Post Archive

Greetings Refugi!

I am EmojiTheft of Refugia but I am also present in another community as Humansanity, Delegate of 10000 Islands. If anyone has questions for me about a potential Refugi-XKI embassy, let me know!

This means a lot, actually. I came into the office terrified that I was going to break things and be really bad for it. The fact that I was able to kind of build it up and do a good job putting it in a much more comfy place for the next FA Councillor makes me happy.

Thank you so much for saying this.

Inversa has random question now

What does the name of your nation mean? Does other Refugi Nations Names hold meaning? Is it a name for a people group? Etc

Inversa is only curious

Well, unfortunately we do not. We do a have a regional map with several hundred Islands (of course, some of the Islands may be too small to be visible). Map can be found here.

We have a lot of lore-based explanations for the 10000 Islands, since a frequently asked question is "what there's only 1300 nations in the region! YOU DON'T HAVE 10000 ISLANDS! rawr". Of course, that's a fair point. However, one nation doesn't necessarily equal one island. Some nations share islands and some nations have multiple islands. Some islands may be as of yet unclaimed. My theory is that there are always exactly 10000 Islands, but that each time a nation enters or leaves the region, there is a redivision of territory. Sometimes entire islands might just spontaneously sink into the ocean, other times the nation vacates them to allow the next nation to take its place. Really, your own creativity is the limit.

Mine is for two interrelated reasons - neither of which is particularly serious:

1) The Refugia Discord server has, I would wager, probably the best curated emoji collection of any NationStates server. Trust me, it takes a fantastic emoji collection for me to put my home region second in anything, but Refugia's collection is spectacular. As a result, given I pay for Discord Nitro, I wanted to engage in theft of the emojis.

2) My main nation is HumanSanity. Some notable things: all one word (no space between 'Human' and 'Sanity') and the first letter of each word is capitalized (not 'Humansanity'). I decided to mirror that with my nation EmojiTheft.

Basically, I got tired of my main nation back then, and decided to create a puppet. I wanted the puppet's nation name to be something silly, yet have some semblance of a sensible nation's name. I decided on "French" as the middle part, and on "Lower" as a modifier, and then my silly mind came up out of nowhere with "Gregballs" as the final part of the name. I've had fun running it until I got bored of NS and allowed all my nations CTE, then revived it when I came back to NS a few months ago. I RPed elsewhere the transition of power from the Founder of the Nation, the McGregory, to his young and clueless secretary, Miss Agnes Day. Then I discovered Refugia, decided to move Lower French Gregballs here and make it my "main" nation, resigning my previous one from the WA and joining with this one. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Welcome Regrigirator Lands, Malory Avenue, Kogailey, and French Onion Soup to Refugia! If you have any questions about the region or how NationStates works feel free to leave it here on the RMB! You can also join our Discord server found at the top of the page within our region description. We're all friendly and don't bite!

If you haven't already, consider joining the World Assembly (located on the left sidebar) which will allow you to become a Member State! Member States are able to get a spot on our map (link in the region's description), vote in regional polls, and even run for office when elections come up! If you're not interested in that, that's completely fine! We're a chill laid back community and we aim to make everyone's experience here as wonderful as possible.

To the rest of you (Wascoitan In Refugia, Vylixan Gaea, and Dyllonia) I think that isn't your main account so I'm not going to bother you with the normal spiel. Have a great time here nonetheless!

Also I think Not Zess I Swear is Zess...

I slammed my keyboard, took the string of letters and adjusted it so that it would resemble a name.

Sylh Alanor is a bit of a mutt when it comes to references.

Alinor is the capital city of the Summerset Isles, home of the Altmer/High Elves in The Elder Scrolls. You'd think that would be where the idea came from for my elven nation, but no! Sylh Alanor was actually from a random name generator for elven countries, and I rolled it waaaaaaay back in 2017. It was the setting for the first RP I ever started on CalRef. It was a land of elves that were immortal due to a magic device in their capital city, but that device had been stolen and the main characters were tasked to get it back.

Sylh Alanor on NationStates is heavily based on the Elvhen people in Dragon Age. Elvhenan, to be precise, the long-ago Elvhen empire that was torn down and destroyed. The capital was Arlathan, or Ara'lath in the old language, so Sylh Alanor's capital is Arlathan when not spoken in Elvish, and Ara'lath when spoken in Elvish. I also use Elvish phrases in my "official" dispatches (An'eth'ara means "Hello, this place is safe", lethallen is the neutral version of "kin", and Dar'eth Shi'ral means "Go safely on your journey").

So the only issue, of course, is that Sylh Alanor doesn't mean anything in Elvish because that's not where I got it from. So I've said Alanor is the old country name and Alanori is the demonym, but I decided that Sylh means "new". It doesn't, and that will bother me forever, but it's working out okay xD

Upon naming my nation, I was feeling very curious (not really). For whatever reason, I like words that start with A, and I wanted a name that was easy enough to say and sounded decent. And I like the word ‘rain,’ both for its meaning and how it sounds. Hence, the name Araine was produced.

Gregballists consider Anarchy to be bad, terribly bad. They look back fondly on the days Grandpa McGregory used to rule the land (benevolently) with a stern guiding hand. They enjoy Civil Rights and Personal Freedoms, but not to the point of abandoning Law and Order.

Ay, hello Refugi friends. Your rmb is pretty nice so I might come to visit every now and then

Not a Refugi, but I'll answer anyway. Our name is a refference to our millenar culture of pacifism and serenity, a characteristic shared by the different ethnic groups that make up The Most Serene Republic. It's also a silly joke.

Hello, all.

Salutations, friend!

Good morning! I know World Assembly Affairs have been quiet since the election, mainly because there's just been very little happening in the WA this year. But at last we have a new proposal in the GA: Greater Cesnica's Repeal: International Criminal Protocol. Let's take a look.

Proposal: https://www.nationstates.net/page=UN_view_proposal/id=greater_cesnica_1610514451

Forum thread: https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=495832

Target: https://www.nationstates.net/page=WA_past_resolution/id=500/council=1

Target forum thread: https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=456881

Let's talk first about the resolution it's trying to repeal. International Criminal Protocol was passed on 2020/07/21. It abbreviates to ICP, so if you're bored you can read discussion and pretend it's about Insane Clown Posse, which I think is a big plus. Its big goals were to establish a base standard for the treatment and living conditions of prisoners, and to set standards and restrictions for the use of capital punishment. To this end, it outlawed what's colloquially known as solitary confinement and only allowed a slightly less severe variant under specific conditions. There are also a lot of lines in here outlining how exactly capital punishment can and can't be administered. Most of the other clauses about stuff like outlawing forced labour are pretty straightforward, so you should be able to glean most of the important stuff at a glance.

So why is this being repealed? Well, it's because of a little line tucked away at the very bottom of the text:

The author is arguing that by reserving the legality of capital punishment, ICP is hindering future legislation to end what the author views as an inhumane practice. That's the entirety of the case here. Now, I want to be clear: I know that many of us in this region have an ideological opposition to the death penalty, and the initial reaction is to vote in favour of loosening its legality. But I have a couple of reservations here.

First, capital punishment is covered in great detail in GAR#443, Preventing the Execution of Innocents. Let me give you the high points of this one: member nations are entitled to utilize capital punishment if they so choose, but it must be reviewed and confirmed by a WA committee. Member states may only submit one case per million residents per year. There's a bunch of stuff about ensuring a fair trial. It prevents the use of execution for minors and mentally disabled persons, for nonviolent offenses, and for crimes "not directly affecting more than one person." Execution methods must be confirmed to be without pain and suffering. The defense in these cases must be allowed a year during trial to review evidence, and the WA given six months after the verdict to see about overturning it. The reason I bring this up is to make clear that repealing GAR#500 will not directly enable a ban on capital punishment, and further attempts to do so would require the repeal of #443, which already bars it in many cases. Cesnica isn't being dishonest here, but I think they're a bit starry-eyed to get hung up on this point.

I do think GC borders on dishonesty in one portion of the repeal, however:

In my mind, a promise of replacement legislation carries the implication that it's been drafted to at least a reasonable measure of completeness, such that it could go to vote shortly thereafter. Here is Greater Cesnica's proposed replacement. This is a skeleton of a draft. Every line, except for the assurance of legal resources, is so close to the original most teachers would call it plagiarism. Presumably they acquired permission from the original author to use their work, but even so, this is clearly not a suitable replacement, and I take issue with propping it up to create the impression of a repeal and replace scenario.

At present, I think this repeal gains very little and loses a lot of useful (if imperfect) mandates about livable conditions and further restrictions on executions. Tell me what you think, and if it reaches quorum within the next 60 hours, I'll prepare an IFV statement taking everyone's feedback into account.

First off, this was a really great and entertaining write-up. I appreciate that your writing is consistently entertaining while also showing the time and research you put into understanding the content. Also thank you for letting me know that something was coming up in the GA queue, I'm afraid I'd stopped looking since it's been quiet for some time.

So all of this stuff took a while to read! After reading both the repeal proposal, the thread for the repeal proposal, the thread for the replacement proposal, and a bit extra around the edges, wow! This is really bad! I don't think it's as bad as the author's previous foray into WA writing, which was "Commend The Western Isles", but it certainly seems to be showing a theme of... not great quality.

Just for the sake of record-keeping, I voted against GAR#500 back when it was first at vote. It was specifically for the same reason this seems to have been written (or at least, the ideological push that the author is using to try and get people on board), that it explicitly attempts to allow states to enable the death penalty. I'm against the death penalty, so that line was a deal-breaker for me, especially with GAR#443 already existing. I don't like that one either, for what it's worth, but I think attempting to get rid of two proposals just to put up something explicitly banning capital punishment also isn't worth it, because that would simply never pass. There are too many people who think that capital punishment is an acceptable practice, and we kind of have to choose our battles here. Especially since the originals have really good things in them that it would be a disservice to get rid of for a moonshot.

Putting almost zero work into the replacement before pushing the repeal to a vote also irks me when the author claims to care so much about the idea of replacing it. I just see no value in this repeal. I wouldn't mind someone coming along eventually and replacing the current standards that are in place with more humane ones and ridding us of executions entirely, but this is absolutely not the one. Against.

Would like to second, by the way, that this is the case. the target resolution specifically states that capital punishment is up to member states. So if we want to ban it in the future, this particular resolution is going to have to go at some point. I don't think this is the way to go about it because of my above assessment.

Hmm.. I would say Canada + certain aspects of Thailand

Welcome to Atril- Refugia, Atrilia welcomes you and hopes you have an enjoyable stay

Notice:

Gentle reminder that this is the last day to vote in the embassy referendum: (https://vote.calref.network/)

One issue I don't like is one about vaccination where if you choose what I believe is the best choice and get the result "Vaccines are mandatory" it doesn't go under the Policies section of your nation page. I see no reason for it not to be but alas it does not go there.

This is a hard one... Turkey?

Probably New Zealand

Atrilia Times is Running a poll in refugia to see if the money being spent on improving the ecology is being effectively used.

How many nations here have a high ecofriendly index but low Environmental beauty index?

if your nation's ecology is lower in proportional to Environmental beauty please state why that might be.

if your nation's ecology is higher in proportional to Environmental beauty please state why that might be.

Actually, if GA#500 is repealed, death penalty ban can be passed legally. PEoI only reserves the right subject to World Assembly resolutions, including future ones. So death penalty can be abolished while GA#443 stands.

I agree with the above. The replacement draft is still really bad, and nothing we said before is incorrect, but knowing that a death penalty ban could go through with this out of the way shifts me to a position of supporting it. I'll be voting for when it goes up in the morning.

If the author has no intention of actually making the replacement good, someone else can do it. And I think we can make sure someone does.

I'm curious-- does Refugia have an official regional language?

I have also wondered this.

I know regional / continental languages never really take off (Espiranto in Europe springs to mind), but I've always liked the idea of regional languages.

Hey everyone!

I just wanted to let everybody know that the referendum on opening an embassy with 10000 Islands has concluded! Out of 13 votes, 10 were for, 2 were against, and 1 abstained. I've passed the information along. XKI has a few more steps before they're ready, but we'll be here to accept as soon as they are.

Thanks so much for voting, everybody!

Good evening Refugia ^-^ First of all hai, love you guys, hope you’re all doing well today and everyday. Second of all, I’ve written an RRS amendment :DDD As we didn’t quite reach our goals for Environmental Beauty and Eco-Friendliness, I’ve written some new ones up for the new year, hopefully some goals we can reach!! Here’s the dispatch~ https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1490327

I’m looking for a second so I can put it to vote, and if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask them!! Have a wonderful day friends!! 🌺🌷🌸🌼

For RRS amendments, it means another Refugi who likes the amendment can second it, approving it to go to vote :)

Isn't the goal a bit too high, especially 3200 for Eco-Friendliness (I couldn't properly read the numbers on the graph for that)?

I believe we should set realistic goals.

In that case, I second the RRS amendment proposal: Setting new goals.

Definitely looks doable if we all do our bit. Looks like it has been seconded already so I will just say I'm sure between the great nations of Refugia we can reach these targets.

I just had the luck that I got to ban cars just now, this dramatically improves both stats.

Notice:

I have received a valid submission for an RRS Referendum on Setting New Environmental Goals for 2021, proposed by Indimu and seconded by Lower French Gregballs.

You can review the proposed changes here.

Toss in a vote today! https://vote.calref.network/

The referendum will conclude in one week's time.

i remember that, always fun when you accidentally enact a decision accidentally but its good for half your goals and terrible for the rest

Instructions unclear, am now banning boats

ヽ(´□｀。)ﾉ

Hello!

I think the game needs to update it's classifications under the 'policies' section. I just made attending college mandatory (and free) for 2 years after high school, but this doesn't go under policies?

Notice:

While I'm thinking about it, it might be a good time for me to note that we will be having an election for one position or another every week in February. That starts in two weeks' time.

It may be a convenient now to read up on RRS 6 and see what the council seats are. Start thinking about whether you would be interested in doing something. We will have two current Councillors who will be term-limited for this upcoming election and ineligible to go again, so someone new will be taking over either way.

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1200707

Darths and Droids is ranked 6,097th in the world and 2nd in Refugia for Highest Economic Output, with 2,466 trillion Standard Monetary Units.

I'm honestly surprised I'm second at all here.

This is one of the game's shortcomings. There are other examples of major long-term decisions not implemented as "policies." What can I say? No game is perfect.

I believe HDI is meant to be the quality of life for your citizens. If you answer issues in a way that should improve that you should increase the HDI.

Hello friends! My name is Wisch and I'll be serving as XKI's emissary to your lovely region. I'm excited to get to know you all so don't be shy! Feel free to shoot me a TG or hit me up in the RMB or Discord anytime. :D

I might get more involved in the region (no promises tho), are there any things I absolutely must know first?

Heya folks

I've decided that we're going to do a bit of organisational clean-up because we have a few more dispatches than I can reasonably get to, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't stop making content for NationStates or stop growing our region. So, instead, we're going to start working on combining and building things shooting off from a Regional Master Dispatch. Now, not all of the links are going to be up yet. But this will be where you can find the home pages of all the Regional Council members and find out what their department does and maybe how you can help. This dispatch will be pinned to the World Factbook entry (just above) so you can find it super easy forever.

Also:

For those of you who are kinda new and still figuring things out, myself and a few other people are working on a series of articles and tutorial pages on how to use NationStates and how to do various stuffs on it. This series of pages is called How Does and you'll be able to find those articles on the How Does Homepage, which will also be linked in the master Dispatch.

Right now, we have one tutorial article from Sylh Alanor called How Does World Assembly to give you a basic heads up about what the World Assembly is and does. There's also another article that I just wrote called How Does Challenges to give you a basic overview about what the Challenges minigame is on NationStates and how it works.

Writing articles is a lot of work, but we'll keep adding them over time, so check back every now and then to see if someone's had some time to add something to this page. Our goal is to ultimately come up with top tier guides for all of NationStates things so anyone can have the tools to do what they want - Even if they're not in Refugia.

Stay tuned.

Welcome United Lunar, Xdnt, Astriova, Perama, and Blake Syndicate to Refugia! I hope you enjoy your stay. For those it applies to pay attention to the rest of this message:

If you have any questions about the region or how NationStates works feel free to leave it here on the RMB! You can also join our Discord server found at the top of the page within our region description. We're all friendly and don't bite!

If you haven't already, consider joining the World Assembly (located on the left sidebar) which will allow you to become a Member State! Member States are able to get a spot on our map (link in the region's description), vote in regional polls, and even run for office when elections come up! If you're not interested in that, that's completely fine! We're a chill laid back community and we aim to make everyone's experience here as wonderful as possible.

Glad to have you here Wisch From Xki!

This is a worthy initiative. If there's anything I can do, hit me up on Discord and I may or may not get back to you in a few weeks.

popping in to say I love you all, as well.