The ninth annual
Atlasian of the Year is awarded to the individual (or individuals) who, for better or worse, made the greatest impact on Atlasia in 2023. Nominees are submitted by the editor for your consideration: nominations from the gallery will also be accepted (just make sure to post your vote in this thread if you wish to vote for someone not included in the poll, as I cannot edit it). You may vote for as many or as few nominees as you would like: discussion is welcome and encouraged!
Past recipients may be found here:
https://talkelections.org/AFEWIKI/index.php?title=Atlasian_of_the_YearVoting will last for a full week, ending on December 27.
Adam Griffin again tops the alphabet. First in stature among the game’s remaining players, his good old-fashioned manoeuvring behind the scenes in the lead up to the secession crisis speaks to his ability to make the game’s weather when it counts. For himself in office (as erstwhile temporary Governor and Senator), and for his party, the outlook is less clear.
Christian Man retains many of the characteristics of a newbie: stubbornly fighting for what he believes in, breaking party ranks, often stymied by basic Senate procedure. But don’t be fooled. The departing Senator for the Northeast is the premier swing vote in the chamber and – as his recent gubernatorial campaign shows – personally ambitious. Keep an eye on him.
DKrol returned from a prolonged absence to fix the Peace Party firmly on its left wing. Much of his Senate tenure and leading role in its debates reflected this, despite never formally holding a position in the party. He finds no shortage of willing replacements for propounding his muscular leftism.
Forumlurker, the most visible GM thanks to his public statements and often-colorful signatures, has had a year of ups and downs that mirrors the GM team’s. Though the team has drawn flack from all sides of the game at various points, he has been vocal and insistent in his defenses of their game moderation philosophy.
fhtagn, though making time for her nuptials with Muad’dib late this year, has likewise been at the forefront of her party’s agenda. She has retained the unapologetically blunt persona of previous years, particularly in service of her longtime pro-life and pro-animal rights agenda in the Senate – amplified to new levels and still capable of drawing a crossover vote or two, in spite of everything.
Ishan took up the First Minister’s office at a critical juncture for regional activity, which happened to precede Frémont’s second crisis in as many years. By his own admission he did better than its then-leadership did, simply by doing nothing much; having returned to private life, he does not currently play a role in the ongoing effort to reinvigorate the region. Time, as always, will tell how that works out.
Joseph Cao, that’s me, was certainly president for the first two months of this year… but if any of you are aware of other stuff I did since then to warrant inclusion in this lineup I’d be happy to hear it.
Lakigigar reinvented himself again as the left’s defining player. From his dramatic resignation as vice president-elect, to his wobbly prosecutorial role against the South, to his often-quixotic foreign policy and spats with virtually everyone else in the game – on the left or not – the ex-Peace chair has drawn support, concern, and scorn in equal measure over the course of this year.
Louisville Thunder, who has landed himself in the thick of Atlasia’s action for several years running, took it to new heights this year. In the very public spat with his successor as Southern Governor and other members of Conservacord he has come off markedly worse if one goes by seat count, but he’s nonetheless taken sustained beatings from them for the whole year and survived. Has he been taking notes from Houdini? Only 2024 will tell.
Lumine left a distinguished retirement, again, to come back to 1 Observatory Circle, again. Though he has since returned to private life and his journalistic endeavors, he managed – with the help of longtime colleague Spiral – to restore the functionality of the VP’s office in his four months’ tenure after its previous brouhaha in February and March.
North Carolina Yankee earlier this year vowed that he would not be forced out of the game by anyone else. Having struggled with personal circumstances in the months prior, his action in court to stop the secession effort in its tracks was a high point of his recent career as well as for the game and for his party, and his recent prolonged absence stings all the more for it. It is thanks enough that he remains alive and active off the forum in spite of it all.
Oleg was thrust into prominence in the secession crisis and took it in stride as well as a new player could. In spite of that newbie status he became perhaps the Democratic Alliance’s most prominent elected officeholder of the year, having made the most of his position to safeguard his region.
Poirot continues to be as sure in his instincts as ever; the longtime conscience of Atlasian society remains on the winning side of such contentious topics as Greenland and the capital move, and though he didn’t get elected to any office he did come close in arguably the single most high-profile Senate race of the year, the results of which were voided and subjected to a recount that gave the seat to Old School Republican.
Pyro is the most prominent man now standing in a Labor Party still adjusting to its satellite status, over “in its current form” to quote a former party chair, down but not out. That last has much to do with his consistent anchoring of the party’s voice in the Senate and its legislative output, which has recovered somewhat from the 2022 doldrums.
Mr. Reactionary spent the first four months of the year with Peace, continuing a legislative speedrun rivaling that of his earlier 2018 tenure as PPT. He ends it in the SNP, on the wrong side of a Senate expulsion vote, seemingly too disenchanted with the game to post anything of his own volition. The highs and the lows…
reagente has taken up that slack as the SNP’s publicly recognized ideas man. The negotiating party for his party’s bloc in the Senate has been behind much of its actual strategy and retained a finger in the legislative pie, most obviously in the Senate’s judicial reform saga.
Scott, out of office and now in again, was liberated in Peace to do what he wanted – part of which involved spooking YT beyond reason and his own temporary departure from the game. Yet the old warhorse (Peacehorse?) has returned to his beloved home region to clean up its act, and has no intentions of budging beyond its borders.
Sestak has had a busy year, unusual as this may seem for a member of the Supreme Court: from elections cases to the YT grand jury, he is undoubtedly the most visible member of the Court in a way that wasn’t true in previous years. With the retirement of the very visible Windjammer and the ascension of a Chief Justice who professes to be closer to Sestak’s philosophy concerning the running of the Court, the Associate Justice for Lincoln may retain that distinction in future years to come.
Sirius experienced the entire year’s goings-on at extremely close range. Being literally at the frontlines in the case of her actions as Secretary of Internal Affairs, as well as in her PPT service and subsequent election as Governor of Lincoln, the woman who pulled off a write-in bid to win reelection this month can expect her front-row seat to remain on offer in the coming year should she choose to keep it.
Spiral has smoothly progressed from a maverick left-wing voice in the Senate to a maverick two-term President calling for national unity; in spite of this his electoral victories have been marked by disunity among his prospective rivals more than anything else. The President has nonetheless been keen to work with Senators and sign bills from all across the political spectrum, and vocal about protecting elements of the game that he remembers from his prior years as a player, notable departures from the tenure of his predecessor.
That would be
Tack, who returned the Labor Party to power in February and then proceeded to do nothing much with it – partly by personal circumstance, partly by consequence of actions inside and outside the left which he has always remained separate from. That was the draw of his candidacy, no doubt, but it also hamstrung the four months of his administration and its reactions to crucial developments through no real fault of his own.
Weatherboy continues to helm the GM Team through stormy seas, and hold down the fort in Lincoln through dreadful levels of turnover in the General Court. Though the DA Chair has been a regular presence in the Senate gallery, he will be heading down to the chamber itself come the new year after a largely muted twelve months for the party’s caucus.
Wulfric has been welcomed into the left hierarchy under Peace in a way he wasn’t during the Labor era; the PPT of six months faces little remaining opposition to his rule in the Senate and his job has only become easier over time with the expanding left majority.
Young Texan did it in 2019, and 2021, and again this year he sucked up most of the oxygen in the game with dramatic misadventures in Greenland and the South. Though – it would seem – permanently departed from these shores, account and all, he leaves a footprint large enough to encompass the Discordified right which has fallen in lockstep behind his SNP and has no intention of budging.
Poll
