Join the new world

Before I begin the article I would like to take a moment to thank all the people who've been so, so supportive of Castaneda's campaign to become our CP and of his choice to name me as his Vice President. Our articles have been in the top five consistantly and comments on them have been very encouraging, I've even had a few supportive PMs I wouldn't have expected. I know when Cas first announced his candidacy it seemed as though we were very much the underdogs but the more we talk to people the more it seems like we have a strong chance this weekend.

The Role of the Vice President and My Credentials

But now onto business. VP is not an official eRep position of course and I know from speaking to some past VPs that often it's a title in name only and the VP doesn't actually do anything. I also know that this isn't always the case, some VPs work their socks off.

I intend to be the latter. Put simply and bluntly a vote for Castaneda is a vote for war and he has promised that within a week of election he will declare on the eUK. Those of you who know Cas at all will know that this means it's going to happen. All it will take then is for the members of congress to honor the decision of the eIrish people and approve the declaration in the vote and we're off to battle. Cas has already explained the plan there and as I'm sure is obvious he's going to be very occupied during his term in office with making sure that all goes off as well as possible.

In that kind of situtation some Ministries can suffer from neglect. Specifically Community, Education and New Citizens. While these may not be as obviously essential as the MoD, for example, they are still important and so I will be taking full responsibility for these departments while he focuses on the rest. As I'm sure many of you know I was the first full-term Minister appointed to the MoC after a very problematic term. I was the Minister who re-instated the Community Lottery and who inaugurated the Community Awards, designing them in each of my terms as well as two terms when I was out of the position. I ran various house giveaways, particularly for new citizens, and did various other competitions and events and started the sponsorship by private citizens and companies of MoC prizes. My work also involved working closely with the Ministry of New Citizens, which was begun in my first term as MoC, and involved some interaction with the MoE, so I know these three departments pretty well. I also very much trust the people who'll be taking care of the departments during the term.

Minister of Community - Einberliner

Well if you can't trust yourself who can you trust, right? I've held this position three times before and, honestly, have been kind of missing it lately. I also pretty much have the rhythm of the job down so it'll be easy enough for me to pick up and organise around all the fighting that will be going on. The lottery will continue to run but I will return it to a regular, weekly event with a set day of being drawn. It's also my intention to bring back the Community Awards, as I think were last run just before IP's time in the Ministry (she has, of course, been running events of her own and I'm not implying even by accident she was being neglectful by not running the awards). I've also talked to Castaneda about running a World Cup Pool (support for France will be penalised ;-p) and given we'll be full on brawling I will be holding random competitions for weapons. I will also resume my 'friend the nation' scheme whereby I try to get as many eIrish citizens as possible to be friended to the Community org so that it can be used to get important information out by shout when needed.

Minister of Education - Sean Power

Previously the Ministry of Education has focused on educating newer citizens on game mechanics. I've personally found that in recent months, and particularly since new citizens have started their eLives with 100 wellness, that this has been a little less essential than previously. Please note I didn't say that it wasn't important. I've also found that a lot of the information is given out by the Health and New Citizens ministries anyway. I'm still very pro the assignment of mentors to tutor our newcomers but during this term the focus of the Department of Education will be the education of all eIreland's citizens on the content and changes of V2. Sean is, I'm sure you know, a very smart guy and he's been studying V2 closely, ready to get us all educated and informed on how the game is going to change and how to maximise our opportunities when it happens. Something I know I'm grateful for because I sometimes get a bit lost reading through all of the admin releases. Sean's also an acclaimed publisher - he's won at least one community award, has a decent number of subscribers to his own paper and is very articulate. A definite fine choice for this ministry.

Though on that note here's a very interesting and highly educational link about the V2 beta that began this week.

ETA: Right as I was about to post this Moo posted his own article on Education. Sean placed a comment on there that shows you in his own words how he sees the job (and proves I was right when I called him smart and articulate 😉). Scroll down here to read it

Minister of New Citizens - Edana Savage

Edana is, in many ways, a very polarisizing citizen. She says what she thinks, she doesn't suffer fools gladly and she's gotten into many a heated debate during her time in the game. She's also smart, organised and passionate and she's the minister who founded this department and had it highly functioning in what felt like almost no time. With the government's focus on war and finance we need a Minister on top of their game to take care of our new citizens as they join what will be a very busy nation and to get them settled in and up and running as soon as possible. They might not have much punch, early on, but in a big battle every bit helps and at least we can keep them informed and up to date and I really believe Edana's the best person to get on top of that and run it like a finely tuned machine.

Other Stuff About Me

Generally speaking I operate on my eLife credentials only because I'd rather be taken on merits earned in-game than other stuff that doesn't nessecarily relate. So! As I said above I was MoC three times, I was also MoInfo once and I served as ambassador to two countries a little while back, I was also a CO in the IDF for two months and briefly an XO for a while before that. I was elected Supreme Court Justice in the last of my four Congress terms though in the interests of total honesty I didn't have to do anything in that role and I've done some eTraveling to make friends in other nations, some of them came to our defence when we were fighting for NI. I was just outside our top ten citizens until the recent influx of citizens from Turkey and am still top twenty (Castaneda himself is top ten) and have been a Field Marshal for some time now, as has he. In fact I think he's the only FM running for the CP job this time around.

My own war record is here for anyone that wants to see it and if you click through you'll see that, despite not being in favor of our original attack on NI (oh, how things have changed) I was in the top ten fighters on our side in not only the first battle but also the two resistance wars that followed. Much to the changrin of my RL bank manager but sure if you're not going to go all out for your home country who are you going to go all out for?

I am a girl and though I regularly bemoan the fact I get called a boy all the time in some ways I prefer it. There are a few girls around the game that get elected or whatever by acting the girlie and I'm not faulting them - hey, it works - but I won't be changing my avatar to show my cleavage pre-election because I think Castaneda and the team we're putting together are strong enough and great enough on their own merits than to need that. Besides this is Ireland, we of all nations know what our women are capable of when they get going lol.

And yes, I am RL Irish. Not that I personally think that matters much in game because some of those who fight the hardest for us are American or whatever.

I've heavily edited this from it's original length so I'm sorry if there's anywhere the flow jumps around but those are my credentials as VP and our plans for the Education, Community and New Citizens departments. Of course the person whose credentials matter more is Castaneda (which is helpful as his creds knock mine out of the park) but I wanted to show that I take even the potential of responsibility seriously and let you know a little about what he and I have been discussing and planning,

Ready and willing to serve,
Einberliner

ETA: Finally got to talk to a candidate for a job I'd wanted to fill. Due to war we feel a war update MoInfo will be needed. Dylan has agreed to be it's minister - he's around, he's active, and it'll mostly involve using the shout system. Dylan's great at shouting 😉 More details of this position shortly.