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• Liberate The New Inquisition

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• The New Inquisition

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• Forum thread

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• Security Council voting page

Summary

Liberate The New Inquisition would have the effect of removing the password currently placed on the region (when the region is founderless), thereby allowing the region to be invaded by forces opposed to The New Inquisition.

In order to understand this proposal, there are several important pieces of context:

1. While the title "Liberation" makes it seem as if the proposal would in and of itself return a region to the control of its native government, that is not what a Liberation does. A Liberation removes the ability to impose a password on a region without a founder, thereby making it operationally infeasible for the region to be permanently occupied and impossible for its regional message board and history to be destroyed via refounding the region. It is worth noting that a Liberation will only remove a password if the region does not have an active founder, not if the password was imposed by the Delegate (as the phrasing on the WA page implies).

2. The New Inquisition (TNI) is a formerly prominent Imperialist region, meaning it hosted a community with unique Foreign Affairs interests which included the invasion and destruction of other regions, often in cooperation with TNI's allies in The Land of Kings and Emperors and Albion through the United Imperial Armed Forces (UIAF). Acts committed by TNI are detailed in the resolution, including the invasion of The Rejected Realms in 2012, support for the Empire coup of Refugi embassy partner The East Pacific in 2008 which eventually led to the establishment of the current Concordat government of the East, and raids of many founderless regions including Refugi embassy partner Canada. Today, TNI is not as powerful as it once was, with its community largely having dwindled away, and the region is regularly "founderless", as the founder nation will briefly cease to exist although occasionally be revived when the founder is contacted by still active players.

3. Within NationStates "military gameplay", there is a division among defender-aligned groups as to whether it is acceptable to "counter-invade" raider organizations. The Ten-thousand Islands Treaty Organization (TITO), the military of Refugi embassy partner 10000 Islands, has the most long-running history of engaging in counter-invasions of raider regions, including TITO's eventual annexation of Empire of Power (a region which attacked 10000 Islands directly) and Marijuana Militia (a raider region). More information about the practice of counter-invasion as conducted by TITO can be found here. Recently, prominent defender region The Order of the Grey Wardens (TGW) has also engaged in this practice. However, there is not universal support for the practice of counter-invasion within the defender community, as the Founderless Regions Alliance (FRA), a now defunct defender alliance, had a "defend all regions" policy¹, including its defense of Marijuana Militia when the region was counter-invaded by TITO. Today, not all defender militaries have counter-invasion of raider regions as part of their mandate, for example the Rejected Realms Army (RRA) (the Constitutionally independent military of The Rejected Realms) and the South Pacific Special Forces (SPSF) (the military of the Coalition of the South Pacific) both do not counter-invade raiders. In short, there is not universal consensus among defender groups about whether it is or is not acceptable to raid raider regions, although it is a long-standing practice with a rich history.

Analysis

The proposal to Liberate The New Inquisition is misguided, haphazardly executed, ineffective at accomplishing its intended goals, and relies on a vengeful model of justice which is inconsistent with Refugi values. In understanding this proposal, it is important to pay attention to both the text of the proposal itself and the forum thread debating the subject.

First, this Information for Voters notes the haphazard execution of the debate on this proposal. The initial draft of the proposal (which the author has deleted from their initial post and replaced with a different draft as "Draft 1", possibly in an effort to remove this mistaken draft from the record, but which has relevant parts saved in subsequent posts) attempted to advocate for the liberation on behalf of the natives of TNI (citation), which is clearly not the intention of the proposal. Given the context that the author was a then-Tactical Officer of TITO (an organization which supports counter-invasions) and a proud supporter of the concept of counter-invasions, this explanation rang hollow early on. Specifically, the author defended the initial draft by arguing that the region was passworded by Onderkelkia's puppet British whiskum on behalf of The Land of Kings and Emperors (LKE) (citation). However, this ignores the fact that British Whiskum/Onderkelkia was a long-time native and leader within TNI, and that LKE was requested to assist by TNI as one of TNI's oldest treaty allies (citation post). After these exchanges, the proposal was amended, and ultimately this argument is not present in the draft. It is only included in this Information for Voters to underline the haphazard manner in which this resolution was pursued.

The haphazard execution of this proposal is further highlighted later in the thread. The author at various points is presented with criticism and responds by simply reasserting their position without responding to counter-arguments. The author also admits they do not have a strategy to pass this proposal and that they "honestly do not care if it fails or not", making the entire thing an exercise in disinterested futility which, at best, wastes the time and energy of the Security Council. When further pressed on this, the author implies some kind of secret agenda for the proposal which will be revealed to the voters after the vote, representing a further disrespect for Security Council process and deliberation.

Second, it should be noted that this proposal will not accomplish its intended objectives. If we accept the idea that invader or Imperialist regions do deserve to be invaded, this proposal will still not accomplish that. We note that the founder of TNI The new inquisitors has been refounded twice recently, both timed to coincide with the drafting of this proposal and its resubmission, likely at the prompting through Other Worldly communication systems from the remaining residents of TNI. We also note from the "Summary" section that a region with an active founder will not have its password removed if a Liberation passes. As a result, TNI would be invulnerable to even a temporary raid attempt after passing this Liberation.

Even if TNI's founder were to cease to exist for a time, given that the nation can be easily revived, any effort in the interim to potentially refound TNI would be a waste of defender resources. In order to refound a region, occupying forces must place a large number of WA nations into the region for an extended period of time in order to build up "influence" on a lead nation, which then will impose a password and eject the resident nations. Due to the age of TNI, the region is home to a not insubstantial amount of influence which would take several weeks to months for occupying forces to accumulate sufficient influence to remove. Given that the founder would also likely come back part-way through that process (as is demonstrated by past events), it is entirely likely that such an effort would be futile and a waste of defender military resources.

Third, this proposal represents a form of vengeful justice that is not consistent with Refugi ideals. Consistently the provided explanation for this proposal has been that Imperialists in TNI "deserve" to have their region taken from them because of what they did to native nations and that they should have to experience something similar. The proposal is justified by the author through a competitive lens, noting the perceived decline of the "Imperialist sphere" as part of the basis of the proposal. The stated purpose in the original post of the thread is to "allow those wronged by the region to have their retribution" and the proposal is justified as a way that that "[r]aiders should reap what they sow" and that "TNI deserves to get what it dished out for so many years". Another proponent argued for giving TNI "a taste of their own medicine". All taken together, the texture of the argument presented is one of vengeance, that somehow this will do sufficient harm to TNI to make it worthwhile or good for TNI to have something bad done to it. This Information for Voters asserts that such a model of justice, based solely on retribution for past harms rather than providing a remedy, advancing a positive cause more broadly, rehabilitation, or another justification is dangerous and contrary to Refugi values in the broadest possible sense.

To some extent, counter-invasions can perhaps be justified through a more forward-looking set of arguments than the ones presented. Many of the ordinary possible justifications for why a counter-invasion might stop future invasions are off the table: TNI doesn't have updaters or pilers that might get disrupted or scattered as a result of the counter-invasion. TNI is not used to forward or create Imperialist propaganda or messaging anymore. Perhaps an argument could be made that its continued existence serves Imperialist propaganda and that a counter-invasion would build energy and activity within defending. You could even justify a TNI counter-invasion in a very "we get to retaliate against those who harmed us" sense rather than a "how dare did TNI do evil!" sense. In the author's failure to connect counter-invasion to any kind of meaningful end goal, or articulate a broader theory of why retribution-based or vengeful justice is a good thing in this or any other context, they have failed to present a compelling case for why counter-invasions are justified.²

Finally, while it is not ultimately the basis for this recommendation, the Security Council correspondent wishes to note the meaningful discontent among Refugi regarding the practice of counter-invasion more broadly.

Refugi Arch-Administrator Refuge Isle/Luca criticized the practice, writing:

Refuge Isle wrote:

It isn't morally or ideologically consistent for me to say that I'm against regions getting invaded and then turn around and say that it's justified here. Not because there's an argument to be had on regional sovereignty, but because the type of justice that you're floating is one based around revenge and retaliation. The classic "drink of your own medicine". That sort of Hammurabi-branded thinking has no productive value. I won't abide malicious region destruction, regardless of what the gameplay alignment of the natives are.

Ideology aside, I feel you're looking at this region from a misguided frame of reference. You may, for example, value THTHI. You may have strong feelings if it were refounded, but I wouldn't put that projection onto raiding orgs. It isn't as though you will stop or even damage raiding by deleting an old forgotten region. Even if TNI were active, the prudent move would simply be to move to another region and continue raiding per usual. In the end, nothing is accomplished except to demonstrate that your values are entirely pliable.

At least let neutral onlookers be able to discern the difference between the two factions.

Refugia resident and Delegate of The Rejected Realms Chimes/Jamie also said they "don’t believe in the idea of counter invasions so the proposal isn’t something [they] can support".

The Security Council Correspondent does wish to note that this does not represent the official basis of the recommendation because it would be improper for an appointee of the Councillor of WA Affairs to establish an official regional position on an operational matter controlled by the Councillor of Operations, and to some extent the Regional Council more broadly, without consultation. However, in gaining a generalized sense of Refugi values, it is important to highlight these perspectives from Refugi who have given opinions on the subject. On a personal note as a defender, I will also note a concern that this proposal will ultimately only bring bad press to the cause of defending and give an opportunity for the creation of raider propaganda generalizing the author's haphazard and vengeful approach (which has happened), and therefore that its introduction, further pursuit, and submission does a more significant disservice to the cause the author supports than the proposal does a service to it, even in the best version of the author's argument.

Recommendation

Upon analysis, there are multiple problems with the presentation and justification of the Security Council proposal Liberate The New Inquisition. It represents a haphazard, ineffective, and vengeance-driven approach to the Security Council which is entirely incompatible with Refugi values. The Security Council Correspondent to the Councillor of WA Affairs strongly recommends a vote against Liberate The New Inquisition.

¹ It is worth noting that TNI and the FRA were at one point in a state of war, and that therefore some former members of the FRA have supported this proposal despite the organization's general tendency against offensive operations. Examples: here here and here.
² Lightly modified from this post by Security Council Correspondent Emojitheft posting on their own behalf as the nation HumanSanity