A New Galactic Order:

Darius is actively campaigning for your vote!

So why should you vote for me? It's simple, really. I follow a more enlightened philosophy than most of the presidents of the past, and I will make it my personal mission to ensure that my administration is fair to everyone, regardless of alliance affiliation or lack thereof. I will advertise module and rogue production and give everyone an equal say in what is produced. I will allow anyone who meets the minimum vote requirement to hold a ministerial position for a minimum of 10 turns and will rotate the positions through all available candidates for so long as my administration endures. I will not seek combat against anyone for reducing my political influence or taking over my worlds, and I will disqualify any Minister who seeks to justify combat for that reason. Finally, I will share the sum total of all alien data gathered by the government every turn, not only in raw report form but also through sophisticated interactive analysis tools.

All data, you say? Yes. Even the ship location and configuration data. This could be seen as a negative by some since it allows the more aggressive ships to exploit this information to track their prey and configure their ships for optimum effect, but the reverse is that it allows the potential quarry to track the hunters just as easily. My administration will make all of this data available to the public because it is not the proper role of government to determine what information is "safe" to distribute, nor is it proper to reserve this information for the sole benefit of those who hold government office.

Still not convinced? Well, the alternative is to maintain the status quo, where the largest and most powerful ships are free to hold the public offices through military might and use these positions to maintain their own dominance. I am a member of Aquila, FTA, DoW, ICG, the Galactic Council and the Wise Chosen. I believe my governmental experience as part of the Galactic Council, my genuine desire to help others, my track record of fostering positive change, and my friendly relationship with diverse ships of all shapes, sizes and aspirations uniquely qualifies me to lead the galaxy in the next political evolution. How long has it been since the galaxy has seen a Wise president? How long has it been since we have had a president who was not a member of FIST? I say the time for change is now, and your support can make all the difference.

My Pledge:

• I will allow even my political rivals to claim my worlds without military reprisal.
• Acceptance of the same tolerance policy will be required of any candidate who desires to hold a ministerial position.
• Any Minister who attacks another ship for political reasons (such as vote stealing) will be replaced by another qualified candidate.
• Ministers who attack political rivals by proxy will be investigated and disqualified just as though they executed the attack in person.
• Minister positions will rotate every 10 turns among all qualified candidates who express a desire to hold office.
• The opposition party, led by the Vice President, will be given an equal opportunity to participate in all political discussions.
• All data gathered from the alien reports will be passed to the public without modification or exclusion.
• All production decisions will be made in the full light of the public eye.

Please send a hail to Darius if you are interested in supporting my platform.

Thanks in advance,


Captain Tiberius Gray,
Starship Darius

Letter posted to Open Forum (Turn 1680):

Greetings all,

In contravention of the long and honored tradition of breaking political campaign promises, I have been working steadily on a government data sharing tool that is central, neutral, and publicly accessible. The first phase of the project is now complete, and you can access the alien data at the Office of Public Information.

The data is somewhat limited this turn since it only includes one alien report (mine), but next turn should be more complete since the normal complement of ministers will also come online. The format of the Office of Public Information page is similar to FIST's classic POI, but it is extended to include the information that FIST always filtered out. I purposely kept the same format so existing scripts that capture POI data will continue to work without a rewrite (just point your script at the OPI url). However, the normal OPI page is formatted primarily for human readability, and the data sharing link at the bottom of the page is better suited for script automation. This link provides a raw report generated from all captured alien data (and the SST), which can be conveniently parsed by the same routines currently used to process normal alien reports and RFAT. It should require very little effort to make this work with any data sharing site that already processes reports.

Anyone who would like to hold a ministerial position should either hail me privately or post a request here on the Open Forum. There are far more eligible candidates than can be accommodated in a single term, but I will do my best to handle this process fairly and rotate the positions to new candidates every 10 turns for as long as my administration continues. By the terms of my platform, ships are disqualified from holding public office if they initiate combat against a rival for political reasons (defined as "vote stealing"). Fierce combats, attacks on Galactic Criminals, and mutually agreed battles are fine, but everything else is just plain piracy, and I will not reward pirates by giving them positions of power. I will judge this on a case by case basis, but the onus will be on the aggressor to prove some valid reason for an attack. Combat is Fierce if it meets the criteria of the Fierce platform (refer to sections 3 and 5). A ship is a Galactic Criminal if it meets the criteria defined by this administration, which will be published shortly.

Ministers are also required to share the alien data they capture each turn since these terms are implied by my promise to distribute all alien data to the public. Therefore, I will only consider your request to hold office if you are already a candidate and have registered a data sharing url on the GCDC Registration Page.

Detailed registration instructions are provided. The process is incredibly simple if you trust me to administer a site that has direct access to your secret url (share urls will not work). I will state for the record that the urls will remain encrypted in the GCDC database to protect from casual misuse, they will not be transferred to any other site, and they will only be used for the purpose stated clearly on the registration page. I will not decrypt urls to spy on people's orders or turn results. If these terms are not acceptable then you can always register using the indirect method, which will provide the necessary data access without exposing your ship to possibile misuse. Just follow the instructions to set up a redirection client (requires a web server running php). Please hail me privately if you need any help getting it to work.

Regards,

Capt. Tiberius Gray (Aquila, FTA),
Starship Darius,
Galactic President