Llamas -- what is your stance on TSP relations with UCRs?

Honestly, I must say that I believe expansion of our ties with non-GCR's is an excellent idea, and something that has been overlooked by many in the past. I am personally closer to UCR's than the majority of other GCRites for a variety of reasons. In the past, I have been delegate of multiple UCR's, such as Khora, a region which was of a notable size at over 100 nations at one stage in its growth. In addition, I am friends with various UCR delegates, including Sal ( <3 you Sal, you're awesome  ) and a few others, leading me to understand some of their frustrations: Many of them believe that GCR's fail to attempt even basic communications with UCR's, even if they are large and notably influential, and think that this needs to change for the good of both groups. My service in the United Kingdom as an ambassador from Lazarus also strengthened my belief that these regions can help us achieve our goals if we were to simply try to reach out to them.

I note that Cooperation, one of the key themes of my campaign, makes no distinction between UCR's and GCR's. I will do my best to find allies for TSP wherever they lie, with no distinction as to where they get their nations from. The only criterion for finding which regions we should strengthen ties with should be how faithful and loyal they will be to us. It is my firm belief that these kinds of regions can also serve as good allies, and we must do everything we can to ensure that TSP's diplomatic web is diverse and consist of whoever will bring us the most good.

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I will be asking the same question to all candidates, and I would appreciate an honest answer. Anyone that bluffs this question off by trying to be polite will not be getting my vote.

What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of each of your opposition candidates campaigns?

Thanks

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A new GCR is formed. It is a feeder, and you are the only government official available to respond to it. You notice the feeder within the hour and happen to be free all day - you are also aware that most of the rest of the cabinet will not be around for the rest of the day, if not for the next couple of days.

The GCR quickly attracts a small group of roughly organized people who identify themselves, on the RMB, as being from a non-descript non-NS related online community. A couple of representatives find the TSP IRC channel and are available to chat. Their IP addresses, should you check them, are reliable ISPs and unknown to you.

It quickly seems that they have a tenuous grasp on the WAD - they far exceed any endos picked up by any ragtag WA members, but could quickly be dislodged by a concerted effort from almost any GCR or UCR military (say, a half-dozen to a dozen). They have no forum set up, but do have an IRC channel with multiple OPs and a clear OP hierarchy.

You seem to be the only major GCR politician at the time, and no prominent gameplayers are in their IRC channel.

What do you do?

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I will be asking the same question to all candidates, and I would appreciate an honest answer. Anyone that bluffs this question off by trying to be polite will not be getting my vote.

What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of each of your opposition candidates campaigns?

Hmm. Well, first I must note Lord Ravenclaw. Lord Ravenclaw definitely appears to be an impressive candidate to me, and I greatly respect him. He has a very long and impressive service record, and I consider him to be a worthy opponent. His main strength is his experience, which will definitely be his best asset in the future. I would say that this could also be his biggest weakness. As an older politician who has served in multiple governments, it is likely that he has been made rigid by his time in this old system. NS is always changing, and this may require rapid changes in policy or what is considered normal for GCR policy, something which Raven is less likely to implement and try. By contrast, while I may not be a top-level official and am not really a government insider, having served only in one GCR government, Lazarus, I am definitely prepared and wiling to execute a full-scale review of TSP's MoFA in order to strengthen the policies we have in place which work, remove those which do not, and begin experimenting with new plans and policies to try to work out how this would work.

On the other hand, TAC has yet to prove himself or detail a very extensive way in which he would change policy. While he is definitely a good person and highly enthusiastic, he doesn't appear to be anywhere near ready for this important a task, and would do much better to be eased into it by being appointed a Deputy first.

A new GCR is formed. It is a feeder, and you are the only government official available to respond to it. You notice the feeder within the hour and happen to be free all day - you are also aware that most of the rest of the cabinet will not be around for the rest of the day, if not for the next couple of days.

The GCR quickly attracts a small group of roughly organized people who identify themselves, on the RMB, as being from a non-descript non-NS related online community. A couple of representatives find the TSP IRC channel and are available to chat. Their IP addresses, should you check them, are reliable ISPs and unknown to you.

It quickly seems that they have a tenuous grasp on the WAD - they far exceed any endos picked up by any ragtag WA members, but could quickly be dislodged by a concerted effort from almost any GCR or UCR military (say, a half-dozen to a dozen). They have no forum set up, but do have an IRC channel with multiple OPs and a clear OP hierarchy.

You seem to be the only major GCR politician at the time, and no prominent gameplayers are in their IRC channel.

What do you do?

Well, firstly, I do want to note the unlikelihood of the scenario for various reasons. Firstly, the lack of *any* high-ranking officials whatsoever besides me appears strange, and is an incredible constraint on my actions, as the MoFA does not have authority over the SPSF.

First, I would probably attempt to establish contact with these people and learn who they are, what they want, and why they're here. The more information I were to have, the better. I mean, if these guys were, say, neo-Nazis from stormfront.com, I'd begin the preparations to remove them immediately if possible and attempt to contact either the Minister of the Army or the Delegate of TSP in order to ensure that they would be gone within the next update or two. On the other hand, if they were to be something much more palatable, such as members of a CyberNations alliance who thought it would be cool to establish a kind of reverse-NPO (Starting in CN and with a branch in NS), I'd be more likely to just wait and try to discuss what should be done about this with the Cabinet and our allies.

In addition, I would probably search for more or less anybody on our IRC, RMB, or forums. I would want to make sure that if it were necessary and either the MoA or Delegate showed up, we would be capable of offensive operations in the next updates. I note although I believe we should be prepared to launch an operation the next update, that is not what I would necessarily want to do. In fact, this would be a very unlikely course of action and would only be my choice if I managed to find various leading NS GPers before that time and talk to them about this, as well as at least a few Cabinet officials, and some urgent circumstances demanded it, such as the aforementioned neo-Nazi scenario.

After this, I would seek to contact various other important delegates and politicians, as well as everybody in TSP's cabinet. This would be key, as I cannot nor do I expect to make decisions with no advice by charging brashly into situations. The most probable course of action I would take (Although this would certainly be subject to change should I hear a better idea from anyone during the discussions) would be to first get everybody to agree to a few basic points, such as that the new feeder would be considered independent and could not be claimed by any foreign region. In order to enforce this, I would build a coalition consisting of ourselves, our allies, and various GCR's and other important regions to ensure that nobody would attempt to break this agreement or take the region themselves. Should it be necessary, this coalition would administrate the region in order to keep it secure and allow it to grow for a period of possibly up to a month or more, depending on conditions. After the region had reached a decent size and was capable of standing on its own, we would initiate elections to pick a delegate and set up a new government for the region that would be free of control by foreign forces and capable of making its own destiny.

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