As I am not yet MinCulture (if I am to be), I am doing this through Oraclâ magazine.

Yes, indeed, peeps, a one-hour (or longer!) time to shoot the breeze and be Talossans together, voice-to-voice, and actually see each other speak.  I am glad to get this going.

Tuesdays at 1900 is not good for Euro-Kiwi Talossans. It may be we will need a separate Café Talossa for 'odd' timezones.

Café Talossa: an apolitical meet-and-greet - can't wait to get this going.  Zoom link will go up no later than 1700 CDT on the day of the event.  Thanks, all!

GV, E-i-C Oraclâ magazine

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PamBV7mlEN2JXC3gWMvI7v0fYQPFJtDJ?usp=sharing

I realized today just how little I put onto the Talossan Public Archives aka the Library of Talossa - This includes the gigantic 2nd edition Treisour from 1997-1998

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PamBV7mlEN2JXC3gWMvI7v0fYQPFJtDJ?usp=sharing

Not until today did I realize my stuff was not available.  Now, it's up to SIGN to make sense of it all.  :-)

GV, presumed incoming MinCulture

What things the MinDef needs to do I will look up in law and my portfolio, but if there are ceremonial duties and other things to which I must attend, please, MoD, let me know, particularly in regard to the Zuaves.

I would love to Zoom with the Zuaves commander at some point this month.

GV, presumptive incoming MinDef

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on June 10, 2021, 10:32:18 AM
Unfortunately, MPF has written me to let me know that all of the electoral records, candidate records, legislative records, and all of the old Wittenbergs -- everything he had, basically -- is gone, without hope of recovery.  Does anyone know of anyone else who might possibly have retained anything?

Ouch.  This is a tragedy.  This will take me some time to process.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on June 09, 2021, 11:54:01 PM
I have read A Nation Sundered several times, and it is a great look at that period in time.  But you skip from that point again up to 2012, pretty much.  In your narrative here, you go right from the six-month period after the Republic began, pretty much right on to the end of the Republic!  And in that time there were a ton of elections, debates about the future of the country, restructuring and reforms, and so on!  I mean, I wasn't there and you were, but the history of the Republic can't just be, "We founded it and here's that story, and then nothing worth mentioning happened until we shut the place down."  There was a whole country with an intense group of people actively interested for years, and there's got to be some history there.  Let's make it come alive again, to a new generation of Talossans!

If you have any documents or information or access to anything from the rest of that time, that'd be great.  If you can give me any leads on anyone who might, that would also be great.  Maybe I could pay for @mpf 's time, if it's not too expensive, to just round up and 7zip the relevant files together and send them to me?

If we need to pay for MPF's time, let's talk to him about that.  Yeah, I left all of that out because I barely remember any of it.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on June 09, 2021, 11:27:19 PM
Should we add this to the New Talossan History Project?

Do so.

'A Nation Sundered' is the most-detailed retelling of the Republic's origin-story.  The big, huge thread on this forum on the 'Shocking Witt Statistics of John Woolley' gives a good deal of general history.

The first of June 2004 was a Tuesday.  As I recall, I had a gig that day and was not home, I believe, for the Noon 'changeover'.  It was exhilarating to read Witt that day, but in retrospect, again, we needed only to kill off Ben and Amy's accounts.  I've gone into that point, already.

The movers and shakers of the founding of the Republic were Kane dal Nava and Mike Loquatsch.  And we found ourselves on 1 June 2004 without a functioning constitution, but that was being remedied.  The night before, I had put together a 'Provisional Constiution' which was amended a time or two, but shockingly for how fast I wrote it, it actually allowed us to function until our permanent constitution was finished some months later.

My first four years of college, we had a brilliant, but tempramental band director.  I always got along with him, but not everyone did.  When he took a position elsewhere, our music education guru was interim for one semester.  Old band director also did jazz band, and for that interim semester, our clarinet-saxophone teacher was the interim jazz band director.  He had played with Stan Kenton in the 1970s, and we revered him, but that's another story.

One afternoon, I happened to be around the band hall.  I can't remember why, but I walked in and interim band director decided to clean up the band hall a little and roped a bunch of us into getting it done.

It turned out for many of us to be a cathartic experience.  Not only did we clean up the years of dust under the risers, we proceeded to dismantle the risers and turn the two riser arrangements (regular and jazz bands) into a single arrangement which went on to serve both bands.

The first days and weeks of the Republic of Talossa were like that, but more intense.  I know to a tiny degree what it is to have the liberation following finding out one has been in a cult for years.  The Cult of Ben Madison.

Ián Anglatzarâ was actually a really nice person.  Miestrâ Schivâ was not the horrible, repulsive creature Ben made her out to be.  The 'traitorous libs' were not the bad people.  Dan W. in my eyes was immediately vindicated.

As the atheist Kane Gruber put it to me "Jesus was Satan, and Satan was Jesus."  Miestrâ won me over with two Witt X posts.  And John Eiffler joining us was the greatest coup of all.  I think Ron Rosais was one of our citizens (yes, that Ron).

We had a blank slate.  The baroque mustiness of the 1997 Organic Law was no longer our concern.  We were saving Ben Madison's bedroom-kingdom from the one who started it.  I really cannot explain how it was in those first two months.  It was my most magical time doing Talossa.

Eventually, we began work on our constitution.  Mike Loquatsch was our first provisional head of state.  Kane might have been our first permanent head of state, but I cannot remember.

Within six months, the first people to have been citizens of the Republic without ever having been citizens of the Kingdom joined us.  Carlüs X. was the most prominent of these, and he would go on to have a career in the reunited Kingdom.

I remember Kane looking at online resources of how the United Nations helped new countries get off the ground in terms of how they structured their constitutions, and he was an immense cog in the making of our permanent constitution.  The constitution convention was begun in autumn 2004, and in the same week Benedict XVI was elected Bishop of Rome, our new Constitution was ratified. 

The Republic of Talossa should have taken off from there, but something happened to kill it off slowly: Ben Madison succeeded in alienating almost literally the entire Kingdom against him, and in August 2005, he was gone of his own accord, taking the Republic's reason to exist with him.

I've gone through why we didn't make our return to the Kingdom right then and there, but as the Kingdom became more 'SCA', we continued to be angry, the low point being the CUG's outright rejection of any input from us concerning the Talossan language and the December 2007 Arestada, which extended the duration of the Talossan Cold War by a few years.

Starting in 2008, my activity in Talossan life begins to wane.  2009 or 2010 saw me do almost nothing, and it is not an exaggeration to say had Miestrâ not harangued me for political stuff or whatever in that year, my absent mind would have fallen off the Talossan bandwagon for good.

I was at the latter part of that period invited by Miestrâ into her political party.  At some point, I was Prime Minister for the first time, but my second stint as PM was more consequential.  I was the Reunision PM, but Miestrâ did almost all the heavy lifting.  Being the most monarchist and pro-unification Republic citizen, I was useless to our interests in the negotiations for Reunision and recused myself from the process entirely, putting Distain Carlüs X. in my place on the three-person Republic side of the table.

I missed being the last President of the Republic of Talossa by one or two votes.  My joke-campaign almost came back to haunt me.  But the country elected the right person (Miestrâ) to do that job.

Today's Kingdom ZRT-caucus in the Free Democrats is the direct political descendant of the old Republic ZRT.  I've been doing politics with Miestrâ almost ten years.  hard to believe...

20 April 2012 saw the dissolution of the 2004-2012 Republic of Talossa and the return (or first coming) of a nigh-on intact Republic community. 

GV, Founding Parent of the 2004-2012 Republic of Talossa

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on June 09, 2021, 02:46:31 PM
I've done that, and there's just very little. Large portions were never captured, or were only captured once. I have collected what I could, though.

I brought up this issue shortly after the merge, and it didn't go anywhere and I couldn't get anything. But there is a very real risk that all of that is just going to vanish into the ether as time wears on. Files get lost, memories fade, and interest wanes. And eventually, 8 years of independent history and culture will be written off in a sentence. What were the campaigns like in the elections? What were the disagreements in triumph? What were the games played or inventions made? How did people react to events in the Kingdom? "Unfortunately, most of the records and discussions from this time are not available or have been permanently lost."

I know there are still people in our country, like yourself, who value that stuff, remember it fondly, and want to preserve it. And it's the sort of thing that always gets pushed to the back burner, year after year. But please send me whatever you have, folks.

Many thanks for your interest!  I know Derivatism vs. Peculiarism was a big deal for a long while.

Quote from: GV on June 09, 2021, 02:27:44 PM

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on June 09, 2021, 08:37:06 AM
Since you will also be very busy, anything you can send me right now will be helpful, even if it isn't organized or published into a PDF like you prefer.  I'm also holding out hope for @anglatzara .  Really, it's just astonishing how little info there is right now.  It's like trying to write about a hermit kingdom -- I have some official speeches and announcements that were outward-facing, but virtually no actual data or real history.  I can't even find a list of officials past 2008/2009, as though there were none from then to the end.

Try searching captures for talossa.com on Wayback between 1 June 2004 and 20 April 2012, inclusive.  Yeah, when the Republic disappeared, its online presence disappeared as well.

See what you can get for talossaonline.com, too.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on June 09, 2021, 08:37:06 AM
Since you will also be very busy, anything you can send me right now will be helpful, even if it isn't organized or published into a PDF like you prefer.  I'm also holding out hope for @anglatzara .  Really, it's just astonishing how little info there is right now.  It's like trying to write about a hermit kingdom -- I have some official speeches and announcements that were outward-facing, but virtually no actual data or real history.  I can't even find a list of officials past 2008/2009, as though there were none from then to the end.

Try searching captures for talossa.com on Wayback between 1 June 2004 and 20 April 2012, inclusive.  Yeah, when the Republic disappeared, its online presence disappeared as well.

Quote from: Béneditsch Ardpresteir on June 09, 2021, 03:08:22 AM

Quote from: Ian Plätschisch on June 09, 2021, 12:20:07 AM
Is it not proper to have a confirmation vote? I seem to remember this happening in the past.

Am not averse to the idea. However, in that case, @GV will have to take the call, and preside over such voting if it takes place. In the alternate, the longest sitting Senator should preside only for the purpose of this voting.

Senator BenArd
(Mençéi elect?)

I've gone ahead and done better than that: https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=920

Thinking yesterday was Wednesday, I ended things one day too soon.

I have turned the election for Mençei for the 56th Cosâ into a fiasco.  Many, many thanks to SoS Nordselva for pointing that out.  Apologies to one and all for closing the original window for nominations one day too soon.

I've decided it is best to re-open nominations for another week ending next Wednesday 16 June 2021 at 2000 CDT.

Eiric S. Bornatfiglheu has put his name into nomination, and while it might seem logical for me to step down and let someone else handle this, I don't want to add another step to what has become a convoluted process.

Thus, the timetable for electing a new Mençei is as follows:

Nominations open until next Wednesday 16 June 2021 at 2000 CDT - At this point, nominations will be closed.

Voting for the new Mençei begins next Wednesday 16 June 2021 at 2000 CDT and concludes on Wednesday 23 June 2021 at 2000 CDT.

At this writing, I've received nominations from Béneditsch Ardpresteir and Eiric S. Bornatfiglheu, but the window for more people to put their names in the ring is open until the above-prescribed time.

As for my previous declaration of Béneditsch Ardpresteir as the winner, that is null and void, though he may end up winning for real in the end.  I did not allow for a confirmation time because I did not feel it was necessary because I had only received Béneditsch's nomination.  Of course, I was wrong to not have that confirmation vote, and again, I was wrong to end things a day too soon originally.

With apologies to all,

GV

Quote from: Dr. Txec Róibeard dal Nordselvă, Esq., O.SPM, SMM on June 09, 2021, 11:52:08 AM

Quote from: GV on June 08, 2021, 08:42:27 PM
Nominations for Mençei are now closed with Béneditsch Ardpresteir and myself as the candidates.

Because I am to be in the next Cabinet, due to the Cabinet Code of Conduct as well as my own party's rules, I cannot be both Mençei and a Member of Cabinet at the same time.  Therefore, I am removing myself as a candidate for Mençei in the 56th Cosâ.

As Béneditsch Ardpresteir is the only other person to put their name forward for Mençei, and as nominations for that office are now closed, it is my happy duty to vote for and congratulate Béneditsch Ardpresteir, Mençei for the 56th Cosâ, there being no need for a proper round of voting with only one candidate.

It has been an honor to serve as presiding officer over this august body a second time.  I know Béneditsch will do a great job.

GV, former Mençei

You closed this 24 hours early? Why?

Because I mis-read my own rules, that's why.  I will take care of this.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on June 09, 2021, 06:28:07 AM
Just bumping this.  Still have nothing on the Republic.

I think it is safe to say MPF literally will not have time to get this data to you or anyone else for the foreseeable future, alas.  I have some stuff I will eventually put up, though it's only from the earliest days of the Republic.