Hi, TSP!

I am your local SPSF mom, Eternal Queen of Darkness and Lampshades, punmaster, bringer of Naknarok, and enthusiast of the only South American animal better than llamas. I’ve also served in Cabinet a few times, with at least a brief engagement in every Ministerial position, including a full term as Prime Minister a year ago, and have often served in various formal and informal advisory roles on issues surrounding the military, foreign affairs, and just in general on Cabinet affairs. I’ve also served as a Moderator and as a member of the Legislator Committee - so I’ve nearly filled in the TSP Positions bingo card. Plus, I’m a world expert on the recipe of SPIT!

Reactive!

The main focus of the Prime Minister job is being able to effectively handle and manage developing situations. I intend to fully live up to the examples set by previous Prime Ministers, and I have some experience in doing so. For example, in February 2019, I was appointed to serve as Minister of Foreign Affairs for ten days at the end of the term. While I was only supposed to keep the seat warm, it turned out during that time that one of our embassies had members displaying homophobic and anti-Semitic sentiments. I took point on gathering evidence, talking to the administration, making the necessary statements, and passing evidence to our allies who had had relationships with that embassy.

Another example is the situation in our ally The East Pacific last year during my previous term as your Prime Minister.  For much of the term, MoFA Glen and I kept an eye on the situation with constant communication with our treaty allies in the Rejected Realms. The actual coup near the end of the term came at a particularly bad time for me IRL, but I still worked extensively to get the region involved, write statements, mobilize our military, and all the other necessary things when an ally is couped. And in general, even if my name wasn’t directly attached to it, I’ve worked with and advised Roavin on many occasions while he was Prime Minister to handle a wide variety of developing situations. 

Proactive!

I get very grumpy when ministers don’t stick to their goals, and I’m not above badgering them endlessly to get things done. That applies to Cabinet-wide goals and responsibilities too. I’ve been a significant driving force in getting the Sunshine Act releases done multiple times, even when I wasn’t technically responsible for it as a junior Cabinet member. Other examples include pushing appointments, reminding people about discussions, doing a variety of secretarial work, and similar.

I have quite a few proactive goals other than just endlessly badgering everybody, as cute as badgers are, which I’ll detail below.

Foreign and Regional Military Affairs!

We’re NationStates’ biggest defender region! And we’re not a defender region because we arbitrarily decided to be one, but rather because it’s a reflection of our culture and values as a region, our proud love of democracy and freedom. So we have much more of a standing to flaunt who we are and why we are as we are, and thereby inspire other regions (defender or not) to pitch in to the cause. 

The specifics, of course, will depend on the ministers that join me in Cabinet, but overall, there is a lot of potential for coordination. That includes recruitment campaigns, Security Council Liberation proposals, military operations (beyond the usual cooperation in Libcord with our defender friends), events, joint journalistic ventures, and more. I’ll work with all of our ministers to make these things happen, and I’m a prominent defender in the wider world of NationStates gameplay, so I can provide knowledge and easily connect us with the shadowy defender cabal. Defender, loud and proud!

Of course, none of that can happen with the appropriate integration efforts. We need to start promoting all of our ministries together, through regular telegrams reminding people of the opportunities available in the ministries and regular showcasing of the wonderful things our ministries do. We can do a lot better with our application processes, and whether that means a unified application process or something more tailored for each area of the reason, I want to explore ways to streamline and make it easier both for the people applying and the people processing the applications.

How many people can fit in a Cabinet?
 

I’ll encourage ministers to bring in anybody they perceive as promising in their ministry as either interns or deputies, as has been done in previous terms. I will also appoint a press secretary whose sole job is to regularly report what the Cabinet has been doing (both the good and the bad), and make sure we keep up with our promised updates. 

Even though OWL is not at 100% capacity yet, the experiment definitely seems to be a success and I have no intention of getting rid of it. I haven’t personally gotten involved with it yet, but that will change. In fact, I’d like to make the continued maintenance of OWL official Cabinet policy, and give the head of OWL a place in the Cabinet. There have been various ideas floated about other departments as well, and while I don’t want to make promises, I want to talk to the other ministers and the wider region to see if there are useful additions to make. 

Transparent Sunshine!

Speaking of press secretary: I promise that there will be at least one Cabinet Twitter post a week. As is tradition, these will be posted on the forum, on Discord, and on-site on the RMB. 

In order to engage the in-game community more, we’ll set up a dedicated region (tentatively named Government Island) with an embassy that can be used to ask government members questions at any time. It will also serve as a venue to post government updates and reports, alongside being posted on the main region RMB, so that they won’t be lost in regular conversation and on-site members know where to go to easily find such updates and news. Furthermore, we will be organizing more regular AMA sessions, both on and off site, to prompt the region to ask their questions.

And of course, you can expect timely Sunshine releases. How timely? I already have a document with links for the next release, and at the end of the term, I’ll make sure everything from the past months has been documented in Sunshine-ready form. How ironic that it’s the ginger who’s the most eager for sunshine...

In conclusion...

So. That’s who am, who I hope to be as Prime Minister, and those are my plans if TSP wants me as Prime Minister again, which apparently a decent amount of you do want! I wouldn’t be running if not for all the support and the encouragement for me to run, and I think either of the other people running for Prime Minister would be decent Prime Ministers. And I’m excited about how contested this election is - I’d love to work alongside whoever wins in the MoRA, MoFA and MoMA elections, whether as their Prime Minister, or just a regular Legislator! But, hey, I think I can do a good job, so I’m here as an option for those who think that too.

I’d be happy to answer any of your questions, formulated in your choice of English, Ancient Greek, or guinea pig squeals. 










Regional Experience
December 2018 - current: Legislator Committee (I will see how compatible this is with being Prime Minister - I do enjoy being on LegComm but I may need to resign depending on how much of my NS time being Prime Minister takes up)
April 2019 - current: Moderator
June 2019 - current: General

December 2017 - June 2018, October 2019 - February 2020: Chair of the Assembly
June 2019 - October 2019: Prime Minister
February 2019 - June 2019: Minister of Military Affairs
February 2019: Minister of Foreign Affairs
June 2018 - August 2018: Minister of Regional Affairs, regrettably

Conflict of Interest Declaration

I am a Constable in the Order of the Grey Wardens and a Citizen in the Rejected Realms.

In the past, I’ve been a member of the Invaders (in sneeky capacity) and 21st Century Rome. 

I’ve had over 900 puppets so I won’t name them all here (the CRS can ask me if they wish to know), but significant names of mine include Parazi, Sammuramat, The Heartbeat, The Great NationStates Bake Off, and Warden Nakari.

(This post was last modified: 06-06-2020, 05:37 PM by Nakari.)

Reply

The Assembly has shown a clear desire for increased involvement and leadership in the Defender sphere. What makes you the right person to lead us in that effort?

What does an effective Prime Minister look like?

What do you plan to do if you are not elected?

Above all else, I hope to be a decent person.
Has Been
What's Next?

 

CoA: August 2016-January 2017
Minister of Foreign Affairs: October 2019-June 2020, October 2020- February 2021

Reply

Can you please describe your past or current service in the South Pacific Special Forces or other work promoting our defender values, or, if you do not have such qualifications, can you explain why you have chosen not to participate in the Special Forces? (This can be as simple as mentioning a timing issue.)

What are your views on a unified Discord server? Why or why not?

EDIT: Last time you were running for PM, you banned Islands from the Discord server. Will you do that again?

~ Aumeltopia ~

Raccoons are bandits! First they steal your food . . . and then your heart/identity!

(This post was last modified: 06-07-2020, 03:06 AM by Somyrion.)

Reply

The Assembly has shown a clear desire for increased involvement and leadership in the Defender sphere. What makes you the right person to lead us in that effort?

I'm already pretty involved in the defender sphere, especially the military side of it. So I'm in the perfect place to connect us with other defender regions and have the defender expertise to make us a leader. (Also, it looks like Phoenix is shaping up to be MoMA… imagine the raw fenda power of us both combined!)

What does an effective Prime Minister look like?

Someone who is decisive in action when necessary, able to bring the Ministers together and help each to achieve their goals, and keeps up with the everyday duties of transparency to the region.

What do you plan to do if you are not elected?

I'll continue with my current TSP positions!

 

Can you please describe your past or current service in the South Pacific Special Forces or other work promoting our defender values, or, if you do not have such qualifications, can you explain why you have chosen not to participate in the Special Forces? (This can be as simple as mentioning a timing issue.)

I've been in the SPSF since January 2017, when I first became an officer, and though I've taken a few breaks in that time, I've always come back! I'm currently a General. I do some training, help plan missions in Libcord and pass that information on to SPSF members, give orders, and update pretty often.
 

What are your views on a unified Discord server? Why or why not?

I'm not sure about it, to be honest. Two main reasons: I like things to be more compartmentalized, so that if I get a ping from MoRA server I know it's from there and not the SPSF server, though I don't know how many others feel this way (maybe we'll have a poll, exciting!)

Also, I don't like the idea of going from Ministers having power over their own server to Ministers not getting to have admin (or they'll be able to see everything going on). What if you're a Minister who gets no control over who gets to see your admin stuff, and there's someone with admin powers and expertise in your ministry but you don't want input from them any more? You can say "stop looking at this channel", but you can't actually stop them. I have a feeling this could contribute to things like the MoRA issues last term.

I think there's definitely more room to join the servers together and I’m not definitely opposed to a unified server - maybe a middle step would be moving the applications for MoFA, MoRA and OWL onto the main server, with accepted people being directed to the ministry server, so that anyone on the main server is constantly made aware of people joining the ministries. I'm just cautious about a fully unified server and how that balances with Minister autonomy.

EDIT: Last time you were running for PM, you banned Islands from the Discord server. Will you do that again?

I’ll ban you for suggesting I’d do such a thing!

(This post was last modified: 06-07-2020, 10:11 AM by Nakari.)

Reply

The debate was illuminating to me. That's not to say that I didn't have a preference going into it (I certainly did), but watching the two really reinforced one particular viewpoint.

There has been a significant emphasis in this election on our defender identity, and what role TSP should play in the interregional defender ecosystem. These are good questions to ask of our candidates, but I think it's prudent to recognize where we come from in this regard. We're not defenders because we decided "okay, let's do this now" and that was that. We didn't become defender-aligned, we have been, culturally. We didn't fit TSP into some mold of Defenderism, but rather we have come to find these shared values and have accepted the label.

It's in this context that the debate particularly struck me. Prarie's answers were bold and optimistic, but overall with less specifics than his opponent (much like Pete Buttigieg, actually!). The catchphrase was "utilizing defender values and doing the right thing". I'm reminded of a short story I once read, though I can't remember where it was. Three salesmen had their stands at the fish market. A traveler approached the first salesman, who was loudly yelling about the great fish he had today, and then immediately tried to sell the traveler much more fish than he wanted or needed. The traveler then moved to the second stand, dismayed by the salesman who was blasting the entire market with a megaphone about how he had the best prices in the entire city, but was so invested in his advertisement that he didn't even notice the potential customer arriving at his stand. Finally, the traveler moved to the third salesman, who was simply standing there. The traveler asked why he isn't advertising his prices, to which the salesman replied "I have the best fish."

This is kinda like that. It seemed that Prarie was working very hard to establish the narrative that he is the "defender candidate", but while Nakari didn't flaunt it much, there are very very few people that can tout the amount of defender street cred, both militarily and politically, that Nakari can; and as somebody that has worked with Nakari in many situations over the years, I can say without reservations that those things that most people know are just the tip of the iceberg.

That adds on to her having a stellar track record of service, prior experience in all facets of the Cabinet, her being one of the best and most insightful advisors I've ever had the pleasure of working with ... well, there really is no contest for me.

#Naka4PM

Reply

I must say that Roavin's sentiments are pretty much mine to a T. I am completely thrilled to know that Prairie has an urging to continue TSP's defender identity, although I completely agree with Roavin's thoughts on how this came about, something that I along with I'm sure many others could see starting to occur as early as 2017 in many respects. Nakari is, for my money, one of the driving forces of TSP's cultural identity being considered a Defender region. 
Additionally, with the amount of emphasis that has been placed on that philosophy, you would think that Prairie would be significantly more experienced in the R/D sphere than Nakari. At least in my experience that could not be farther from the truth. I've defended with Nakari for years, and know her competency in that field is very much so similar to her skill as a member of TSP's government.
So with that being said, #Naka4PM

It's casual- Sharikan
The Gameplayer also known as Kangly/Kang/Kangles

Reply

As someone who knows little of Cabinet politics but enjoys asking questions that leave candidates quaking, I have only one thing to ask.  It may be difficult, but it's about time you were asked the hard questions.

What sort of cabinet do you hope to work with?  I myself am rather partial to a dark oak or cherry wood, but I could see an argument made for birch or maple, even.  As a sub-question, in terms of hinges, are you more of a proponent of a reverse bevel or do you prefer an inset hinge, or even something as wild as a face frame hinge?  

The people need to know, and they deserve answers.  I trust you will not disappoint.

Local Councillor
Queen of the RMB
Reluctant Forum User

CAUTION: CONTENTS CONTAIN KNIVES AND ILL-INTENT

Reply