Join the new world

I'll start by saying that these articles won't be published in my newspaper usually (No I'm not trying to get all the subs!) but unfortunatly we don't have access to the Ministry of Home Affairs org, as neither the passwords nor the emails have been seen since BigAnt's term.



Hello, and welcome to another brand new month and a brand new term. There should be a whole range of new changes. One of the things that will be happening is to do with this very paper. Every two days I will be realising an article, like this, called UK Today that will contain an interview with a senior player within the UK, the latest news and a summary of the Presidential Announcements. So without further ado, our first interviewee is the freshly sworn in President, Talon Karrde!



1. How's it shaking?

Very well thank you Beta! I've been hard at work getting cabinet set up, answering the tirade of PMs from various foreign dignitaries and UK citizens, and getting everything ready for the month ahead. It's pretty fun, I've always enjoyed a good organisational session, and as the saying goes; never underestimate the comforting power of a list!


2. What have you learnt from your previous terms that you want to carry over to this term?

Good question. I think the main lesson I've learned is to be flexible. No plan survives contact with the enemy, and I tend to find they survive for even less time when friends are involved! When you're the president, you have to be able to respond to any issue very quickly, with poise and organisation, and ensure you do it all in a diplomatic way. A silver tongue is very much required, and you have to use blind spots and the expectations of others to your advantage.

You also need to know EVERYONE. I'll get maybe 15 - 50 PMs a day from a variety of people, and one of my personal policies is to reply to each one of them, so I need to know each person and know how to reply to them, and likewise when I need to talk to a particular country or position I need to know who that is, certainly if I want quick results.

I also learned last time not to neglect our own people at home. A lot of CPs get sucked into all the foreign affairs and tend to leave the UKers to their cabinet- that's a recipe for disaster; at the end of the day the CP serves the people, and so needs to be intimately connected to them.


3. What lesson that you've learnt do you want to avoid this term?

That two terms in a row is too much, and you burn out!


4. What are your goals for the term and how will you go about accomplishing them?

I have three main goals for this term.

First, to have a successor in place to take over at the end of the month. I specifically chose Ergo Deus as my Vice Country President because I believe he has what it takes to continue my work after I'm gone, so my first goal for the month is to make sure he gets all the experience he needs to do that.

Second, to communicate effectively with the UK public, and increase their enjoyment of the game. Someone once said that if you don't communicate, you're not really the CP at all, but rather the MoFA in chief. So one of my goals this month is to make sure everyone is well informed about what their government is doing, what my opinions and policies are, and the direction we're taking on any issue. I'd be delighted to answer any questions people have for me, in PMs, in newspaper interviews, on the forums, wherever. And of course I'd like to make sure those same people enjoy this month in erep.

Third, to secure the UK's future with our allies. A hot topic for this month is the formation of the CTRL alliance, and our stance on them. I need to make sure we use our substantial diplomatic prowess to prevent any potential attacks on the UK, and to secure our friendships first with our old allies, (and I'm thinking Poland, Serbia, Hungary etc.) and then to seek new friendships too. This is paramount and I will focus a lot of my time on this.


5. What's your opinion on the state of current alliances and our position within them?

We definitely live in interesting times. With the advent of CTRL we seem to have a true 'third way,' a dream many have hoped for and that the UK could take advantage of. Our options for the near future are to join ALT, the group of countries seeking a closer relationship with the CTRL countries, or to remain as we are, attached to countries by individual relationships but not official alliance standing.

I'm more a fan of the second option at this time. The UK must continue to be pro Poland, to give them our damage and our help whenever they require it, as they're the single reason we're now free of France and the occupation we suffered at their hands. On the other hands, a lot of our old allies like Serbia and Hungary will never join CTRL, and we certainly want to remain close to them too. I believe that the best way for us to do that will be to simply maintain our relationships, without committing to any alliance at this time. I'll be talking often to friends in each of those governments, and will inform you all, and congress, of any changes on that front, but for now I'll be lobbying for us to maintain the status quo.


6. You are expanding government with the MOJ, what are the motives behind this, and how do you think it'll pan out?

After the collapse of the Game of Thrones forum game, I'd been thinking of another way to use the forums to create some fun. At the same time I saw a fair few arguments flare up within our community, and thought; what better way to have some fun while solving some issues than a court system!

The idea is that people with a grievance can petition the courts for a trial, and both sides can argue their cases before a jury of their peers and a judge, and hopefully get a resolution to the issue at the end. There is scope for minor punishments, but the entire thing is meant to be voluntary and for fun, anyone that simply wants to continue only in game can of course continue to do so unhindered; those that do want to partake, can.

I think it'll be pretty fun, and I look forward to starting up a law firm after my term is up!


7. Last month the BEF got yet another reform during Magic's term, what's your opinion on it and what is your plan regarding the Military?

There is a fairly big plan in the works for the military, which will secure us a strong, self-contained, high damage and totally inclusive national force. The current system is less than ideal for me, but will continue to tick over until the new (and unfortunately secret for now) system is operational. I will say that neither incarnation will cost the tax payer any money. I make more than enough WRM myself to keep the current BEF ticking over until we can replace it, and I'll do that for now.

Thank you for interviewing me, I suspect we'll be doing a fair few of these over the course of my term!

Talon



This is the first edition of the new UK Today, so make sure to subscribe as this will become more and more chock-full of content!

Finally, another thing that I’ll be using this paper for is to publish an “eNcyclopedia” about everything a eUK citizen needs to know about eRep. As UK Today is published once every two days, the “eNcyclopedia” will be published on the alternative days when nothing is published. It’s a fairly time consuming project and I’d be happy to have any help so if you know anything about the following topics and would like to contribute then please PM me with what area you know about and what you know!

The topics I’ll be covering are:

- History of the eUK (To be published tomorrow)
- Past and Present Alliances
- Famous & Influential eUKers
- The Politic Module
- The War Module
- The Economy Module
- Top 5 Parties of the eUK, Past and Present
- Militaries of the eUK
- Past Governments and Structures
- Forums & IRC
- Military Units of the eUK
- Country Presidents
- Library Project/Tutorials
- And lastly; Countries of the eWorld.

If you have any information about any of the above then feel free to PM me! Also, I'm looking to make some new logos and update some images if there's anyone out there who's any good at photoshop, PM me if you have the time to, too 😃



For those of you yet to see Talon's Cabinet for the month, you can view it by clicking here.

Carlini8, the Minister of Finance, has released an article too about the current financial state of the country. If that floats your boat, you can see that here.



Well, thanks for reading. As I say, as the term progresses, the amount of content in these articles will increase and my goal is that the so will the quality as we go. Remember to PM me with any information on the above topics!

Cheers,

Beta
Minister of Public Health & Knowledge