Office of Former President and Gov. DemPGH

[HagridOfTheDeep]

By admission, the "story" about the attacks is designed to "make my life miserable, but will be fun" - I can't share the PM. Well, it's not fun and it's not making my life miserable, and also I have complete control over who is and who is NOT the G.M. Just a curtesy notice.

There have been no attacks at the White House. We're all fine here.

Thank you!

--The President

While I don't think I would immediately attack the White House to make a statement as GM, it's awfully cavalier to just ignore the person who's supposed to be able to invent events in the game. The position needs to be as close to "God" as possible, and when the president questions the GM (or worse, threatens him), it totally undermines the credibility of the office.

If you didn't have faith in SirNick, you shouldn't have nominated him. We are now bound by his words.

[Deus Naturae]

Eh...what? Are you really allowed to just say, "No, the GM is wrong. That never happened."? If so, we may as well abolish the position.

[sentinel]

I gave DemPGH that I was going to make some fun (sarcasm) events happen to spice it up here. DemPGH had an opportunity to respond and didn't. He sent me a PM pretty much saying lightning strikes caused the attack. I'm being realistic in the sense that if the President doesn't respond to an attack, then stuff is going to get worse.

EVERYONE knows I write dystopian timelines. On top of that, I gave DemPGH ample opportunity to respond in the most basic sense.

If you don't want to take a serious GM seriously then there really shouldn't be a game. Without a GM its just people "passing" words with no effect.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

By admission, the "story" about the attacks is designed to "make my life miserable, but will be fun" - I can't share the PM. Well, it's not fun and it's not making my life miserable, and also I have complete control over who is and who is NOT the G.M. Just a curtesy notice.

There have been no attacks at the White House. We're all fine here.

Thank you!

--The President

I don't want to misrepresent you so I want to make sure I'm understanding you right.  Did you just threaten to sack your GM because he's actually doing his job and happened to start a storyline that was inconvenient for you?  I really hope I am misunderstanding want you meant with the bolded text.

[sentinel]

HYPOTHETICALLY, since its against forum rules to post a real one, if DemPGH sent me a PM about this it would have looked like this

Okay,

The attacks at the White House are the result of a fireball or some other atmospheric effect, even ball lightening.

The other attacks are being investigated by the FBI and will be handled by law enforcement.

If there's a problem with that, you don't need to be GM anymore.

Thanks!
-D

No. The attacks were what I say they were. You had a chance to respond and if you did anything remotely positive I would have given you a whole rally around the flag boost. Instead, you did nothing which makes it easier for a dystopian story teller.

I'm not out to destroy you. Im out to create an interesting and compelling storyline in hopes of increasing activity. I gave you ample time to respond prior to crashing the stock market two days in a row (and I checked to make sure you were active on the forum during that time as well!)

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

Fireball? You mean the liquor? I've had some shots of that tonight...

[Maxwell]

GMgate is now occurring.

[DemPGH]

This will be handled tomorrow. What I have to say at the moment will contain too many swear words to be acceptable. Needless to say, anyone who freaking tells me to my face that he is going to make my life miserable has no place in my government, and anything else will be said tomorrow.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

For the love of God...

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

The Thursday Night Massacre has officially begun!

[sentinel]

The Game Moderator is not part of your administration. He is not your peon. He is the chief storyteller and narrator of the game (or God of the game). Everything I did was relatively realistic. Recently, someone IRL ran into the White House unabated, barracks have been attacked in the past, people beheaded and bombings have occured. You had a chance to respond in an intelligent way and you did nothing. Nothing. You didn't even try.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

This is the most magical era yet. I love it!

[HagridOfTheDeep]

I've refrained from launching personal attacks against the president who nominated me to be part of his team, but this is a f-cking embarrassment.

"If there's a problem with that, you don't need to be GM anymore."

Christ, who do you think you are? I've held my tongue for too long. Such incompetence.

[Dr. Cynic]

This is the most magical era yet. I love it!

This is even worse than the Atlasia News Network/President Porce debacle 8 years ago.

The GM, I've always thought, does have the right to create rough storylines that sometimes makes things difficult, Mr. President. If he had made things worse after a response from the administration, then yeah, I could see your point... That said, I'm not privy to your discussions, I just think that such a dismissal is hasty. It was one storyline and it wasn't like there haven't been worse. I had actually been gearing up for it... It had barely started...

If this is the route we're going though, then we need to abolish the position, let private news agencies sort out storylines (or have no storylines at all, something I'm adamantly opposed to) and let the SOIA and SOEA do the budgeting work... This is a bit hard to take, honestly. I have spent years fighting for the integrity of the position and it never works out... It's extremely frustrating to me personally.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

What the hell?

Seriously.

[Simfan34]

What?

[Adam Griffin]

I'll just leave this here:



And just to clarify:

1) I'm not defending the actions of the President; this is an abuse of authority (though he technically has the powers to dismiss the GM if he so chooses)

2) I'm not defending the actions of the GM, as this story-line was planned to cause chaos and project exaggerated effects from the get-go (2,000-point stock market drop? really?); this, too, is an abuse of authority (though he too technically has the powers to do what he has done here)

[sentinel]

I'll just leave this here:



And just to clarify:

1) I'm not defending the actions of the President; this is an abuse of authority (though he technically has the powers to dismiss the GM if he so chooses)

2) I'm not defending the actions of the GM, as this story-line was planned to cause chaos and project exaggerated effects from the get-go (2,000-point stock market drop? really?); this, too, is an abuse of authority (though he too technically has the powers to do what he has done here)

1) Yes, I openly said I was going to make everyone's life hard with my storyline, and more fun.  Whats really funny is that I gave everyone a warning and the people in power still did nothing.

2) Yes, I made a 1,700 point stock market drop (over two days). I initially was going to make them MUCH smaller, but DemPGH didn't respond to the attacks by the time I wrote the update, so I naturally made it worse. Think about it if George Bush or Barack Obama didn't respond, at all, to a terrorist attack for that long of a period of time.

(Many economists argue that the stock market, for better or worse, has become a barometer for how the country feels. Holder resigned and it was down 200...)

3) Griffin, you had aliens.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Yeah, SirNick did nothing wrong here.  He didn't even have to give DemPGH a warning, tbh.

[Adam Griffin]

I'll just leave this here:



And just to clarify:

1) I'm not defending the actions of the President; this is an abuse of authority (though he technically has the powers to dismiss the GM if he so chooses)

2) I'm not defending the actions of the GM, as this story-line was planned to cause chaos and project exaggerated effects from the get-go (2,000-point stock market drop? really?); this, too, is an abuse of authority (though he too technically has the powers to do what he has done here)

1) Yes, I openly said I was going to make everyone's life hard with my storyline, and more fun.  Whats really funny is that I gave everyone a warning and the people in power still did nothing.

2) Yes, I made a 1,700 point stock market drop (over two days). I initially was going to make them MUCH smaller, but DemPGH didn't respond to the attacks by the time I wrote the update, so I naturally made it worse. Think about it if George Bush or Barack Obama didn't respond, at all, to a terrorist attack for that long of a period of time.

(Many economists argue that the stock market, for better or worse, has become a barometer for how the country feels. Holder resigned and it was down 200...)

3) Griffin, you had aliens.

I'll leave it to the rest of you to handle the administration's actions. You should have simply been ignored like I was and like Simfan was when boundaries were seemingly overstepped, and boy did you overstep them, but you're getting a pass on the looniness because someone less popular than you is involved in the situation.

1) No, you bragged about making the administration and the SoEA nominee's lives harder. It'd actually be less ridiculous and nefarious had you not been blabbing and bragging about what you planned to do in chat beforehand. And what was anyone supposed to do, pray tell? Pre-empt your action? Acknowledge a ridiculous premise? I mean, after all...the opposite lline of logic has been made into precedent these days; it's what I would have done. I guarantee you that a storyline like this pursued by me (or even Simfan, who I can't fathom that I'm actually somewhat defending right now) would have resulted in epic fits of faux outrage - just like the extraterrestial timeline. You were in the office for less than a week and were already trying to burn the damn country down.

2) Well how considerate of you in retrospect! You only plunged the stock market by more than any other day in history; 300 points more than on 9/11/01 and 500 points more than on 9/15/08.

3) Actually, I had Chinese, but at least I didn't attempt to assassinate the President and plunge the entire country into a economic depression, you goddamn nut.

[sentinel]

Arguing with Griffin is like arguing with a kitchen table who is also the head of the conspiracy theory group at the local community college.

While I did brag about making people's lives harder, it was in humor (my humor IRL is dry, so I understand if someone didn't get that I was saying it out of fun etc).

Having a President not respond to a terrorist attack is unprecedented and calls for unprecedented consequences. Like I said, had he done almost anything I would have made the fall shorter.

[Adam Griffin]

Arguing with Griffin is like arguing with a kitchen table who is also the head of the conspiracy theory group at the local community college.

Having a President not respond to a terrorist attack is unprecedented and calls for unprecedented consequences. Like I said, had he done almost anything I would have made the fall shorter.

I wasn't privy to y'all's discussions (which as I emphasized, shouldn't have been happening either; you should have just acted on your own), but maybe giving him less than a day to respond adequately perhaps was setting the bar too high? During my last timeline, I had the same situation occur:

HOUSTON - Several hours have passed since the first sightings of unidentified aircraft began to be spotted around dozens of metropolitan areas across the world, but contact with these entities has yet to be established.

Shortly after 4 PM local time, Mexican President Felipe Calderon took to the airwaves to confirm what many have suspected: to the best of their knowledge, these craft are not human in origin.

The presidents of France and India have likewise issued similar statements. The government of Atlasia has thus far issued no statement, leaving many to worry about what government officials have planned, if anything at all.

In fact, the Federal Government didn't act after three whole days, at which point, Governor Dallasfan sent in the National Guard to Burlington, at the site of one of the landings.

BURLINGTON - After being stationary and silent on the ground for more than 48 hours, and surrounded by the Northeast Guard after the Governor's ordered deployment, a high-frequency hum began to radiate from the ship. A rational man would say that the instantaneous movements of five thousand eyes and ears isn't audible, but rationality wasn't present in this place, where a sleep-deprived caravan of soldiers, reporters, and spectators alike witnessed new signs of life emitting from the craft. A shiny metallic door began to open on the undercarriage of the UFO. A series of loud, pneumatic-like noises emitted from the undercarriage as the solid mass of space-age metal began to unfurl itself onto the ground below.

The difference, of course, was that I didn't send an aircraft to hover over the White House and then blow it to smithereens because I didn't get my demands met fast enough.

[Adam Griffin]

The moral lesson for sirnick (and anybody else who would dare take this position): nobody really cares what the GM says, so don't get your panties in a wad when people don't respond to it fast enough (if they respond to it at all) and then grossly over-exaggerate consequences.

[sentinel]

The moral lesson for sirnick (and anybody else who would dare take this position): nobody really cares what the GM says, so don't get your panties in a wad when people don't respond to it fast enough (if they respond to it at all) and then grossly over-exaggerate consequences.

DemPGH was responding and posting on his own thread as President that evening, and then again the next day. And he did give some silly response with Duke Nukem'. My expectations were not high.

I keep saying, if any real President failed to respond to an attack, then the consequences would be huge. We can agree to disagree.

[Adam Griffin]

I've doubted the usefulness of the Game Moderator since I left the position early this year, and this only confirms to me that it's not a job that fits well into this game. There wasn't much immediate interest in the attack, but Sirnick's dismissal provoked an instant reaction.

That said, if you believe in the importance of the GM - and it's possible, even likely, that interest in Sirnick's story would have picked up over time - a political dismissal of an active and uncontroversial Game Moderator is a serious blow. It further damages the legitimacy of the position and violates a longstanding norm against political interference. If we continue to have a GM, I think we need to follow Cynic's advice. Our current situation is untenable.

I agree with all of this.

Just like with the power bill and many other things, there is a complete and utter lack of interest and awareness of ongoings in the game until some flashy trigger brings it to the forefront of the public's attention (which has always been the case to an extent, but seems to have gotten really bad as of late; nobody is paying attention to anything unless it's drama-filled), and in many cases, it seems to take a gross over-exaggeration to generate any real interest in the office's actions.