Confirmation Vote: Revocation of Taiwan Update Canon Status (Revoked!!)

[Joseph Cao]

Upon reflection, and pursuant to the RETCON Act, and as Game Moderator, I hereby request Senate approval to revoke canon status from the following Game Engine publication, made by predecessor GM Crane:

From the Desk of Game Manager Crane
23rd of April, 2022

FOREIGN POLICY UPDATE

I am happy to announce that a long-running historical conflict has been resolved.

Earlier this week at a summit in Singapore, the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan) have agreed on the following settlement:

The Republic of China relinquishes all of its jurisdictional claims to any land within the borders of mainland China or any of its outlying territories, and to its long-standing claim to represent the legitimate continuous government of the Chinese nation. Leaders have promised to make symbolic changes to that effect in the country's constitution. Leaders have also agreed to end the permanent presence on the island of Atlasian military personnel and equipment.

The People's Republic of China has agreed to sign a 50 year binding pact to respect and recognize Taiwanese autonomy and will develop trade and defense relations on the island.

That's all for now. Stay tuned for this upcoming week as updates are announced for this weekend's election and referendums.

Should a thread be made for discussions I will be happy to explain my reasoning in detail, but for the purposes of context, I believe this to be an unrealistic solution to a complex foreign policy dilemma, which, to the best of my understanding, also lacked player involvement despite its potential consequences.

As the GM has requested a Senate vote on the revocation of Crane's previous Taiwan update, a thread is now open for him to make his case in more detail. As a reminder, per the RETCON Act, after debate we will be moving to a vote on the revocation with an eight-ninths margin among the full Senate being required for revocation.

Lumine has the floor.

[Lumine]

I thank the Senator - and President-Elect - for quickly bringing this to the floor.

Since the RETCON Act was passed, I gave serious consideration as to whether there were storylines that merited retconning. Ultimately, my previous position that most of Crane's questionable material could be worked with appeared to be validated after that analysis, but one specific story remained just too outlandish and/or unrealistic for my taste.

Ultimately, and whatever one's opinions about Taiwan/ROC and the People's Republic of China are, the deal arranged by GM Crane - apparently without administration input, I hope someone can correct or confirm this - is unrealistic in so far as it vastly benefits the PRC (in a context in which Taiwan, while under heavy pressure, is not on the verge of collapse), forces Taiwan to adopt a policy which has been consistently toxic for Taiwanese politicians and the public, and does so ignoring the sheer difficulty involved in amending the ROC Constitution, a process which requires an extremely high quorum.

Whilst normally this might be sidestepped by having the deal subsequently collapse, I feel having Taiwan agree to these conditions in principle makes the scenario too unrealistic and very difficult to manage. Lest we forget, this is a scenario in which players have been envisioned from the start as having input and influence on it, rather than one of those which is more at the discretion of the GM. And while this is not a scenario of my making - inherited by Peanut - I am determined that, if it is to end, it must end with a realistic outcome, whatever that may eventually be.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

I fully support this. As I said in the debates this agreement was an unrealistic tankie wank fantasy.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I support this as well.

[FT-02 Senator A.F.E. 🇵🇸🤝🇺🇸🤝🇺🇦]

I support the revocation of this as well

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

As a sitting member of the NSC, I can confirm that neither then-Secretary wxtransit nor any other member indicated firsthand knowledge of Crane's plans, and in fact we were quite frustrated that this was dropped on us suddenly by a GM who clearly had no intention of working with us or anything short of, well, derailing the game. The lack of confidence in Crane and the events that followed all of April's shenanigans more or less led to the team discontinuing its work until we could have a clearer, more realistic picture of the situation abroad. I endorse passage of this resolution.

[Joseph Cao]

Corraborating what Scott mentioned about the NSC’s collective opinion of this update and our current status.

While this is uncontroversial so far it seems, I must stress in the strongest possible terms the importance of every single one of you showing up to vote – since we are one man short the actual margin needed for passage is 16/17.

[Joseph Cao]

Going to go ahead and motion for a final vote here.

24 hours to object.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

would it be better to wait until the new congress is sworn in so we have a better margin of error in case a senator doesn't show up? I'd really hate for this to fail because one senator forgets to post.

[Sestak]

I would wait.

[Joseph Cao]

In either case the threshold is the same though, sixteen Senators.

Not that I'm not slightly worried with some Senators' activity levels currently but at least I have a handle at this point on how often each of you can make it; the incoming class also has a couple folks who could plausibly miss the vote and I don't have that same ability to gauge activity with them.

[Senator-elect Spark]

Reopening the vote now that the new Congress has been sworn. 24 hours to object here.

[Senator-elect Spark]

Voting has opened, it will last for 96 hours.

[rpryor03]

Aye

[WD]

Aye

[West_Midlander]

Aye

[Senator-elect Spark]

Aye

[Mr. Reactionary]

Aye

[FT-02 Senator A.F.E. 🇵🇸🤝🇺🇸🤝🇺🇦]

Aye

[GregTheGreat657]

Aye

[Devout Centrist]

Aye

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

Aye

[Senator-elect Spark]

Under the Senate rules, this has a majority to pass. However, as pointed out by Ishan, recent legislation requires 8/9ths vote to revoke actions by the GM.

[Continential]

This has a majority to pass, Senators have 24 hours to vote or change their votes.

You need 16 votes to revoke GM proclamations, not 9.

[Senator-elect Spark]

This has a majority to pass, Senators have 24 hours to vote or change their votes.

You need 16 votes to revoke GM proclamations, not 9.

Where in the rules does it say this?