WILD LIFE - January 2022

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[background-block=#BE8870][color=#BE8870]_[/color][color=#E1D99B][font=impact][size=150] TWO CENTS[/size][/font][/color][/background-block]

Back from a break, and re-finding my feet, WILD LIFE is my latest attempt at being literate in NS.  In this edition I poke a little fun at Gameplayers since defender [nation]Blue Jay 1[/nation] (also known as [nation]Qvait[/nation]) accidentally couped inactive region [region]Stargate[/region].  Enjoy!

But if you're just thinking, "I don't care about any of this.  Why did I get a notification?", then [url=#notifications]this section[/url] is for you.

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[background-block=#BE8870][color=#BE8870]_[/color][color=#E1D99B][font=impact][size=150] DEFENDERS COUP STARGATE[/size][/font][/color][/background-block]

[sidebar][align=centre][img]https://i.imgur.com/E0cXFgV.png[/img][i]United Nations military approach Stargate[/i][/align][/sidebar]

[region]Stargate[/region] is the legacy of an ancient civilisation. [size=70][i]Really - the region was founded before founders were even a thing in NS![/i][/size]  On 27 December, life imitated art when invading aliens used Stargate to attack Earth.  [size=70][i]Well, not quite.  What really happened was that raiders from Lone Wolves United and The Black Hawks jumped their puppets into Stargate to try and distract defenders from their real raid target - [region]Japan[/region].  (OK, so their [/i]real[i] target was [region]Warzone Sandbox[/region], and Japan was the back-up target... but the TV show vs NS narrative works a little better if I drop Warzone Sandbox from the story and go with the Earth / Japan angle.  Forgive me).[/i][/size]  Responding rapidly to this invading alien force, a coalition of united nations jumped [strike]through[/strike] to Stargate on an interplanetary mission to defend the region.

Unfortunately for the raiders, their jump landed them in some hot water in [region]The North Pacific[/region].  And unfortunately for the defenders, they accidentally couped the [nation]Casl[/nation].

With only a few brief interruptions, Casl had been delegate of Stargate for over 4 years.  For most of the time, Casl held on to this position with only two or three endorsements.  But for most of 2021, this was held with only one endorsement, making the founderless region rather vulnerable.

When the raiders jumped in seconds before the region updated, they hadn't endorsed each other.  So they weren't about to take the delegacy. The defenders couldn't be sure of that though. Having already endorsed each other before jumping, their split-second decision to defend the region led to them unintentionally usurping the delegate. Oops.

Was it a big deal?  Not really.  Other than resetting Casl's number of days as delegate back to zero, no harm was done.  But this is NS, and it would be boring if we didn't try and make a song and dance out of this stuff ;)  And by all accounts, defenders smashed raiders all through 2021, so it was kind of refreshing to see them make a mis-step before the year was through.

The North Pacific signed a [url=https://forum.thenorthpacific.org/topic/6924123/]security treaty[/url] with Stargate way back in 2012 under delegate [nation]Blue Wolf II[/nation].  Current TNP Delegate [nation]Madjack[/nation] understandably felt compelled to [url=https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=39249682#p39249682]publicly condemn the incident[/url].  They went further, and terminated TNPs' relationships with raider groups LWU and TBH.  The statement was calm and measured, and disappointingly lacked the drama I was craving.  I felt that the "Mad" was missing from Madjack's reaction.  [nation]RiderSyl[/nation] was disappointed too: "[url=https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=39249831#p39249831]I was hoping for some actual drama.[/url]"

If you're interested in nuanced argument and counter-argument on the ethics of the situation, go read the thread - the link is there for you.  From here on, this article is just going to focus on the snark.  

RiderSyl thoughtfully tried poking at both raiders and defenders, hoping to make the gameplay thread more interesting.  But the thread didn't really take off until LWU member [nation]Evil Wolf[/nation] (who is also Blue Wolf II, ye olde TNP delegate*) joined in.  Responding to Madjack's post: "[url=https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=39251125#p39251125]Perhaps raiders shouldn't use our treatied allies for their thorns.[/url]", Evil Wolf said:

"[url=https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=39251316#p39251316]Perhaps you should stop using this non-issue to push your own self-serving agenda.
The thorn didn't even break the actual terms of the treaty, you personally, Madjack, are just making this into a nontraversy. If you want to be mad at someone for breaking the Stargate delegate's streak, maybe be mad at the actual people who did it, neither of which were LWU nor TBH.
Your claims, Madjack, of a treaty violation are, at best, a misinterpretation and, at worst, a flat out lie. However, I'll give you the benifit of the doubt. Maybe you think we violated the spirit of the treaty, eh? Perhaps we could talk to the TNP representitive who signed that treaty and get their insight? I can only wonder who that might be.
Either way, I don't see how you, Madjack, breaking off relations and refusing to speak with diplomatic representives of either TBH or LWU, in private or in public, benifits The North Pacific. It's almost like you don't want to come up with a solution, Madjack. I can only wonder why that might be.[/url]"

In nine sentences, Evil Wolf manages to mention Madjack's name four times.  I don't know about you, but people over-using my name in conversation pisses me off.  I thought this was a nice touch on Evil Wolf's part.

The post comes across as a pretty angry response.  When you're typing angrily, it's easy to let mis-spellings in, and there are mis-spellings here.  However, "benifit" is mis-spelled the same way twice, so maybe it is just bad spelling.

Madjack picks up on this:

"[url=https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=39251332#p39251332]And get a f*cking spellchecker.[/url]"

I like this part of Madjack's post.  Whereas the rest of the post could be interpreted as being actual dialogue, this part just says "I think you're stupid".  It's exactly what is needed to escalate an otherwise non-event.

Is Evil Wolf deliberately escalating the spelling war by posting "[url=https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=39251340#p39251340]Very mich not the information I'm getting through the grapevine[/url]"?
It's possible.  The post was edited two minutes later, but kept that misspelling of "much".  I like to think that this was an intentional provocation.

Madjack retorts: "[url=https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=39251345#p39251345]I expect any grapes you're currently involved with are quite sour.[/url]"

Not bad.  I'd have been proud of myself for keeping that grape theme going if I'd have thought of it.  But looking from the outside, it doesn't really score many snark points.

This part of the retort scores highly though:
"[url=https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=39251345#p39251345]I spoke with both Miravana and Jo prior to the decision. I informed Miravana of our decision prior to making the announcement, as a courtesy for our long working relationship with The Black Hawks. I did not inform Jo prior to our announcement.[/url]"
Miravana (TBH) was worth the courtesy.  Jo (LWU, Evil Wolf's crew) was not.  Ouch. That's a burn. TNP had an embassy with LWU since 23 October 2011.  Ten years of relations, but no courtesy was given?

It gets rubbed in:
"[url=https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=39251359#p39251359]I spoke with Jo for as long as I deemed was worthwhile.[/url]"
Oooh!  That's got to hurt.  No time at all is as long as was considered worthwhile?

Evil Wolf comes back with some condescension, starting their next post "[url=https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=39251377#p39251377]My dear,[/url]" which is a nice touch, but has nowhere near the same burning power.  Madack is winning this war of snark.

[nation]Davelands[/nation] (founder of [region]The Sportsbook[/region]) makes a couple of comments to Madjack, then notes:  
"[url=https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=39252486#p39252486]"I see that you just left The Sportsbook's Discord.
It's a shame since you have been there from the beginning.
If this is how you react to some rather gentle comments then you really are letting your emotions get the better of you.
Of course you are always welcome to come back.[/url]"

Until this stage, Madjack was ahead on snark points.  But something had put them off their game.
"[url=https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=39252525#p39252525]I won't be addressing your last post Davelands.[/url]"
That's a shame, because it makes it look like Davelands may have been right about those emotions.
And so Madjack's assertion that "This really isn't a temper tantrum of any kind" may be true, but it loses some of it's conviction.

The thread continued for a few pages more, but the drama level dropped off, and so did I.

So the decoy "thorn" of Stargate worked out badly for the raiders.  How about their real targets, Warzone Sandbox and Japan?  Well, it was a bad day for raiders, at the end of a bad year.  On the plus side for raiders, they've got 2022 off to a good start with a successful occupation of [region]A Liberal Haven[/region].  But that's a separate story.

[i]*Not fact-checked. I'm too lazy to be a RL journalist.[/i]

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[background-block=#BE8870][color=#BE8870]_[/color][color=#E1D99B][font=impact][size=150] POLLS[/size][/font][/color][/background-block]
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I took a break from much of NS for 2021.  Previously [url=https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=818815]The NewsStand[/url] had supported a player-voted charity each year.  In 2019, the [url=https://www.worldwildlife.org/]World Wildlife Fund[/url] was voted our charity, and [url=https://www.unicef.org/]Unicef[/url] in 2020.  I'm thinking of bringing The NewsStand back to life for 2022, so we had [url=https://www.nationstates.net/page=poll/p=180885]another vote[/url].

The vote tied, with both [url=https://www.habitat.org/]Habitat for Humanity[/url] and [url=https://www.msf.org]MSF[/url] getting 3 votes each.  I'd said that in the event of a tie, the winner would be chosen randomly.  And the winner is...

[align=center][url=https://www.msf.org][img]https://i.imgur.com/Ux4jVv9.png[/img][/url][/align]

They'll receive a regular monthly payment for a year. In addition, each charity will receive a small lump sum in proportion with their share of the vote.

I'd actually been rooting for Habitat for Humanity to win the tie-breaker.  MSF has recently benefited from [url=https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/nsccf2021]$4,305[/url] generously donated by NS players, thanks to a series of [url=https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1632181]Christmas Fundraiser events[/url] organised by [nation]Wymondham[/nation], [nation]Aynia Moreaux[/nation], [nation]Dakota Vytherov[/nation], [nation]Evil Mother[/nation], [nation]Phoenix Coalition[/nation], and [nation]Witchcraft and Sorcery[/nation].
[spoiler=Thanks to our voters]
[nation]Aleixandria[/nation], [nation]Cretsia[/nation], [nation]Comfed[/nation], [nation]Concordare[/nation],[nation]Davelands[/nation], [nation]Dominioan[/nation], [nation]Isle of Zombie[/nation], [nation]Of Altonianic Islands[/nation], [nation]Wadelhelpia[/nation]
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[b]Repeal or No Repeal?[/b]

GA proposal "LEO Force Restrictions" is at vote, and looks likely to pass.  But will it stay on the books, or will it get repealed?  Score points for predicting correctly!

[url=https://www.nationstates.net/page=poll/p=181150]Place your bet here[/url]
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