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The Cable - October 2020
The Cable
October 2020 | The Embassy
Our newsletter, The Cable, aims to build communications between our embassies. Please share this with your region-mates by posting a link on your RMB!
We raise The Bar with this month's interview, as TheOrc and Brocklandia serve up the scoop on the establishment on the corner of every region. There's mob rule in Minecraft Live - how will you vote? We witnessed a resurrection, our Countryball Competition winner is announced, and TourAdvisor tells you The Place to visit. But wait, nothing on N-Day? Nope. But The NewsStand should have that covered.
But if you're just thinking, "I don't care about any of this. Why did I get a notification?", then this section is for you.
On 28 August 2020, Japanese prime minister Shinzō Abe announced his intention to resign due to his deteriorating health. Whoever was next elected leader of the Liberal Democratic Party was almost certain to become next Prime Minister. But who would that be?
Most NSers thought Shigeru Ishiba (popular with the public) would be chosen. But instead, Yoshihide Suga was elected by LDP members. Suga is the first new prime minister of the Reiwa era, which started when Naruhito became Emperor on 1st May 2019. Reiwa translates as "beautiful harmony".
42forever, Anarchy paradise, Andrha pradesh, Armenasia, Ausinia, Boris Cult, Brinckerhoff, British columbia-alberta, Cong ress poland, Darren j, Dingoy, Dominioan, East Cashinamasian, East Mospolinten, Eco-Paris Reformation, Erej, Federal republic of america and the cari, Freedomanica, Furballland, Furestasia, Graag brom, Grit advance wars, Huben, Janoin, Japanese korea, Jo hore, Joeanian republic, Khwhp, Kowani, Lightford, Malnourishmentland, Masconvia, Mathuvan Union, Mellanfjarden, Morathe, Mpia, Nagakawa, New Ryansville, Nister, Nooooooooooooooo, Nudgar, Oricury, Parliament moderator, Random Country 453632, Red eagle ulm, Refuge Isle, Shangyuen, Synergetik, T-26e4 super pershing, The Hanzanburg Union, The peoples caribbean union, The states of new india, Ugosal, Uhay, Weffleunion, When u die
The evil Meme Dog returned to our RMB this month, resulting in a spate of suppressions. I hate that devil dog. But given a choice, would you choose to be Rick-Rolled or Meme-dogged?
Rick Astley - we're never gonna give you up. But please, someone put that Meme Dog down.
Aleixandria, Armenasia, Boring People, Brinckerhoff, Colin advance wars, Dhaka and chittagong corridor, Duncilvania, Eco-Paris Reformation, Elephants Fort, Fosteriech, Frogs Fort, Germ-any, Huben, Karth quanum, Madhyarashtra, Mangnmangn, Nationlandw, Nuroblav, Quelsh, Ramalia shanatopian-turkish bulgaria, Sail nation, SKM, Terribly, Test Boat 9, The gold mines, Thee Imperium 0f Man, Voxija, When u die
Leppikania asked: "Which mob will you be voting for in Minecraft Live?".
minecraft.gamepedia.com explains:
Mooblooms will spawn in Flower Forests and are going to interact with bees in some way. Buttercups will also be added.
Iceologers will spawn in Mountains and hurl ice clouds at the player.
Glow Squids will spawn in the Ocean in dark areas, illuminating them. Their texture glows like an Enderman's eyes, but doesn't actually emit light. It also stuns players, possibly giving Nausea.
Minecraft Live 2020 is set to be held on 3 October 2020, 16:00 UTC.
A55 carriageway, Andrha pradesh, Brinckerhoff, Chand holiornarkbars, Colin advance wars, Doge Land, Drakengard, East arbijock, East Mospolinten, Extorant, Federation of sarawak, Fighting everyone, Greater The Silliner, Imperial lands of sulfate, Jo hore, Leppikania, Potato place founder, Territorios orientales, The crystalin, The reformation of qing dynasty,
Readers are probably very familiar with The Bar on the corner of every region (where you can hang out, drink, drink some more, mutate into an unholy life form, dine on raw brains and SPAM™, get kicked into an alternate dimension, become their next meal, and have a good time all around), but they may be less familiar with it's history. We landed an interview with TheOrc (who created the founder puppet New Jermany and later shared it with Kissinger-Monroe), and head janitor Brocklandia.
The Ambassadors Reception: The Bar on the corner of every region is probably one of NS's most successful regions. Founded 15 April 2016, the RP seems to have been running continuously for over 4 years, and has over 100,000 posts. Has there ever been periods of inactivity that you can remember?
TheOrc: Definitely there were slow days too. But I don't remember that the bar was ever totally inactive for a prolonged time? I might have missed it as I was only really involved the first year or so.
Brocklandia: Sure we've had a few periods of inactivity. Things were pretty quiet here on February 23, 2017, between 2:10 and 4:35 a.m. Something about the bartender mixing in too much of whatever that glowing blue mixer is, blowing a hole in the space-time continuum, and sucking most of the patrons into another dimension where all their Internet connections were 24 BPS dial-up. That was an unbearably rough two hours, I'll tell you. No one could get a dependable connection until the space-time continuum repaired itself.
AR: There's a dispatch that names Applause as the former owner & inventor of The Bar. Was Applause the original founder? Can you tell us a bit about them?
Brock: Who? Never heard of hir, and we certainly don't owe hir years of back royalty payments. Seriously--never heard of hir. Must be a troll trying to steal ... er, claim ownership from our beloved New Jermany.
Orc: Applause was the first to found an interregional hub called "Bar on the corner of every region". The region just existed for a few weeks but luckily he sent out quite a bit of embassy requests, so I became aware of it. I immediately thought that this is the coolest regional concept that someone on NationStates can possibly come up with! It turned out that the founder Applause soon lost interest running the establishment. Thus, only a few weeks after founding the bar he closed the region and let the founder nation and the region cease to exist. I hesitated to refound the region, but only for a few minutes, and mainly because I couldn't decide which words of the region name deserve to start with a capital letter ; )
For me the name alone had so much potential and is key to the success of the region. Maybe I'm over interpreting this but this naming suggests so much more than "The NationStates Bar" or similar. Other names wouldn't have worked, at least not for me.
I honored the ceased Applause as innovator right from the start in a dispatch pinned to the refounded region, which he appreciated. So a friendly Nastibeat (main nation of Applause) contacted me after some time, and I had a chance to ask him about his original plans for the bar. He said he simply wanted to create an interregional communication hub in form of a bar.
AR: Do you think The Bar measures up to Applause's original idea?
Brock: Crap, I hope not! If Applause came up with an idea like New Jermany's [Orc's], ze probably needs therapy. Lots and lots of expensive therapy. Or a beer.
Orc: He was happy to see that his idea became reality and acknowledged the effort we had to put in to make it work. I dare to suggest that he probably had quite humble plans and was positively surprised that his idea was turned into something "bigger". I offered him to get involved and run the bar with us but he ceased again after a while.
AR: I'm an embassy collector. I can't not mention the embassies. Within three months of opening, The Bar became record holder for most embassies, with 2184 on 12th July 2016. Had this been part of the original plan?
Brock: Absolutely. We used to prowl the neighborhood recruiting embassies to make the Bar a nexus region where anyone could post, no matter what run-down hellhole they decided to call their home. (And doesn't "Run-Down Hellhole" sound like a great name for that little country estate you've been dreaming of?--The one with the garden, and the pool out back, and the stable for the flesh-eating horses ... But I digress.) Of course, while we were out recruiting embassies, the Bar was invaded by Zombie rats and giant cockroaches. Getting rid of them took years. Did you know most pest control companies have "no zombie rats and giant cockroaches" clauses in their service agreements? Well, we sure do now.
Orc: Due to my blind enthusiasm for the region I was just convinced that every nation of the NationStates World should have access to our bar to enjoy its services. Thus, we pretty much offered an embassy to every single region that existed.
AR: Really?
Orc: That is actually not a lie, but the more complete truth is [that] before I founded the bar I was well aware of The Embassy. A fun idea, but I thought a record for having the most embassies wasn't something I'd seriously aim for myself. But then, when I saw Applause's "The bar on the corner of every region", one of my first immediate realizations was that The Embassy would lose the game very quickly if Applause would challenge the record. So yes, later, when I founded the bar myself, I thought let's quickly get that record as a temporary side project, before fully focussing on more important aspects of the bar business. We also finally decided not to make a big fuss out of it but I wrote an "embassy record dispatch", mainly for documentation purpose.
By far the best thing about this side project was that I ended up recruiting Kissinger-Monroe in the course of it who became the actual managing boss!
AR: The number of embassies was then allowed to slide. Despite that, you've never had below 1000 embassies in the past four years [AR: This was true at the time of the interview, but the embassy count has since dipped lower]. Is this deliberate, or just coincidental?
Orc: Yeah, at least we once decided that we should keep the embassy count around 1000 to satisfy the "of every region" component of the regional name to some extent. Not sure if it became coincidental at some stage. I don't think so.
Brock: Who bothers to keep count? Besides, I attended a public school in the U.S. I can't count beyond twelveteen ... or maybe it's thirjillion. Anyway, I can't get up to that "thousand" number you seem to find so fascinating. You'll just have to count without me.
Orc: The bar's embassies count might rise again as soon as I find a way to nicely force you into ... employment? Can I?
AR: *Briefly considers changing careers, but decides against*
AR: Some elements of The Bar have been there since the beginning, for example, the Jukebox. Others will have arrived later, like Cthulhu. And others will have disappeared without trace, never to be seen again. What's your favourite feature that still exists? And what's the most memorable one that disappeared?
Brock: Oh, right! I pick one, and all the others hate me, gang up on me, and make my life even more of a living hell than cleaning out those kitchen grease traps. No way. I am not getting involved in this, and I'm not about to confess that my favorite feature is the Spaghetti Monster who lives in the basement with me. Nope!--Not gonna open my mouth on this one at all.
Orc: The Orc as the owner of the bar was the first "feature/character" that was created by naming the founder nation back then "The Big Fat Big Grinning Orc of New Jermany" and roleplaying accordingly. As I hardly was active the last few years, the orc became rather a Non-Player-Character referenced as bar feature (similar to Cthulhu, the Jukebox, or the Spaghetti Monster) and not an actively played character. Strangely, he is portrayed as an oppressive and greedy creature while he is actually soo nice?? Anyway, I prefer not to blow my own trumpet but as I don't want to lie, I just have to choose the orcish boss as my personal favorite feature.
Definitely NOT the most memorable, but a forgotten feature is the Legion of the Cuke. I remember it because I invested quite some time to design it but it failed (or got prematurely retired as I didn't had the time to make it work). It was an overly complicated attempt to establish a traveling roleplay group with its homebase in the bar (involving the Legion's sub-region as storage room though).
AR: And that flag. Was it designed before or after you discovered Cthulhu in the restroom? (And how did you discover Cthulhu in the restroom?)
Orc: I don't clearly remember who came up with Cthulhu in the restroom. I think Fabulous fabulously? The flag was designed later during a flag contest. [Maybe it was] Kiss-Mo's design?
Brock: That old rag? I think our cashier, Monthly flo, made it by stitching together a bunch of cocktail napkins in her spare time. The flag immortalizes two of our immortal residents, Cthulhu and the Spaghetti Monster. As for how we discovered Cthulhu in the restroom?--Ze used to live in the attic, but one day ze came down to ... ah, relieve hirself and got stuck in one of the stalls. That's what happens when a giant, tentacled Elder God tries to wedge hirself into a standard-sized toilet stall. And the smell!--Don't even start me!
Orc: Personally I'm a big fan of the idea that one might encounter a big scary monster while visiting the restroom. At the same time, the orc used the restroom as safe haven, place of inspiration, and adminstration office. That's probably why I founded the Magic Restroom in the Bar on the Corner (a Cthulhu included) as the bar's out-of-character discussion and planning center.
AR: Over the years, many players must have come and gone. Could you pick one or two, and tell us about what they brought to The Bar?
Brock: Oh, none of them are really gone. We just stash the corpses in the meat locker--you know, in case they resurrect, or Cheffy needs ingredients for a stew. Speaking of, tomorrow's dinner special is the stew. Do you want to get on the stomach pump reservation list now?
Orc: Indeed, there a few active longterm players but the bar also lives from players that might just pop in for a few hours or less. Also, some regular visitors/employees of the bar probably never had a nation in the region itself. I really can't tell who contributed what. Often simple chattiness is what a region needs. But in my active time I surely relied on the activity of nations like Kissinger-Monroe, Lake of fur, Drunkndisorderly, Brocklandia, United furry alliance, Zombie Penguins, Fabulous fabulously, The irish bartender, Drawkland
(and their puppets) and many more. Thank you guys! : )
AR: That's quite a list! I hope you don't get into trouble for forgetting someone!
In your mind's eye, what does The Bar look like? Is it a "spit-and-sawdust" type place? A modern style cocktail bar? The Mos Eisley cantina on Tatooine?
Brock: Look like? I'm just happy this place remains standing, sort of. Somehow, it manages to rebuild itself every day, and once in a while it manages to redecorate itself--like a couple of years ago when the back dining room because the Jungle Room with a Brazilian rain forest motif and live tigers. Yeah, I know, tigers don't live in the Brazilian rain forest, but apparently the Bar never checked Wikipedia to confirm some of its facts before proceeding with that rebuild. As long as I don't have to clean up the tiger-poop mess, I don't really care about the decor.
Orc: Back then, I got obsessed with the notion that our inter-dimensional bar is defacto a default integral part of EVERY region in NationStates. Like it or not, it is already there. Regions just have to open the door to the bar (by establishing an embassy) to allow their nations to enter it:
"Welcome to the inter-dimensional bar on the corner of YOUR region!"
When opening the door, every region/nation would find whatever their imagination offers them, maybe in there own regional flavor but of course blended with what other players suggest them to find. There is no such thing as contradiction in a surreal, inter-dimensional bar, just multiple realities with a lot of bending in time and space.
For me personally, the bar might be a Western saloon type, old and shabby but with subtle future tech and magical fantasy elements. But even though my mind always tried to grasp how the bar actually looks like, I only had temporary impressions. Everything has a very fluid and dynamic character with some recurring features to hold on. I assume others could draw-out a map and more...?
AR: And finally, have you ever worked in a RL bar? If so, which is harder work?
Brock: Yes, I have, but it was a trashy strip bar, rather than the kind of dive ... ah, fine, upstanding establishment where people go to drink and socialize with each other. Oh, and one thing I learned working there?--No one goes to a strip club to see choreography.
Orc: Haha, I'm sure I would get fired on the first day. Even my orc completely escaped serving in the bar as soon as he had employees doing the job for him. Still, the first few months were pretty exhausting for me, considering that there was a demanding RL too. Back then, I actually wanted to reduce my time on NationStates to a few minutes per month or so before I ended up founding the region. However, I just had to create this bar when I had the chance to, and I wanted to see it established as a fixed part of NationStates before I leave. So I was lucky that I found people that shared my vision and I could delegate all power to players for them to shape and run the bar using their own creativity. I'm really happy that it worked out so well and the orc can just pocket the profit in the end of the day. ; )
Big thanks to everyone who participated and kept it going over the last few years! : )
AR: Thanks so much for your time!
Orc: Thank you for having us!
🌍 TourAdvisor is the searchable, crowd-sourced guide of places to go in NS. Build the best browsable guide to the NS-verse by reviewing the places you've been, and the things that you've seen. Read our guidelines, and post your review!
It looked like Sail nation travellers was single-handedly keeping our project going this month, with stories of Hive, Bluecrown Keep, The Place, and Warzone Sandbox, until Potato place founder chipped in with a warming review of The Hole to Hide In.
Last month we invited you to get your MS Paint sets out, and show off your artistic skills in our Countryball competition. A couple of you had the 'balls to do just that, and sent in your entries. The republic ofTexas and northern Mexico made us laugh with their entry - hand-drawn on a piece of lined paper. A link to Federation of sarawak's entry was provided to us by Colin advance wars. Which gave cause to doubt that the true artist was taking credit for their work...
Colin also provided us with a self-portrait, which easily rates as the best artistic entry. Congratulations to Colin, who wins Legendary card Anaxphonia. (Yeah, it is one of the cheaper ones, but given the level of competition, what were you hoping for?). Hopefully Colin will share more of their artistic work with us in future.
Most of our readers will be familiar with tag-raiders Lily. One of Lily's masterminds, Chingis has a talent for coding, and has built Discord bots that enable Lily to be record-breaking raiders. They've closed hundreds of our embassies over the past three-and-a-bit years, which is usually a nasty surprise for those embassies. Chingis had a nasty surprise of their own this month - they were deleted by a moderator. What on earth had happened that they got deleted?
A few hours later, Chingis refounded in Osiris, so I took the opportunity and asked the question.
Chingis revealed: "I basically ran astray of a non-scripting NS Rule by accident, while testing out some code that I had been working on. From the moderator's side, it most likely looked like malicious rulebreaking, while from mine it was nothing more than a weird bug on the NS backend. They were very accommodating and accepted my appeal within 1-2 hours, for which I am very thankful."
It's great that justice prevails. But I've a sense of dread that Chingis will soon be reducing our embassy count with more efficiency than ever before…
On 17 September 2020, we opened our 25,000th embassy. Unfortunately, over the past five years, about 21,000 of those regions have CTEd!
Read all about it!
- The NationStates Chronicle - Issue #5
- Weekly Newspaper- 30.09.2020
- The Monthly Tabloid | September 2020 Issue
- NATIONSTATES NEWS September 27 (N-day5!)
- Loranian Times #7
- The Independednt - Interview with Eco-Paris Reformation
- NATIONSTATES NEWS September 17
- The NationStates Chronicle - Issue #4
- Layem Times Issue 17
- Nationstates National post issue 1
- NATIONSTATES NEWS September 8
- Layem Times Issue 16
- EuroNews - September 2020 - Issue XX
- FWOTruth
- NS Today
- Daily Line
Get involved!
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The Diplomacy Awards celebrate the foreign dignitaries that interacted with our RMB in the past month, either by making posts, or clicking 'Like'.
We can't say it straighter - you're the greater orator. This month's premiers of praises per post are:
Style | Likes per Post | Nations |
🖋 | 5 | |
🖊 | 4.5 | Eco-Paris Reformation, Seven seas, The emirate of the emirate |
🖍 | 4.33 |
* Nations making multiple posts during the month are eligible for The Floored Award.
We think it is great to appreciate a state. This month's 'like' button bashers are:
Hearts | Like Count | Nations |
❤ | 234 | |
🧡 | 129 | |
💛 | 40 |
We get really psyched about those who were 'liked'. This month's most praised posters are:
Awards | Like Count | Nations |
🥇 | 189 | |
🥈 | 63 | |
🥉 | 40 |
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