infected eventually dying off as the virus progressed, more than 5 trillion casualties were inflicted, with 1.3 trillion infected still roaming the region. However, through a coordinated and dedicated effort, 600 billion remained alive at the end of the event. Without the hard work of all those launching cure missiles, it’s likely TSP would have been totally overrun. It is through their perseverance that any survivors prevailed at all.

With this Z-Day having come and gone, player eyes now turn to April Fools Day to see what next game-wide event the Nationstates Admins can produce, with last year’s Nuclear Apocalypse event already having been confirmed to become an annual occurrence.

“Ignorance makes most men go into a political party, and shame keeps them from getting out of it.” - Edward Wood

In any democratic region, there arises a question, and in this case, a subtle but insidious one. The pioneers of the region’s democratic landscape must ask themselves whether or not it is worthwhile to allow for the creation of political parties, and how to limit them. Now, before we venture into the advantages and disadvantages of such institutions, let us attempt to define them. The Oxford English Dictionary, to pick a source at random, defines a political party as “A formally constituted political group that contests elections and attempts to form or take part in a government.” It is worth remembering, as we see here, that parties are formally constituted with the express purpose of involving themselves in the government. That is, they are not a group of bored young nobles idly chatting about the world.

Let us consider the advantages of these institutions. Political parties can, in the NationStates world, provide a platform of ideals, a think-tank style organization, and a welcoming and education opportunity for newer players. Essentially, parties lead to a pooling of fairly like-minded players who can consequently churn out legislation and ideas at a much more rapid rate than a mere individual. Moreover, these bodies can be an impressive force for change, as they tend to collect members and can sway voting processes greatly. Since political parties can represent and push for a set of ideals, they can also be highly attractive to newer players, which can lead to a mutually beneficial relationship, with newer players having a mentor-style opportunity, and the parties attracting more members - arguably one of every political party’s major goals.

Now we begin to segue into the disadvantages of political parties within the NationStates world. As we previously saw, political parties can and often do acquire enormous sway within the legislature, often creating voting blocs which can single-handedly change the course of the vote. Whilst this can lead to efficiency and the furthering of a beneficial agenda, it really leads to the furthering of the party’s agenda. This is made worse by the fact that many parties tend to focus their power in a few leading individuals - legislators who the rest of the party blindly votes for, meaning the party’s bloc vote may not even be a true majority. These bloc votes terrifyingly promote a lack of debate - after all, there is no reason for members of the bloc to bother debating a piece of legislation when they already possess the ability to see it passed into law.

Over the past few years, we in the South Pacific have seen the rising power of two major political parties - the Alliance for the Preservation for the Coalition and the Island League. Recently, the South Progress Party has emerged, harking back to gameside roots. Nevertheless, the former two parties hold impressive legislative power - something which can be very dangerous. In the current Chair elections, the primary held by the Alliance for the Preservation of the Coalition lead to an endorsement which changed the course of the election. This is a terrifyingly concentrated power, one which gives rise to a number of questions. When political parties have such an enormous sway over electoral and legislative votes, we must consider the ramifications. The democratic processes rest their power in each individual making their own choice to vote, and seeing their voice heard. With such institutionalization in political parties, how many voices are truly being heard?

December brought the return of the South Pacific Advent Calendar, thanks to the work of our Ministry of Regional Affairs. For 24 days in a row, a new daily topic thread invited forum and RMB players to participate in games, role play, share festive songs, memories, traditions and jolliness, "Corrupt-A-Christmas-Wish" (that became surprisingly dark) and a holiday horror story. Up against the "In a Lampshade Far Far Away" Star Wars event and the Nation States World Fair, the Advent Calendar participation may have fallen a bit from last year but remained a fun tradition for both the Neoliberal Globalists and the Alt-Right crowds alike, who come together to share some fun and give thanks for the season. Even the raiders and defenders cooperated to rewrite the Twelve Days of Christmas.

As a new player to both NationStates and The South Pacific, I loved the seeing what surprise the calendar had in store each day and seeing the creative and downright silly sides of many of our people, as well as getting to connect casually with the region. I was, however, unable to convince anyone to ignore Festive-Industrial Establishment lies and learn the Truth about Santa.

I want to thank everyone who participated, both on the forums and on the Regional Message Board and especially to Seraph/Erinor (who even put in work on their birthday), Qwert/Sedunn, Roavin, and Nakari/Parazzia who put in the the work to keep us in the holiday spirit. I raise my SPIT and tip my lampshade to you all!

By Seraph

For many of you whom have not held office in the South Pacific before, the question of ‘just what office should I run for?’ is one that can be pondered long and hard, cause sleepless nights and yet still not provide any answers. And for those of us who have held office? Why, the problem is even more difficult because we already know that the offices we’ve long held in high esteem and feel most naturally attuned to are, in fact, quite a lot of hard work, actually, and wouldn’t it be nice if there was an elected or appointed office which you could hold and just sip SPIT by the pool all day?

What follows is of absolutely no use to the second category of people (for whom there is no help), but if you’re in the first category, well, you’re in luck! Chair of the Assembly Nakari has produced a handy buzzfeed quiz which will quickly assign you your ideal South Pacifican office and all through the medium of cheerful tropical pictures and pastimes (so the rest of us can dream, at least).

If you doubt the accuracy of your result, just look at these startling examples: Feirmon should be Prime Minister (can’t disagree with that), Nakari should be Chair of the Assembly (and she is!), Overthinkers should be Delegate (now, wait a minute) and Escade should be on the Local Council…. and Prime Minister… and on the Council on Regional Security (I… give up). Be sure to let us know which office best suits you, so that we can stack vote against you accordingly![/b][/size]