The Social Reformer - Nineteenth Edition - 1st October 2024

Foreword: Release of the Yodcast and the Expansion of TSR
"Cough cough", utters ATG, fill-in Editor

Happy October, everyone! I'm excited to bring you this edition of our regional newspaper, The Social Reformer. I've been working hard alongside my fellow contributors to contribute articles and get this edition properly formatted, so thank you so much for reading!

I've got two big announcements, both of which I've spoken about at length over the past few weeks: First off, I've conducted the first two interviews of what I expect to be an ongoing series here in The Social Reformer, and you can read them below!

Second, when this edition of The Social Reformer is released, so too will be the first episode of our regional podcast, the Yodcast! Named after our founder, Yodle, the podcast is the result of a whole lot of enthusiasm and very little thought. We're quite pleased with the result, though, and I hope you have a chance to listen in! Check it out here!

Written by America the Greater for The Social Reformer
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State of the Region Address
"No rest for the wicked", claims ATG

I’m America the Greater, your newly-elected Prime Minister, and I’d like to speak about my thoughts on the region and my plans for this upcoming term. First off, to briefly introduce myself, I’ve been in the region on-and-off for quite a long time. In the early days, I was essentially the Minister of Foreign Affairs or an equivalent position for much of my time on NS, eventually running for President. I quickly lost interest in NS, though, and moved on until coming back in October of last year. Since then, I’ve been Speaker of Parliament, Minister of Domestic Affairs, and I’ve become the region’s WA Delegate.

Before I talk about my more vague plans for the term, I’d like to cover something arguably more important: our region’s tangible accomplishments up to this point. In this first month of my term as Prime Minister, I’ve been quite busy. Assembling my Cabinet took a decent amount of discussion during my first day, and the work hasn’t slowed down. My main initiative has been the massive expansion of our media presence via the creation of the NBBC, the ‘Nominally Bankless Broadcasting Cooperative,’ and the introduction of a regional podcast, Yodcast, whose first episode has likely been released by the time this edition of TSR has been published. I’ve also committed to expanding The Social Reformer in a big way by including extensive interviews, the first of which you can read further down in the paper.

Aside from the NBBC, I’ve also been focusing on getting multiple treaties written and officially proposed. I’m pleased to say that NUCL and I have been successful in pushing for the consideration of two treaties so far: the Accord of the Bankless Arboretum with Forest and the Money Heist Accords with The East Pacific. Each of these regions are active friends of ours, and I’m very happy to be pushing for an expansion of our official relations. Further, though by no means can I take much of the credit for this, I’m pleased to have contributed a bit to the very hard work being done by the RP Committee. I’ll be explaining more about that process in another article, but suffice it to say that I’m very impressed with the progress of our regional roleplay, and I’m fully planning on participating in the RP once it’s ready to go. Another great regional accomplishment was the passing of a proposal to Commend Yodle, which I’ll once again be highlighting specifically in another article. The final achievement of this first month that I’ll mention is the successful appointment of Mjau to our Regional Court. Mjau is a person of firm principles, and I trust that he’ll apply those principles fairly and honestly in all court proceedings.

In a more vague sense, I’d like to give a brief overview of my plans for this upcoming term. For those who read my PM campaign, this won’t be surprising, but essentially, my main promise is simply to be an active leader. Activity, in my opinion, means proactivity. I won’t let up on actively contributing to essentially every committee and any projects that I believe in: I’ve already helped write treaties and contributed to the RP committee, albeit on a smaller scale, and I will continue that work. I believe it’s the responsibility of the Prime Minister to pitch in on every level of regional government and make their opinion heard.

We’ve achieved a great deal already, but stay tuned, because I expect more fun events and ambitious projects to come! Thank you for taking the time to read this address.

Written by America the Greater for The Social Reformer
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Roleplay Committee Retrospective
A Committee is actually doing its job?!

For as long as it’s been around, TRTHNBB’s roleplay has been the source of frequent problems. Its rules were disputed and loosely followed, leading to a vague scenario in which roleplayers essentially focused only on war. NBB’s roleplay was also plagued with constant AI-written submissions and personal arguments stemming from RP actions, leading to multiple punishments being issued. Alarmed at this consistently toxic environment, a number of citizens proposed the creation of a Roleplay Reform Committee tasked with solving these systemic issues and establishing a new, fairer regional roleplay.

This Committee rapidly assembled, staffed by an impressive 16 members. Once these members had joined, discussion began on the RMB of TRTHNBB’s Parliament affiliate region. Discussion was quite active in the beginning, but over time it slowed to a crawl, with many members of the Committee never voicing their opinions or even speaking at all. Socialistic Britain, the at-the-time Head of Roleplay, sought to address this problem by mentioning each member of the Committee in every single post, but this brought little change. The same core group of members voiced rarely-differing opinions on every topic, and the Committee progressed at a glacial pace.

NBB’s September election brought with it an opportunity to inject a great deal of political will into the regional roleplay, however, with Syrasia campaigning for Deputy Prime Minister on a campaign which heavily featured the conclusion of the Committee’s task and the revival of the regional roleplay. Syrasia was elected and, following their assumption of the office of DPM, followed through on their promise, pushing for the rapid resolution of any remaining points of concern. They were assisted by Claibornia, the newly-appointed Head of Roleplay, who had been leading discussions at the time.

The Committee, driven by this resurgence of activity, quickly established a list of official rules broadly following the guidelines recommended over recent months. Progress was apparent, and a map of the roleplay world was drawn up; however, this progress was met by a simultaneous referendum which sought to speed the process of roleplay reform even further. The referendum passed by a wide margin, serving as a non-binding source of political pressure for the current administration to conclude its work and restart the regional roleplay.

At the moment, roleplay reform is almost entirely complete, with Syrasia working diligently to finish creation of the regional map. A full list of rules has been announced, along with an explanation of the scenario which will guide the region’s roleplay in the future. Though progress began quite slowly, the combination of political impetus and individual competence has led to the rapid attainment of exceptional results, and avid RPers should be prepared for a wholesale revival of TRTHNBB’s roleplay.

Written by America the Greater for The Social Reformer
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September Events Overview
Event Fatigue sets in..

This September, we saw the end of SummerFest, with a number of Games Nights, chess tournaments, and one Movie Night planned. In practice, though, both the administrators and the attendants were facing a great deal of burnout following a long series of events seemingly without a significant break ever since the beginning of the JEFF Games this summer. For that reason, many of these events were either canceled, downscaled, or rescheduled. However, the chess tournaments saw impressive attendance, as usual, and the Movie Night was a great success, with many people stopping by to watch Shrek with us. We concluded SummerFest with a casual quiz night, and congratulations to our top three respondents, The Washington Federation, Western Arba Fir, and Claibornia!

Our events slowed down quite a bit after the end of SummerFest, as I think we were all experiencing a bit of burnout. N-Day wasn’t far behind regardless, so we’ve all been quite busy. However, I’m excited to reveal that we do have a few events planned for October. I think we’ve learned from our missteps during SummerFest and have a plan to avoid burnout by spreading out our events and reducing their frequency. I’m excited for you to join us for our October Games Nights and celebrate the Halloween season with us!

Written by America the Greater for The Social Reformer
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Commending Yodle
"This Commendation may have encompassed the past eight years of my NS career, but it has only inspired me to evolve from here on out," says Yodle

Commending Yodle has been a dream of mine for eight years now. Since I joined the region, Yodle’s been essentially the model of a good governor: he’s an incredibly welcoming and encouraging person to be around, and he cares very deeply about our community. I can honestly say that I’ve never felt shy to participate in our region’s government, simply because, like just about everyone else here, I had Yodle in my corner. My first experience with Yodle was in R/D - a region, I can’t remember which, had been raided and Yodle needed liberators to help retake it. That was the first time I thought of NS as anything more than a really simple issue-answering simulator, and my interest was piqued. With Yodle’s encouragement, I signed on to participate in our region’s government as what was then called the Minister of External Affairs. Since that day, I’ve never lost my genuine love for this community.

There are dozens of stories like that about Yodle. However, being commended requires a lot more work than simply being a good person, or founding a region. When New United Common-lands and I officially signed on to drafting the Commend, we weren’t even sure it’d be possible to get it passed in the WA, as we worried there wouldn’t be enough justification to convince people who weren’t familiar with Yodle personally. Thankfully, NUCL’s research led us to find many similar Commends of regional founders, and we started to believe that it was possible to get our proposal passed with enough time and dedication. Our proposal went through many iterations - my earliest draft needed a lot of refining, but with NUCL to fact-check and correct my work, we eventually got the draft to a state that we were proud of.

At this point, we decided to do some research on the process of actually passing a proposal, and we quickly discovered that the real work was only beginning. We submitted our proposal to the forum and were informed that we should probably keep it there for a month. This advice was a bit disheartening, but as feedback rolled in on the forum, we found that a month of active development was exactly what we needed. Thanks to the help of some key contributors on the forum like The Ice States, Aivintis, Hulldom, and Westinor, we were able to get the proposal into excellent shape. The month passed rather quickly, and soon it was time to submit the proposal.

A few hours after submission, though, we had some internal disagreements and had to pull the proposal. The details of those disagreements are private, and I won’t be expanding upon them in this article; - however, the few extra weeks of development that resulted from this period helped us get the proposal into even better shape, and even allowed us to ‘market’ our proposal to many regions, gathering widespread support that we certainly couldn’t have guaranteed the first time around. Eventually, we were finally ready, and we resubmitted our proposal.

We could not believe the amount of support we received. Within eight hours of submitting our proposal, it had already reached quorum, and was fully on track to hitting the floor of the Security Council. However, in the meantime, another proposal from a few days prior also reached quorum, and we learned a hard lesson about how the Security Council queue works. That slight bit of disappointment aside, we were thrilled to see the proposal gain even more approvals over the next four days, eventually reaching 98 total approvals. At that point, we were very confident about our proposal.

What we couldn’t have predicted, though, is that we’d break the record for the percentage of votes in favor of a Commend/Condemn proposal. During these four days, we campaigned quite actively for our proposal, but honestly, we hardly needed to – we received such a massive outpouring of support from an incredible number of regions that the proposal had no chance of failing. We were absolutely stunned by the amount of people who actively fought for our proposal – it seemed like multiple times a day, another massive region published an official vote recommendation for our proposal.

On the night of the Commend’s passing, those of us who were still awake gathered in a Discord voice chat to celebrate the occasion. That night, after eight years of knowing him, I heard Yodle’s voice for the first time. This was a truly remarkable day, and it’s absolutely going down in history for our region - our founder and mentor, Yodle, had been officially commended by the Security Council. I know no one more deserving (although I’ve certainly got some ideas for future Commends), and I’m immensely pleased to have been a co-author on this proposal, alongside New United Common-lands. Thank you, once again, to everyone who supported our proposal.

For further context, see the Yodcast, as well as these two messages.

Written by America the Greater for The Social Reformer
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Captain's Log
Ardeyn, Minister of Domestic Affairs, releases these "interviews for governmental transparency"

1. What are you personally planning to achieve in this term?
   

   America the Greater

   Thinking about it, it's kind of a lot. We've spent a long time fairly rudderless, so the region hasn't seen nearly the amount of activity in the government that it deserves, and I'd like to make up for that. In tangible terms, my first priorities are solidifying my Cabinet and ensuring RP can resume smoothly, establishing a number of treaties and expanding our foreign presence through WA initiatives, and creating a massive expansion to our media presence via the Yodcast and a series of (already complete) interviews with multiple regional citizens. And that's just this month, this will develop a lot over time so stay tuned!
   New United Common-lands

   We’ve got a vast programme of Foreign Affairs activity, which is built on the strong foundation we’ve been building over the last year. The Social Reformer, Government Activity, our cultural presence and diverse community does really allow us to present a positive image to the wider NS world. The Foreign Affairs plans for this term are ambitious but seek to amplify the good work we already do and continue our positive Foreign Affairs trajectory. In simplistic terms, this term I would like to encourage Dual Citizenship, pass more treaties with our closest allies, strengthen our foreign policy and have more of a presence (through our Diplomats) in Embassy regions.
   Syrasia

   My biggest aim is to regenerate regional roleplay. That is what I was elected on doing. The voter knew most of my 8-years of experience on NS came from managing and partaking in roleplay, and they placed their faith in me accordingly. We have made considerable progress in the mere weeks since I have taken office to revive regional RP, and there is still much more to be done. I want it to be much more than a simply roleplaying nationsim, we have the opportunity, as a community, to create a deep and interconnected worldbuilding project of different cultures, historical events, business, exchange, and that's just the beginning.
   Ardeyn

   My honest main goal at the moment is just to ensure that Domestic Affairs continues to run as smooth as it did when ATG was it's Minister. However, I am striving to be able to finally bridge the gap between the community present on Discord and the NS site. Whether or not that is possible this term, I do not know, but I will try nonetheless.

2. What are you working on right now within government?
   

   America the Greater

   Right now, I'm helping to actively a number of treaties, advertising and solidifying a support base for the proposal to Commend Yodle, managing the Cabinet and organizing efforts to reestablish RP, and personally writing eight extensive articles for TSR, as well as organizing the podcast. Further, just yesterday I successfully administered the SummerFest finale quiz night.
   New United Common-lands

   We had a Foreign Affairs meeting recently - which was productive to kick start our government activity. Mainly we are currently working on our Diplomatic Programme, Advertising Dual Citizenship, Updating our Foreign Policy and participating within JEFF this Nday.
   Syrasia

   See Syrasia's initial answer, as they apply to both questions.
   Ardeyn

   Reviewing applications to Citizenship, making edits to our WFE, putting together this very article for the TSR, helping out in other departments wherever I can be of assistance, and participating in our all new regional podcast, the Yodcast.

3. Do you have concerns about the region currently or its future?
   

   America the Greater

   I've got one big concern, and this is something I fully expect to have officially addressed by the time this article has come out: Partisanship. I feel a number of our citizens are using parties for political gain rather than organization or the advancement of issues. Quite simply, I highly disapprove of the state of political parties in our region and think it leads to a situation in which our citizens are losing their voice and encouraged to simply go along with an official 'party line.'
   New United Common-lands

   Mainly to ensure we don’t overburden ourselves which may lead to burn out amongst government members. However, having a big government team does help to delegate tasks amongst us all.
   Syrasia

   A concern, and this is a secondary goal of mine, is recruitment. As a region with as much history and variety as ours, we need to ensure that we have a sustainable recruitment program in order to prevent the burden falling on the select few who have their wallets open.
   Ardeyn

   The region is in a really solid place right now, maybe not quite in a golden age anymore but we have been doing fantastic in just the short eleven days that ATG was elected PM. My only real concern is recruitment. We must make sure that we have a constant steady stream of people into the region to participate in the region or even join the government. However, this is a minor concern as we have many initiatives going for recruitment but still, there could be more.

4. Is there anything else you'd like to share?
   

   America the Greater

   I'm assuming that at the time of reading, the proposal to Commend Yodle has passed, so I just want to thank all of you for your support! Having a ton of quotes to include in our advertisement was instrumental to getting this thing passed, and many of you helped us reach out to other regions as well. Every little bit helped, and we're excited to someday develop even more WA proposals and expand our region's presence on the world stage.
   New United Common-lands

   Not at this time.
   Syrasia

   I suppose, yet another massive thankyou. I've been here but 5 months and the community has placed so much trust in me. Thankyou once again for that
   Ardeyn

   Speaking of recruitment, if anyone reading this happens to be part of a foreign region, why not hangout in NBB once in a while? We're a real chill active community present both on-site and in Discord. If you end up enjoying what our community has to offer you can even become a dual-citizen! Meaning you won't have to send in your main nation to participate in the political processes.

Interviews conducted by Ardeyn for The Social Reformer
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RGBN Rumblings
Trouble in Paradise?

RGBN is a region that many of us are very familiar with. Their members are constant participants in our events, and some of them are close friends of ours. Given their heavy focus on roleplay and their small, closely-knit, and active community, one may be surprised to hear that they underwent a massive political crisis this September.

RGBN has always intended to be a casual region for roleplayers to enjoy themselves and feel comfortable- on their WFE, they even claim to be the “Home of Lit & Chill,” indicating a far less formal culture than many other regions. However, under the surface, RGBN has been undergoing a sort of crisis for these past few months, with a significant portion of their long-term roleplayers leaving either the region or NationStates entirely.

For such a casual and exceptionally friendly community, this type of crisis is quite surprising. Upon a closer inspection of the region, though, it becomes clear that there has long been a great deal of governmental tension among RGBN’s active members. Looking back, it is perhaps possible to trace this tension to the election which took place in RGBN on the 22nd of June. Mira Hetonika was elected President, defeating Reberydinigzadaland, who went on to win the election for the position of Speaker of the Regional Assembly. From this point forward, these two figures, both key to the region’s government and roleplay, found themselves in frequent opposition.

For some time, RGBN had experienced uncertainty over its legal structure, commonly commenting about a number of perceived flaws in their Constitution and legislation. Though Mira Hetonika and Reberydinigzadaland both sought to solve these problems through legislative means, one of the first major debates in the region broke out over Mira Hetonika’s choice to invite a legislator from another region to attempt to aid RGBN in resolving this problem. I was that legislator.

RGBN’s Constitution has very loose requirements for citizenship, and consequently their Regional Assembly is quite accessible to anyone who wishes to join. As a result of this open policy and encouragement from the President of RGBN, I was certain that I would be welcome. However, Reberydinigzadaland, the Speaker of the Regional Assembly, began to raise concerns about the presence of foreign legislators. He feared that, as people from other regions began to enter RGBN and participate in its legislative process, native members of RGBN would be silenced in favor of these “foreign agents” who sought to “come here, and take over our legislature, our voice.” Following this statement, I quickly left the Regional Assembly and have ceased active personal communication with RGBN.

However valid these concerns about infiltration were, they also put Reberydinigzadaland at odds with Mira Hetonika. During the course of his term as President, Mira Hetonika was faced with frequent challenges from Reberydinigzadaland, and eventually grew tired of his position. In September, with a new election rapidly approaching, Mira Hetonika announced that he did not intend to run again, citing “extreme levels of hate and toxicity.” For someone who was simply watching the RMB of RGBN, this toxicity is simply not visible; however, having looked more deeply into the political divide facing RGBN’s leadership, the source of this problem is rather clear.

Facing a potential crisis of leadership, RGBN’s Shenifar, Krovx Belgium, made the executive decision to temporarily suspend the Constitution. This suspension did not last long, but during the following days, Krovx made a number of massive structural changes including a near-total reshuffle of the regional court, a number of amendments to the regional Constitution, and a removal of a number of the region’s laws. After two days of somewhat autocratic leadership, Krovx announced the resumption of the election season. Reberydinigzadaland ran once again, this time facing a new opponent, Stewartika.

On the 21st of September, the victor was announced: Stewartika had been elected President of RGBN. He quickly assembled his Cabinet, made a number of crucial announcements about the culture of RGBN, and assumed his duties eagerly. At time of writing, RGBN appears to have massively stabilized, with its legislature returning to its usual level of activity and its regional roleplay continuing unfazed. However, tensions remain under the surface about Krovx’s assumption of autocratic power, and it is fair to ask whether this stability will be long-lasting or simply reflects a general weariness with political intrigue.

Whatever the answer may be, it is clear that RGBN is a region which does not intend to let inactivity set in. Looking beyond the battle-lines of the debate which underlined their political tensions, it is quite obvious that the leaders of RGBN truly care deeply about the community and are prepared to fight to the bitter end to see RGBN succeed. In a site filled with regions which have seen their activity slowly fade, or their members disperse following a tension, it is inspiring to see RGBN fight through their crisis and maintain their close-knit community. Perhaps we can all learn from their success.

Written by America the Greater for The Social Reformer
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N-Day Summary
BLUB BLUB.. right?

N-Day has concluded, and I’m here to provide you with a brief summary on our region’s activities during this apocalyptic event. Before I begin, though, I’d like to announce that New United Common-lands is currently hard at work on a much more comprehensive report, and I’m excited to read it along with all of you as soon as it’s released! For now, let’s begin:

TRTHNBB, a key member of JEFF, chose to once again face the coming storm alongside its jellyfish comrades. Faralried, New United Common-lands, and I served on Event Command, the highest echelon of JEFF’s command structure, along with Garbelia from Forest, Drew Durrnil from the South Pacific, and Ostrovskiy from the Union of Democratic States. We determined early in the event that HOTA and KHAN would be cooperating, and decided to ally with ANAL once again. We began the event with high hopes, believing that we held a small but potentially decisive advantage in terms of production.

We saw a great deal of early success, beginning the event with a number of effective strikes on both HOTA and KHAN. As the night went on, though, we began to notice a key problem: most of our production and equipment were going unused. Potentially due to this failure to utilize our production, HOTA began to build a truly massive stockpile of shields and missiles, leading to confusion and dismay among JEFF’s command.

As the night went on, our successes began to slip away, and our attacks failed to pierce the mighty HOTA/KHAN alliance’s defenses. Hours passed, and our alliance took ever-increasing amounts of damage from wave after relentless wave. Eventually, our leadership threw in the towel - we knew that we simply could not stand up against the forces facing us. When our leader, Faralried, was away, Event Command made the decision to fully close JEFF. Though we ended the event with a relatively high position on the scoreboard, it is clear that succeeding in the next N-Day will require a massive revision of our strategy and organization.

Expect much more in-depth coverage once NUCL has completed his report. For now, thank you to everyone who participated this N-Day, and we hope to see you again in February! BLUB BLUB!

Written by America the Greater for The Social Reformer
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Regional Court Issues Recommendation to Moderation Team
"The use of off-site evidence in on-site moderation is unconstitutional," claims Mjau in a controversial new court statement

In 2024, two nations were ejected from TRTHNBB due to off-site actions. The use of off-site evidence in on-site moderation is unconstitutional, as there is no legal foundation for such actions. Both scenarios resulted from decisions requiring quick action by the administration, leading to conclusions that rightly prioritized community safety but were mistakenly unconstitutional. The Regional Court will not seek to revert said actions taken by the administration because they were in good faith and continue to be essential to the safety of the community.

Kaidia’s on-site ejection from TRTHNBB on April 14, 2024, was unconstitutional, as it was solely based on off-site actions, but was essential to the safety of the community. Pyhdon’s on-site ejection from TRTHNBB on August 9, 2024, was based on the Governor’s invocation of the clause, “Exercise emergency powers in the case of a regional crisis.” It was unfair to characterize Pyhdon’s behavior as a regional crisis, so, Pyhdon’s on-site ejection from TRTHNBB was also unconstitutional, despite fair reasoning and use of democracy on the administration’s part.

Neither Kaidia nor Pyhdon pursued an appeal to the TRTHNBB Regional Court, which can be attributed to the Governor’s direct intervention, leaving the affected nations unaware of the potential unconstitutionality of the actions taken against them.

The recommendations outlined in this Nonbinding Recommendation, pursuant to Section V of the “Regional Court Establishment,” aim to enhance the TRTHNBB Government's moderation practices, clarify the constitutionality of off-site evidence in on-site moderation actions, and improve communication between the government and the governed regarding moderation.

Written by Mjau for The Social Reformer
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Foreign Affairs Updates and Embassy Highlights
Elections abound in NBB's Embassy Partners

Forest	This September, Forest concluded its 16th administration and officially began a new Forest Keeper election. Garbelia was elected Forest Keeper with 77% of the vote (this figure was initially misreported as 80%, but was later corrected) and assembled their new cabinet. Congratulations to Garbelia, along with Anxious and Kevin, Jutsa, The Realizer, Zerphen, and Roless on your new positions! During this early stretch of their term, Garbelia’s administration has released a number of polls on Forestians’ opinions on foreign affairs matters and regional announcements, and Garbelia has personally taken the initiative to reroute all serious discussion away from the Discord and onto Forest’s RMB. We wish Garbelia and Forest as a whole the best of luck during this term! As reported by America the Greater, NBB Diplomat to Forest.
10000 Islands	10000 Islands September delegate elections have concluded with The United Royal Islands of Euramathania winning the delegacy! Congratulations to them as well as Astrobolt for their successful time as delegate! Our best wishes also go out to Elite, who unfortunately had to withdraw from the race. In addition, 10000 Islands has also recently announced an October Culture Calendar which includes weekly riddles, Halloween-themed movie nights, a trick-or-treat scavenger hunt and more! View the upcoming events here! As reported by Faralried, NBB Diplomat to 10000 Islands
Blue Ridge	It’s been a busy time in Blue Ridge, since Adkissa’s election as First Minister. Blue Ridge officially signed The Pamlico Accords with the Augustin Alliance. This treaty seeks to ‘strengthen the bonds’ between the regions, by Cultural Exchange, Mutual Defense and maintaining embassies. Blue Ridge also recently joined the Jellyfish Elite Fighting Force and participated alongside us in the most recent Nday, you can see a Blue Ridge ‘Dept. of Parkway Protection’ report summary here. At the start of September Blue Ridge officially published the first edition of a regional newspaper called The Starlight Advertiser, which provided a well polished and good overview of Blue Ridge’s regional affairs and foreign affairs. Lastly, Blue Ridge continues to pursue an impressive foreign policy, as the region has opened 8 new embassies within the last month, with another embassy in progress with RGBN. As reported by New United Common-lands, NBB Diplomat to Blue Ridge
The East Pacific	The East Pacific (TEP) published it’s August 2024 edition of Eastern Pacific News Service, which has since become the most upvoted EPNS Edition (with 108 upvotes at the time of writing), the edition includes an interview with Former TEP Delegate Albrook and a history of TEP and NPO relations. The article also included a summary on the 'The EPNS Downvote War' which saw attempts to suppress the viewership of the 37th Edition of EPNS; however these failed as TEP and friends managed to collectively organise to turn the tide reaching around 70+ upvotes from 200 downvotes. In addition, TEP recently participated within Nday faction Anime Nations Against Liberals, whom valiantly organised and managed to finish 14th on the Leaderboards, allying with JEFF but taking the full brunt of attacks from Horsemen of the Apocalypse who were the largest Nday 11 faction. As reported by New United Common-lands, NBB Diplomat to The East Pacific

Written by New United Common-lands, America the Greater and Faralried for The Social Reformer
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Yodle, I don’t think you even need an introduction. You founded The Region That Has No Big Banks and have spent eight long years contributing to this community. However, given that a great deal of time has passed since you initially founded the region, your circumstances have changed, and you can’t be quite as active anymore, - for that reason, I’d like to highlight you in this edition of The Social Reformer and give people a chance to learn more about you personally.

Do you think you’ll ever fully leave NS behind?

I have contemplated this before, do I really want to be on here forever? Ideally, no, and I have no plans on leaving NationStates for the foreseeable future (next 2-3 years). But even if I did in the future, I know that the region would be in good hands and will keep chugging along, thanks to the dedicated efforts of all our leadership, but especially in ATG and NUCL, who have fully developed the leadership and communication skills to fully manage TRTHNBB.

Not to get morbid here, but I remember when I read the Memoir for New Azurra (

In Memory of Melody "New Azura" MacPherson, 1986 - 2023

by The Republic of Kusatsu

Melody MacPherson, the player behind the account New Azura, passed away at Atrium Main hospital several months ago. This dispatch is a memorial to my sister Mel and the impact she had on the NationStates roleplaying community as a whole.

She loved her Nationstates friends immensely, and spent the last few years of her life talking about how much she enjoyed the community, its camaraderie and fellowship. Her last years were not easy for her after an accident she suffered in early 2019, which left her attached to a ventilator and bedbound for the most part. She is survived by her two younger brothers, nieces and nephews and her valued friends, both in her community and in the larger Nationstates community.

Mel was an avid animal lover and was never far away from her Pomeranian-Shih Tzu mix Buddy or her French Bulldog Sassy. She was a supporter of Brother Guy's Haitian orphanage and also regularly donated to the American Cancer Society in memory of our father and grandfather. She was a loving, giving person that had a big heart and wore it on her sleeve; she was also an avid reader and writer and took great pleasure in getting to write with her friends from around the world.

She roleplayed as the nation New Azura in Nationstates and made many acquaintances and friends during her time here. She never had a cross or ill word to say about anyone she encountered here, and genuninely loved participating with the community. Having come to experience the community myself over the past month, I understand now what she spent so many years cultivating: the connections that define Nationstates writing. She loved this site and devoted so much passion and energy to it, and it warms my heart to know that she had an outsized impact on so many people.

Melody was a brilliant, beautiful soul that is deeply missed by her family and friends. It is my hope that this dispatch does her justice, and that her memory can live on through the friends that she made here and had an impact on. We love you Mel, and we miss you.

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), who passed in 2023, it made me realize that I should probably have some kind of concept of a plan of what to do if I get to a point where playing is no longer viable, regardless of reason behind why. It also made me think about the concept of legacy, what would I want to be remembered for?

Well, my recent Commend certainly does encapsulate the vast majority of my experiences on this game, and I am proud to have been commended for my dedication to TRTHNBB and the thriving community it has become. Amazing work to ATG and NUCL!

Interview conducted by America the Greater for The Social Reformer
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Faralried, you’re a fairly recent addition to our NS region, but you’ve quickly risen to take more than one position in our government. Given that your activity is largely over on the Discord, I think it’s high time we introduced you to all of our readers, including people who may not be on the Discord.

Interview conducted by America the Greater for The Social Reformer
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Issue Number XVII

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Issue Number XVII

WRITERS ON THIS ISSUE: America the Greater (Fill-in Chief Editor), Ardeyn, Mjau, New United Common-lands, Faralried