[CP] The Ace of Spades

Day 1,649, 09:21 • Published in Canada Canada • by Sperry


Good news! Last night I slept, showered, and successfully avoided ALL cat vomit! There’s something refreshing about waking up because I’m rested, and not because my head slid off of my little eRepping desk. I’ll quietly avoid the fact that I passed out on the floor again. For someone with such a tame social life I certainly wake up in a lot of hangovery places.



The 34

Another month, another election. The main difference this time around is the odd number of Congressmen we see - 34, instead of our usual 40. Why such a strange number? Game mechanics. The way eRep functions, the candidate-to-region ratio is locked well before election day. This means that, if a country picks up or loses new regions, the number of candidates they can slot per region (as well as the number of wildcards they can win) doesn’t change all the way up until the polls close. Instead, it locks.

The way this worked out for Canada today, as it has in the past, is that our region ratio locked while we were in the middle of a war. Since we did not waste time tanking in iron-useless Wales, the candidates who were running there got dropped (with an alarming number of wasted votes from several parties). Every PP knew that we had no reason to win Wales outside of those 2 seats - a poor reason to distract Canadian soldiers.

I am pleased at one thing - yesterday, several candidates publicly offered to buy votes from other players in order to get into Congress. 2 of them were near the election margin, but both were blocked out - one by a more honourable player, one by the Wales loss. Both of these players have been blacklisted by their party and will not be welcomed onto the Congress ballot again.

It’s hard to shoot down vote buying when Plato condones it, and offsite laws aren’t effective when 2 of our sitting Justices favour vote buying. But on a party level, those 2 candidates are either going to have to swap to another team, or enjoy their time on the blacklist. Play fair or don’t play with me. Up to you.


What Congress Has on the Table

New elections mean more than getting Ak3m into Congress. The new faces to Congress will have their time to get adjusted, but most of the faces in there are old and know what’s going on. I’ve already asked the May Congress batch to take care of 5 different items.

First, 3 Executive Orders tied to cleaning up forum laws: these orders came early in May and were greenlighted by the last Congress, but because of backward wording in our Chartertution are still needing to face a vote from Congress. Chochi is in the middle of another Chartertution amendment that will get rid of the need for EOs to be signed off on (a slow and pointless process), which will make future orders go through faster and with less trivial voting.

The next Executive Order is related to the Supreme Court. Our Chatertution has successfully removed the archaic sanctioning powers of the court. Now, we just need to finish off an edit to the Criminal Reform Act to clear off the last remnant of that destructive system. The only other piece of it is in the Congressional Rules, but Congress will need to take care of that one themselves.

Finally, we’ve got our New Citizen Message. This has been on hold while we waited for the Tutorial Contest to end. Why write a newby article when there were dozens of very detailed ones being pumped out by our allies? The proposal on the table for Congress includes links to 2 new, high quality tutorials, is simple and clear in its layout, and allows for ease of access editing held in faith for Congress by a trustworthy old fart. It balances new information with Congress’ regular voting rights, and I hope that they move forward with this quickly so that we can get our new players more current information. The current “meet Napoleon” is pretty out of date.


The Situation on the Map

Most of our attention this term has been on France. When it’s been on Britain, it’s ultimately been directed at doing our French buds a favour. So how is France faring right now? On their own fronts, not so great. They’ve again lost initiative to the Hungarians and are down to a humbling 6 regions. Those 6 are split into 3 different pieces, and with an attack on Rhone Alps there’s a chance that their holdings will be split in half yet again.

America has managed to press their time zone advantage against Hungary very well. They won the initiative back from the Huns several days ago, and have been moving up the core of France ever since. This is slowly increasing the American grip on Hungary’s French regions which, thanks to Romania and the Hungarian retreat, are also their only regions. So what does all of this mean for Canada?

Right now, our only hostile border is with Britain. Because the Irish are finally getting around to their land swap, we’re leaving that alone so that the Irish can save some face after their slip-up in Denmark. Which, again, turns us to France. As the Huns continue to advance along the South in an effort to avoid us, we’re in the odd spot of waiting for a war. But this wait isn’t a perpetual one: the Huns can’t dawdle forever anymore than Spain can hold off China alone. The layout of the map is not currently ideal, but it’s what we have unless Canada is willing to consider a new layout for alliances. That’s something to think about.


Let’s Call a Spade a Spade

I’ve been called a lot of things this term. If they were all true, I’d be an arrogant traitor and abstaining coward. All good and well to say it - after all it’s the Internet and that makes us all so brave - but let’s take a look at the simple realities.

I’m a member of EPIC. I’ve been one since it was founded. I don’t view this as an insult: I’m proud to be in EPIC. I’m proud to be a member of the party that is most opposed to vote buying, rather than being a Justice who endorses it just because it will buy me favour. I’m proud of my voting record, which includes zero abstentions through all of my terms in Congress. I’m proud of my country, having always lived here and always fought here.

I don’t run away to other countries when I get upset. I don’t whine about abstainers and then abstain myself. I don’t loathe vote buying one day and then endorse it the next. Why? Because I make decisions, and I stand by them. I respect too many of my peers, readers, and leaders to burn holes in their day just because I’m online.

June 5th isn’t about being the President of the party I’m in. It’s about being the President of a country. It’s not about being besties with everyone in your party (I’m not). It’s about knowing how to work with other people in every party to get things done. There are plenty of people not in EPIC who I admire to no end. Plugson is my favourite player in the country, I certainly don’t think less of him because he doesn’t vote for the same guy I do on the 15th.

If you want to lead because your party is swell, then run for PP, and run for Congress, and run for Speaker. If you want to lead because you have a vision for Canada - then that’s a different story. Being CP isn’t about “vote for me because I told you so.” It’s about a consistent, dedicated push toward something that we can be proud of, that we can enjoy, and that we can use to keep our country moving forward. That’s the CP Spade.