The discussion here reminded me that I never said anything publicly about our involvement in The South Pacific (TSP) during my presidency. At the time, I kept quiet because I felt the details might harm our diplomatic relations. If that was ever true, I'm convinced it no longer is. Therefore, I'm going to tell the story.
This is not a definitive history, but an account of events from my perspective. Others are invited to correct or supplement my account. I only care about the TSP affair insofar as it affected Europeia, so don't expect a fulsome account of the affair and its NS-wide implications.
Here goes:
Well-known defender Sedge, from The Rejected Realms (TRR), led an effort to overthrow the delegate in TSP. He was joined by Unknown, TNI and LKE. It was a massive operation, so I presume he had other allies too. The Founderless Regions Alliance (FRA), under the leadership of Unibot (who was FRA Arch-Chancellor at the time), came to the aid of the incumbent government of TSP.
I wasn't part of the initial deliberations, but I can see how the decision might have been difficult. On one hand, we would normally side with our raider allies, and against the FRA. On the other, we enjoyed friendly relations with TSP (more so than with the other feeders), and HEM was involved in the government of TSP at the time. For whatever reason, we sided with the native government of TSP.
While the TSP affair was ongoing, Earth resigned. HEM, Ollie and Griff resigned their posts here more or less contemporaneously with Earth. (Griff had been GA.) Plenty has been written on these forums about those events.
As Vice President, I assumed the presidency upon Earth's resignation. Even before my GA was confirmed, one of the admirals (not sure which one) asked privately if I wanted to continue to support TSP against the raiders, who by this point had assumed the delegacy. Motivated by a desire to repair relations with HEM, I said we should continue. After that, I mostly ignored the issue. A few days later, the raid fell apart and TSP's native delegate was restored.
Somewhere in there, I was advised by someone (not sure who) that our involvement in TSP might have violated our treaty obligations. Therefore, I took pains not to disclose our involvement. Later, I reviewed the treaties myself and concluded I had been advised wrongly, but even so, I decided the matter was sensitive enough that I shouldn't discuss it publicly. I did respond privately to a couple citizens who asked questions about our involvement.
I could say more about the fallout across the NS world from the TSP affair, but I'll leave that to someone who follows those things closely. Europeia's involvement in TSP was very minor; ironically, my (possibly misguided) efforts to keep our involvement quiet may have caused some people to believe we were more involved than we were. From Europeia's standpoint, TSP was little more than a garden-variety reinforcement operation. I'm surprised it's still a topic of interest -- and after this boring account, perhaps it won't be anymore.
This is not a definitive history, but an account of events from my perspective. Others are invited to correct or supplement my account. I only care about the TSP affair insofar as it affected Europeia, so don't expect a fulsome account of the affair and its NS-wide implications.
Here goes:
Well-known defender Sedge, from The Rejected Realms (TRR), led an effort to overthrow the delegate in TSP. He was joined by Unknown
I wasn't part of the initial deliberations, but I can see how the decision might have been difficult. On one hand, we would normally side with our raider allies, and against the FRA. On the other, we enjoyed friendly relations with TSP (more so than with the other feeders), and HEM was involved in the government of TSP at the time. For whatever reason, we sided with the native government of TSP.
While the TSP affair was ongoing, Earth resigned. HEM, Ollie and Griff resigned their posts here more or less contemporaneously with Earth. (Griff had been GA.) Plenty has been written on these forums about those events.
As Vice President, I assumed the presidency upon Earth's resignation. Even before my GA was confirmed, one of the admirals (not sure which one) asked privately if I wanted to continue to support TSP against the raiders, who by this point had assumed the delegacy. Motivated by a desire to repair relations with HEM, I said we should continue. After that, I mostly ignored the issue. A few days later, the raid fell apart and TSP's native delegate was restored.
Somewhere in there, I was advised by someone (not sure who) that our involvement in TSP might have violated our treaty obligations. Therefore, I took pains not to disclose our involvement. Later, I reviewed the treaties myself and concluded I had been advised wrongly, but even so, I decided the matter was sensitive enough that I shouldn't discuss it publicly. I did respond privately to a couple citizens who asked questions about our involvement.
I could say more about the fallout across the NS world from the TSP affair, but I'll leave that to someone who follows those things closely. Europeia's involvement in TSP was very minor; ironically, my (possibly misguided) efforts to keep our involvement quiet may have caused some people to believe we were more involved than we were. From Europeia's standpoint, TSP was little more than a garden-variety reinforcement operation. I'm surprised it's still a topic of interest -- and after this boring account, perhaps it won't be anymore.
