Quote from: Françal I. Lux on November 22, 2025, 08:32:04 PMI'm just gonna jump in here bc DS9 is also my favorite! The episode "In the Pale Moonlight" is my all time favorite episode of Star Trek.

I think we might have enough people for a Talossan Trekkies group. That is an excellent episode. TNG is my favorite and The Best of Both Worlds (Pts. 1 & 2) is my favorite episode.

I'm just gonna jump in here bc DS9 is also my favorite! The episode "In the Pale Moonlight" is my all time favorite episode of Star Trek.

Quote from: GV on November 02, 2025, 09:18:45 PM

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC on October 21, 2025, 08:19:37 PM

Quote from: Joseph Morris on October 21, 2025, 08:17:28 PMDang! I didn't know we had all this history!

I suggest this as beginning reading material

It was on about 23 March 2004 Ben Madison began falsely accusing Kane Dal Nava on Wittenberg of domestic abuse. 

This is the most important event in Talossan history since the start of the Cybercit Era and is left out of the page Miestra links here. 

Let's clarify something -- Kane Dal Nava was not accused of any specific legally actionable act of abuse against women within Talossa, save for the act of verbally insulting Queen Amy.  Which would be enough to get one expelled from real-world Kingdoms at the very least.  This occurred at a Talossan Independance Day celebration I hosted.  Being busy as host, I did not personally witness this event, but even before it happened I was getting vibes from KDN I didn't like, sort of the classic misogynist-jock mentality I'd seen so often in high school.  Something about how Queen Amy was insulted triggered suspicions in Ben's mind.

The Organic Law contains few provisions for removal of "bad" citizens, mostly out of fear they would be weaponized over petty disputes; as there was no Talossan (or American) law that would cover it, Ben, desperate to get that man out of his "baby", his creation, improvised.  Following up on his suspicions, researching it via public records, Ben found proof.  There was a history of such abuse, arrests, restraining orders, etc.  I don't think any formal criminal charges or incarceration resulted, Ben certainly would have said so if there had been, but the pattern was clear enough to him.  Innocent until proven guilty and all that, but the records don't lie and the pattern was there, and it had played out in real time. 

KDN was accused not of any specific crime, but of being an abuser and therefore lacking moral fitness to be a leader in Ben's Talossa, in addition to the personal and deadly insult he'd offered to Ben's wife (and his nominal Queen, let's not forget!).

Was Ben supposed to LIKE what had been said and done?  He did what any loving and faithful husband would do, tried to protect his family (which included Talossans, remember almost all of us were friends IRL, "Old Growthers" at that time) and somehow he's been villified for it, while the real catalyst, the one who denigrated a man's wife in front of him, is lionized.  That's never sat well with me.

I was personally one of the people whose accounts was summarily deleted during The Great Theft for the "crime" of being on Ben's side.  As one affected directly, yes, I regard it as such.  I've forgiven the webmaster for his role in that, had intermittent contact with him.  Now, decades have gone by, and maybe things have changed.  Having had zero contact with that man in the intervening decades (being in "the other" Talossa) I have no idea of he's improved himself or not.  I earnestly hope so.  I don't hate him, but I will never like him, and will not let his part, his responsibility, for the events of that Dec 26 so many decades ago be glossed over.

Quote from: Tierçéu Rôibeardescù on November 16, 2025, 10:06:35 AMLD is almost tied for my number 1 favourite trek behind DS9

I was not expecting to like it as much as I did. The actress who played Mariner is working on another humorous Trek show too.

We still need more votes on the groups currently being voted on before we can add the last two finals. That said, the deadline for these four finals remains unchanged. I don't think theres enough enthusiasm to do an election night tmt broadcast in the discord but I will still post the results here around the same time.

Vote before december 1st

There's nothing official to say, I don't think. In my experience, people usually switch to TDT at that time, even if they still call it TST, because it's more convenient.

Also I vaguely recall that someone had some personal animus against daylight savings time?

Relatedly, does the time seasonally change to "TDT"?

I don't think they need to be abolished, but I do think the restrictions on people holding seats and party lists are perhaps too strenuous.  If the Progressive Alliance had gotten a larger vote share or had more people in the Senats last term, we'd maybe have not been able to hold our seats.  I am skeptical of rules that over-rule the will of the people when it comes to new or smaller parties.  However, it's near the end of my priority list, and I'm more in the "let's take a close look at this" phase.  At a certain point it makes sense to note that it's never actually subverted the democratic vote of the people, even if it threatened to do so in the past.

Speaking for myself, here's what I think:

Our first priority should be passing the new Public Process Act, since it's really important as a question of civil liberties.  We should not permit the government to have a secret veto over who even gets to apply to immigrate.  I think we'll get broad support for it this time, including significant support from the URL and from other parties.

Our second priority should be issues of good governance.  We'd like to fix the merchandise store so people can buy Talossa-themed goods again, fix the broken links on the website and give it a refresh, and work on some basic infrastructure things.  Some of these tasks will take a short time -- a half hour or so -- and others will be a significant task.

Our third priority should be looking at the immigration process and how we can optimize it.  What should our targets be for a monthly average, or do we think it's inevitably stochastic and we need to rethink it?  How can we meet people where they are with the short-form videos that have been such unexpected boons?  I expect to take a personal hand in this.

Other things that we can reasonably get done in a term include investigating past applications, giving positive regular speeches so that the government doesn't end up seeming like a joyless scold, exploring some new sources of funding, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting.  And we should look at how our effort is expended.  How many people read L'Chronica, for example, if we total up pageviews on the site and email readers?  Something to think about.

Realistically, other things are likely to crop up.  But with strong and inspirational leadership, I expect we can rise to meet the opportunities and challenges ahead.

Hey, since we're not going to get the debate, I suppose I'll throw in my pet Burning Question here.

If the PA lead the next government, are they going to introduce legislation to abolish party lists, as foreshadowed after the last election?

"TST/CST"