The West Pacific

May Puzzle

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By The Holy Principality of Saint Mark, Guardian of the West

Mayflowers – Full version here

Solve the anagrams to reveal the letters for the final message, and then use the circled letters from the words in the top part to complete the final phrase at the bottom. Each circled letter is used just once.

Send your finished answers to The West Pacific Master Dispatch to be featured next edition!

Congrats to these folks who solved last month's puzzle!

Con Nihawitan

Remember that all who solve a puzzle receive a challenge coin, so that's another reason to try your hand at solving our monthly puzzles, especially since you can display it in places like your signature and trophy case.

Thank you Fujai for creating the challenge coin!

Companies are the agents of economies, and we got that chance to see some of the biggest in Esferos from April 1st to April 13th. I'm Jorf, a Hall of Nations member under the country Nouveauterra, and I hosted the Esferos Economic Expo (3E) of 1424. 3E was written as a small session where roleplayers could contribute to the economic lore of Esferos with companies that impacted their societies. Ordinary private companies, state owned enterprises, and public-benefit corporations in many different industries were all included. Now you get to know what I saw as the host for this event, and maybe even learn something from my own experience.

I'm pretty new to The West Pacific, and the associated RP. I was part of a small military roleplay community before, but its pace was far beyond what I could handle. I wanted something that went at the pace of my own busy life, and TWP in NationStates matched what I was looking for. Over a couple of weeks I wrote basic lore and structure for Nouveauterra, including some news articles. Once I felt I had a good foundation, I ran into a predicament. I had no clue what I wanted to do as my first event.

In order for me to figure out what to do for an RP story, I had to "learn" more about Nouveauterra. I used my initial inspirations, South Africa, the US, Italy, France, and Ancient Rome to guide my thinking. When I figured out my country had a generally cosmopolitan (worldy) culture, I knew my first event would have to involve other roleplayers in a big way.

I first brainstormed some worldly events. War came up first, but war is complicated, and I didn't want to take a bigger bite out of the sandwich than I could survive. Sports is complicated too, and I had never done anything really sports related, including any turn-based playing. Then I noticed something while doing my own nation building. I had a pet project writing about major companies in Nouveauterra. It didn't get too far, but it made me think, "What if WE wrote companies and showed them off to each other?" That's when I came up with the idea of an economic expo. I then had the task of actually designing it.

I set the start date to one month away, and told some of the other RPers about it so that I could do some planning. I had my own idea of how I wanted to run it, but I changed some of what I did because of input from players, namely how many companies could be posted. I quickly realized people had been hoping for an event like this for some time, so I wanted to make something that was easily accessible, and allow for some creativity.

Some stats after twelve days of roleplay.

I came up with a lot of different business sector categories, including some based on our own world like alternative resources, and research and development. I spread the categories out for easier organizing, and I included speaker events, like ones I've heard about from the annual World Economic Forum held in Davos. These speaker events were made to inspire RPers if they wanted to make stories of their own based on critical issues that impact our world right now. I was feeling pretty prepared by March 31st. And April 1st, before I got my boots on to go to work, I made my first post for the event.

Based on player and observer feedback, roleplayers enjoyed the event. When all was said and done, I thought the overall event was a success, especially for my first ever RP event. It was fun seeing all the new companies show up after I got home from work, and reading everything people were putting into the lore. Logos, headquarters images, and of course the Lzecov Islands memes.

After the event, I've thought about what I did as a host.

In terms of things done right, it was a novel event that allowed people to come together to post and look at companies from other countries, an ideal scenario for a lot of roleplaying. It let people who liked writing about corporations show what they know, and for people who like making logos and graphics to let loose. I feel the underpinning lore, and info about the host area was good in setting the scene.

The main setting was the Quartier Économique Vieille Ancre (right), located on the city of Gué (left).

Full quality photos here

Some roleplayers were sad that they missed out on the event due to other obligations, and I hope the next RP event I host can be open enough to ensure as many players as possible get a fair shot at participating. Of course some goals like that are too far to reach, but 80 percent of anything is showing up, and giving more opportunities for that can make a lot more roleplay possible. Future events can be more open-ended with less hard deadlines, but there's a way where you can go too far with that.

Overall I deeply enjoyed hosting the 3E Expo roleplay event. Every contributor made 3E a treat, and I have to thank everybody who visited to see all the companies. I'm looking forward to more RP events with my fellow Esferosians, including some more events I'd like to create that'd bring all of Esferos together.

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It's time for the second edition of Photos of the World during 2024 and the seventh overall! Two months ago Sekiya shared their favorite photos from their trip to Japan last summer, as a continuation of their three other articles about Japan, all of which I very much recommend reading. They did a really good job with the 6th edition of Photos of the World, sharing beautiful photos, and I'm very thankful for that!

Now it's time for me to write another article for this series, and I already teased what the theme would be last month, when I mentioned some of my photos submitted during the Festival of the Perfections that won the photography category. That's right, this time I'll share photos taken in Chile, which I visited in late January to early February! This was me and my family's second time there, after our first trip in 2019.

Before I start, I want to make an invite for everyone reading this—the Photos of the World column is open to everyone! Other nations such as Apexiala, Aftokratoria and now Sekiya have shared their own photos, and I always look forward to more participation, especially since that helps expand the diversity of countries that have been covered by the series. You can upload photos an image hosting site such as Imgur, write descriptions for each of them, and send them to Giovanniland through telegram! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions too.

Full quality photos here

Firstly I have chosen two photos taken in the Torres del Paine national park, besides the one I already showed in last month's article linked above. The first photo is a close view of the mountains, also called towers due to their appearance, which give the park its name (Towers of the Paine). As we toured the park and made various stops to appreciate the magnificent flora and fauna of the park, these imposing mountains could be seen from many different angles, and in a select few places that I found the view especially beautiful I took some photos. Furthermore, although the tour we chose went along a road in the park that passes through various interesting places, those daring enough can choose to hike in one of the offered paths and see the Towers more closely.

Another ubiquitous feature of the park besides the mountains are the many lakes, and I chose one of them to be the second highlight in this article! This lake was definitely my favorite in the entire park, there was this incredible feeling of being there near the shore and appreciating the really clear waters while hearing the relaxing sound of the waves and nothing else. The photo turned out lovely as well, with the reflection of the sunlight on the water, the beautiful vegetation around the lake, and a mostly clear sky—a great photo to record one of my favorite moments during the trip.

Full quality photos here

Now we proceed to the Isla Magdalena, which is a notable breeding location for several species of seabirds, including the Magellanic penguins pictured in these two photos. Together with the smaller Isla Marta nearby, it is part of the Los Pingüinos (The Penguins) Natural Monument, where the largest penguin colonies of southern Chile are located, with an estimated 60,000 breeding pairs of this species. The status of natural monument is a type of protected area in Chile, and this one was created in 1966 in order to preserve the site as an important habitat for the penguins and other migratory birds, besides also representing the Chilean cultural heritage since it was inhabited by indigenous peoples in the past.

The first photo shows a group of penguins in the island's coastline, and some within the sea itself. They hunt for small fish, mollusks, crustaceans, and other marine life as part of their diet, often in groups as seen in the image. Meanwhile, the second photo shows some penguins on the outside of a burrow, which is a common sight in the island since they build their nests inside the burrows. According to the guide, the breeding season lasts between September, with the arrival of adult penguins, and lasts until February or March when the chicks are mature enough. We were therefore able to see many parents taking care of their chicks, having visited in late January.

Full quality photos here

The third and last pair of photos shows two other locations that weren't mentioned in last month's article. The first photo is taken from inside the Cueva del Milodón, another natural monument which, alongside the Torres del Paine park and Isla Magdalena, is included in the End of the World Route in southern Chile. This cave is known for the 1895 discovery of remains from a species of ground sloth named Mylodon darwini. The Mylodon was a very large herbivore with a total length of three to four meters that went extinct around 10,000 years ago, and the cave features a life-size replica of the species, together with stands displaying information about how it used to live, both seen in the distance. Tourists can walk through a specific path made inside the cave, being careful to not step outside since there is still paleontological and archaeological work going on (human remains have also been found in the cave).

The second photo was taken in the Plaza Muñoz Gamero or Plaza de Armas in the city of Punta Arenas, the southernmost city in the world with more than 100,000 inhabitants, which is located on a peninsula just north of the Strait of Magellan. The explorer Ferdinand Magellan, after which the strait is named, is very known in this region and the monument in the photo was built in 1920 in honor of him, exactly four centuries after his expedition reached the strait. A statue of him is shown in the top, while other parts of the monument are dedicated to the native ethnic groups of the Tierra del Fuego, most notably the statue of the indigenous man as seen in the center of the photo. Local sayings state that by touching the statue's big toe or even kissing it, one is guaranteed to return to Punta Arenas one day, and that's why it has a visibly different color than the rest of the sculpture (anticipating questions, I have indeed done it).

That's it for this edition of the Photos of the World column, I hope everyone is appreciating this series of articles, with the pictures and descriptions of various places in the world that it brings! In two months it will be a full year since the idea started, and I'm excited to hopefully make a great one-year special, especially if it features the participation of other people. See you until then, and like I mentioned earlier, reach out to Giovanniland if you're interested in participating!

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Card Club Update

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By Giovanniland, Card Czar of the West

Welcome to the April update from the Card Club!

Our monthly contest this time was the April Fools Card Contest, suggested by Mediobogdum, with the goal of assembling a collection of funny cards.

April also featured a new event, Montrandec's giveaways! They are hosted on the regional discord server, and the first card was the legendary GeodesicDragon, gifted to Nas Crustium who was chosen as the lucky winner among nine entrants.

All was going well for the monthly contest until there was a hardware failure in the NationStates servers, causing the game to go down for nine days and affecting important trading cards data from the last 11 months. That's why the trading cards aren't available yet—the admins are working on recovering data from the disk and good signs have been reported, although there's not yet a guarantee.

For that reason, I announced after the site returned that the April Fools Card Contest was cancelled and future monthly contests would be on hold, after discussing with Laudesia. Once the trading cards return and we're able to see the results of the recovery, me and Laud will then discuss when the Card Club's events return.

I hope to see you all next month, with the trading cards game fully recovered and active again!

The West Pacific Card Club is brought to you by The West Pacific Cultural Trust.

In the United States government system, the municipalities are funded by two separate yet equally important mechanisms: taxes, which apply to everything, and fees, which are tied to specific permits and services. These are their problems.

*EXCESSIVELY LOUD NOISE*

The default method every unit of government has to fund itself is levying taxes. These taxes can apply to any number of things, but the most impactful to the typical US citizen are income tax, property tax, and sales tax. Generally speaking, income tax can only be collected by the federal and state government, so municipalities rely on some combination of property tax and sales tax.

So here's the deal. Federal, state, and local governments each have to collect their own funding separately. Generally, as a government, you want to diversify your revenue streams. That's a corporate way of saying you don't want to depend primarily on one source of income. But in the state of Oklahoma, cities do not collect property tax. That puts them entirely at the whim of sales tax, which means it is grossly affected by market forces and spending habits.

For you dang Europeans and your satanic VATs, sales tax is applied at the point of sale only. If people are not going to the store and buying things, you are not collecting sales tax. Now picture how that works during a global pandemic where going out and doing things is discouraged, and a market that is trending away from brick and mortar to online sales. Sure, the housing market is volatile, but the way property taxes are calculated, it's pretty well insulated–and it's charged every year instead of ebbing and flowing with demand.

For context, I live in a town of less than 20,000 people. Approximately ⅔ of our city's general fund each year comes from sales tax. By comparison, a town of similar size in Texas gets 39% of its revenue from property tax and an additional 33% from sales tax.

I mean let's think about this, Oklahoma. We're 43rd in the country in income per capita and 8th in poverty rate (excl. PR and DC). When there's an economic downturn, the people already at the bottom are affected most, and sales tax is pretty dang regressive.

And as for the people who are better off, they have the flexibility to not go out and shop where it's (a) storming, (b) unnaturally hot, (c) unnaturally cold, or (d) full of poor people, all things we have in abundance here. I have daily foot traffic metrics for our shopping district, and in a given month, literally every day that declined year-over-year had inhospitable weather this year.

Sales tax is absolutely unreasonable to plan for. You have to balance your entire budget at the start of the year, and by the end of the year you could be a solid million dollars off from where you anticipated you would be. At government rates, that's one (1) whole pothole that may or may not be filled.

This creates a snowball effect. Sales tax may be the only source a city has to fund capital improvements–roads, water lines, the like. If there's a bad year, that infrastructure maintenance gets deferred, which makes it more expensive to do later. Aging infrastructure makes it a harder sell for businesses to open or expand, and a less desirable destination for out-of-town traffic. I do site location, folks. The number of projects we couldn't even pursue because we didn't have sufficient water lines is absurd. In short, falling behind one year can hamper future growth and recovery.

There are many reasons I want to strangle the authors of the state constitution, none more than Alfalfa Bill, but this is high on the list. The average citizen may never think about it, but those of us in government think about it every day. The common saying here is "cities live or die by sales tax," and that simply should not be the case.

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Banner by Sekiya.

Welcome to the eighth edition of the Western Post's CityGuessr game! It's a take on the known game GeoGuessr, where players are given a view of a place and have to guess its location in the world—in our adapted version there is no possibility to move around and try to catch some hints so we restrict the scope of the game to cities.

Since the adoption of a Google form for people to send their guess since February, participation has greatly increased, as I mentioned in the previous newspaper. This time seven people participated, which although lower than previous month's participation (probably due to the downtime), is still a very good number! I'm thankful for everyone who took their time to send a guess in:

1. Fotisdia, Fujai, and Lzecov Islands – Granada, Spain – Correct answer! – 3 points

2. Con Nihawitan – Córdoba, Spain – 129.18 km away – 2 points

3. Arkengia – Seville, Spain – 210.47 km away – 1 point

4. Corbeil – Siena, Italy – 1436.27 km away

5. Canton Empire – San Marino, San Marino – 1546.00 km away

Props to Fujai in particular for not only correctly guessing the city, but also mentioning the Alhambra, which is indeed the place the photos were taken from. Below you can see the updated leaderboard with all the points earned since the first challenge, and the challenge coin designed by Fujai for those who correctly guess the city.

1. Corbeil – 15 points

2. Nas Crustium – 10 points

3. Con Nihawitan – 8 points

4. Fotisdia and Fujai – 6 points each

5. Pedandria – 4 points

6. Aberketia, Bhang Bhang Duc, Foressul, Lzecov Islands, New Caman, Ritelssaeney and Tinhampton – 3 points each

7. Sekiya – 2 points

8. Arkengia, Montrandec and Peourouin – 1 point each

Now let's get onto this month's challenge—for those new to the game, here are the rules originally written by Tam Dao and adapted since then!

CityGuessr, as the name suggests, will ask you to guess which city of the world the photos are showing, both photos always referring to the same city. We will keep the scope of the game to cities only, as we don't have the luxury of moving around to check for clues. We will also provide a single clue of the continent where the city is located.

Use the submission link here in order to send your guess! Remember that you only have one guess that can't be changed later, and that it's expressly forbidden to use outside resources to figure it out, otherwise it wouldn't be a guess.

Furthermore, to add a bit of competition to the game, we will rank all guesses based on how close they are to the correct answer. The top 3 answers will be given points: 3 points for 1st, 2 points for 2nd, and 1 point for 3rd. The highest scorer will gain the bragging right of being the CityGuessr Champion of the Month, and the top scorer across 12 editions of the game will be crowned CityGuessr Grand Champion.

In this edition we continue in Europe—thank you to Sekiya who kindly provided the images.

Full quality photos here

I wish you all good luck in solving this edition's challenge, and have fun!

Furthermore, if you wish to submit photos to be considered for a future puzzle, submit them through telegram to The West Pacific Master Dispatch!

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spooky!