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Qwert · 06-16-2018, 08:24 AM

Issue XXII - Saturday, 16 June 2018

A day in the Königspalast
By Lisa Tamsen

Have you ever asked yourself, what politicians sitting in the Gianlucian parliament do the entire day? Our team around the TIR correspondent for GI-Land did so and made an appointment with one of those politicians called Frank Heinzenbach, who is sitting in parliament for the constituency Südtor II as a representative of the Social Liberal Party (SLP) since the last year’s election.

The Königspalast

The SLP is currently one of the reigning parties, which is in a coalition out of themselves, the Green Party (Grüne) and the Pirate Party of GI-Land (PPG). The King and Leader Gianluca IV and the chancellor Tom Kirchmann along with five ministers belong to the very same party that Heinzenbach is working for. He won his constituency directly and was lucky to be one of the SLP-politicians with the highest popular support. Over 72% of the voters in Südtor II have voted for him with their first vote.

"Yes, I'm very proud of that, but it really needed much campaigning to achieve that goal. We spent much more money than usual due to the new voting system and its demands when it comes to getting the most votes", he explained to us while walking from his office near the palace in the middle of Atlantis to the plenar hall.

The day starts with a little session in the plenar hall. Today's discussion topic is the new voting system, how it got approved by the voters (according to the latest poll 71% of the populace would like to get back to the MMP system used before) and what steps the parliament will take regarding the poll results.

"I don't think, we will achieve something today. Often it's only discussion in Gianlucian parliament. Real voting on laws doesn't happen every day. We mostly discuss here and work in the background, in all those committees, on laws we might propose to the parliament every now and then", Heinzenbach answers as soon as he looks into our confused faces, as we expected much more voting than – sometimes boring – discussion.

After almost an hour of shallow speeches, we accompany our host on his way to the committee of infrastructure. In the meantime we ask the most important questions in our lives: Wi-Fi is good in the entire building, the Intranet works fine too and the cafeteria also has halal, vegetarian and vegan alternatives next to one or two "normal" dishes.

"And if you really need some fast-food, there is this McDonald’s you know of too perhaps. It's near the west wing, you can easily walk through the catacombs to it (laughs)."

The story behind the fast-food chain's branch in the Königspalast is quite odd, as it was a direct order by the King and Leader Gianluca IV to have it.

"He likes good food like his grandmother or mother would cook it for him, although he himself likes cooking too, but occasionally he's really into that kind of stuff also, and so he demanded to have his personal branch nearby. It also helped that the location is in the middle of the city anyway and many tourists come here every day, so the revenue isn't the worst for the company."

Frank Heinzenbach

After 20 minutes – we had to make a little detour to buy ourself a sandwich and coffee in the cafeteria – we arrive at the discussion room of the committee of infrastructure. It consists of 30 people – normally 31, but the minister of infrastructure Reinhard Barting (SLP) wasn't present – from all across the political spectrum. The SLP and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) got seven seats each, the PPG and Grüne have five seats each and the King's Party of the House of Atlantis (KPHA) and the Left GIs (LGI) got three seats each. So the governing coalition has a manpower of 17, while the opposition parties got a manpower of 13. This applies to all 15 committees that work on laws for GI-Land. But doesn't that mean that only laws that are amiable to the coalition in power get through the committees and in the end into the open discussion in the Königspalast?

"No, it doesn't", Heinzenbach starts to explain.

"We work independently from the government. No one has to vote for his own party's proposals in here or against another party's proposal. If we bring in a change on our legislature, it's approved of by a majority of the parties' representatives in the committee or it's a move by one party alone."

Today's topics include the possibilities to promote fossil fuel free driving, free public transport and how to encourage institutes to put more money into the research of a system similar to the Hyperloop that's currently being developed in the Peocracy of Huawan.

"They are really our biggest competitor on the world stage, when it comes to transportation and innovations in that field. GI-Land has to pay attention to not lose this competition", Heinzenbach extends our knowledge after our question, why we are in such a competitive relationship with the Peocracy.

The result of six hours of discussion (with a little break of 30 minutes after three hours): Not even a law proposal, but a paper on what to work on in the next meeting.

"I sense that we'll have a breakthrough on the e-car thing in the next few days or the latest until we get into summer break", our host assures us.

How he'll spend the free time in summer?

"Probably having a two-week trip to Sedunn, one week of which will be work as I will talk with parliament members of that country about their infrastructural solutions, but one week will also be much sightseeing especially in Grovne and Flered (smiles and giggles). And when I come back, my constituency expects me to listen to them."

One can see: The service politicians do for our society is major and isn't all about boring plenary discussions and votes, it's about working together with others on making our lives better, it's about listening to the people, it's about extending their knowledge and wisdom and for many persons sitting in parliament also about managing the balancing act of taking good care of their personal family and, figuratively speaking, extended family – the nation. All that by remaining a human being!

Maybe we should cherish this service more and think about all that, before the next time we chase after a politician that has made a mistake.

Where are the Royals?
By anonymous
Published online

The Official news outlets of both Frost Empire and Reizen Rebels have been focused on propaganda efforts and summarizing the origins of the war. However, what are the Royals doing? Have they forsaken their duty to the Empire?

It is no secret that First Prince Itami F. Firenze is an ardent supporter of the Reizen Democratic Party, lobbying the Kensei regime and Assembly to pressure the technocratic oligarchy into stepping aside and conduct free and fair elections. There are rumours that the First Prince attempted to leave for Reizen Province much like his younger sister, Second Princess Isara F. Firenze, to support the people of Reizen. However, unlike the Second Princess, the First Prince was stopped under suspicion of attempting to coerce the city council of Ikireijin into surrendering the city to RDP forces. After his failed attempt to go to the war-torn province he has often been seen meeting members of the high nobility and is even rumoured to have met several ultranationalist leaders who make up the Nationalist Front in the Assembly to push for pro-RDP policies. Even now there are hushed whispers that the First Prince himself may have been responsible for the secret agreement between the Reizen Democratic Coalition and Frost Empire

The young princess, Isara F. Firenze, is a humanitarian whose compassion and actions are often at odds with the more conservative high nobles with the exception of the Imperial Lap Dog, Clan Kensei. The Princess has endeared herself to the general public after her publicity stunt in Ikireijin and earning the ire of the other nobles. She has been the subject of negative gossip for associating herself with "lesser beings" and selfishly prioritizing a backwater province and neglecting the homeland. However, the people of Ikireijin describe her as a selfless and amicable person who used her influence to evacuate the wounded or expedite the shipment of medical supplies that would traditionally have been shipped slowly by ship. She has often called on the RDP to lay down its arms or amend its tactics to reduce the bloodshed. The Second Princess has also been seen in the Ikireijin war room from time to time with the Crown Princess arguing for the better treatment of Prisoners of War, and prosecuting soldiers accused of war crimes.

Finally, the Crown Princess, Remilia A. Firenze, on the other hand is someone who much like her parents have no opinion on the matter of the civil war. She is a gifted tactician "earning" the rank of Navy Admiral at the tender age of 25. Some believe that the commission was given to her so that she can play navy captain, while others, especially those under her command claim that she earned that rank and their trust after leading them through several perilous missions during the initial stages of the civil war, and the Serevan War. The Crown Princess is known to train alongside the sailors under her command and sleep in the crew quarters, leaving the Captain's quarters as a guest room for the occasional Grand Admiral. The Crown princess also allegedly serves as an enabler for the young second Princess often allowing the young princess to stay in military meetings discussing the fates of prisoners, much to the chagrin of Army officers. Although this may be the result of the President himself, who promoted a blunter planning process where officers can disagree with tactical decisions in the initial planning stages instead of allowing strategies to be pushed through with disastrous consequences.

OOC: Updating the regional map
Our regional map is turning five years this winter! (Amazing, isn't it?!) According to available logs, it was first posted November 11, 2013, and from the beginning the interest in having your own plot was massive. In the first update, some 25 nations were added. In the next update another 25 were added, followed by 21 in a few weeks. The total number of plots continued to grow, and since the first months we've seen many nations come and go. After in total 47 updates, we currently have 95 nations on the map (including Government Island), a slight decline since the peak in March this year, with 99 plots. Below I've compiled some statistics about the map (misinterpretations or inconsistencies in the logs may affect the results somewhat).

Plot over the net amount of claimed plots after each map update.

The map was designed by Brutland and Norden, who managed the map from November 11, 2013, until version 2.0.0 in May 14, 2017, which was when rhinotaz took over. He took care of the map for 1.5 years until the responsibility was handed over to Qwert (me!), and verison 3.0.0.

The actual updating of the map is done in PowerPoint using text boxes and inserting shapes, for example for province/state borders. However, the whole process involves more steps:

Check validity of current claims by controlling if the NS nations still exist and are in the NS region TSP and remove nations that aren't.
Check validity and feasibility of new claims by controlling if the NS nations still exist and are in the NS region TSP and that all required information has been lodged.
Add new compliant nations and edit plots.
Log changes and update the directory.
Export the map, one image with high resolution, and one with lower as a preview. The map can't be exported directly with PowerPoint, so an additional program is needed. I use Inkscape in this step.
Upload the map to an image sharing website. Imgur is used currently.
Update the original post with links to the images on Imgur.
Announce update.

When updating the map there are in average eleven actions (add/edit/remove). Sometimes there are few required actions, like only three, and sometimes there are more, like around 25. Depending on the number and complexity of the actions, the total amount of time required for steps 1-8 above ranges from an hour to almost the equivalent of a workday. The most common reason for being removed from the map is CTEing. In total, there are 581 actions on record.

Distributions of actions.

Where do people choose to settle? The current distribution of valid claims is shown in the image below. The distribution is fairly even. If you count, you will find that there are 57 valid claims out of 118 plots in the western half of the map, and 38 out of 113 in the eastern half of the map. See the hidden table for more numbers. It can be noted that for some reason, it looks like the Western Continent is the most popular one among active role-players.

Plots with valid claims in black (version 3.0.12).

Hidden table with plots and continents

In total, there are 230 plots on the regional map, and 95 are currently claimed, or 41% percent, meaning there's room for many more claims and new friends!

OOC: RP Digest
What is going on in Treasure Island right now? Here's a selection.

2018 Football World Championship
Conflict brewing in Sector A1-0 (sci-fi RP outside main canon)
Various internal political conflicts and events reported in Flash News
... and much more.

________________________

Contributors
@GI-Land: A day in the Königspalast
@Imperial Frost Federation: Where are the Royals?
@Qwert: Editor, OOC: Updating the regional map, OOC: RP Digest

About the Treasure Island Report
The Treasure Island Report (TIR) is a monthly newspaper from the role-playing community with in-character articles and other community related news, letting others know what we get up to in there.

Want to contribute to the next issue? Go here!

Roleplayer
Manager of the TSP and A1-0 maps
Roleplay moderator

My roleplay nations

(This post was last modified: 06-16-2018, 11:53 AM by Qwert.)