N-Day 2021: Does too many Potatoes and Crabs ruin the Nuclear Apocalypse?

FEATURE | BY: Albrook | Edited by: Eunopiar | You can read more about our authors by clicking on the "Our Staff" tab at the top

N-Day: The annual NationStates tradition of coordinating with your regions, friends, and fellow nuclear enthusiasts to bomb the entire known world into a transient but devastating nuclear turmoil. N-Day launched in 2017 as that year’s April Fools Event and is now a recurring tradition.

With every strategic game, however, comes a metagame – a correct way to play. From a perspective of a TEPer that did not attend N-Day, I asked for opinions from the TEP Discord Server Community and several Friends of the East, our friends in diplomacy, what their opinion was about this year’s N-Day and the obvious presence of megafactions.

The primary respondents include Former Delegate Libertanny, UTEP Chancellor Aivintis, and Potato Commander Catiania. A single guest opinion was provided by President Brototh of Thaecia.

~ - - - - - ~

Albrook: Compared to the previous N-Days, how does this year’s N-Day fare?

Catiania: It was boring for the first ten hours, and then became very exciting. I ran my puppets a lot more effectively this year – I think I had 200 [last year as well], but this year I had better scripts and focused completely on shields. There was a lot of hype in our faction going towards the final battle, which was great fun!

Aivintis: I feel like N-Day 2020 was better. N-Day 2019 was similar to this, but I still think this was worse.

Libertanny: Compared to last year’s N-Day, this edition was far more boring to the point, where I didn’t even decide to join with TEP and I just observed Crabs (of the Apocalypse; Crabs hereafter) and Potato.

~ - - - - - ~

Albrook: What was your faction’s general strategy for N-Day?

Aivintis: Generally, Potato started with shields. Then we targeted some of the factions trying to get onto the leaderboard and ended up punching through Horsemen defenses.

Catiania: The plan was that the three major factions would clean out the minor ones. Potato had a mutual defense pact with Crabs that would run out after 12 hours, and a non-aggression pact that would end at the 14-hour mark.

We were hoping that Crab would take out the Catgirls around 6 hours in and that we could get in on that, then we’d fight it out when it was just Potato and Crab left.

The problem is the Catgirls didn’t turn out to be a major faction at all and died around two hours in. It was very sad. They were destroyed by literally one person from Crab – Sweeze soloed them. This was perhaps encouraged by their planned main shield puppeteer not joining.

So the final part of that strategy did indeed happen, but it didn’t quite turn out the way we would like.

~ - - - - - ~

Albrook: This said, how would you rate your faction’s performance?

Aivintis: Probably like 5/10. We lost, but we lasted pretty long.

Catiania: It was as good as we could hope! I’m very proud of how we did. Crab had an overwhelming nation advantage, and an extremely aggressive approach that paid off massively in a field without other major factions. We pushed hard and managed to get some radiation on them – so at least they didn’t win with a clean sheet.

Aivintis: Potato landed 4.6k nukes on the Horsemen, which is 4.6k more than we landed in 2019 as far as I can remember, maybe even in 2020.

Libertanny: If I were to take Potato was my faction, because it’s the faction that TEP joined, performance was really low in my eyes. Command scored many failures in my eyes.

Even if we throw those away, however, my overall perception was this N-Day was a war of people’s egoes and not a fun and entertaining activity. I simply oppose what happened this year – literally two big factions and a race between puppetmasters.

Brototh: My opinion is that ANAL is better than all the other factions. What? What survey? I just saw that TEP published something, so I had to respond. You should take that as my official response!

~ - - - - - ~

Albrook: Should TEP consider participating with the Potato regions or with Potato again next year?

Libertanny: Totally, no. I have far more enjoyed N-Day with ATOMIC, where we focused on gathering a group of cool people and regions simply having fun – not participating in a sick mouse race.

Aivintis: I loved Potato, but one of the problems with N-Day was there just weren’t enough major factions. We need to be part of the solution to that problem even if it means abandoning this awesome group.

Catiania: If Potato is much smaller next year, then I would consider it. Otherwise no, I don’t want another superfaction. The health of the game needs to be a priority, as much as I loved working with Tim, Salax, and HS.

~ - - - - - ~

Albrook: I personally could not attend N-Day this year. What happened?

Catiania: Potato opened with their normal strategy – SHIELDS. Potato watched in vague fear, building up our shields, as Crab slaughtered their way through the minor factions, including the Catgirls.

Potato started targeting smaller factions themselves at this point, but there was no way that we could keep up with the Crab aggression. Eventually I convinced the rest of Potato high command, after receiving a field promotion, that we should give a “murder everyone except the Crabs” order. Hopefully our members had some fun shooting nukes all over the place.

Around 6 hours into the event we mostly ran out of targets. Crab had killed most of them and were in a far stronger position than us. It was all a bit sad, and morale in Potato high command was low. We posited various strategies to go onwards for a couple of hours. Most of us wanted to agree with Crabs to break the agreements early so that we could go down in a blaze of glory and get some sleep. I suggested it go to a democratic vote – “no one will want to sit around bored for 6 hours. The Americans will all go to sleep”. We were wrong.

There was a very strong majority in favor of sticking it out until the end. This caused a significant amount of civil strife between the “blaze of glory” vs the “stick it out” folks. I did not anticipate this. I thought people would do a nice, civil, Discord reaction vote. I thought too highly of people. I thought too highly of me, since I waded in and started talking about how we had no chance and should just stop now. I regret that. In the end, leaving me feeling like David Cameron, we were forced to accept the people’s will.

Everyone was very depressed for about an hour. Then, then! Tim came back to us. He dragged high command – well, HS and myself – out of the gutter and the three of us set abut giving our faction the best chance possible. No one is better at hype than Tim – he’s the master. We resurrected the will of our people, and begun preparations for the final showdown.

We ordered our faction to produce nukes. We put four people on shields. That’s four out of several hundred – myself, HS, Tim, and Luca. The plan was that the four of us would hold off Crabs long enough for our members to have a bit of fun. Tim and I continued the public relations grind and faction morale started increasing as fast as our nuclear stockpile. We all started going insane from exhaustion – it was a good time.

Then, finally it was time. The NAP ended, the targeting started…

Aivintis: We fired everything we had at them. Luckily we managed to punch through their defenses and land some pretty good blows.

Catiania: This was pretty much our goal, so we were pretty excited – Crabs wouldn’t win with no radiation!

When it began, we were watching in vague sadness as Crabs set over 500,000 targets on us – more shields than we actually had. However, we responded with over 100,000 targets. The four shields prepared for the onslaught – but it never came. At 15 minutes we launched our nukes. Crabs made a valiant attempt at shielding, but it wasn’t enough. We got through!

Libertanny: Then Potato had the [crap] nuked out of them.

Catiania: They had more nukes than we had shields. But the four of us shielders, alone again an entire megafaction, shielded a significant amount of their attack. I’m not entirely sure how many intercepts we got – over 100,000 certainly. 200,000? It was hype. It was good.
Then I went to sleep. When I woke up, Crabs were in positions 1 through 11. Not unexpected, but still a little sad.

Aivintis: Crabs ended up making puppet factions to push the remaining factions off the leaderboard.

~ - - - - - ~

Albrook: There is clearly a controversy regarding the huge region-blob “megafactions”, Crabs and Potato. What is your opinion on them?

Aivintis: I hate it. I mean I am glad to have had so many people on our side, and I loved being in Potato, but we need more strong factions for it to be interesting, and we didn’t have that.

Libertanny: I will stick to my short brief of this year’s N-Day – what happened was a war between people’s egoes and a mouse race between puppeteers. There was, in my eyes, literally no fun for someone who just wanted to chill out and have fun activity with NS buds.

I feel like the way N-Day works should be changed. I already heard some nice proposals regarding that: only WA nations can participate or one nation per IP. I really hate how it’s all about showing “I’m better” and then bragging about it for the next year. People are forgetting that it’s supposed to be fun, after all, and not a life-or-death case.
I am an enemy to the big-blog-factions and war between puppetmasters. I want to have a fun and friendly competition, not whoever has more puppets and better scripts.

Catiania: Megafaction bad. Megafaction boring. Let’s not do that again.

Libertanny: It’s boring as hell and destroying the whole fun in N-Day. Hence why I also believe that Z-Days are better – more about fun and less about puppets, scripts, and competition.

Profile on Candidates for TEP Delegacy, October 2021

FEATURE | BY: Nociav | Unedited

(Editor in Chief's Note: This article was held from publication by Conclave until conclusion of the election. It was only released in the authorized campaigning Discord channel. Now, upon conclusion of the election, it is released for your enjoyment in its original, unedited state. Albrook won the election on Round 3 of IRV with 14 out of 28 votes.)

(Author Note: I am a candidate in the election but I am running as a joke candidate.)

Introduction

The 2021 October Delegate elections in TEP began on the 1st of October. The nominations period ran until the 8th of October. The voting will run from the 8th of October until the 15th of October. The candidates are Zukchiva, New Leganes (Sammy23), Great algerstonia, Eastern Alksearia (SirShadow), Vw53aland (vw53a), Aivintis (Mangegneithe), Nociav, Albrook (Aurora Yukihime), Libertanny, and Ysg hermitcraft (YSG the Fox). Of these, only YSG, Aurora, and Shadow ran as serious candidates, or 30%.

This is the first election where the new citizenship system of TEP is being used. Details of this system can be found in the previous EPNS issue. As part of this new system, the Delegate Elections Act was amended and a new act, the "Voter Registration Act", was passed. The Voter Registration Act established the "Voter Registration Commission" to oversee voter registration. The Grand Vizier is in charge of this commission.

The voter registration ran from the 1st of October until the 8th of October alongside the nominations. Presently, the voter registration procedure consists of stating your TEP Citizen nation and your WA nation. You are then required to telegram a Vizier from your WA nation as confirmation. After this, you will be registered to vote provided you are not OOC banned, IC banned, or on the prohibition list. EPSA nations presently have an exception where the Overseeing Officer can verify on your behalf should you be in EPSA.

Campaigns

The campaigns of Zuk, Sam, Alger, VW, Mangegneithe (Aivintis), Nociav, and Lib were joke campaigns and will be covered first.

The campaign of Zuk called for the abolition of all Ministries and the firing of all Deputy Ministers and Executive staffers as the Executive had become too large for Zuk's liking. In place, the Ministers would be required to all the work. These Ministers would no longer have set tasks but would instead do what they wanted to. Zuk would also institute an awards system where bells would be given to each awardee. These bells would be collected by instituting a tax on residents. Those who refuse would be invaded by the army. To protect TEP from hostile elements, Zuk advocated for a monopoly on all grape production and using it as a bargaining tool with any enemies the region may have.

Sam's campaign consisted of two posts. One reading ".", and another reading "?".

Alger's campaign warned of "The Great Trial". The Great Trial would be a war fought between TEP and TWP. Alger argued that The Great Trial is a continuation of TEP's struggle with TWP and is, therefore, inevitable. He argued that The Great Trial has the possibility of destroying TEP should the region not be prepared. The Great Trial, should the region be prepared, would end in a decisive victory whereby TEP would enact vengeance on TWP. Alger proceeded to state that only he could deliver TEP to victory as no other Citizen was talking about TWP and the inevitable war. Alger asserted that only he knew what is needed to pass The Great Trial and that, under his leadership, TEP would destroy TWP.

VW's campaign called for the return of the old Citizenship system, the complete destruction of the Executive branch, leaving foreign affairs to the military, introducing conscription, creating TEP clones in raided regions, creation of a navy and air force, a combing through of all articles in the University of The East Pacific to ensure they paint TEP in a good light, and an abolition of term lengths for the Delegacy.

Aiv's campaign stated that, should he be elected, he would be a mediocre Delegate, do a small amount of amazing work, and then delegate all his responsibilities before becoming the second best Delegate anyone could hope for. He ended by asking to be the third or second choice of candidate.

Nociav's campaign (full disclosure here, I am Nociav so I am able to write about my campaign in greater detail) consisted of contradictory statements. The title of the campaign, "A Choice as Safe as Inflammable Material", contradicted itself as inflammable means "can be caught on fire easily". The first paragraph was an adaptation of Zuk's first paragraph. Transparency was supposed to be kept by keeping a private log which will never be released and the removal of an Executive policy requiring disclosure of important information. Activity would be fostered by hosting events at the unreasonable time of 10am UTC. WA would be voted in accordance to the Ministry except when it wouldn't. UTEP would be made autonomous in a manner similar to the ancient Persian satrapy system, a system famous for corruption and volatility. Ministers would be mandated to take leaves of duties during which they are also mandated to work on their Ministries. And Magisterium-Delegate separation would be enforced with tenacity whilst also proposing laws to amend the Executive Act. All of this was done under the veneer of a serious campaign.

Lib's campaign currently consists of just a poster advertising a fake old western film titled "Birdolero II". The poster is that of a goose on one side and a parrot on another. Both are photoshopped to wear an old western hat.

The campaigns of YSG, Aurora, and Shadow were serious and will be covered below.

YSG's campaign called for an inter-regional RP, weekly interviews of the Delegate and legislative branch, and the re-creation of the Ministry of Virtual Enhancement and the inheritance of all its old duties (graphics works, translations, scripting work, etc.).

Aurora's campaign stated that, in order to combat resignations leaving branches of the government or ministries headless, she would encourage the Magisterium, Praesidium, Conclave, EPSA, and Ministers to create a Deputy or Designee system to ensure continued Ministry functioning in the event of a resignation. These deputies would be encouraged to create documentation of procedures, tasks, and interactions, and to promote training. Aurora would also revive the Chronicler to document past, present, and potential future actions of the Government as an attempt to inform Citizens and to encourage them to join the Government. She also wanted to bring back Zuk's constant telegramming of nations in the region about government happenings, cultural events, and WA resolutions to keep people who only reside on-site informed. In addition to this, she would repeal the old Executive policy banning anime, a joking reference to an RMB post by Fedele several years earlier.

Shadow's campaign promised the renaming of the Chief Ministry of Foreign Affairs to just the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Next, Shadow would reorganize the Ministry into a more collective run system with no Minister and instead the Senior Diplomats would collectively run the Ministry. The Senior Diplomats would have an application process attached to them so a reserve would always exist. These reorganizations would be done out of manpower concerns. FA advisors would be given less voting power in the new Ministry as well. Only being allowed to step in when there is a tied vote or a major FA issue. The Ministry of Education would next be renamed to just the University of The East Pacific for the sake of simplicity. UTEP would be tasked with hosting interregional debates and other events. The Ministries of Information, Broadcasting, and Publishing would be merged into a single ministry also titled the "Ministry of Information". This is done to collect the different informational jobs each of these ministries do and make it more centralized. This new ministry would have a single Minister and multiple deputies that would be in-charge of the different specialized fields. The Ministry of Culture would be encouraged to host interregional events. Culture would also be encouraged to host spontaneous game nights in a manner similar to the region Thaecia.

A Response to Nociav

OPINION | BY: Bachtendekuppen | Edited by: Albrook

On October 1st 2021, EPNS published an article by Nociav which was aimed at EM’s citizenship reform. I felt that some issues in the article were not dealt with in an appropriately detailed manner and came to questionable conclusions on some points as a result. Therefore, I wrote this reply, expanding on some security-related provisions in TEP law.

Nociav writes, "EM's proposal is meant to enhance security and expand accessibility to TEP whilst granting residents more rights. The method of granting residents more rights is by getting rid of the distinction between residents and citizens. Under the new system, everyone in TEP is a citizen. Citizens, however, cannot vote in referendums and Delegate elections unless they register to vote beforehand. The registration system would involve telegramming a commissioner from your WA nation with the details of your TEP nation. This would then allow your vote to count. This process has to happen before every election. WA's can be located anywhere, from TRR to a puppet storage."

To be more nuanced, after this reform every Nation residing in TEP is a Citizen (§ E.1. of the Concordat). This means they have a right to a trial, the freedom to serve in office, participate in the Magisterium, to register to vote in elections, and to leave the region freely (§§ F.1 - F.7 of the Concordat).

A basic security measure remains that, in order to exercise any of these rights, one has to register on the forum and apply for Citizenship masking. Any necessary (IP) checks can (and should) be done at this point.

Further, one has indeed to register - each election - to vote (§ 3 of the Voter Registration Act). Currently this requires applying with their Citizenship nation and their World Assembly ("WA") nation. However, the Voter Registration Commission can, by law, require any additional step to register (§ 3.2 of said Act). This gives the Commission a nearly unlimited scope of possibilities to require any safety-requirement as deemed necessary, each election cycle. For example, it can incorporate IP-checks on applications. The Commission can, each election cycle, fine-tune its registration requirements as deemed necessary, based on a (inter)regional security assessment.

The Commission can also deny any application (for registration) on the basis of "regional security concerns" (§ 3.3 of said Act), even though the applicant is a Citizen.

The Praesidium can prohibit any number of people from accessing The East Pacific (§ 5 of the Voter Registration Act).

Moreover, the TEP Criminal Code (CC) was amended last July, together with the Concordat, adding additional security measures. The Concordat specifically recognizes the primacy of bans by the administration, without any recourse to the Conclave (Article G of the Concordat). The Viziers and the Delegate can deny entry or residence to anyone deemed "a significant risk to the region" (§ 3.1 of the TEP CC). Any contravention of any IC law is punishable by up to an indefinite ban (§ 6.1 of the TEP CC).

Therefore, the Delegate, Commission and Praesidium have all necessary tools and legal mandates to take all security measures deemed necessary to ensure the safety and secure elections of TEP.

Nociav writes, "I have to remind everyone that Fedele did not vote stack for himself with five different accounts he personally owned, he vote stacked with other people. This system does nothing to prevent against this form of vote stacking. The proposed system grants no practical advantage in this sector since the threat of one man pretending to be an army is low."

The previous system did not prevent this either. If a group of people joins TEP in a legitimate way, they can influence its politics. However, if there is a subversive agenda, the Delegate, Praesidium and the Commission have the necessary tools to act, even without a trial (see above).

Nociav writes, "EM's system mandates zero IP checks".

True, but it doesn't prohibit them either, and the Commission has the mandate to require any measures deemed necessary (see above).

Nociav writes, "The immediate concern is the RMBRA which in its current state would require every offender to be tried before being ejected and banned for RMB misconduct under the proposed citizenship system."

This is not true. Any offender can be considered to be committing a summary offense and may face message suppression, ejection, and/or indefinite banishment from the East Pacific, at discretion of the Delegate or Regional Officers (§ 5.1 of the RMBRA). Citizens can appeal after the fact (§ 5.3 of the RMBRA).

While Nociav's opinion article rightfully raises attention to the security of TEP, any debate and/or future reform should depart from a correct understanding of the tools available to TEP's institutions. I see a lot of improvement possible in the execution of security policy, based on the legal remedies already available.