Chironian News Network Issue 13
Commissioner Returned for Third Term
By GeneralTacticus
In a fairly unsurprising result, incumbent Commissioner GeneralTacticus was returned uncontested for his third and last term in office today, and although there were a few protest votes from political opponents, he easily won more than 75% of the votes. The only incident of any note during the campaign saw Hercules being accosted by Cedayon immediately after congratulating GT on his status as emperor and being told something about “…switch to imperial monarchy.” The campaign staffs of all involved issued statements to the CNN denying that anything had happened.
Maniac Defeats TKG For Alpha Talent
By GeneralTacticus
In what was described by New Tassagrad base Mayor Kirov as “The funniest elections ever held.” incumbent Alpha Talent Maniac defeated former DIA TKG for the post, in an election where the candidates spent most of the campaign trying to think up reasons for others to vote for them, including statements such as “Maniac needs you!”, “TKG needs you more!”, “My internet connection drops fewer times per turnchat than TKG's does!”, and “uh, er...i'm an emperor! therefore, i'm more respectable!”
With no real differences between the candidates being apparent, citizens chose their votes for varying reasons; several, including the editor, voted for whoever was losing at the time (uniformly TKG), while Kassiopeia voted Maniac out of irritation at TKG’s habit of kicking him during cabinet meetings, and former DPO DBTS voted TKG, claiming that Maniac had scuppered his plans for an invasion of Morgan (a point which was strongly contested by Maniac).
Cedayon Takes over as DIA
By GeneralTacticus
In one of the more interesting elections, the main thrust of which was described in the last issue, Cedayon successfully defeated former DFA Voltaire by a comfortable margin, winning two-thirds of the vote. Neither candidate has, as yet, issued a statement on the results of the election.
Former DPO Hercules Takes Over at Foreign Affairs
By GeneralTacticus
Continuing what might be called a tradition at the Foreign Affairs Directorate, former Director of Peacekeeping Operations and STEP Leader Hercules was sworn in today as our new Director of Foreign Affairs. The elections were almost unanimous, with only a single abstention out of 17 votes, this being basically the only topic of debate during the campaign.
War of Art Takes Charge of Research
By GeneralTacticus
In another uncontested election, recent arrival War of Art was confirmed as the new UN Director of Science, replacing former EDP leader AdamTG with nearly 80% of the vote.
Lemmy Wins DSE Elections in Landslide
By GeneralTacticus
The DSE elections saw Archaic defeated for that post for the 3rd time in a row and the 6th time overall, with Lemmy winning in a landslide with 85% of the votes. Oddly enough, the election did not follow the traditional pattern of a heated “debate” over the merits of FM as opposed to Planned or Green, instead revolving around the schedules of Archaic and some other citizens in the mythical domain referred to as ‘RL’, which has been under extensive scrutiny in the Rec Commons and elsewhere of late.
Governor Elections Uniformly Uncontested
By GeneralTacticus
In a fairly quiet election, Governors were elected uncontested for all UN regions, with (as mentioned in the last issue) the only events of note being some opposition to Archaic’s candidacy for the governorship of Centralis, and a brief worry that Solaris had been left without a governor. Neither of these were of much consequence, as Archaic won by a comfortable margin, and a governor for Solaris was found shortly afterwards.
In spite of the lack of any major events during the elections, they were important for one reason: for two of the most important regions in the UN, it was the first time they had experienced a change of Governor. Although the fact that the new governor of Centralis is a member of the same party as before and expressly stated that he intended to keep the same policies as before in place will likely lessen the impact on Centralis, the effect on Jedinica remains to be seen.
Archaic Loses Justice Elections Too
By GeneralTacticus
With his becoming the only candidate for justice this term who did not succeed in taking office, Archaic has managed to become the only person to have lost two elections simultaneously, in addition to being the only person to have lost an election as the sole candidate. The elections were largely dominated by heated discussion of Archaic’s impartiality or lack thereof, which was at one point side-tracked by a discussion over a quote from Justice Kassiopeia which has been prominently displayed over Pandemoniak’s office door.
MWIA Winning in emergency DPO Election
By GeneralTacticus
As mentioned in the last edition, when the elections first opened there was a significant problem: the total lack of any candidate for DPO. Fortunately, the issue has now been resolved with the reappearance of UN veteran MrWhereItsAt (article from him will hopefully appear in the next edition [EDITOR'S NOTE: Said article was in fact recieved a few hours after this issue was made available, and has thus been included here after the fact]), and the posting of a special election, in which he is currently winning unanimously.
Turnchat Ends In Controversy Over Hive Peace Deal
By GeneralTacticus
Today’s Cabinet meeting, which (thankfully) managed to proceed without any of the problems which crippled the last one, ended in a long wrangle over the legality of accepting an unconditional peace offer from Chairman Yang, after he was contacted shortly before the meeting was scheduled to end. The matter has been referred to the Court, giving it it’s first case for months.
New Secret Projects Built
By GeneralTacticus
Over the last seven years, a number of new secret projects have been built throughout the faction: the Maritime Control Centre has come online in New Suez, giving us virtually guaranteed naval supremacy, a massive Supercollider has been constructed in Concordia, making it the pre-eminent research centre on Planet, and the Xenoempathy Dome in New Tassagrad, which will likely be a great help to our former teams in clearing out the fungus. In addition, research on a Longevity Vaccine is almost complete in New Apolyton, which will allow massive economic expansion there.
Hive Invasion Repulsed
By GeneralTacticus
A few years ago, the UN received a collective shock when Hive troops landed near Capricorn and destroyed two former teams, causing a significant setback in plans for the development of that base and indeed the whole Solaris region. However, this was soon avenged as the Capricorn base garrison and their air support were quick to attack and destroy both the Hive invasion force and the transport they had landed from. Several high-ranking officers were captured during the fighting, and are currently under interrogation in a prison camp near Egregion.
UN Energy Market Crashes
By GeneralTacticus
In an event which surprised (nearly) every UN economist and analyst outside the CCCP (EDITORS NOTE: apart from Archaic), the UN energy market suffered its first crash in history during the last cabinet meeting, reducing our energy reserves to a mere 262. Fortunately, this proved to be only a temporary matter and did not have any lasting impact on the UN GDP, which rapidly made up for the lost energy credits. However, it is a timely reminder of what could happen if we choose to cut back on spending.
Free Market Remains Policy
By GeneralTacticus
In a result that came much to the relief of the DLP and the UN business community in general, outgoing DSE Pandemoniak’s proposal to switch to a labs-oriented Green economy was publicly voted down before the next cabinet meeting, although the results were somewhat closer than in previous polls. Neither the CCCP, the STEP, or the SE Directorate issued any statements concerning the results, while the DLP simply expressed great relief.
MrWhereItsAt, Candidate for Director of Peacekeeping Operations - Who In the Blue Hell?
Fear of Hive assassination attempts has led to a lack of candidates running in the latest elections, to the point
where, as has been widely feared, no-one dared to stand as Director of Peacekeeping Operations, the most crucial and at risk role in the UN Government aside from the Commissionership itself. The elections were held and still no candidate emerged, despite the obvious need for this crucial position in our coming attempts to secure an amicable peace with Yang. Out of nowhere, just a few short days ago, a candidate using the alias (for security purposes) MrWhereItsAt emerged. An election special is currently being held to ascertain this candidate's fitness for perhaps the most important role in the coming years, and he is winning.
But just who the hell is MrWhereItsAt? No records from the past 100 years refer to this name, beyond the title once taken by a former Justice, about whose shadowy and depraved existence little is EVER known. This Justice never attended any Court sessions, and it cannot be confirmed that he even existed. BUT, in a CNN exclusive, investigations into the huge UN archives meticulously maintained by our corporate sponsors P4PSI, "Have a P4PSI - for old time's sake!", revealed the origin of our Peacekeeping Operations Director-candidate.
The story is almost as unbelievable as any you can imagine. MrWhereItsAt has claimed, to universal derision, to have been locked in stasis for the last century. Even more worryingly, he claims to have been released to save us at this critical time in our plans for furthering the tenets of democratic cooperation and bureaucratic traditions. Our own CNN Neuro-Doctor Phil believes he is suffering from some delusions brought on by his sudden rise to fame. This is all common knowledge. What is not common knowledge is what we can now reveal - the bizarre fact that the records confirm this strange tale.
Would you like to know more?
Insert 15EC into your viewscreen....
>>> Message Ends<<<
>>15 EC received - Transmission follows<<
Thank you. More to confirmation of MrWhereItsAt's odd story of behind constrained in stasis for 100 years, we have details on his life from a centruy ago. MrWhereItsAt was present nearly from planetfall, and was a strong advocate for our enlightened Free Market from the moment he encountered the renowned Archaic. During his pre-stasis time, he was no stranger to the governing of our foundation, having served as pre-Corporate sponsored Director of Social Engineering http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...054#post1346054 and as Directors of both Terraforming and Colonisation and Energy and Industry under the assumed position of Alpha Talent http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...469#post1375469 after a successful impeachment of the incumbent. Also, he was the first in the now defunct service of Director of Base Production upon planetfall http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...968#post1263968. Interestingly, his time as Alpha Talent also unofficially gave him the Director of Exploration and Intelligence portfolio for two days before the candidate took office http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...054#post1346054, meaning this unusual UN member held temporarily 5 positions in government at once, 4 of them for some time. He has also once ran for Director of Peacekeeping Operations, and it is the knowledge he gleaned from campaigning here that he takes into his returning role. It is interesting to examine the state of our faction during his experience during this candidature.
The term 2 elections were the time MrWhereItsAt posed his candidature, and let us glance at the state of our faction and military back in this year of 2152. We had but 5 bases, Antioch having barely been founded. Our military consisted entirely of lightly armed scout patrols. Research had barely begun, and the most significant military advantage we had was the old synth-metal alloys. For offense we relied only on the percussion weapons inherited from Earth. There was no contct with other factions, and indeed it was believed this meant that the UN sanctioned group was the only survivors of the ship's breakup. As can be seen, things are very different today, with our Missile weapons mounted on Needlejets and Cruisers equipped with Plasma steel armour and automated anti-aircraft weaponry, weapons aiding in the defence of over 30 bases. Furthermore, with our Research-driven Free Market Democracy, society is far more advanced beyond those early days of survivalist structures of MrWhereItsAt's day.
Although it has been discovered that MrWhereItsAt does indeed have some claim to government experience, it is this reporter's opinion that he will need to be watched closely and coached if he is to succeed in defusing the war with the Hive we are faced with.
-MrWhereTheNewsIs
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