HEM
i did a thing on march 6 2007 and now we are here
Assembly Chair
Honoured Citizen
Citizen
Jorts Connoisseur
- Pronouns
- he / him / his
Written by HEM
ENN Editor-in-Chief
FOREWORD:
I initially thought about this project when Lethen bumped my article “Lethen is Donald Trump” which describe Lethen’s successful efforts to overturn a Europeian Presidential election after he loses to Danoboy63. Lethen had made a comment, “Also, Boots [nlhp] was such a bad President” and bumped the thread years later to apologize now that Nlhp is around again.
Personally, I have never regarded Nlhp as a bad President. I am not sure whether his leadership style from 2008 would work in the region today, but that’s true for a lot of people. But his Presidency — and most of 2008 — is a largely obscure part of our history. Typically, histories of the region cover the dynamic events of our founding through the transformation to a Republic, controversies of Lord Alphanesia, and the end of the cold war with Hampshire before conveniently skipping ahead to the ascension of President Pope Lexus X at the verrrrryyy tail end of 2008 which dovetails into Europeia’s golden age in 2009.
But what about the rest of 2008?!? Know it or not, it’s a period where some of Europeia’s most amusing anecdotes come from, but we slowly hone into a mature region that can go the distance, with the key focal point being the three terms of President Nlhp.
In my mind, this is a pretty large gap to fill in. And if I can be filled in, we have halfway decent histories of much of Europeia’s first half-decade — after which point, there’s a real question of whether I offer much value over replacement as a historian anyways. The clock is ticking, and if I don’t do this now, who knows if I ever will.
One final point, I have penned a few histories in the last several years that I think apply a more critical lens to my role, and the role of my closest allies at the time, in Europeian politics (for you university students, you can call it, HEM-critical theory).
While I’d like to think I’ve never written Europeian history before with the goal of self-adulation, many (many) years of separation gives me the needed fresh eyes to critically examine the role of the “old guard” and my own conduct and provide a more sympathetic, empathetic look to the individuals and factions who opposed us, and are — in most cases — the “losers” of history.
P.S. If you are looking to brush up on Literally Most Everything that has happened in Europeia up to this point, here’s a recommended reading list:
- The Goldenblock Series (Episode 1)
- Euro10 Festival Speech Covering 2007 - 2008
- The Europeian Who Kept Being Accused Of Treason (solid overview of June - September 2007)
- Lethen is Donald Trump (events immediately prior to this narrative)
PART ONE: THE DAWN OF 2008
January 2008 Election & Political Background
Lethen pulled out all the stops to secure a third term as President of Europeia. After being defeated at the ballot box by the Independent Faction’s Danoboy63 in a rematch from the election prior, he took the issue to the courts, throwing every rationale possible at the wall in the hopes of getting a new election. Activist judge Pez201 found at least one of the arguments persuasive, and ordered a new vote for President.
Even with this second try, it was no sure thing. Lethen lashed out at his fellow Centralist Party members when the election was again a razor-thin margin.
Up until this point, the political scene of the region had been dominated by contests between the VIP-studded Centralist Party and the scrappy, legal-focused Independent Faction. The Centralist Party was made up of former royals and their sympathizers and they tended to favor expediency and decisive executive action over the idiosyncrasies of political process. The Independent Faction tended to be more legalistic and deliberative, with their governments led by Pineaplebody operating on a more consensus-based model.
The Independent Faction was not an organized political party per se, but it maintained a steady manifesto and membership during its time as the opposition to the otherwise unopposed Centralist Party.
Lethen eventually scraped through, but the victory was a poisoned chalice.
A Term of Departures
In the aftermath of the overturned election, Danoboy63 departed the region. Other members like Pineapleboy, Pope Lexus X, and Allied Alliances became less active. Some new members did rotate in, like Gen Amorov — but many proved to be prickly and most did not last long (some foreshadowing here).
As the term got underway, it quickly became clear that Grand Admiral Allied Alliances needed to be replaced (there had been conversations during the election about replacing him, but no good alternatives came to mind). After an energetic start in the Navy as a fresh face several terms back, he had barely run any ops through his career — focusing more on streamlining the ranking system and other administrative items. Unfortunately, any change had to be handled with great care. Allied Alliances was an old friend of Paleomiz, one of the most dedicated but difficult natives of the region. She had already left the region twice in a huff, and it was feared that an unceremonious sacking of her friend could lead to another departure.
Only a few weeks into the term, Lethen gave a State of the Republic address that addressed the situation — and also hilariously mused about the competencies of some of his Ministers in plain view: “Bradshaw was appointed after showing interest with the hope that he would lead this ministry back to glory. Sadly, however, he has become a bit of a disappointment [...] The jury is still out on Bradshaw (perhaps his promotion was too sudden).”
As newly elected Vice President, I dropped down into the Grand Admiral position, while Allied Alliances was shunted sideways into some emeritus rank. He would never again contribute to the leadership of the Navy — if he ever had in the first place.
While the transition was relatively seamless — and Paleomiz even replied with an even-tempered, “this is all fine by me” — it wouldn’t stop the inevitable. Only a few days later, I made a post calling out the lack of recruitment in the region, and Paleomiz would leave the region for the final time. She would pop back in again a few months later, but never return to activity.
Meanwhile, I was clearly taking my demotion to Grand Admiral quite well by announcing to the Centralist Party that I intended to seek the party’s Presidential nomination with over half the term still to go. Hilariously, my core argument was the need for a fresh voice after two terms of President Lethen — though I was one of only three Europeians to serve as President up to that point. Inspired by the real life 2008 Democratic Primaries, I invested my time in setting up an absurd inter-party three “state” primary system as a monument to my overwhelming popularity in the party.
Surprisingly, however, a new member named Desakar decided to challenge me for the Presidential nomination. I don’t remember all the calculus that went into this decision, but not long thereafter, Lethen and I collectively made the decision that I should suspend my Presidential campaign and support Desakar, who became the presumptive nominee of the party. Unfortunately, only a few weeks later, Desakar had to step away from Nationstates due to real life concerns.
Desakar wasn’t the only member to depart the region in early March. A quirky, but active member named Gen. Amorov also left not long before him — throwing grenades and salting the earth behind him. Gen. Amorov had joined Europeia roughly a month prior from The Kingdom of York region that had gone defunct, and was frustrated by his lack of quick success. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when his bombastic efforts to reform Europeia’s ranking system to more closely resemble the RL United States Navy were thwarted by, well, mostly me.
The only thing that seemed to punctuate the parade of members leaving were periodic circus spectacles like the Senate descending into chaos when discussing Gen. Amorov’s naval legislation, or Lethen firing Culture Minister Bradshaw in a Donald Trump-style three word post. Oh also, Paleomiz still hasn’t been replaced as Immigration Minister!
It was at this point, with just two weeks or so left in the term, I gave a speech before the Senate threatening to invoke my authority to declare martial law. I am not sure if the threat ultimately ginned up much activity, but I bet it did increase forum posting by a bit, and the region slogged on to the next General Election.
March 2008 General Election
The Centralist Party is now devoid of talent for a general election. Lethen doesn’t want to see a fourth term, I was ambivalent about throwing my hat back into the ring, Cordova I was willing to be Vice President but not President, Gen. Amorov had kissed us off and sailed into the distance (actually, he may have already defected to another party anyway), and so on.
Lethen and I made the decision that it was time to disband the party and enter a new era of politics in Europeia. Some new parties are beginning to crop up, and we had our eye on a Presidential candidate who was willing to run — but not as a Centralist Party member. We turned to Foreign Secretary and former Chief Justice, Pez201 to be the anointed candidate of the old guard.
For us, Pez201 was an ideal candidate, in that he had already been very useful to the interests of the old guard by banning Lord Alphanesia as Chief Justice and then rubber stamping an kangaroo appeal that extended the ban sentence to infinity and beyond. He had proven to be a capable, if paper-pushing, Foreign Secretary, stepping into the formidable shoes of Cordova I. He was also generally a fun, agreeable member who had now been in the region for over a half-year.
The political party scene was shifting in a way that it hadn’t since the formation of the Republic. The Centralist Party had closed its doors, and earlier in the year, the Independent Faction had shifted to formally organizing itself as the Active Civilian Party.
In response, we quickly astroturfed together the Conservative Blue Party. Ironically, the overwhelming majority of the members did not consider themselves conservative, but it was a key way to attract a few regional members like Bolden to join and support Pez201.
There is no record of Pez201 dedicating much energy to campaigning for the Presidency. Lethen launched a Q&A campaign thread for his Senate and Vice Presidential run, which attracted questions that Pez201 also responded to. That’s not to say that Nlhp’s campaign was that much more impressive.
Nlhp had had an interesting career in Europeia up to this point. He joined the region at the dawn of the Republic and was the old guard’s candidate against Lord Alphanesia in the region’s first Senate by-election back in July 2007. He had remained an adversary of Lord Alphanesia and even resigned at one point before I convinced him to stay. In late 2007, he served as probably Europeia’s most successful University Dean.
Just a few weeks prior to running for President, however, he had been defeated fairly decisively in a bid to be Europeia’s United Nations (World Assembly) delegate. That’s all to say, that with Pez201’s general likability and stronger resume, we assumed he would be a strong favorite regardless of the campaign.
But ultimately, Nlhp prevailed by a margin of three or four votes. With a voter turnout only approaching 20 citizens, this was a decent margin. It’s hard to say exactly why Nlhp prevailed, but I think the more established, larger Active Civilian Party helped. After the closure of the Centralist Party, Cordova got his much sought after Vice Presidential offer from Nlhp, so he was a key “get” for the ACP over the Conservative Blues. There is evidence of *something* of a GOTV operation from the ACP (at least reminding people to vote) and so they were able to win a close, but decisive, win over the hastily-assembled alternatives.
Nlhp may have been the first President elected explicitly opposed by both myself and Lethen. And he’s walking into a mess.
Analysis of Part 1:
I want to take a step back and think about the activity challenges and overall domestic uneasiness.
It’s easy to look at the departing regional members as sour grapes, and certainly, they mostly weren’t extremely sympathetic figures. Gen. Amorov had waltzed into the region expecting to be handed power and began throwing a fit when things didn’t go his way. Paleomiz had been threatening to leave and dramatically returning since quite literally the first day she joined the forum. Danoboy’s departure after having his Presidential victory snatched away was, naturally, more understandable — but he was back now anyways.
But with the advantage of retrospect, at the center of all the chaos and floundering were often Lethen and I. While the region had shed the monarchical veneer — and that trend had been strengthened by Pineapleboy’s time as President — so many of the mechanics of state were being decided in MSN Messenger conversations between myself and Lethen. And to be blunt, we were bumbling through it.
Expecting to waltz into a second term, Lethen picked me as his Vice President and did a minimal amount of campaigning. Failing to even organize the Centralist Party properly, when the vote didn’t go our way, he turned to the court. The court ordered new elections — essentially on the justification that we as Chancellors had failed to secure the voting booth forum — which understandably spoiled the relationship with Danoboy and led to his departure.
We tried to move more chess pieces around the board again with Allied Alliances’ termination as Grand Admiral — handing me another role on a platter — but there’s not a ton of evidence that I did more than him (I probably did a little more). Instead, I worked to measure the curtains of the Goldenblock and spent time devising an elaborate inter-party primary system designed as a protracted coronation of myself as the Centralist nominee for President the next term.
Meanwhile, I was poking other people in the eyes, too. The piece of legislation that Gen. Amorov was obsessively pushing (and left the region over) wasn’t some radical power grab — it was redoing the system of ranks. When it became clear that it was so overly important to him, it probably would’ve been appropriate to just give it to him — or at least, work with him to propose a compromise. Gen. Amorov had been open to a middle ground, indicated by him accepting all changes and edits proposed by Senator Pineapleboy.
But instead it was a full whip effort to make sure his bill was defeated in the People’s Assembly, and then defeated *again* in the Senate.
To be fair, Gen. Amorov may have already poisoned the well by suggesting that he “laughed at Europeia” when he saw our ranking system from another region. He also called me a “FOOL” and said that we would never be able to secure alliances with our regions if our rankings didn’t reflect the real life United States Navy’s ranking. In mismangled posts, he said the type of things that almost seem tailor-made to frustrated people. So yes, he was over the top, but did it really matter?
If you remember, I also started the guilt-tripping thread about recruitment that was the final straw to Paleomiz’s departure. This was probably less of a faux pas than it would be today, as these types of smaller notes and conversations did take place on the forum without Discord — but still, you’re kinda asking for it.
So, it is Lethen and I’s administration bumbling through the term, stumbling over ourselves, and then ultimately chiding people for leaving // not recruiting // not posting enough, and threatening martial law.
That’s probably the least charitable interpretation, at least. A more sympathetic perspective on the other side of the coin is that, undoubtedly, 85% of the labor of running the region was on myself and Lethen’s shoulders. Yes, I started that thread that led Paleomiz to rage quit, but it was because the two of us had been the only people recruiting for weeks — and she was supposed to be in charge of recruitment as Immigration Minister!
We were tasked with holding things down, while a bunch of prima donnas marched around needing their egos stroked to just log-in, stick around, and make a few posts — many of which were hostile, counterproductive, or as Lethen called Gen. Amorov’s contributions, “unpunctuated gibberish with no focus.”
Additionally, for all our flaws, Lethen and I were decisive figures. With our region’s life often resting on a knife’s edge, there was a need for constant action and innovation. One could argue that quickly and decisively taking action and being correct 50% of the time was better than a more deliberative approach where you were correct 75% of the time (a key criticism of Pineapleboy’s Presidency).
So, there are a few stories here — and probably more than one different interpretation if others want to be a historian for this era! But either way, it’s hard to deny that the newly found impulse we had to hoist up a new member as President was the best idea that Lethen or I had in a while.
But again, it was a case of central planning. With a resume mostly consisting of serving as Chair of the People’s Assembly, Desakar was pushed into prime time. Unfortunately, he was hit by several real life challenges (illness with his girlfriend’s mother, school) and fell inactive a few weeks later. It was a bitter loss, especially so close to the election, and led to our two-person smoke-filled room pointing to Pez201 as the man to go to. For at least one moment, however, Europeia had grown weary of our state planning and decided to go with Nlhp.
PART TWO: NLHP'S FIRST TERM
Administration Kickoff:
Nothing in my research has given a clear answer as to why Nlhp decided he wanted to run for President in the first place. He had just lost a race for United Nations Delegate, and Paleomiz — who he had a tense relationship with — had left the region, perhaps clearing the way for more activity. In some PMs we exchanged, Nlhp recalled thinking that he had reached a key, cumulative experience level with his roles in Europeia and abroad. Regardless of the reason, he actively sought the Active Civilian Party endorsement and (as previously noted) campaigned for the position.
In some sense, Nlhp was becoming a bit more cosmopolitan in his approach to gameplay — which may have inspired him to spread his wings a little further in Europeia. He previously had spent the overwhelming majority of his time in the region Empires of Earth, only modestly dabbling in a few other regions. He was now active in a few different places, including an up-and-coming region named Audux, which would help him continue a tradition of Europeian leaders of having twisty entanglements with other regions complicate the day-to-day governance of Europeia. More on that later (~foreshadowing~).
It is probable that if I had continued my run, or even if the green but well-liked Desakar had been around to run, Nlhp probably would’ve lost. But neither of those things happened, and the lethargic campaign around the agreeable, but not super political, Pez201 was outgunned by the Active Civilians.
And so, Nlhp finds himself at the center of all the challenges that President Lethen had left behind.
The first order of business is to get a Cabinet appointed, and it was here that the Conservative Blue Party got a tremendous consolation prize. I returned as Grand Admiral, while Lethen became Foreign Secretary. Pez201 was unhappily shunted back to the Culture Ministry — which he apparently only agreed to do after Pineapleboy was appointed to serve a Co-Minister.
The Cabinet rounded out with the recently returned Danoboy and NasalivesII serving as Co-Ministers for Immigration. I was bitterly opposed to NasalivesII being given a Cabinet role after a few consecutive flake-outs, and made it my mission to get NasalivesII canned. Eventually, we found some wording in the Constitution that implied there could only be one Immigration Minister, which finally motivated Nlhp to keep Danobody solely in that position and give NasalivesII the sack. Clearly a good use of my time!
But if the grand vision for improving Europeia’s population numbers was kicking NasalivesII out of Cabinet, it didn’t work, as after a brief population increase at the start of the term, concerns about population hit a crescendo roughly a month into Nlhp’s term.
Meanwhile, Nlhp had to referee a number of disagreements between myself as Grand Admiral, and Lethen as Foreign Secretary. At the start of the term, I asked for special authority to negotiate a treaty with Great Britain and Ireland — a leading region within our sphere at the time. Lethen was understandably frustrated that this decision was made without consulting him. The lesson wasn’t learned, however, and when questions came up in GB&I about Europeia, I swooped in to answer them, rather than run through Lethen. This led Lethen to push Nlhp to give a direct order that any future foreign affairs correspondence must be cleared by him. This would be a recurring trend, where whenever Lethen and I disagreed, it usually came down to Nlhp to adjudicate — not an enviable task!
The Crisis with Audux
Only a week into Nlhp’s new term, a conflict was brewing with the region of Audux that would consume the first half of his term.
Audux was founded by a player who went by many names. In late 2007, he had been a member of Europeia under the name “Royal Mayorga” but was also known as “Ferdinand Lennox”, “William Aston”, “Royal Aston” and strangely and briefly, as “King Cordova I”.
Now, he had now founded Audux under the “Britanniarum Regnum” moniker. I will refer to him going forward as “Britanniarum Regnum” to simply reflect all the posts//conversation logs that I will be citing.
Britanniarum Regnum had had a tumultuous time in gameplay so far. He left his first region after spamming the forum with dramatic, unbelievably over-the-top posts about his supposed girlfriend dying. It was later revealed that this had been a “test” for the region to see how much they cared for him. He did not stay in that region much longer, which maybe says everything that needs to be said about the outcome of the test.
After those events, he spent December 2007 in Europeia where he quickly transitioned from a rising star to a loose cannon. He did not receive negative feedback well, even when posed relatively softly, and pairing that with his sky-high aspirations, trouble began brewing.
In December 2007, BR decided to enter the primary contest between myself and Lethen for the Centralist Party nomination. This inter-party discussion initially started very cordially. His long manifesto received some early praise, but when questions came rolling in, he quickly became more defensive.
Also rolling in were a number of his real life “friends” who were joining the region, and the Centralist Party, immediately prior to the party nomination vote and the Presidential election. One of his “friends”, Bavarian Munich, only hours after being granted citizenship, posted the following in response to BR’s candidacy:
Bavarian Munich said:
When this brand new member was asked whether he might be too quick to have such sudden, ironclad, confidence in BR given his newness to the game and only spending a few hours so far in the region, Bavarian bizarrely and implausibly asserts that he has, “read every forum post in the history of NS.”
Needless to say, after this Centralist Presidential primary contest comes to an end, Bavarian Munich is never heard from again.
BR’s replies during the party primary got increasingly aggressive, saying that, should be elected, those who viciously attacked his administration would be trialed and jailed for their actions. When this wasn’t well-received, he pivoted to attacking my candidacy — first on being too focused on the Navy (fair) and then on “not caring about the people” (odd). Things spiral out of control from there, including me getting wayyyyy too offended by his critiques, and BR eventually threatens to leave the region. It briefly seems like he might stay after all, but ultimately he throws up two middle fingers telling us that we’ll have to give him the satisfaction of ejecting his nation to rid ourselves of him, but that he is officially leaving.
The greener pastures he sets sail for are a new region he creates called Audux. And that brings us back to the start of President Nlhp’s term.
Nlhp was also a citizen of Audux, and held a number of high-ranking positions there, including President, Foreign Secretary, and others. Nlhp swaps between these positions frequently in a month-long period, so I’m going to spare you from trying to keep track of what office he has at precisely what time, but through most of this odyssey you should assume that Nlhp is holding *some* kind of position in Audux with foreign policy implications.
Despite the severity of his personal falling out with Europeia, BR decides he still wants to open an embassy with Europeia at the very end of Lethen’s term in March 2008. The only problem? The embassy has now been open for nearly two weeks, and Europeia has still not assigned an ambassador to Audux:
BR's initial outreach to Europeia's Foreign Secretary said:Britanniarum Regnum:
Leth. We need an ambassador from Europeia, quick.
Britanniarum Regnum:
We are about to close your embassy, due to inactivity
Lethen:
you need a what now?
Lethen:
bah be patient
Lethen:
how long has our embassy been open in Audux?
Britanniarum Regnum:
Since March 20 something...
Lethen:
oh
Lethen:
meh
Britanniarum Regnum:
Not one SINGLE post.
Lethen:
dude,
Lethen:
...its only been 2 weeks
Lethen:
god forbid we haven't posted yet
Lethen:
calm down
Britanniarum Regnum:
Whatever. I'm saying. Audux has an active ambassador in Europeia. However, Europeia has no presence in Audux
Lethen:
who is the ambassador from Audux?
Britanniarum Regnum:
Iam
Britanniarum Regnum:
I am*
Lethen:
oh
Lethen:
If Audux's ambassador is so active, then he should have noted taht we had elections, and we haven't released a foreign update yet due to delays
Britanniarum Regnum:
So? At least a notice. Hey ,we wont be active for a while. Or at least an intro to the embassy. No foreign update is needed.
Britanniarum Regnum:
You cannot ASSUME we know things.
Lethen:
dude
Lethen:
you read our forums
Lethen:
you sort of should notice the big glaring posts
Lethen:
Britanniarum Regnum:
I never read the forums.
Britanniarum Regnum:
I only do my duty...
Lethen:
the ideal ambassador reads the forums to get a general idea of whats going on in a region
Lethen:
well sometimes we have higher priorities than one embassy
Britanniarum Regnum:
And what do you think about US! We've been through elections, we are starting up our military.
Britanniarum Regnum:
Political parties, recruiting, seeking more endorsements.
Britanniarum Regnum:
Yet we will first manage to at least send an ambassador that will keep Europeia updated on Audux, because when we established EMBASSIES, we have a COMITTMENT
Britanniarum Regnum:
And we KEEP our COMITTMENTS
Lethen:
oh calm down
Lethen:
Are you finished?
Britanniarum Regnum:
?
Britanniarum Regnum:
I'm not even speaking to you
Lethen:
with your little rants?
Lethen:
good good
BR works the situation from multiple directions, initially complaining to Foreign Secretary Lethen and then also approaching President Nlhp directly. This includes objecting to Lethen’s conduct in handling the situation.
With all the drama swirling, the decision was made to dispatch Cordova I as ambassador to the region. As the long-time Foreign Secretary and current Vice President, Cordova was the highest profile Europeian official available and capable of taking on this assignment, with the President and Foreign Secretary already deeply embedded in the drama.
Unfortunately, before Cordova could officially introduce himself in Audux, the situation took another turn for the worse.
BR confronts Europeian Foreign Secretary and relations break down said:Britanniarum Regnum:
What are you doing on my forums?
Lethen:
Joined since I make it a point to join all forums that my region has links to
Lethen:
why?
Lethen:
and we sent you an ambassador
Britanniarum Regnum:
ANYTHING... happens. And you two are OUT OF HERE.
Britanniarum Regnum:
I am President, Founder, and Root Admin.
Britanniarum Regnum:
So watch it?
Britanniarum Regnum:
Got it?
Lethen:
well that certainly, you know, fucks up relations
Lethen:
you don't just threaten someone like that, especially foreign dignitaries
Lethen:
besides, Cord is harmless
Britanniarum Regnum:
Yet, you and cord are capable of doing anything to our members. I am simply taking precautions.
Lethen:
What on earth would we do to your members?
[...]
Lethen:
just be thankful we are keeping relations with your little region and get on with life
Britanniarum Regnum says:
I will order the closure of the Europeian Embassy.
Britanniarum Regnum says:
Good day
Lethen:
You're ordering the closure of an embassy
Lethen:
because you threatened someone and went way over the line
Lethen:
yes, that makes a ton of sense
[...]
Britanniarum Regnum says:
DONE
Britanniarum Regnum says:
I have done what I needed to do.
Lethen says:
What are you talking about?
Britanniarum Regnum says:
I KNOW what I am talking about.
Lethen says:
Well I don't
Britanniarum Regnum says:
So sad.
Lethen says:
Break the lines of communication. Again, I can really tell that you know what you are doing.
Britanniarum Regnum says:
I know.
[...]
Lethen says:
hahah wow...
Lethen says:
you are really grasping at nothing
Britanniarum Regnum says:
Blocked, and banned from audux
Lethen says:
oh thats fair
Britanniarum Regnum says:
Thank you!
Lethen says:
You do realize you've just made a huge mistake, right?
Lethen says:
and again, sarcasm.
Britanniarum Regnum says:
='[
Britanniarum Regnum says:
boo hoo
Lethen says:
now is this before or after you tell your region that your loved one died to test their love for you?
Britanniarum Regnum says:
before
Lethen says:
Ah quite. Now, is this during the time when you rig elections by having your friends join regions like Europeia or CoFR and vote for you
Lethen says:
?
Britanniarum Regnum says:
Your fucking stupid.
Lethen was indeed banned from the Audux forums at this stage, but the embassy wasn’t actually closed. It was decided that Cordova would pretend like nothing was wrong, and proceed to Audux to post in our embassy with a warm introduction.
His grandiose opening post was received positively by BR, and things died down for the next week, with Lethen musing whether we should try to intercede to discredit/topple BR in some way and take the region as a protectorate or colony.
For better or for worse, the citizens of Audux beat Europeia to it. A confluence of citizens worked to convince a member with admin power to remove forum admin from BR and ban him from the region. When BR discovers this, he, erm, is not pleased, and immediately reaches out to Nlhp:
BR reaches out to Nlhp after internal Audux coup said:
A few hours later, Nlhp informed the Europeian Cabinet that BR had “cracked back into” admin and that we should consider closing our embassy for “safety reasons.” It quickly comes to light that after being badgered and harassed for hours, Nlhp had caved and unbanned BR and returned admin to him. This is strikingly similar to Lord Alphanesia’s takeover of Hampshire, where he verbally harassed me for hours to give him admin and abdicate to him. As it turns out, being super annoying could really pay off in 2007/2008!
A number of citizens decided to depart and form “Democratic Audux” as a spinoff region away from BR. However, finally Nlhp alongside an Audux native named Rose were able to wrest admin control away from BR and take control over the region for the long-term. However, notorious no-gooder, Lord Alphanesia, also got involved in the region around this time which caused Europeia to slowly back away for a time.
Overall, this situation — and the repeated thwarting of BR — was seen as a foreign policy victory for Nlhp and his administration. And maybe to an extent it was, but it was hard to argue that there weren’t better things we could’ve been paying attention to instead.
Note: Conversation logs featured in this section were originally posted in a Cabinet-only forum that is considered “protected” by Europeian law. Content was permitted to be released in writing by President UPC on September 2nd, 2024.
The Rest of the Term and Elections:
In perhaps a first in the history of Europeian foreign relations crises, I was not front-and-center in the Audux brouhaha. I contributed periodically to the Cabinet thread, but was probably distracted by other things.
In the waning days of President Lethen’s term, the Europeian Navy took an aggressive turn, looking for opportunities to invade regions of reasonable activity and establish colonial governments. Just a day or two prior to Nlhp’s swearing in, the Navy had taken control of “Ron Pauls Magikal Wonderland” — a region of forty or so nations whose founder just died.
While many troops contributed to the operation, myself, Verteger, Lethen, and Danoboy were frontmen for the new government. The majority of the natives resisted the invasion, while a few joined our forums and expressed interest. The new government stayed in place for a week or so prior to the founder returning and booting us all.
These types of aggressive, sometimes clandestine operations would continue throughout Nlhp’s term without his explicit approval.
Overall, the Navy was active, with multiple raids occuring during the term — including successful, albeit temporary occupations of the regions of Warzone Australia, Space, Michigan, and a few others. The Achilles heel of the Navy was always this covert colonialist project, which required the Navy to not only successfully raid, but hold the regions. Undoubtedly, this strategy meant that no matter how successful the initial invasion, Europeia would inevitably “lose” the final engagement while irritating our allies by asking for pilers. That being said, it kept things interesting and gave missions a sense of purpose — basically a polar opposite from the brutalist efficiency of modern tag raiding. The Navy wasn’t very large, but was active and interactive during Nlhp’s first term.
Turning a little bit back to domestic affairs…
The Senate this term was led by Speaker Lethen (I was initially elected Speaker but resigned quickly), and it was explicitly named in some of the ongoing activity concerns. Note: The Senate at this point in history was elected at the same time as the President, there were no “midterm” elections for the Senate.
Nonetheless, there were some interesting developments of note within the Senate. The first legislation legalizing Senate substitutes was passed and signed. A long, twisty piece of legislation written by Danoboy also codified some processes of the Europeian Intelligence Agency (EIA). I pressed a very hard case for the DEIA (me, hm, what a coincidence…) to have very little Senate accountability in the new law, as well as having the position held into infinity unless explicitly fired by the President.
President Nlhp actually vetoed a bill that I wrote to completely reset the University, arguing that a complete reset wasn’t needed. I attempted to override his veto in the Senate, but failed dramatically and the University continued on its (mostly doomed) path.
Finally, the Senate decided to disband the Europeian Public Assembly, our second attempt at a sub-legislature in the region. I haven’t mentioned it much, barring from noting that Desakar became Chair, impressed people, and almost became President. But suffice to say, not a ton was happening. As all of you know, however, this is the old chestnut that can not, and will not die. We probably won’t get there in this narrative, but it will be back!!
But in an administration dominated by foreign affairs, activity was an ongoing problem in the region. In Nlhp’s State of the Republic address, he reiterated activity as a problem, and by that point, recruitment was in dire straits as well.
That’s perhaps why it was surprising that when Nlhp decided to seek a second term (and he successfully got the Active Civilian Party nomination again) he did not face an opponent. The Conservative Blue Party had quietly rebranded to the National Loyalist Party, but with no significant increase in membership. One new member, Linkin, considered a bid, but for some reason it never came together. Lethen briefly flirted with another campaign, but he also never ran. The best the party could do was encourage people to vote “Abstain” against Nlhp.
Nlhp did a little more public campaigning than his last bid. That’s to say, he created a dedicated thread that announced something of a policy agenda:
1) Higher activity in the next term;
2) Reintroducing the economy;
3) Recruitment competition;
4) Revitalizing the University;
5) Exploring introducing a new legislative house.
Overall, the platform focus named a needed shift in focus from external affairs to domestic affairs, echoing the concerns about activity and regional growth.
Given those challenges, Nlhp won an unsurprisingly tight victory against Abstain. Records on Tapatalk have him prevailing by only a single vote, but it was likely a *little* more decisive than that (Europeia had an issue with Invisionfree for some time where people could vote in old election polls).
Sworn in for a second term, Nlhp’s cabinet was basically a complete continuation of his team from the prior administration. But there was about to be a fundamental shuffling of the citizenry in Europeia with the arrival of new citizens Asianatic, Fioteria, and Neohabighorst and the return to activity of Pope Lexus X and Solimaria. In quick order, all of these rising stars would hold offices in Europeia — and Solimaria would be causing no end of drama, erm, I mean, activity.
Analysis of Part 2:
If I didn’t hit it home quite explicitly enough in Part 1, I’ll just say it again: There are a lot of reasons that Europeia is not the easiest region in the world to run right now.
Reading over content from Nlhp’s first term, activity continues to be a major concern. Nobody was really coming in to replace the members who left — though as I foreshadowed, that’s about to change.
That being said, it’s clear that activity never reached the point where martial law was threatened again. Nlhp was competently piloting the ship of state, and while foreign affairs maybe took an outsized focus in the term, he was always pushing and incentivizing recruitment. This was especially true in the second half of the term when Danoboy had to take a semi-LOA. Recruitment in this age is not glamorous and super soul-sucking. To be most effective, you basically had to “surf” the feeders and wait for new nations to found. Otherwise, you could focus on one feeder region and work your way down the list of nations ranked in the order of longevity, but this was often a fruitless task once you passed nations who were more than a day old.
Danoboy had also been perennial Immigration Minister at this point, and after losing the Presidency twice, he was probably tired of being reappointed to the most thankless job in the region with limited upward advancement. In addition to all the departures from the last term, there was a generation of Europeians who were getting ready to transition out of active gameplay (or at least take a break), and the region needed to have an answer as to who would replace them, because the region was already being run by something of a skeleton crew.
The Audux situation was one where things were made more complicated by Nlhp’s dual loyalties. He was a citizen and high-ranking official in Audux, where BR was very keen to keep him. Almost like a v2 of Europeia, the region was filled with imported citizens who brought their baggage with them — and a few natives caught in the middle of constant nuclear warfare. Suffice to say, with BR at the wheel, there was always destined to be tension between our two regions (e.g. complaining about our embassy would’ve happened if Nlhp was President or not) but by balancing the needs of the two regions, Nlhp probably drew the process out longer than necessary. Additionally, handing access and admin back to BR was a totally unforced error, but I have absolutely no room to talk.
So, foreign entanglements is a negative we see during Nlhp’s first term. Another potential negative of his leadership style is being malleable. We see it in the Audux crisis when he lets BR back into the region, and again in Audux when he consents to allowing Lord Alphanesia to join. Oftentimes, the last person to offer him advice on a topic could be a very powerful person indeed.
But I would argue that the flip side of this coin is that Nlhp was flexible. He wasn’t dogmatic or blindly pushing an agenda. So many figures of this time are fully entrenched in their views and lose sight of the forest for the trees, Nlhp is more of a blank slate. He isn’t even particularly self-promoting, though he does get better at telling and selling the region on his decisions as time goes on.
We see this in how he responds to my pressure campaign to fire NasalivesII. He doesn’t take orders from me and sack NasalivesII on my advice, he waits and gives NasalivesII every chance because he “has his reasons”. NasalivesII had been an active citizen in different stretches of the region’s history. He could’ve stepped up to the occasion. Ultimately, my gut was correct that it wouldn’t work out, but Nlhp was trying to move pieces around on the board in a way that was different from Lethen and I.
Which leads us to a real strength that President Nlhp offered. He was conciliatory and had the patience to adjudicate demands from different factions of the region. In his first term, that was mostly being a marriage counselor to the old couples spats that Lethen and I kept having, but it would be a skill he would need to lean on more as the term went on. There is definitely this dynamic where if Lethen and I agreed on something, it usually happened, but if we didn’t, the process could be very messy to play out. Nlhp was a good referee.
Finally, it’s worth noting that Nlhp was not a micromanager (perhaps except when it came to motivating recruitment, which makes sense). That is why so much (e.g. the Navy) was able to happen without his explicit understanding (maybe not great), but it also gave citizens a lot of leeway to make their Ministries what they wanted to be. There was no 2000 word platform to reference, or weekly check-ins to ensure Ministers were enacting the needed policy. You got a Cabinet role, and you got to run with it. He gave a lot of latitude, but wasn’t afraid to make changes when needed. And as we will discuss soon, he had a decent judgment for his hires. These are qualities Europeia needed at this very moment, and when you contrast these approaches to the more “decisive” plays that Lethen and I called the previous term, there’s some real advantages to having Nlhp at the wheel. Of course, he still gets to benefit from the energy and activity of Lethen and I — and the whole former Centralist establishment — which kinda makes it a win/win when it’s not a headache/migraine.
We will keep discussing the strengths and weaknesses of Nlhp as time goes on. As for his first term, though, I think it’s safe to say that he had taken the hand he was dealt by Lethen and gained a few stacks of chips.
PART THREE: NLHP’S SECOND TERM
Immigration Wave:
Between the closing days of Nlhp’s first term and the initial week of his second term which began on May 19th, 2007, there was an influx of consequential new citizens joining or returning to activity in Europeia.
Asianatic was a new true-blue Europeian native as was Atikva, while Neohabighorst had played briefly in a region called the Equatorial Alliance which had a quick rise and even quicker fall. Fioteria had mostly interacted with Europeia as a representative from Hampshire, while Pope Lexus X had been involved in the region in the autumn of 2007 but had fallen inactive. Finally, there was Solimaria who was one of the first to return.
It seems like every installment of this series so far has featured some twisty retrospective, but it probably is important to give a little more detail on Solimaria — who is (spoiler alert) about to make a big splash.
Solimaria was a resident of Hampshire when Lord Alphanesia took control of the region as King in September 2007. The story was that Lord Alphanesia “overthrew” the government (LA liked this telling because it made him seem all-powerful, while I liked it because it sounded better than me giving him admin and abdicating). One of Lord Alphanesia’s first orders of business was bringing the hammer down hard on Europeians in Hampshire, in particular, especially after he was banned for treason.
While me, NasalivesII and Cordova I languished in Hampshire prison, the EIA successfully infiltrated the region with a few agents getting citizenship. Work was done both in public and behind the scenes to mobilize citizens against their new King. In truth, by taking his hard-tact approach, Lord Alphanesia was probably always doomed. He had a tight core of loyalists, some of whom joined from other regions/spheres he was in, but most citizens were either against his regime or apathetic. It was only a matter of time before someone who opposed him — or was at least bendable to pressure — was given admin authority on the forum (which was almost always tied to IC offices back in the day).
As it turns out, that individual ended up being Hampshire Prime Minister Solimaria. Once he had administrative powers on the forum, he overthrew Lord Alphanesia in what was called the October Revolution — making GovernorGoldfarb the new King. This success was only partially sustained however, as Lord Alphanesia was soon allowed to return to the region as a citizen. Solimaria decided to depart from Hampshire in protest and focus on a few other projects, including his own region called Libertia.
Because Solimaria was a close friend of Europeia for his role in the revolution against LA, there was initially some diplomatic synergy between us and Libertia. However, he became accustomed to recruiting far too blatantly and heavily in our region. Eventually, Solimaria’s recruitment gets so blatant, it actually serves as the motivation for Lethen to write the first anti-member poaching legislation for the region.
Before 2007 closed, Solimaria did briefly jump into Europeian politics as well. He served a partial term as a Senator, but then didn’t really re-engage until at the eve of Nlhp’s first term — just in time to run for a Senate seat and fall short.
When it came to other Senate results, Lethen returned the Speakership, flanked by a Senate narrowly split between the Active Civilian Party and the now twice-renamed Norsefire Party (originally the Blue Conservative Party, then National Loyalist Party). For those of you already flummoxed by the seemingly never ending re-christianings here, there is more to come. In fact, this political party that was once hastily cobbled together to serve the electoral interests of me and Lethen will continue to go through rebrands in our narrative, and then, a few years off into the distance, it will become the National Conservative Party led by Falconias that continually bedeviled the Old Guard.
As mentioned before, Nlhp initially returned almost his entire Cabinet. He swapped Pez201 out as one of the Culture Co-Ministers and replaced him with a promising member named Hircine — who would soon be at the center of a political firestorm.
Partisan Politics
The region was now divided between the Norsefire Party and the Active Civilian Party, with a few other minor parties puttering around. Solimaria had essentially assumed the Chairman role within Norsefire, though that was mostly because he had the most political energy, not necessarily because the party was in lockstep behind him.
Solimaria was working to build up party spirit and fervor, proposing new party banners and even a Norsefire Party song. He had responded to Nlhp’s start of term address with a pretty scathing confrontation, saying his proposals were “ridiculous” amidst (allegedly) “Nationstates darkest days.”
Nlhp’s political situation probably wasn’t helped by taking a LOA at the very start of his second term. Vice President Cordova I was left as a perfectly capable Acting President, but numerous Cabinet Ministries simply failed to launch, and Solimaria was more than willing to stoke the fire.
He tried to corner Cordova as “Acting President” to answer tough questions about a new, quirky “Society of Potheads” that had been established in Europeia. Cordova wisely decided not to take the bait and wait for his boss to come back.
To his credit, upon Nlhp’s return from LOA, he took decisive action to right the government. He canned Pineapleboy and Hircine as Culture Co-Ministers, calling for volunteers in the region for the position. Eventually Fioteria and Neohabighorst were tapped for the roles. Solimaria was notably passed over, and he publicly complained that, “This government perplexes me.”
Nlhp was quick to make another change. The burned out Danoboy63 was released as Immigration Minister, and replaced with the new, prolific recruiter, Asianatic. All of the fired Cabinet Ministers were Active Civilian Party members, which Nlhp himself noted within the party’s private HQ could cause the party some slightly-ironic problems given their name.
But if the ACP were willing to pay this pound of flesh to invigorate the Cabinet with new, energetic Cabinet members, they were absolutely left very sensitive toward how their party treated inactivity vs. Norsefire.
And Norsefire had an extremely inactive member of the Senate, Linkin Maximus. Linkin had been a last-minute entrant to the Senate race and barely squeezed in. Since joining, he voted for the Senate Speaker, two other bills, and posted a total of three other sentences on the Senate floor. He had failed to vote to confirm Nlhp’s initial Cabinet, and now, also failed to vote for his reshuffled Cabinet.
But, looking past Linkin, Speaker Lethen moved to remove Hircine from the Senate as well as his Cabinet post. Hircine had been inactive enough to be fired as Co-Minister for Culture, but this still lit a bomb off in the region. President Nlhp had asked Lethen to look into Linkin’s inactivity almost a week prior, so Linkin getting an extended pass while the ACP’s Hircine got shoved under the microscope was too much for the Active Civilian Party to bear.
President Nlhp made a public comment on the matter, which triggered a brouhaha.
Nlhp said:
Lethen doesn’t hold back his thoughts here, helpfully saying, “Shut your trap before making assumptions, boy. Friends give other friends the benefit of the doubt.”
The logic behind waiting to remove Senator Linkin, however, is twisty and nonsensical. Lethen and myself try to explain that since the region knew Hircine was traveling in India, that we should rip the bandaid off and jettison him from the Senate. But Linkin had said he left Europeia and/or Nationstates but might be coming back, so we should wait and see.
The logic doesn’t pan out. If anything, it would make sense to remove someone who has left the game and wait a little longer for someone engaging in RL travel.
Even the normally even-keeled Cordova I and Pineapleboy finally lose their temper. Cordova exclaims, “Screw benefit of the doubt!” while Pineapleboy claimed, “This is the biggest load of crap I have seen in a long time.”
The Active Civilian Party was feeling the frustrations of Norsefire — the political home of Lethen and I — being the “in” party, where every benefit of the doubt was given and accommodations were made for us and our friends like Linkin. Whereas, the Active Civilian Party often felt like the “out” party, where expectations were a little higher, and rules enforced just a little stricter. They had been willing to sacrifice three of their Ministers for a much-needed Cabinet reshuffle, but Norsefire was unwilling to bring a vote on expelling one of their Senators. Was it for political advantage? Looking back, probably not. But was it because Linkin was a closely friend to Lethen and myself and we wanted to try to give accommodations to rope him back into the region? Maybe so.
If the fissures of the region were starting to be cracking along partisan lines, fortunately, in a matter of hours, a major political event would shake up that particular snowglobe.
The Stench of Decay
Hopefully at this point in the narrative, your world is not rocked by the fact that Solimaria was openly planning a run for the Presidency.
He had even told rivals within the Active Civilian Party about his intentions, and had taken an increasingly hostile stance to the Nlhp Administration. In multiple threads, he responds to remarks from Nlhp with eyeroll emojis or even a jarring, “We have a President?” comment.
After roughly a month of politicking and positioning, Solimaria decides it is time to shoot at the king.
He marches into the Goldenblock, and posts a monumental missive, titled the Stench of Decay. It’s a little on the long side, but I think it is worth a read:
Solimaria - The Stench of Decay said:
In what will prove to be extremely unfortunate for Solimaria, the first person to reply is Pineapleboy. His reply is even lengthier than Solimaria’s full speech, so I’ll just include an excerpt below, but the whole thing is worth a read in the thread.
Pineapleboy's Response said:
Both Danoboy63 and Pope Lexus rally behind Pineapleboy’s reply, but Solimaria decides to cherry pick a few points to defend.
Additionally, Solimaria decides to drop another bomb, saying that President Nlhp had revealed to him in confidence that he was starting to find the region as boring. This was, obviously, not a great look for the President — saying he is growing bored of the region he should be running. If it’s boring, shouldn’t you, er, be doing something about it?
But Solimaria had way overshot the rim on his speech — like blasting the basketball out of a tank at the free-throw line — and airing some dirty laundry about the President wasn’t going to save him.
The biggest problem Solimaria had wasn’t in the particulars, but in the core of his argument. He was trying to argue that Europeia had recently grown stale and less exciting. But as you know, as a reader of this epic missive, Europeia had just emerged from a period of perilously low activity and engagement. On June 15th, 2008, the day this speech was made, probably saw Europeia in its healthiest spot for the entire year. The speed, ambition and obliviousness he had reentered the political system with was a fatal crack in Solimaria’s armor.
It was a point that Peaceful Llamas, Pope Lexus X, and myself all immediately jumped on.
Asianatic, having joined the region around the same time as Solimaria’s return, chimed in a biting reply:
Asianatic's Response said:
President Nlhp is indignant that their private conversation was revealed in public — especially given that when Solimaria asked if he could quote him, Nlhp specifically forbade it.
The conversation seems to be winding down with a bizarre set of exchanges between Solimaria and Pope Lexus X…
…But then Lethen logs on to provide his two cents. Lethen calls the speech “pathetic” and promises Solimaria that it will cause problems in the Norsefire Party.
Solimaria, probably because he can’t help himself, decides to goad Lethen, with a tit-for-tat emerging between the two. Lethen claims Solimaria, “doesn’t know Europeia as well as anyone here, save the newbies,” while Solimaria claims Lethen “looks like a fool” for questioning his commitment to the region.
This style of discourse continues over in Norsefire HQ, where Lethen makes clear that he wants Solimaria jettisoned as leader of the party. Solimaria tries to salvage his position by making a public apology, but things still seem quite dire for him, with most members feeling that Solimaria’s speech reflected poorly on the party and he should step down. However, Solimaria gets an unexpected defense from a new member named Scotchpinestan, who is already a little skeptical of myself and Lethen, and feels that the best political path is to simply move on from the affair.
Fortunately for Solimaria, this support from Scotchpinestan buys him the runway he needs to ride out the storm. Despite my resignation from the party a few days later, the fallout from his speech seems to be quelled.
But his position as the Norsefire Presidential nominee, already not certain, had been thrown into further limbo. While he still has some support to be the Presidential nominee, Atikva, Peaceful Llamas, and Neohabighorst all announce their intentions to campaign for the nomination as well.
Over the next few weeks, Solimaria makes attempts to stay engaged in leading party business, but Europeia has now lost its luster as the focus of his attention. He founded a new region of his own, called Norfolk, and in early July announced his intention to step down as Chair and not seek the party nomination. The discussion for the Presidential nominee had slowed, and it resulted in Neohabighorst being thrown into the race relatively late in the game. Since this series led with the fact that Nlhp serves three terms, you probably have a sense of how that will end. Will circle back there later.
It’s hard to overstate the extent of Solimaria’s political blunder. He hadn’t consolidated his position in Norsefire (much less the region), he had received warning signs from old friends who were starting to pull away from his bombastic behavior like Cordova, and he was cautioned explicitly by Lethen and myself against moving so publicly against President Nlhp. Even the night before his speech, I was talking to him on MSN about taking a more balanced approach.
If he had played his cards slightly differently, he was certainly on a track where he could’ve very well become President. He blew all his chips on a high stakes gamble that every possible sign should’ve been telling him was futile.
And overall…Solimaria was wrong. His assertions were wrong. Obviously wrong. Not in the sense that there aren’t things to criticize President Nlhp for, but in the sense that his points were mostly nonsensical.
He criticized Nlhp for not appreciating new members like Neohabighorst or Asianatic enough, yet they were both placed in his Cabinet. Then he criticized Nlhp for making too many changes to his Cabinet. But then he criticized Nlhp for stagnancy! How many circles can we go into?
The most charitable interpretation for Solimaria is that perhaps he had actually bought the stories of the October Revolution and how Europeia had been involved. He had popped into the region at the height of our winter activity in 2007 and saw a thriving University, active forum, and assumed that was the baseline. He had hoped that we would fuel his dream of building a sister region named Libertia, and when that failed, he decided to devote himself to us specifically. Maybe he was shocked to discover that we were still a region biting, scratching, clawing for every new member, every post, every thread, every month of life. Maybe that genuinely disappointed him, and he needed to go off, and try to find that shining city on a hill.
Solimaria is gone for now, but his antics have proven that despite some divisions, and despite some politics, the regional culture was relatively equipped to deal with wannabe strongmen, political charlatans. Yes, we might all snipe and bicker, but I was clapping for Pineapleboy in defense of Nlhp, not Solimaria. In a matter of days, the political divisions didn’t seem quite so stark.
Perhaps Pope Lexus X put it best:
Invasion of Venice
The Navy had been quiet for the first few weeks of the term. After the terminations of Pineapleboy, Hircine, and Danoboy, Nlhp openly threatened that I could be the next “on the chopping block”. I responded to that by cooking up perhaps the most ambitious Europeian offensive in our region’s history up to that point.
Around the time that the political temperature was heating up across the region, I planned a bold invasion. Using sleeper units within the region, we prepared to seize the region of Venice as a Europeian colony. On June 10th, 2008, the Europeian Navy officially took possession of the region.
Efforts were then underway to occupy the region, in line with the pseudo-colonial agenda that Lethen and I were pursuing behind the scenes.
The defenders weren’t willing to let this one slide however. The Europeian Navy (and myself as point) did a decent job repealing some initial liberation attempts, but within a week, the heat was truly on. The few active natives along with defenders were fighting fiercely for the region, and there were a couple of close calls. The naval reserves had been deployed, and allies had been asked for pilers.
Behind closed doors, Lethen mused about whether we might be able to “gift” the region to The New Inquisition — who had a proper Empire — and simply wash our hands of the operation. He probably knew it was only a matter of time before the region fell.
On June 27th, defenders moved in close enough to update to retake the region. In the grand scheme of things, the Europeian Navy had done an impressive job holding the region for over two weeks, but it was a bitter defeat. Europeia had been aided by forces from The New Inquisition and Hampshire, but was overwhelmed by a coalition from The Founderless Region Alliance, 10,000 Islands, and Fidellia. The FRA was particularly keen to promote the victory in their own state media, which inflamed some of the tension. Europeia decided to close our embassy with the Founderless Region Alliance in response (we later claimed it was simply due to their embassy’s inactivity).
From Europeia’s point of view, we had moved into a dead region as a “training exercise” with the goal of rebuilding it. There’s a kernel of truth to this, as we probably did hope to create a government and spur some activity. But the offensive had turned sour quickly, with the region being a battlefield both of military units and antagonizing words on Venice’s Regional Message Board.
On one hand, the totality of the military operation had been impressive. We had been able to cobble together a considerable number of pilers from allies, and the battle was perhaps one of the most remarkable of the year across the game. Europeia’s official spin was that we won “3 times out of 4,” only finally losing the region after besting defenders thrice.
But…we had lost the region.
And because of the region-wide mobilization for the defense of Venice, the mission had not gone unnoticed. Scotchpinestan, notably, was appalled that Europeia conducted an invasion and attempted hold of the region. He also, probably rightly, noted that such a mission was a violation or at least significant gray area of the Constitution.
Europeia’s constitution at the time actually laid out the specific instances in which the military could be deployed, and unprovoked invasions was not one of those permitted uses. There was a clause that broadly allowed for invasions of “abandoned regions” — which is what most military exercises were officially branded as. However, the claim that Venice was a “part” of Europeia and needed to be defended by the Naval Reserves (aka the National Guard) against a joint coalition of defenders and regional natives, stretched this provision to its breaking point.
When Scotchpinestan pointed this out, Lethen decided to propose a Constitutional Amendment to create an incredibly broad “training mission” category. It also tacks on another provision to the Constitution that conveniently allows for an imperialist colonial structure if the government “decides to pursue” that type of agenda. By the time this amendment was proposed, Scotchpinestan had secured a Senate seat in a by-election, and was a principal opponent of the change.
Regardless, the legislation passed and was signed by President Nlhp.
Venice was later refounded by the Founderless Region Alliance, a significant cherry on top of their victory. I would harbor a grudge about this for years until refounding the region myself over a decade later.
Finally, a bit of a nota bene, the defender who led the liberation and refounding of Venice was Numero Captain of the Founderless Region Alliance. It’s possible that this was the event that led him to be aware of Europeia’s growing activity and influence. Less than a year later, scandal would emerge in Europeia when two FRA spies — who Numero was aware of — were unmasked in Europeia.
More Foreign Entanglement & The Senate
Venice was not the only event brewing conflict with the Founderless Region Alliance. The FRA (along with TWP) had expressed concerns about Cary123’s citizenship within Europeia.
Cary had joined Europeia after the short-lived Equatorial Alliance had imploded. He was actually one of a handful Equatorial refugees (like Hircine) who joined Europeia. However, Cary had also been an administrator in the EA, and when it was clear the region wasn’t coming back, he had deleted the forums.
Cary didn’t see himself as deleting history, but just closing up shop. However, Europeia was a signatory of the Convention on Offsite Property (COPS) as well as having a domestically-written Forum Protection Act that made forum destruction a serious crime.
Under this law, Cary was taken to court. However, pretty much everyone was in favor of leniency given the circumstances. He pled guilty, and was banned from holding a leadership or judicial role in the region for nine months.
For the FRA and The West Pacific, they thought it was unacceptable that Cary was in the region at all. The COPS treaty prohibited signatories from providing any forum destroyed “with safe haven.” Europeia maintained that Cary had not been provided safe haven, as he was tried on the charges. And if the treaty required a ban, it would explicitly say that, right?
It’s a gray area. And the whole affair explodes into a brouhaha on the FRA forums between me, Numero Captain, and others. Numero makes the demand that Europeia’s Cabinet at least sign a statement of apology, but no action is ever taken on this, and Europeia is able to stand our ground with the explanation given.
But perhaps all of this attention from the FRA was just further confirmation that Europeia had made it to the big leagues (or at least out of T-Ball). There were discussions brewing about a new major super alliance, and we were invited to the table. The original super alliance between regions in Europeia’s sphere was called the Congress of Sovereigns, and was an elite coalition between almost all of our sibling or predecessor regions — Empires of Earth, Great Britain and Ireland, The New Inquisition, and the Land of Kings and Emperors.
The new organization was going to be called SRATO. The LKE had basically collapsed, and Empires of Earth was going through an inactive period, so some new, fresh regions were being brought into the fold — The Last Kingdom, and hopefully, Europeia.
It was fiercely opposed by a small segment of the region led by Anumia, and joined by Scotchpinestan. But this opposition was effectively canceled out by advocacy from Foreign Minister Lethen and myself. Half of the Senate ended up abstaining, but the treaty passed and Europeia was now tightly bound to many of the regions we were once forced to look up to.
In addition to the debates about removing Senators and new super-alliance treaties, the Senate actually ended up having a pretty active term overall. The Invisionfree Terms of Service were passed into law, the first time real life matters were significantly brought into the region. New regulations were passed for the formation of political parties, as well as the issuing of Presidential pardons. There was a constitutional amendment that took the first steps in taking micromanagement out of the Constitution by no longer requiring weekly foreign updates, and the region even passed a law to allow the government to take the day off Christmas (which was more controversial than you might expect)! All in all, Nlhp signed over ten pieces of legislation in his term.
Elections Season And Political Shifts
Europeia was now in the midst of a political reorganizing in the region. The Active Civilian Party made the decision to disband. Pineapleboy, the effective leader of the party, had started to become disenchanted with party politics, and President Nlhp had decided to leave the party for greener pastures.
That greener pasture was my newly-founded Centrist Party. Even though my resignation from Norsefire was supposedly partially motivated by a desire to step aside from the fray of politics, I quickly rebounded into my new political venture. I recruited Nlhp into the new party, and several other political heavyweights like Danoboy63 joined right away.
President Nlhp had not always intended on running for a third term, but felt spurred to seek another term in response to Solimaria’s relentless attacks. Once he joined the Centrist Party, we could plan the next term in earnest. With the Active Civilian Party scattering, and Solimaria riding off into the sunset, I approached Norsefire with a coalition deal. By supporting Nlhp, we would place a Norsefire party member into the Vice Presidential ticket slot. I probably figured this was a good way to assure my friend of a third term while also setting up an obvious successor for the next term (Cordova was notorious for shrugging off the idea of the Presidency, and actually declined even seeking another term as VP).
Norsefire pretty emphatically rejected this deal (fine) but in terms of an alternative, they did very little to organize themselves for the election (pretty bad).
Neohabighorst was the Norsefire candidate, but the party took an additional several days to decide on a Vice Presidential pick. Atikva was named as VP less than 72 hours before polls were due to open. Neohabighorst’s campaign is limited to posting a thread with an odd graphic in the Oval Room.
Nlhp’s campaign was bare bones as usual but he was able to trumpet some of the successes of the past term. Activity was up, new members had been brought into the government, and the population was breaking historic highs. The only comments in his campaigning thread were endorsements.
The end result was a landslide victory for Nlhp and a shellacking for Norsefire. According to a Norsefire Party HQ thread bemoaning the results, Nlhp won with 69.23% vs. Neohabighorst’s 30.77%. Additionally, Norsefire only secured two seats in the Senate, while my new Centrist Party claimed four and Independents took the other two.
One of the Senators elected under the Centrist banner was a new citizen named Renposa. You’ll be hearing more about him soon.
Analysis of Part 3:
This was, by far, the most complicated section to write so far — which makes me tremble a tiny bit for what is coming ahead.
Europeia’s engines are starting to fire across a LOT of different fronts. Our Naval operations are making a splash, we are being brought in as a leader in the international community (which means more friends, but also more enemies), and have an increasingly complicated and dynamic domestic political scene. Our legal system is starting to professionalize with the Senate cleaning up various laws, although there are still silly hilarities like the Christmas Act and arguments on whether the government should get the day off.
And there is this whole new generation starting to rise through the ranks in Europeia. Introduced simply as newbies at the beginning of this section, Asianatic, Neohabighorst, Atika, and a few others, are now recognized leaders. Members like Scotchpinestan are making a name for themselves in questioning the status quo. We aren’t quite at the stage of Europeian history where an “Old Guard” emerges as a polarizing political entity, but it’s easy to see the beginning stages of it.
In many ways, Nlhp is not fully front-and-center in his second term. Many of the major events here are still driven by others — myself with the invasion of Venice, and Lethen with Europeia joining SRATO. However, President Nlhp has proven to have some solid management chops. He wasn’t afraid to make drastic Cabinet changes, or prod me when I started the term off slowly, and he trusted Lethen to enter Europeia into a major alliance without it being some huge platform plank or policy agenda. Nlhp’s greatest asset is that he wasn’t a micromanager, which served this era well, even though it’s hard to imagine such a decentralized process in modern Europeia with our web of allies and treaty organizations.
I also think Nlhp was motivated by the political broadsides from Solimaria. And while Solimaria had not been successful in his political ambitions, he had jump started the political gameplay of the region and certainly been a factor in the reshuffling of parties at the end of the term. Depending on how far this story goes, Solimaria might return to our narrative.
Europeia is turning a corner, in part, because of inertia. 2007 - 2008 was a dire time for the game of Nationstates, and the fact that we had anything resembling an active region was helping attract talented game players to our shores. We were finally crawling out of the mud of constantly being on life support, and over the next term, we could collectively unclench our jaw and see consistent momentum.
In the next term, I will be stepping down as Grand Admiral. I had served in the role for quite a while, and got peeved about the amount of negative feedback I got for not being totally transparent about our secret colonial agenda. I was getting more criticism than I had ever gotten in the region, which is why you can find plenty of threads in mid-July of Nlhp praising my service to the region. Nlhp, ever the conciliator, isn’t afraid to sooth egos to keep productive members of the region engaged. Thanks again, Nlhp. Was probably more than I deserved!
PART FOUR: NLHP’S THIRD TERM
Just to reset everyone’s frame of reference (including mine): Nlhp’s third term began on July 21st, 2008.
This narrative started in January 2008, so we’ve made it a whole six months. In that time, the political system has fully reshuffled, fully casting aside many of the remnants of monarchy — leaving a region with more energy, diversity of thought, and, well, members.
While some of the contrarian thought-leaders up to this point have gone over like a led balloon (Britanniarum Regnum, Gen Amorov, Solimaria) there was a growing cohort of members with a healthy skepticism of the status quo. Some members, like Asianatic, would express that skepticism as an ally and work hand-in-hand with the burgeoning “Old Guard.” Other members, like Scotchpinestan, would rather be overtly adversarial when they felt it was necessary.
In the middle of all these changing dynamics, President Nlhp was a consensus-maker. It wouldn’t be accurate to say that he’s an empty vessel — Nlhp had plenty of his own opinions and occasionally put his foot down — but his super power in this age of Europeia was calibrating decisions in a way that kept hostile factions at bay. While this “do no harm” approach also had drawbacks, Europeia had enough bombastic personalities to keep the “big picture” moving forward, while Nlhp served as the able technocrat managing the day-to-day.
For his third term, Nlhp gave a very informal opening speech that announced his three goals for the term:
(1) Continue expanding culture and reinvigorate the Europeian University;
(2) Reach a population of 200 nations;
(3) Stimulate Senate activity.
In terms of Cabinet, Pez201 was promoted back to Foreign Secretary. Asaiantic was wisely retained as Immigration Minister, and NeoHabighorst alone returned as Culture Minister (Fioteria had been Co-Minister last term). Meanwhile, Lethen was moved to serve as Grand Admiral after I dramatically announced my intention to not serve another term. While Lethen would make some cosmetic changes to the Navy, the imperialist objectives would not significantly change. Watch this space.
Legislative Business
Europeia elected an eclectic Senate. In the newly-expanded seven person Senate we have: Myself (CP), Lethen (NP), Pez201 (IND), Cordova I (IND), Atikva (NP), and Renposa (CP). The Centrist Party won two seats, the Norsefire Party won two seats, and there were three independents. If you squint, you can see some contours of party politics, but not nearly as entrenched of a divide as the ACP/Norsefire partisanship.
The Senate initially elected Cordova I as Speaker, but I took charge after his surprising resignation in early August. Cordova had gotten into a spat on the Senate floor with Lethen, which boiled over when Cordova made a fiery resignation post and left the region. Much of the region was in shock, hastily convening a funeral complete with a retrospectively Very Odd audio-visual memorial. Fortunately, Cordova soon returned with apologies, explaining stress for motivating his rash departure. He was replaced as a Senator by Asianatic on August 12th, 2008 — who immediately introduced the Mandatory Recruitment Act.
There were two high-profile pieces of legislation passed before Cordova’s resignation, and if I asked you to guess which attracted more controversy, you would likely be surprised.
As mentioned before, Senator Asianatic proposed the Mandatory Recruitment Act. The legislation did not attract much widespread criticism within the Senate. Most of the discussion surrounded the nuts and bolts of the process — though there was some early squeamishness around an elected President being removed for not recruiting. This was Nlhp’s signature issue, however, and he strongly believed that the President should not be exempt.
There was a little more dissent outside the Senate, with a Grand Hall thread discussing the merits of the idea. Cordova I was opposed to the legislation (perhaps the longest ever consistently held view in the history of our region), while member Scotchpinestan took his usual contrarian view and seemed skeptical. Asianatic aptly field their questions, suggesting that maybe she should more often be the “front person” on enacting change vs. myself or Lethen.
Regardless, the legislation passed and will be a staple of Europeian political life for the next four years.
NOW, onto the TRULY controversial piece of legislation that had been debated a few weeks prior: The Unanimous Consent Act.
Attracting nearly 50 posts across multiple Senate readings, this was a pretty minor piece of parliamentary procedure that would allow for legislation to bypass a vote with a Senator moving for “Unanimous Consent.” If any Senator objected, the motion “for UC” would fail and all normal procedures would be followed. This is a real-life legislative process in the United States that allows for minutia to quickly proceed on the floor.
I proposed this change and offered two primary justifications:
(1) To be used in emergency situations where we do not jump through all the parliamentary hoops of first, second, third readings etc.
(2) To be used on minor legislative fixes of adjustments that weren’t worth the hassle of the full parliamentary process.
In many ways, these two arguments were a bit contradictory. Was this procedure for minor things or Very Very Important things? Opponents of the change — especially Senator Pineapleboy — jumped on this inconsistency, and insisted that there could be better ways to reform procedures for emergencies.
The legislation was narrowly passed in the Senate in a 4-3 vote. Myself, Cordova, Pez201, and Renposa supported the bill. Lethen, Pineapleboy, and Atikva opposed the legislation. The fate of the procedure now, however, rested with President Nlhp. He was skeptical of the legislation and a threat of veto was very real. There was no way the Senate could find a supermajority required to overturn his veto.
I lobbied President Nlhp very hard over this bill. Many others were hoping he would veto it. Ultimately, I was able to send Nlhp the right message via DMs and get his signature. In response, Atikva asked the president, “How could you?!”
And the truth was, I had ulterior motives here. I could sense a lot of my post-monarchical, executive influence was fading. I saw the Senate as somewhere I could position myself to wield a great deal of power. Senate committees, motions like Unanimous Consent, and writing loopholes within the legal process that only I knew about, presented an opportunity to keep some cheat codes in my back pocket.
There were a few other legislative discussions, including mandating that the Chief Justice not be a member of the Senate. Additionally, Nationstates 2 was announced at the end of July which spurred the Nationstates 2 Act. My goal was to build infrastructure around the change early to maximize the benefit of the new game — while others preferred a wait-and-see approach — but NS2 ended up sucking and so nothing really came of the game and isn’t worth much further discussion.
Operation in East Pacific
On August 17th, 2008 the Navy took the region of East Pacific. I was point, under the puppet nation of “Fortwhile”. The initial raid was led by the Navy’s commando (or OpSec) division, intended to look like a group of native nations rather than an invading force. In fact, I am pretty confident I had planted Fortwhile in the region up to a week before the other nations moved in and elevated me to the Delegacy.
After so many failures and false starts, Lethen and I would finally achieve our long-held desire to establish a covert colony abroad.
We established a forum (http://eastpacific.ipbfree.com if interested, but sadly the server is long dead) and began assembling a government. I took the title of “Guardian” and arranged a somewhat democratic government under myself. Lethen joined the forum under his own name, claiming to be a “Military Advisor” from Europeia.
A few natives joined the new forum and started to get involved, including Adam Kadmon and Mandanisia. After an initial pile from the Navy, some troops started moving out as I accumulated native endorsements.
However, this flurry of activity had attracted the attention of a defender named Bhagavan, also known as Joshua.
He also joined the forum and region, and began asking questions. He scrutinized Lethen’s role in the region and the process by which “Fortwhile” had come to power. After a few days of pointed inquiries, however, he was in a tough spot. Some long-standing nations were supportive of the government and claimed that they didn’t feel like they were invaded at all. Bhagavan fell into the background, and in that moment, the new regime had passed a crucial test.
This was a very dynamic and exciting time for everyone involved. Unfortunately, very few records exist of this operation. Because of the covert nature, only a few threads exist on our forum — and the forum we created never lasted long enough to get archived by the WayBackMachine. There are probably funny twists and turns in this saga that have sadly been lost to time.
But in many ways…Europeia’s Navy was the dog who had finally caught his tail. There was no greater vision of what to do with the region once the scaffolding was up and the new government in place. Fortunately, only limited naval resources were needed to support the regime since we had native acceptance and support. But what was the next goal?
There was a lot we likely could have done with the region, but ultimately drama at home in Europeia was going to require the bulk of our attention.
Sometime in the next month, I made the decision to abdicate the Governor role to Adam Kadmon — who had been our most active and supportive native. He remained in power at least through the year, and our soft influence over the region (regional titles, WFE, etc) lingered in East Pacific for years to come.
This was the high level mark for our colonialist agenda, and soon, Lethen and I would not have enough influence in the region to keep unilaterally pursuing it.
Proto-Populism
In late August, the region saw its first stirring of a proto-populism in the form of nations joining the forum who were gameside-first users. Some of these people have been in the region for a while, but for some reason or another, were resistant to including the offsite forum into their gameplay experience.
The most prominent of these nations was Kabanatuanistan — who would eventually build a significant career in the region in his own right. Kabanatuanistans signature issue would become activity on the Regional Message Board in the region (take UPC, make him 10x grumpier and 3x sketchier and…well, you get the idea). Kabanatuanistan did have experience in other gameplay regions — including being chased out of a region under suspicion of playing as two members at once. His alleged outer ego, Cubanika, would also join Europeia in due time.
He was joined by SUSUN, Jammy85, and a few other gameside-first nations who were spurred to activity with the delegate transition from Cordova I to the newly elected replacement, Scotchpinestan.
The transition had turned out to be a pain. In no small part because Scotch counterintuitively wasn’t excited about the idea of telegramming nations personally or offering endorsement swaps. Instead, more and more forceful messages were being made on the WFE and RMB. At one point, Scotch attained the Delegacy by a whisker only to lose it again — meaning more forceful messaging to nations about who to endorse and who *NOT* to endorse. We even threatened to eject the nation who overtook him, whipping up the RMB into a frenzy.
Many of these new nations didn’t love that a forum-based government had the ultimate say on the Delegacy — which was and remains the most visible position to gameside nations — and were barking orders around. Eventually, things blew up into a so-called “mini rebellion” with multiple nations refusing to endorse or unendorse certain nations. Much of the RMB transcript is lost to time, but it’s clear I had to swoop in and be part of some kind of come to Jesus conversation with these new members:
At this time, the Delegate was elected for life with elections only happening upon resignation. Before that, the Delegate had been appointed by the President — but in any event, very few Europeians paid attention to the Delegacy.
In response to this groundswell of new citizen complaints, Senator Renposa proposed The Complete WA Voting Act to allow for gameside participation in the election of a Delegate, which inspired a period of robust public comment in the Grand Hall. SUSUN passionately spoke in favor of the legislation, saying:
SUSUN in Grand Hall thread said:
The discussion spiraled in multiple directions, including setting a Delegate term limit and allowing non-citizens to vote for Delegate. Ultimately, Renposa’s legislation allowing for all nations to cast votes in Delegacy elections failed. A few months later, this issue would eventually be settled by allowing citizens to “challenge” a sitting Delegate for the role, but voting would still be only among citizens on the forum.
This incident did show the opportunism of Renposa is taking advantage of a populism boomlet and trying to improve his political position. Even when ideas came out of left field, Renposa was generally around and willing to give it the “old college try” in drafting something before the Senate. More than any established member, Renposa was the champion of these new citizens.
Renposa Rising
Around the same time that the region began discussing The Complete WA Voting Act, Renposa informed the Centrist Party that he intended to seek the Presidency in the next election.
This news wasn’t a shock to me, or probably most of Europeia’s top brass (even those outside the party). Renposa was active on MSN Messenger and had clearly been ambitious from the very start of his career in the region. He had only been a citizen for roughly a month and a half, but in that time had been elected to the Senate, led some successful roleplays, and participated in the Navy. He was clearly a well-rounded member with a very bright future.
And while Renposa was leapfrogging a few other, slightly more seasoned new members, he did have a clear opportunity. Nobody had been able to defeat Nlhp across his three elections. Pez201 was the anointed candidate who fell short, Solimaria was knocked out of the game before he could even declare, and Neohabighorst fumbled the ball. Asianatic could’ve been a contender, but she wasn’t interested, and it was clearly time for someone fresh at the wheel after an unprecedented three-term Presidency.
Within the Centrist Party, Renposa balanced his populism by speaking highly of the region’s veterans and lauding the virtues of the region. He discussed his passion for the job and his leadership philosophy. He immediately got the endorsement of myself and President Nlhp. I even made a public endorsement as Supreme Chancellor.
A day later — nearly a month before the election — Renposa announced his intention to run in the Grand Hall. The race was on!
Meanwhile, Minister of Culture Neohabighorst resigned from his office and Nlhp tapped the rising Renposa as his replacement. Renposa started working on a Halloween event while also keeping his usual roleplays running forward. This position gave him another nice resume line for his official Presidential campaign, which launched in the Oval Room on September 3rd.
This all happened in quick succession, and Renposa had worked hard to gain support behind the scenes. There was also this sense among some of the old hands that we needed a new member to serve as President, and we had missed an opportunity earlier that year with Desakar flaming out before he could run.
Renposa’s list of endorsements grew to include Cordova, Asianatic, nasalivesII, Lethen, and Pope Lexus X. But the last fellow in that list, well, he had questions. More to come there.
Behind the scenes, if me and Nlhp were hoping to stage-manage Renposa’s candidacy, we were quickly becoming disappointed. Rejecting my advice to balance his ticket with a more senior member, Renposa elected to pick the newbie populist Kabanatuanistan as his Vice Presidential candidate. While he did elect to keep Asianatic in Immigration and balance his team out with Lethen as Foreign Secretary, he also stacked his Cabinet with a number of new members like Jammy85 or less reliable members like NasalivesII or Cary. He even toyed with naming three Co-Culture Ministers.
But when it came to campaign obstacles, these staffing musical chairs would prove to be nothing compared to Renposa’s moonlighting work as the Chairperson of his new organization: The Enterprise of Inter-Regional Affairs.
Abstain for President!
Renposa was on a glide path to the Presidency. He had the entire regional top brass behind him, and also the rowdy, populist newbies! His campaign thread had more endorsements than questions. He was the only candidate, and there wasn’t another one in sight.
An ENN article at the time maybe put it best, saying:
ENN said:
TL;DR: Even with three weeks to go, it would take something truly concerning and bizarre to derail Renposa’s election.
On September 6th, Renposa founded the Enterprise of Inter-Regional Affairs and began advertising its existence on the forum.
The stated goal of the organization was to “unite the regions of the world” and pledged to eventually "make the Illuminati look like a joke." On paper, this organization could’ve been seen as a fraternity organization or salon. But Renposa’s behavior also began taking an odd turn. He started DMing citizens on MSN Messenger with bizarre, out-of-context movie quotes. Additionally, it became common knowledge that Renposa was in ongoing communications with Lord Alphanesia.
Renposa began advertising his organization on the old NS Forums under the name Dante Jones, posting the following:
Renposa promoting the EoIRA on the NS Forum said:
While Renposa insisted in public that this organization would have no bearing on his Presidency, it was a straw that broke the camel’s back in Pope Lexus rescinding his endorsement.
Behind the scenes, even those who endorsed Renposa were becoming increasingly bewildered by his behavior. Myself, Lethen, Pope Lexus, Verteger, and Pineapleboy worked together to launch an EIA investigation into the organization — with Lethen, Verteger, and Pineapleboy applying to the organization as plants. Through this operation, information came to light about Renposa’s conversations with Lord Alphanesia, where Renposa proposes that they stage a conversation where they “fight” and he gets attacked by LA to gain sympathy from the Europeian electorate. Presumably, Lord Alphanesia would get something in exchange for this hijinks.
Meanwhile, Pope Lexus decided to take a more political approach to confronting Renposa. He launched a satirical Presidential campaign in support of voting for “Abstain” rather than Renposa.
The platform was not particularly long, but it was extremely biting — especially for the politics of the time:
Abstain for President Platform said:
Renposa responded to the effort initially with indignation, saying, “Oh, the things people will do on a forum about a fake government.” His running mate Kabanatuanistan joined him, saying, “Wow this is quite a slap in the face.”
Behind the wounded pride, however, Renposa PMs Pope Lexus with an offer: A discussion, or war between the two of them. Pope Lexus elects to respond publicly, dismissing the threat and acting “honored” on behalf of his “candidate”, Abstain.
A few citizens endorse Abstain, others seem skeptical, but Renposa’s approval starts to nosedive. Without even the most salacious details of his misdeeds going public, an ENN poll has him tied in the election against Abstain. I try to balance sabotaging his campaign behind the scenes while also encouraging him, and hoping we can retain Renposa as a citizen.
A day later, Renposa announces the end of his campaign in a heartfelt speech entitled A Tail of Regret. The speech mentions being an imposter and lying to the region, but most of the rhetoric within was very high level and not super specific in terms of policy or ideas. What exactly was he lying about or deceiving us about? Hmmmm. Renposa does address the Enterprise of Inter-Regional Affairs — saying he overhyped it for the attention — but doesn’t really clear much of anything up about the organization or himself.
I post a very generous reply, as do other members. We still retain a hope that Renposa could be wrested away from bad influences like Lord Alphanesia and be a productive citizen — just not the President. However, Renposa had flown so close to the sun in Europeia and had no intention of sticking around to now toil under it. He was soon to leave the region, never to return as a citizen.
Most of the specific details of what, exactly, Renposa did was recorded through MSN Messenger conversations and on the old EIA forum. MSN Messenger logs are on a long gone computer I had from 2006 until 2010. The EIA forum, unfortunately, was not converted to Tapatalk before the mass deletion of forums. Most of this content was not shared as widely as the Cabinet forum because Renposa was a member of the Cabinet. Undoubtedly, there were some truly bizarre exchanges that we are all deprived of. Basically all the evidence we have at this point is secondary accounts from the time period.
It’s very clear that Renposa was conspiring with Lord Alphanesia to advance his career in Europeia. Kabanatuanistan would later report that Renposa claimed to be planning to take over Europeia, and that Kabanatuanistan would be his #2.
A switch had flipped in how he was playing the game, and Renposa relished the subterfuge, conspiracy-style gameplay over the drudgery of statecraft. It is also clear that Renposa probably just liked messing with people to a degree — I remember him sending me unsettling and confusing messages that I reported at the time, “seriously disturbed me.”
Renposa would leave to start his own region, Midgard, which ultimately would fail to launch despite Asianatic being one of his few members there and him ripping off our successful recruitment telegram.
Through 2009, Renposa would occasionally pop up to troll Europeia — telegramming threats to nations or making odd RMB posts claiming that he conquered Europeia and that we should bow before him as our deity. He would later also be vaguely associated with various Aeazen Combine and Lord Alphanesia plots, such as the infilitation of the Commonwealth.
End of an Era
While many of us were focused on palace intrigue, in the second half of his term, Nlhp stayed focused on moving the ball forward on his key initiatives. Some activity picked up in the University, but the big achievement came as Europeia surpassed 200 nations for the first time. Recruitment had really been Nlhp’s singular focus this term, lobbying hard for a stiff Mandatory Recruitment Act and supporting Asianatic in getting folks to recruit as much as possible. It was a tangible accomplishment.
Nlhp took Renposa’s Presidential declaration as a sign that it was time to wind down his term’s activities, giving a so-called “final” Presidential speech almost three weeks before the end of his term. But there was still going to be business to get done.
Vice President Danoboy63 vanished in the middle of August, and there was no indication he would be soon returning to activity. He has only returned to the region a few months ago, and I was extremely loath to drive him out of the region by initiating a removal from office. The matter was further complicated because the Vice Presidency was overlooked in having a formal removal process enshrined in law, and so it was decided that a unanimous vote from the Senate would be needed to discharge him (the most rigorous threshold, only required for the Supreme Chancellery). This would mark the end of Danoboy’s participation in Europeian politics.
Other changes were coming down the pike as well. Pineapleboy’s participation in the mission//campaign against Renposa was also a last hurrah for him aswell. He would soon announce his retirement, with his activity tapering off through the rest of the year.
The pillars of the original (very friendly) opposition to myself and Lethen were transitioning out, and while that left something of a vacuum in terms of leading establishment-critical figures, that wouldn’t last for too long.
When it came to replacing his Vice President, Nlhp went with his old friend Cordova I to fill out the term. While Nlhp’s logic in picking Cordova as a steady hand to fill out the term made sense, what it didn’t do was elevate a possible successor.
Neohabighorst had resigned. Danoboy63 ghosted and left the region. Renposa had lost his mind and gone off into the night. Traditional oppositional and opportunistic figures like Solimaria were long gone. No members of the burgeoning opposition like Atikva or Scotchpinestan were looking for the top job.
So, the more things change, the more things stay the same. Pez201 was approached about his interest in running for the big chair. Once again, he accepted.
Pez201 was an ambitious member, in his own way. He desperately wanted to leave the confines of the Culture Ministry where he always seemed shunted to. Unfortunately, his stints as Foreign Secretary trended toward being “underwhelming” and he was also saddled with an internet problem that to our Gen Z members will seem quite quaint — he only had access to a computer with WiFi at University, and when he was back home he could only get on the forums at the public library.
Despite this, there was an overwhelming sense that after all the drama and intrigue, the region wanted a reliable, trustworthy citizen to serve as President. Pez201 certainly fit that bill with flying colors.
However, in a head-scratching decision, Pez201 tapped Delvetia as his Vice Presidential candidate. Delvetia has actually been present in the region for over a year, but has flitted in and out of activity so frequently he hasn’t featured in this narrative. He was active in the spam and OOC areas of the forum and occasionally served a Senate term or pitched in with recruitment, but he was also distracted by membership in other regions — including one he founded.
Regardless, nobody else seemed interested in running — Pope Lexus X said he considered it, but felt the time wasn’t right — and the region seemed ready to exhale. Despite not even running much of a campaign or having a platform, Pez201’s only opponent was Abstain — but Lexus suggested that Abstain, in this matchup, would endorse Pez201.
Analysis of Part 4:
Here’s the most basic way to evaluate President Nlhp’s time in office: Comparing the region on the eve of his election vs. the eve of Pez201’s swearing in as Europeia’s sixth President.
President Lethen had left the region in a tough position. He never found an Immigration Minister to replace Paleomiz when she left. Membership was falling like a rock as the region had an inability to keep new members around (granted, many of these members were VERY difficult to deal with) as older hands took a step back. Activity was in such dire straits that I addressed the Senate and threatened to declare martial law. Meanwhile, Lethen I erred on the side of playing presidential parcheesi, and generally, reluctant to let go of the reins for any major decisions.
President Nlhp was leaving a region that had a burgeoning cohort of new members. Yes, some of them were a little “out there” in being gameplay focused and more populist, but it’s pretty astounding that we have enough members for there to be factions in the first place! While some members certainly left during his terms, we had come out way ahead with productive citizens like Asianatic, Neohabighorst, Scotchpinestan, Kabanatuanistan, and even Renposa before he flamed out. For the first time in our history, it felt like the region had some breathing room. We could lose a member or two, and we wouldn’t necessarily be on the ropes. We had more members that positions in our government, certainly.
Now, is this fully a fair comparison? Absolutely not. It was a very tough time for gameplay in Nationstates when Lethen was President. Many regions across the game were stagnant or declining, and very few new regions were having much success at all.
But Nlhp had made good use of his resources. At every opportunity, he elevated promising new members into government and erred on the side of giving potentially productive citizens a shot in office. It would be quite easy to argue that the quick appointment of Asianatic to Immigration Minister may have changed our region’s history.
On that note, Nlhp’s second and third terms focused strongly on recruitment, which was an approach vindicated by the results. Week over week, Europeia continued to forward with new nations and activity.
Nlhp balanced the interests of different groups carefully, making sure to never give too much to anyone, and stroked plenty of egos around the way. This thoughtful and nuanced approach incorporated more people and points of view than the central planning offered by Lethen and me.
The ace that Nlhp had up his sleeve, however, is that Lethen and I maintained our activity and contributions at full speed through his terms. We didn’t step back because we weren’t in the Goldenblock or sloth off to the Republic Square. So he got all the benefits of our activity, leadership, and ideas, while being able to serve as a filter and moderator for our worst ideas or impulses. Would Nlhp’s more passive leadership style worked if some of us in the old brass weren’t behind the scenes, aggressively pushing certain things forward? Probably not as well.
Back in 2009, I did a review of the various Presidents up to that point. Here’s how I scored the Presidents up to Nlhp.
My 2009 scores of Presidencies said:
It’s really tough to score all of these five Presidencies, because so much changed over the year in which they occurred. But I think Nlhp was remembered as very solid back in 2009, and these scores probably understate his accomplishments. To be quite honest, I would really struggle to score Lethen’s second Presidency and Nlhp’s Presidency anywhere close to each other. Maybe Lethen could post up a 7 and Nlhp could be an 8 or 8.5?
But it’s tricky, because the region that exists at the end of Nlhp’s term is a region that is knocking on the door of modern Europeia. We aren’t there quite yet, but it would be more recognizable than anything to this point.
For all the benefits of Nlhp’s leadership style, he will not be the President who sets the very odel and expectations of a modern Europeian President. That President will ascend to office in Part 5, and the final installment of this project. More soon.
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