Bodhi of Acorns - Dale

[Takura]

Hi Dale!!

I hope you've been enjoying these questions. You have, haven't you?
What is your most valued possession?
What's the best way to measure happiness?
Day or night?
Are tacos a sandwich? And did you answer that question honestly?

[Dale]

Have I been enjoying these questions? Hell yeah, love me a good Q&A.

My most prized possession? If we're talking lame answers, probably my brain. The nervous system doesn't function without it and it effectively is me, so, y'know, prized. But that answer's lame. My most prized possession is my car. So long as I have enough money for gas, a car will take me anywhere I want to go, at any time. And isn't that such a unique ability that humans have cultivated over our thousands of years? Massive metal machines that can take you from New York to San Diego. And I think that's pretty damn cool.

Best way to measure happiness? Hours of sleep/night. Hours spent sleeping is often directly correlated with my happiness. (Although there's sort of a happiness cap at 12 hours slept where after that it actually gets worse. Guess the developers had to balance out sleep since I was using it to farm happiness points.)

Day or night? Day. I spend night asleep. Every time I wake up in the middle of the night and it's 2 AM it sorta just feels like I've broken the rules. I dunno how nocturnal people manage to pull it off.

Are tacos a sandwich? Humans invent words. We use these words to refer to different things; we did not discover these words, rather we made them to refer to things. I find the "is [x] a [y]" questions to all have the same answer; no. Because we know that we would never refer to tacos as sandwiches, or vice versa. The answer below is a lie.

Did I answer the previous question honestly? The answer above is true.

[Takura]

Hi we at Enlightened inc. did a big think, and we'd like for your bodhi to travel through the URA for us and tell us what we're missing, who's there that we don't know? give us a detailed travel guide!
kicks dale out the door
have fun!

[Dale]

o7 Thank ye! It shall be done!

[Dale]

Hey, folks! Quick little update here.
Starting on the 21st, I will be taking a break from NS, Discord and the works to focus a little bit on college. But fear not! I’ll be back in 4 weeks’ time. I’m roughly halfway through my travel notes, so I’d anticipate this enlightenment’s completion in late July to early August. 
Sorry for the hiccup in the journey. I’ll be back in full force after my break!

-dale, chipmunk… of doom

[Sage Lev Calxur]

Good luck, Dale!

[Dale]

Back in business, folks! Work shall resume.

[Sage Lev Calxur]

Can't wait!

[Sage Altino]

Yaaay!! We missed you!

[Dale]

Alrighty, what follows is a documentation of each of the United Regions Alliance's member states. I did my best to scope out their communities, governments, and other defining things about those regions. Enjoy!

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Aelstun - This one's a strange one. Six embassies as of June 10th; Stellux, Cato Alliance, URA, Autropolis, and Entropy. They've got 98 nations, again, as of June 10th, although they peaked a few days ago at 101 nations on the 6th. Overall, pretty normal stats for what would appear to be a midsize UCR. But that's enough numbers. They're a fantasy roleplay region, and conduct their roleplay on their RMB. They've got a nice RP map as well. However, their RMB would appear to consist of a lot of welcoming new nations and passing around regional information. And OOC discussion actually takes up the majority of their RMB: of their 4-page RMB history, the conclusion can be drawn that their RP isn't really all that active onsite, despite being at the forefront of their region. As for government, they're fairly typical for a region of their size. Prime Minister, Deputy PM, Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Culture, and Security, all that jazz. So, with all this being said, their onsite presence is lacking. Their gov't doesn't pop up a lot, they've existed for five months and only have four pages on their RMB, so yup. But onsite's only half the picture; what about offsite?







Well, they've got a Discord, excellent! So, naturally, I paid a visit! And activity's still not wild. Their foreign affairs channel is three messages long despite it being three months old; no RP activity going on in the Discord either, so their RP consists entirely of the parts onsite. But they've got decently active general and offtopic channels. 







So, while I kinda rag on these dudes for being a teensy bit inactive, for a region that's five months old, they're doing pretty well for themselves. Better than any of my old regions did, anyway. A solid UCR and one that I'm kinda interested to see how it evolves over time. And from what I've seen, nice people. I wish them well.

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Anteria - Lul. We know Anteria, we know that they're cool. We love Emi, they've got nice RP, very lively and active, and a great community. I wrote a little synopsis of Anteria a while back, so for a more in-depth look at my thoughts on them, check that out. 

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Autropolis - This one's another weird one. Founded way back in 2005, peaked in 2007-2009, and haven't made many diplomatic missions since. Overall, onsite activity's a little wack. They only have 30 nations, so RMB activity is a little bit lacking, and in the history of their legal council they have only passed five laws... since 2007. Yowch. So, y'know, they're not exactly popping onsite, but what about offsite?







Two! Two offsite mediums! Forum and a Discord! Let's start with the Discord.



Their Discord has a lot of redundant and unused channels, but as is typical they have nicely active general and politics channels. And because these channels are actually active, we can get a gauge on their community, and they look pretty damn nice. People are friendly, they're concerned for other's well-being, I like these dudes. But! Two Discords! Well, just one, but two! 



Yes, shortly before I began this trek they retired the aforementioned Discord and created a new one! And, it's largely the same case as the previous Discord; active general and politics channels, but a whole basket of unused channels. Which is a shame, these dudes look nice and I'd love if they had more activity. 



So that's the Discords. Overall, pretty nice. But what about their forum?



Alas, their forum is wildly inactive. 8/10 of the boards on said forum have gone completely unused, despite the forum existing since at least late March.







So, my thoughts? Nice place, nice people, but they've got so much infrastructure for so little people. But all things considered, this place is certainly a place I'd love to see rise from the ashes. Autropolis, I wish you well.

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Blackstar - This region concerns me. A quote "rising star democracy" with a focus on gathering intelligence that also happens to have embassies with The Wolf Clan! Lovely! Alright. RMB activity's good, roughly one post/hour, which is pretty good for a region with 83 nations. They peaked at 112 nations back in April. They've also got an RP going, which takes place on their RMB and appears to be going strong. I'd retire to here were it not for the fact that they appear to be a tad on the shady side. They're the home of the Blackstar Intelligence Agency, which is either one of two things; a center for nerds that think they're spies or an avenue for shady stuff to be carried out. Either way, yikes. But yeah, onsite activity would appear to be thriving. Anyway, now for offsite.







They've got a forum and a Discord; let's start with their forum. There's a fair amount of boards with no posts, but it would appear to be more active than other forums I've seen. But forums are boring, [he said, typing on a forum] what about their Discord? Their Discord has 48 members which is remarkably less than what a region with 83 nations should have; usually the ratio of Discord members to nations is around 1.5:1 for midsize UCRs, but I digress. And immediately, gah! TWC officials just sorta chilling there. One quick skim of the general channel and I saw that it was a bit of a shitposty mess. Anyway, I noped the hell outta there. 



So; final thoughts: I don't like these guys. 

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Conch Kingdom - It's Conch Kingdom. It's an AA region with 488 nations, need I say more. Their RMB's active, they've got excellent infrastructure, they're part of the AA Discord so we know their Discord's active. We know that they're cool.

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Eurth - Judging from a first glance? Now this is a cool region. Founded in 2004 and still maintains a healthy amount of nations; 225 to be exact, and they've maintained that since October. These guys have it going recruitment-wise. Never featured though, the absolute nerds. They've got an RP that takes place on an offsite forum, which is a relatively uncommon approach, but I like it. It looks somewhat inactive but I like their heart. They also have remarkably few embassies; Antargis, Alharu, Marenesia, Thalassa, Argis, Hyrule, belgium, Kylaris, Ordis, Tiandi, Deutschland, URA, and The League. And onsite community-wise, they appear to be friendly people. They've even got a well-written IIWiki page! These people clearly put immense amounts of effort into Eurth, and it pays off in spades. So, let's hop offsite.







As said before, they run their RP on an offsite forum, and it has lots of effort put in albeit it's a tad inactive. Luckily, they have a Discord! Let's check that out. And they're so nice! I love these guys. If I ever slow down my career on NS I'm doing it here. They're just so lovely. Why do we not have embassies with these people? They're so friendly to newcomers and they really exemplify everything Karma stands for in my opinion.







Truly a lovely place, they get an A+ from Dale. They deserve twice the nations they have right now.



 

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The Global Democratic Union - But alas, after the euphoria of Eurth, we must all eventually descend from the heavens into a lesser land. Behold, the GDU, a region of 8 nations. Those poor saps. There were 10 days in between that region's most recent RMB post and the second most recent RMB post. I really don't have a whole lot to say about these guys. They peaked at 21 nations in September '19. Well, their onsite presence is depressing me, but they've got a Discord! The invite link was invalid. 







Okay. Can we move on?

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Hive - 7. 7 nations. These folks appear to have suffered a great extinction at some point; they peaked at 55 nations in January '19. They're inactive onsite, big news. At least they have an offsite forum and a Discord, so there's at least some meat on their bones.







The forum's inactive, probably because it just functions as a Discord. So that's great. The Discord, let's look at the Discord. I also now know that Ellenburg is their PM, so that's weird. I also learned that since January the region has been in a state of emergency. Well, moving right along.

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Karma - easily the worst region i visited on this trip. the chauffeur spat on my shoes and the whole place smells like anchovies??? what???????? there was also a moth??????????? and a cat??????? some lady had an owl on her shoulder????? at least they had tacos at the all-you-can-eat but they were ALIVE??????? they had like, 4 nations. rmb is extremely inactive with 7 years since the last post. 0/10 region, absolute failure, would not visit again. 

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Kingdom of Sayville - 3 nations. Appears to have some kind of interregional alliance going on. I don't know what was happening with these guys; all their onsites were extremely inactive but their Discord has 107 members. I think they might also be an IRL micronation? All the information was contradictory to itself. Yeah, I dunno what's going on with these dudes. Skip.

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Krillin - All I want is another 100-nation-or-so up-and-coming UCR to visit. And finally, I get what I wanted. Krillin is a region of 89 nations, and from what I've seen, they look like really nice people. They've got a pride month dispatch up and everything. Overall, they seem very geared to newcomers; they focus on peace and they have a casual RP. Coming off the back of all those small UCRs, this region is an excellent palate cleanser. So, let's check out their offsite stuffs.







They have two Discords on their WFE; one is their official regional Discord and the other is an unofficial 'Wilder' Discord. I have absolutely no idea what 'Wilder' means in this case so let's just go to the official one. 30 members, eh. They have one of those old manual verify systems where you tell them your nation name. As of yet, I haven't been verified. So that's a bit annoying, and I've got things to do. But overall these people look really nice, and I wonder how they'll do in the future.

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Lands End - We know Lands End. I don't think I could point out anything we're missing out from. So, let's move on!

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Mariner Trench - A well-tread place; we know basically all one would need to know about them. Good region.

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Niamark - Another region we're pretty dang familiar with, but I've skipped two regions already and I feel I should at least give Niamark the luxury of a paragraph. Niamark is an excellent region, housing 64 nations, but it deserves four times that number at the very least. It's the home of Lycos/The Overthinkers, a person whom we know to be a friend to our sphere. And Niamark's RMB is often more active than regions three times its size, a feat for the ages. Overall, Niamark is simply a lovely place, and another potential retirement home for Dale.

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Philippines - And to break up that little expanse of regions that I didn't need to write about, in comes Philippines, a region of 122 nations. My immediate takeaway was that their RMB wasn't quite doing so hot; several hours, even a day or two between posts. I saw they had a Discord on their WFE, but this Discord only has 55 members and is on the verge of being more inactive than the RMB. This kind of stuff makes me appreciate Niamark. But anyway, there's gotta be something more to this place, right? Well, their region peaked at roughly 174 nations; some interestingly intriguing infrastructure to house these nations must have been made, right? So let's explore some of that; enter the Philippines Defense Force. Since the region is founderless and there's gotta be someone raiding the place for the trophy alone, they need some fendas. Their defense force would appear to be pretty damn successful, managing to fight off 80 raiders back in December '18. This, however, paints that 174 nation peak in a far different light. But apart from their defense force, government-wise it leaves much to be desired. So that's the Philippines; leaning on the inactive end. What's next?

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Ridgefield - Alright, last skip of the list. We know 'em, moving on.

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Sonindia - Sonindia is a humble little region of 119 nations that would appear to be going through a bit of a slump, peaking at 455 nations in May '20. Not entirely sure how that happened, but okay. If you look through their major events tab you can see they've been closing a lot of embassies since the aforementioned slump began; likely because they may have dipped below the embassy requirements of these regions. On their WFE, Sonindia proclaims that they are a 'region of great depth', and I gotta agree. They've got some pretty cool stuff set up, from an active RP to their Minecraft server. But this slump would appear to have hit them hard. RMB posts have days inbetween them, and while this could be chalked up to a more active Discord, their Discord is primarily government-based. So I made a scale for that!



The Niamark scale, named after a region with the most impressive activity I've ever seen as well as our benchmark, is a way to index active regions. The equation to determine a region's score is to take the amount of minutes between a region's most recent and secondmost recent posts and multiply it by how many times greater the region's nation count is than Niamark's. Take Karma for example; 4 minutes between the most recent posts. Divide Karma's 272 nations by Niamark's 67, we get 4.06, multiply this by 4 minutes and we get Karma's Niamark score of 16.24. A lower score is better. Sonindia's Niamark score would be 319.68. So that's fun, I'll be including that in the upcoming regions' travel notes.

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Seora - Seora is a small UCR of 41 nations, peaking at 132 back in February. Don't even wanna know. On the Niamark scale, they score a 110.16. Their RMB is fairly uninteresting and there just isn't a lot to say about the place. It's a small UCR and its members appear uninvested in it. They have an RP that's supposed to be taking place on the RMB, but it just... isn't there. Let's check out their Discord. The RP is also taking place on the Discord for whatever ungodly reason. I checked out their RP channel and it's not a whole lot of RP at the moment, just setting it up. So that's... pretty much it. Moving on, I suppose.

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St Abbaddon - St Abbaddon, an old region created back in 2003. At this time 120 nations are situated within it, but the region's most recent peak was back in April-May '16 with 496 nations. It scores a yikes of a 3976.02 on the Niamark scale. So it's fair to say their RMB could use work but let's not focus on that. What's their community like? It's an RP-focused region that would appear to be a pretty positive place to live. Were it not for the lack of hustle and bustle, this place would maybe make it onto Dale's Retirement List. They're also, remarkably, founderless. So yeah. Their Discord houses 110 members, and also shares the trend of generally being a tad quiet. I did see one dude in their Discord complaining about the URA, and said person also is also in St Abbaddon's Council of Elders. Name of Jesbro. The guy also appears to be among the most active in the Discord. But that's just one dude from an otherwise very nice region. They do need to get rid of DC in their Discord. That’s inexcusable. So to conclude this little summary, all I have to say is that they appear to be super nice people. Movin' right along.

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The DankLeft Commune - When you observe the words 'dankleft' and 'commune' you know you're in for some wild shit. 73 nations, scoring a 6272.64 on the Niamark scale. From a first impression, they would appear to be exceptionally based. Throughout their region's whole history, they've floated around the 80 nation mark, so no wacky peaks to be observed here. The RMB's a little inactive, which is to be expected of a region so early in its history, so let's check out the Discord, because chances are that's where stuff's a little more popping. Their Discord link was expired. Okay. The region's ideals, like I said, are very cool and I support them in their endeavors henceforth. But other than what I've said... what could I say? The place emanates charisma. You have to see it for yourself, it's something to behold. But the glories of this land cannot be wasted, and so we must move on. What's next?

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The Democratic Republic - Add "in exile" and you have the most NationStates region name known to man. Coming from a region that radiates charm this place is admittedly a tad underwhelming. 59 nations, scoring a 422.4 on the Niamark scale. For them, it's election season! Election season may be the least convenient time for someone to pop into a region. I'm not banking on getting a good gauge on the community from the Discord or from the RMB. In an effort to at least slightly measure how this region is on a daily basis, I popped into the embassy list. The embassies a region has will tell you all you need to know. 

Enadia, KAISERREICH, Union of Christian Nations, Federation of Conservative Nations, The Monarchy Alliance, Right to Life, Confederacy of Layem, Chicken Overlords, Republic of Conservative Nations, and The Embassy. All regions The Democratic Republic plays host to. 



Upon seeing that rogues gallery, I made the executive decision to not investigate further. 

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The Freedom Isles - The Freedom Isles is a remarkably new region, having only been founded back in December. For this reason, they host 67 nations; which is equivalent to the Niamark benchmark of 67 nations. Their two most recent posts are from 7 days ago and 7 hours ago, which means their Niamark score is a whopping 9660. It's a quiet little region, probably because it's so new. Their Discord has 60 members. Overall, there's not a whole lot I can say. They're quiet. They've got an Instagram page for god knows what reason. They also have DC in their Discord, so that's something. So yeah, that's pretty much it for these guys. Moving on.

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Union of Allied States - Hey, I know these guys! We used to chill, so I can get you a bit of a better gauge on the community than most other regions in this list. Regarding its community and general vibe, I have two words; 'permanent chaos'. And that was back when the cool people were there. I checked on the place now and all its got is the wacko Republicans. They have embassies with Right to Life and Montealba. They hold 57 nations, with a Niamark score of 1156. I didn't bother to check out the Discord, it's a shell of its former self. Moving on.

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United Kingdom - brits. why did it have to be brits. 304 nations, with a Niamark score of 1087.2. They're so big they don't feel like a community, more so just a sludge of nations united under one name, like Yugoslavia. Maybe the Yugoslavia comparison is a bit harsh but they're British and therefore lame. Dog bless America. Their delegate only has 44 endorsements, which makes me feel better about Karma's endofortress. They look pretty vanilla. Hell, they're running a NS democracy. Maybe they've got enough members to make it work tho. but in the interest of patriotism, i hereby make the executive decision to move on.

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Wintercrest - As I gazed upon the fields of Wintercrest, I knew only one thing; this was to be the final region in my journey. I began my trek to the promised land. Founded back in 2016, Wintercrest is a region of 81 nations, scoring 1944 on the Niamark scale. They would appear to be held in somewhat high regard by the rest of NS, as they have embassies with places such as Warzones Asia and Africa as well as The League. Politically they're cool as hell. LGBTQA+ friendly as well as a touch of communism is like hot chocolate on a winter morning. They have an offsite forum that would appear to be somewhat inactive, but dammit, it's better organized than ours and that counts for something. Their anthem is that of the North Korean Worker's Party; I'm gonna pretend I didn't see that. They have a Spotify playlist, this keeps getting better. Their Discord has 226 members, and they are super friendly. It's a nice place to end my journey, and I'm glad I've been here. It's on Dale's Retirement List now. 

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Thus concludes Dale's Travels.