ForestBoard

HumanSanity ran a campaign with detailed plans that extended beyond the WA to include plans for events within 10KI and interregional events, and delegating positions of Foreign Affairs Secretary and Secretary of State. Hakketomat ran a much simpler campaign, promising to delegate their powers to other nations to do the work for them. HumanSanity was running under the Mayor Shelter Political Party, while Hakketomat was running under the The Islands Party. HumanSanity won with 40 votes to Hakketomat's 19.

Two of 10KI's Senate seats were also up for election, Wischland running unopposed for the seat of Blue Carania North, and Controlitia winning the seat of New Republica South. Both the delegate and the senators are part of the region's legislative body, the Council of Nine, as well as several appointed positions, and the Chief Executive, who is the owner of the regional founder account (alongside several other roles). Delegates serve 6-month terms, but there is a term limit of two terms (one year), which previous delegate Kuriko reached. Kuriko is the current Secretary-General of the WA, which they won during this year's April fools event, the general election.🟥

Thalassia has slowly been moving away from having two elected executive positions and a regional cabinet, which is what the region started with. Firstly, the office of President was abolished and replaced with WA Delegate, followed by changing the region from a republic to a constitutional monarchy. It was the region's founder (or monarch, as their known in the region) Sho, and several government members, who dissolved the constitution and government, and replaced it with an interim council and constitution, so that the new constitution could be written.

When looking at the constitution, we see a large shift in the structure of the regional government. Now a large part of the government is focused on the Monarch and the Curia Regis, which is the executive and judicial authority appointed by the Monarch. While there is a focus on the newly-created legislature, most other elements are relatively undemocratic. Whether a legislature is a better system than referendums (Thalassia's previous system for passing laws and amending the constitution) or simply the executive creating laws is a debate for another time. While it can be easy to focus on the negatives, it is important to remember that monarchies are not unheard of on NS (regions such as The Pacific or the previously-mentioned 10KI, to an extent). Whether or not it is the right direction for the region will be known in time.🟥

Last year's winners, Horsemen of the Apocalypse (of the region Hell) got off to an early lead, attacking The Potato Alliance, which went poorly for the Potatoes. ATOMIC joined in the fight, and fought the Horsemen for several hours alongside the Potatoes. They were eventually joined by Ba Bing Se, Fuster Cluck and previous winners Augustin Alliance, but it was too little, too late for The Potato Alliance, who evacuated the faction, to minimize damage when launching attacks (by only staying in the faction for minimum amounts of time when launching nukes), and ATOMIC, who joined Augustin Alliance.

The fighting continued, mostly with Augustin Alliance and Ba Bing Se launching waves of attacks on the Horsemen, followed by the Horsemen returning fire. During one of the largest attacks, AA suffered the faction's only strikes of the event, although there were many during this attack. But the Horsemen were slowly weakening, and eventually Ba Bing Se, and later Augustin Alliance took the lead. AA never looked back, and went on to win the event (if winning is possible in nuclear war). The Potato Alliance made possibly one of the best comebacks in N-Day history, going from -65,000 points to second place. Ba Bing Se finished third with no radiation, which is also quite a feat. ATOMIC, while not winning in name, definitely contributed to AA's victory after the merger, but some survivors stayed back in the original faction and brought the faction back up to a positive score.

What have we learned from this event? We have arguably learned the power of puppets, as many R/Ders and card farmers used huge puppet armies in the event to produce more nukes and shields than ever before, possibly to a controversial amount. We've seen how you should never give up, as for many it looked hopeless when the Horsemen were over 100,000 points and everyone else was below 30,000, as well as the story of ATOMIC and The Potato Alliance. We saw how powerful interregional alliances are, as not only were these alliances so powerful but arguably it was the creation of non-aggression pacts by the Augustin Alliance that allowed the attacks on the Horsemen of the Apocalypse that won them the event. Possibly the greatest thing that some of us have learned, is to have fun. For me, it has been one of the most fun days on NS I've had. Sometimes we can be too serious, or too angry, but remember, this is something we do in our spare time, for fun. Hopefully everyone else had fun in this event.🟥