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by The Dispatch Office of FNR. . 317 reads.

FNR | The Free Nations Herald September 2021 Edition

Monday, September 6, 2021




Regional Banner Contest
South Asians wins
by- People of nolan


The Winning Entry
Earlier in the month of August, the Minister of Culture, People of nolan, held a contest to choose the new banner for our region.
In a new game update, regional officers had the power to put a banner on top of the region page. The update took place in the later stages of Obets's term as MoC, who was rather awesome and most likely the best MoC the region has seen. (And by the way this article was tooootally not written by Obets wink) Seeing this update, the Cabinet decided that a contest for the region's official banner was appropriate. It was the first "major task" for the first time minister People of Nolan.
The Contest began on 31st July, People of Nolan made an announcement and released this dispatch explaining the rules. The Contest ended with 2 submissions, both from the region's Vice President South Asians. SA's second submission won the vote with 77% and it can be seen at the top of the region page.
Vanguard Protocol Activated
on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs


New Logo of the Vanguard Council
After the July General Elections, the position of the Minister of Foreign Affairs remained vacant. Vice President South Asians temporarily managed all the matters related to Foreign Affairs. However, when President Doctors Orvos decided that additional manpower is needed to manage the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He decided to push for the activation of the Vanguard Protocol.

The Vanguard Protocol can be activated when there are vacancies in the cabinet and the President can't find suitable people to fill those vacancies in which case The Vanguard Protocol can be activated that enables the Vanguard Council to collectively lead vacant position(s) in the cabinet. The Vanguard Council can also collectively lead the region if there isn't a candidate for the position of the President. The Vanguard Council consists of the Founder and five other people who are nominated by the Founder and confirmed by the Legislative Assembly. When the Protocol isn't activated the Vanguard Council can advise the government on certain issues and they can also help in government tasks with the discretion of the President. The Activation vote for the Vanguard Protocol can only be held if there are five citizens who sponsor its activation.

On 17th August, President Orvos, Vice President South Asians, Minister of Defense The python ii, Minister of Immigration My Nation and Minister of Internal Affairs Obets sponsored the activation vote of the Vanguard Protocol. The vote was commenced by Speaker Gufand. A supermajority was required for the activation of the Vanguard Protocol. The Protocol was activated with 22 Ayes, 2 Nays and 8 Abstains (91.67% approval rate).

The Vanguard Council currently consisting of Heaveria, Thaelle, Vostrov and Doctors Orvos assumed joint leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

New Attorney Test Announced
Python and Thaelle passes the test

On August 19, Vice President South Asians created an attorney test for aspiring attorneys. The test was created on a website known as "Testmoz". The test consists of several types of questions including Multiple Choice, True/False, Matching, Fill in the blanks etc. The test was approved by the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Castenor. The Association of Attorneys can only consist of maximum four attorneys.

The Supreme Court made an announcement stating that anyone can take the test with the permission from the Court. The first four people who pass the test will become certified Attorneys. Minister of Defense Python and World Assembly Delegate Thaelle were the first two persons to successfully pass the test and they became certified Attorneys. More Information regarding the Attorney Test can be found here.

Two New Members in the Cabinet
Obets and Burgertopian Empire

President Orvos nominated Former Minister of Culture Obets to fill the vacant position of the Minister of Internal Affairs. Obets was unanimously confirmed by the Legislative Assembly with 29 Ayes and 5 Abstains.

Minister of Defense Python decided to nominate Burgertopian empire to be his deputy. Burgertopian Empire was unanimously confirmed with 21 approval votes and 3 Abstains.



FNDA August 2021
Operations Report

Personnels Involved:

Task Force Commander The python ii
Special Agent South Asians
Task Force Officer Burgertopian empire
Operative Codpiece
Operative Zazann
Cadet Cice hauss
Cadet Utkarsha

Record FNDA Turnouts in Two Consecutive Liberations
Chaylia and LDU

Themed FNDA Flag for the Liberation of LDU
Defenders successfully liberated two large regions from the grasps of Raiders in the month of August. These Regions were Chaylia and Liberal Democratic Union. Both Liberations were pretty identical because in both cases the Defender Coalition led by The Grey Wardens, South Pacific Special Force, The League, Rejected Realms Army, the Ten Thousand Islands Treaty Organisation and the Free Nations Defense Association gained control over the WA Delegacy in their second attempt and that successful second attempt happened during the major update. FNDA recorded their highest ever update turnout in both these Liberations with Seven Participating Agents across both Minor and Major Updates. FNDA Director South Asians acknowledged this feat as a major milestone in the FNDA history and applauded all the Agents who participated in these liberations. These Liberations were a remarkable event for the entire R/D Community as well. More than 200 Personnels participated in these Operations across the Raiding and Defending Factions.
Several FNDA Agents Promoted
Big Responsibility given to Python

Rank Insignia of RTF Commander
After the success in Chaylia and Liberal Democratic Union, FNDA Director South Asians announced that he's finally ready to start the decentralisation of power in FNDA. He said that he's going to start relieving himself from some of his duties and give those duties to active FNDA Agents. With this announcement he promoted Codpiece to the rank of "Operative" for his work in the technical department of FNDA. Codpiece created useful tools for Defenders like Storm Keyboard Extension and Kronos Detag Finder. He also constantly appears in major FNDA Liberations despite being busy in real life. Director South Asians also handed promotion to Python to the rank of "Special Agent" because of the leadership skills he has shown in FNDA during recent times. Python was also appointed as the Commander of the Reserve Task Force, the Civilian Militia of the Free Nations Region. Burgertopian Empire was appointed as an Officer in the Reserve Task Force due to his active participation in Libcord operations.


Amerion Strikes Back
as the Delegate of the South Pacific
Amerion's Avatar
The South Pacific's July 2021 Delegate Elections concluded with Amerion declared as the winner after spending only one term out of the office. The Election was initially a three-way race with Amerion, PenguinPies and Erinor declaring candidacy. However, Erinor later withdrew his candidacy citing mental health.

Penguin's campaign focused on active endotarting and ensuring that the gameside community felt as important as the forumside community. On the other hand, Amerion's campaign promised an active World Assembly Culture and they proposed to release "Weekly Delegate Briefs" informing Citizens about the major events related to the World Assembly and the South Pacific Government.

Both Penguin and Amerion gained significant approval ratings from the forum-side voting round with 81.8% and 86.8% respectively before heading to the Game-Side voting round. The Game-Side Voting Round lasted for seven days in which all the Native WA Member Nations were eligible to vote. Amerion emerged victorious in this round with a staggering 62.23% votes (98 votes). Penguin managed to get 37.77% votes (57 votes). The Election was uncontroversial as both Candidates lauded the democratic process of the South Pacific.

Frontiers and Strongholds
Major UCR Governments oppose proposed game mechanic
NS Moderator Sedgistan proposed a major change in Game Mechanics with the introduction of "Frontiers" and "Strongholds".

According to the current proposal, UCRs will be divided into two types of regions- Frontiers and Strongholds. Frontier Regions will have a permanent Executive WA Delegate and the Founder (if any) won't have executive authority. There will be a six month influence decay in those regions just like GCRs. 50% of all new nations will spawn in Frontiers. However, a region must have more than 10 endorsements on its World Assembly Delegate to be eligible to become a Frontier.
Strongholds on the other hand will work like the current UCRs except the Founder will have the option to appoint a successor who will get the executive authority should the Founder CTE. The Founder with an appointed Successor will be able to abdicate from their position anytime without needing to wait until they CTE.

According to Sedgistan, These New Features were proposed to fix technical problems caused by "oversized GCRs". It also dilutes the influence of GCRs and gives an opportunity to UCRs to increase their population without having to use Stamps or API Recruitment. It also incentivises invading as Raiders will get more Invadable Regions and Strongholds provide a stronger shield to regions who don't want to get raided.

However, this proposal has received mixed reception from the Nationstates Gameplay Community. While many people support the idea and are giving their feedback to further improve it others are strictly opposing the idea and are calling it "a radical change". Major UCRs like Europeia, The League, 10000 Islands, Thaecia and The Communist Bloc have made statements opposing the proposed changes. In a Joint Statement made by The League and 10000 Islands, they said "There are a number of issues with the proposed change that range from putting a variety of communities at risk to devaluing the work of the Security Council, which we believe outweigh any potential benefits of the update.". In their joint statement 10000 Islands and The League shared their concerns about smaller communities with inexperienced players opting in to become a Frontier for free recruitment only to get trapped and obliterated by the Invaders later. They also pointed out the suggested "Embargo Category" SC Proposals that can prevent a region from opting in as a Frontier stating that "[Embargo Category] is extremely problematic for a healthy SC for several reasons. Most likely, the Embargo category, like others, will be subjected to joke proposals or underhanded and petty attempts to abuse the category by authors against regions they dislike, generally wasting the time and energy of those genuinely involved in the SC. More seriously, if a region with severe out-of-character issues, or even a fascist region, were to be an eligible democracy, the expectation that consequences be dealt out via the Embargo category furthers the narrative that these issues are for the players to handle as a part of gameplay, rather a continued state of insufficient action on the part of site moderation.". On 2nd September, Sedgistan announced that he's putting the "Embargo Category" proposal on hold.

While Europeia's statement echoes the concerns raised by 10000 Islands and The League, they also raised the issue of the broken Manual Recruitment System and advocated to fix the current recruitment system instead of making radical changes in the game mechanics.

More Information about the Frontiers and Strongholds can be found in this forum thread here.

Is this the end of JTF?
Major NS Militaries put Sanctions on JTF after August's Statement
On August 29, The United Regions Alliance launched a Vote Recommendation Dispatch on "Liberate New Western Atlantic''. While the URA recommended to vote against this WA Proposal. It was August's comments on the proposal that was deemed as "controversial" by the Nationstates Gameplay Community. August called the author of the proposal Andusre "just as objectionable as his former compatriots from NWA''. This statement was later edited out. The Foreign Ministry of Thaecia, Andusre's home region expressed their disgust over this statement as they called it "abhorrent, inappropriate and utterly unacceptable" and that "it equates Andusre to those who harboured fascists, bigots and a plethora of other extremely dangerous individuals.". Thaecia declared August a "Persona Non Grata" and due to his status as the Founder of the Augustin Alliance, Thaempirial Army has put Sanctions on the Joint Task Force (the military wing of Augustin Alliance). The Sanctions were as follows:-
  • The Thaempirial Army will not pile in support of an occupation where the JTF is also present;

  • All occupations led or supported by the JTF will be liberated by the Thaempirial Army;

  • All tag raids which the JTF conducts will be defended or detagged by the Thaempirial Army at the earliest opportunity;

  • All quorum raids which the JTF conducts or supports will be defended by the Thaempirial Army

These sanctions weren't applicable to any raids involving fascist and OOC-Problematic regions. Thaecia further mentioned that these sanctions will be lifted if August apologises for his statement or Augustin Alliance apologises for his statement on his behalf.

The East Pacific and The League also released statements calling out August for unapologetically targetting and defaming Audusre. TEP and The League also imposed similar sanctions on JTF. Sanctions from Thaecia and The East Pacific is a huge blow for JTF as Thaempirial Army and East Pacific Sovereign Army gets invited to almost all the major raiding operations and the raiding community will most likely choose both of them instead of JTF. This might as well be the end of Joint Task Force as it seems unlikely that either August or Augustin Alliance is going to apologise for this statement. Shortly after these sanctions JTF withdrew its troops from the Libcord.



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The Dispatch Office of FNR

Edited:

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