(https://imx.talossa.com/i/0c413931-ecbe-4c70-aef3-1a56600e82b5.png)
Foreign Ministry Update
1. Hiatus of and alternative to draft Foreign Factbook
The initial process envisioned of assigning information liaisons to collect data on other micronational entities is on hiatus due to a variety of internal and external factors, and may resume after the upcoming election.
A proposed interim alternative step will be to add a full page reference to the Kingdom of Talossa to the program for North American Microcon 2027 (https://us.microcon27.com/flag/) to be held in San Diego CA USA. The foreign ministry will solicit designs from citizens for consideration and selection by the King. An addition to the design will be a link for collection of Factbook information from other entities.
There will be two delegates (the King and another TBD) to that convention August 5-8, 2027.
2. Outreach to the Glorious Revolutionary Microrepublic of Whaaat!?
As a student in the ATLAS program at the University of Colorado, I made the suggestion for a theme for the 2026 Whaaat!? Festival (https://whaaat.io/) to be the creation of a micronation, which was accepted.
Whaat!? embodies the feeling of simultaneous delight and bewilderment when you have a fresh encounter something wonderfully weird. The Whaaat!? Lab (https://lab.whaaat.io/) is a hybrid studio-laboratory dedicated to uncovering and fostering that feeling, specifically through experimental games and playful interactivity. It is located within the ATLAS Institute, at CU Boulder.
I will participate in that class, and leverage the history of the Kingdom of Talossa to inform the other students there about micronational concepts through the lens of our long standing nation. The Whaaat!? festival has a new theme each year, so this blossoming of a new nation may be brief. However, among those involved there may be impetus for immigration to our midst.
The Whaaat!? festival date is 7 November 2026 - among other things we will need to select a national breakfast cereal for inclusion in the Cereal Aptitude Test. I will attend in my Talossan garb, either as a regular citizen or potentially as a government representative pending the upcoming election results.
A national breakfast cereal!? We better get this figured out. We'll need to get nominations and then work with the Chancery to do a special referendum, I think.
Great work!
With the Factbook effort extending through the entirety of the last term it is disappointing to see it is now on hold. It would be of interest to know what caused the hold so as to know whether the hold is indefinite. Perhaps in private?