This month, I had planned to cover the new cabinet, the first Clark, the election tally and a few other subjects I will keep silent for now since they may be covered in the August issue.

I even had a schedule set on which articles to write Saturday morning and which articles to write Sunday morning.

So what happened?

Last week my company got a new hosting contract for a dedicated server and the server was activated Friday morning, with the client requested for the migration to occur over the week-end.

I had planned to still write during the migration as it is usually mostly a hands-off almost automated operation but that’s only in an ideal scenario and this week-end was far, very far from ideal!

I ended up working intensely over 5 hours Saturday morning without a minute of pause, and another 6 hours Sunday morning and then, 2 hours Monday morning before my regular work began.

Not only was I unable to write the articles I wanted to write, but I didn’t get to relax much over my week-end so when I was hit with major problems at work Monday and Tuesday while trying to deliver a nightmarish project for another client, my remaining energy levels were drained and on the 15th, instead of delivering Preßeu Zespenat before work, I slept in and even began work later than usual…

And so, here are the pre-written articles for Preßeu Zespenat. I was anticipating to finally cover the first Clark, but that ship has sailed. Let’s just hope that the August 2015 issue will be easier to write.

Let’s imagine that the Chancery needs new office space so that Cosa Members and Senators have a nice set of rooms in a suite perfectly adapted to their needs. Imagine that for every bill being discussed, there is a cozy room full of refreshments to get to the bottom of things.

Next door is the province hall corridor. Every province has it’s own room so that members of their province, as well as visitor, can come in with flyers on tourist attractions in the province and framed on the wall, there is both a population rooster for the province and a plaque (not a laminate, a full bronze plaque) with the province constitution.

Near the entrance, we have the Ministry of Immigration, where new prospective citizens can sit until they become citizens. Every citizens is encourages to come join them for coffee (or tea) over muffins to get to know them.

The biggest room is rented by the King and paid for from his own pocket. It is the lounge. A place where every citizen and prospective is welcomed to talk, exchange ideas, and there are even desks to work on personal or cooperative projects.

Of course, at the other end is the cafeteria, where people go on break and that room is offered and kept up to date by the landlord.

All of this is possible thanks to the Chancery. The Chancery hired the landlord thanks to a bill authorizing the Chancery to find the perfect building to do business and instead of just proposing to buy such a building, he got another citizen to build the perfect building not just for the Chancery, but for all of the needs of the Kingdom, but instead of managing centrally, that citizen decided to rent the various office spaces to the various organizations.

Let’s stop imagining for a moment.

The Telecomuna bill (47RZ22) asks the Chancery to propose a plan for a new board to replace Wittenberg for official operations.

From various comments, here are the criteras that I feel I have to follow for the creation of Telecomuna, either from other people’s comments of from my own bucket list of ideas:

• Telecomuna needs to be entirely under our control, not a public forum hosted by someone else, it has to be something we can control
• Telecomuna needs to have a single-sign-on with Wittenberg, and yet, be somehow separate from it
• The ownership of Wittenberg (currently, it belongs to the King), must be respected
• Ideally, an integration with a nationalized database is acceptable
• Data from the existing official boards should be migrated

As such, here is the plan the Chancery has in mind:

1. Nationalize the Database at talossa.ca so that it be handled by an Office of Dynamic Data Records [ODDR] (or something similarly named)
2. Have the ODDR setup a new multi-tennant forum system which allows integration with the database system (such as single-sign-on in both systems, or automatic Clark publication on Telecomuna, summary of last posts on the citizen pages, etc…)
3. Pay the $60 membership fee to export the current Wittenberg posts into the new forum system, for all of the boards
4. Have the ODDR Manage the new Wittenberg along side Telecomuna, as a landlord with tennants in charge of their own sections: Telecomuna managed by the Chancery, Wittenberg by the King, the University boards by the University of Talossa, the province boards by the provincial governments, the Immigration board by the Immigration Ministry, etc…
5. Bring back the Talossa Activity Index as a measure of Wittenberg activity, possibly this time split by Board

We would be free from ProBoard in such a scenario, and since the ODDR would be an office of the Kingdom, the data would unequivocally belong to the Kingdom, so that should an issue arise again like in June 2004, the data would remain with the Kingdom. It also means other officials could have backups of data in case of problems.

I feel that such a solution is elegant, satisfies all of the needs for Telecomuna, allows for survival should the Secretary of State change while preserving the current ownership of every forum and ensuring long term survival of such a solutions.

It does require nationalization of the database for full effect, but a bill will be in the hopper regarding this by the time this article is published.

We recently completed the 3rd electoral review from the electoral commission and between you and I, sitting on that commission is probably just as stimulating as watching paint dry.

There is a limited amount of time that a sane human being can spend reviewing such hard data with full attention on.

Ideally, the electoral commission would work in the shadows, slowly, taking it’s time to ensure that democracy was fully preserved from the only person able to corrupt the process (and who, ironically, it’s the only person fixed to be on it, go figure the logic of that!).

Well, after 3 rounds, I can say that I do see the logic, because for every election, there was on average (if not exactly) 3 ballots with errors, usually 1 transcription error, 1 legal error and 1 validation error.

Let me explain, so it can be clear what I am talking about,

A transcription error occurs when the Secretary of State makes an error entering a vote, such as putting Per on a referendum instead of Abstain.

A legal error occurs when the Secretary of State accepts a vote blindly which wasn’t 100% clear, such a counting a “whatever” referendum vote as an Abstain or a accepting a “PRESENT” vote from a 13 year old voter.

Finally, a validation error occurs when the automatic data required for the validation was corrupted, like an email record of a vote which was truncated after only 10 of the 12 referendum votes.

It is very important to catch all of these errors, and within 48 hours of the closing of all 3 elections, the Electoral commission had successfully tagged them and found the various ways to fix them.

In all cases, none of these errors affected in any way the results of the election.

So, what is the problem? The problem is that the electoral commission has a very narrow window to work and all legislative work is halted until the commission is unanimous in declaring the results final and it is that final approval which this year, took almost 2 weeks as one of the members started late while another was partially unavailable.

The solution

To me, the solution is quite simple. We create an ex post facto electoral commission, as follows:

• Once the election is completed, the Secretary of State is required to personally validate all of the votes to make sure he didn’t make any errors, giving him the leeway to correct any mistakes. He can start during the election of course.
• Once his validation is completed, he alone certifies the results of the election like it was the case prior to the secret ballot.
• The King is then able to nominate a prime-minister, who can in turn name his cabinet, who can, in turn, start working on their priorities
• The parties can start assigning Cosa seats, which allows new Cosa Members to post bills in the Hopper well in advance of the deadline
• The Kingdom is thus able to work, like it always did after an election
• Meanwhile, the Electoral commission is composed. The Secretary of State already did his validation, so in theory, the work of the Electoral commission should be simpler since the Secretary of State always did a first pass
• If an error is found, the Electoral commission may, upon a unanimous decision, retroactively adjust the results of the election. This may change the number of seats in the Cosa or a Senate election, but at least, the show could go on.

This isn’t unprecedented. In the USA, elections occur in November but take effect in January so there is plenty of time to review the elections. In Canada however, new MPs, city councilors or mayors are in place the morning after the election and if a judicial review changes the results, we just deal with it and change who was elected.

I feel like such a change would keep our ballots fully secured while removing the pressure on the electoral commission to act as fast a possible, enabling us to do what we are supposed to do: fully debate and review each individual vote to ensure the democratic process was fully respected.

The index was wonderful to pin-point the differences in activity between the various days or weeks and more importantly, showed the relative quality of threads.

I remembers days (or rather nights) where Ron Rosalez or Andreas Lorentz would roam the empty halls of Wittenberg and post threads after thread with their random musings which would too often be forgotten the next day but would sync the WIx for several days.

And so, I wondered, is there a way to show why the TAI or WIx fluctuated? Is there a way to see who contributed the most?

Of course, being a man, the true question was obvious: it there a way to create an index to show who the strongest poster was and if it’s the case, is it me?

Don’t get me wrong, I did a lot of effort to create a neutral objective index and if I was so often ranked #1 was only because of my level of implication in the Kingdom (imagine the boosts to my number from my various SoS posts!) and my boredom at work…

Raw Factors

So, what are the factors?

Raw Values:
P: Posts by the user
R: Replies to posts by the user
T: New threads by the user
TF: Thread force: Number of replies to threads started by the user

Please note that Wittenberg back then allowed replied to specific posts and didn’t have a single thread view like today’s Wittenberg. The R factor would be much harder to calculated, if not impossible…

Perhaps Quotes and Likes could be counted, or many all posts in a thread with a higher number than the poster.  The problem is that in my calculations, the R value is truly pivotal, as we will be able to see further below, but it would be really hard to calculate a valid R using the current way forums are built.

Intermediary values

There are 3 intermediary values, two of which rely on R:

GA: Generated Activity: P + R
DGL: Distributed Generated Load: R / (GA+1) - between 0 and 1
TCF: Thread Creation Factor: TF/T+1

The Generated Activity simply counts the number of posts made by the user or as reaction to the user.  In short, it is the volume of talk generated by the fact that the user posted.

The DGL however, my favorite intermediary values of both the TAI and the PTAI, is a ratio calculating in short the percentage of that activity which is from other users, on the basis that multiple replies to your posts show a strong correlation with interest (even if your post simply caused an outrage) whereas multiple posts without replies show a lack of interest by the others.

The TCF on the other hand, calculated how strong your threads were. If you were lucky and one of your threads exploded, the TCF would be really high. If you posts at night a few random threads of no interest, it dropped down.

Interestingly, you could trick the system by replying to your own threads, which would raise your TCF, but lower your DGL…

Please note that both divisors have 1 added both to avoid dividing by zero and because I saw often that many indexes are calculated by adding 1 to the divisor (perhaps to avoid a division by zero).

The PAI

Interestingly, the main index of the PTAI calculations isn’t called the PTAI but rather just the PAI, the Personal Activity Index. The reason is simple and very logical, but to be honest, I forgot it. No, don’t insist…

So, the PAI calculations:

PAI: Personal Activity Index: (GA * DGL) + (TCF*DGL)

In short, the PAI was the sum of both the Generated Activity and the Thread Creation Factor, each weighted according to the Distributed Generated Load.

Retroactivity

The PTAI calculations, unlike the TAI calculated, surprised me in that they were constantly shifting retroactively as new posts were made in older threads.

This meant that a thread posted 3 days ago and which still generated activity today would still contribute to the TCF factor from 3 days ago.

As a result, the whole PTAI table shifted, moved, and no number was definitive as people often posted replies to really old threads.

At first, I tried to find solutions, but it dawned on me. It wasn’t a bug or a problem. It’s what made the PTAI beautiful. It’s chaotic nature, it’s never ending pulsations, it’s non-finality.

As new replies piled on, old indexes vibrated and soared, old mistakes could come back alive and bring success, but at the same time, those old successes contributed to the indexes of the past, not of the present. What have you done today is what counts for today, but all of the future comments on today’s work will retroactively count for today.

Almost poetic, at least, if you love Math.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has a few particular characteristics that distinguish it from other free-trade agreements such as NAFTA (The North American Free Trade Agreement, between the USA, Mexico and Canada.

The biggest difference is the TPP was negotiate in pure secret without public knowledge of the content of the negotiations and and often, not even of the fact there were even negotiations under way.

It’s only via Wikileaks that the public began to be aware of the content of the TPP, such as intellectual property negotiations enforcing severe penalties for breach of patents or copyright, ability for companies to sue governments should legislation hindering their future profits be enacted and even limiting how countries and state could spend their tax dollars.

Advocates against the TPP correctly predicted a rising cost of medication, rise in income inequality and reduction in environmental laws, still, most of the countries negotiating the TPP signed it and it came into effect in 2021 in most of the countries of the agreement, with the Philippines and Taiwan joining in 2023.

Australia suffered massively from the TPP from day 1 as its production and economic base dropped in favor of it’s new partners and New Zealand soon began to feel the same effects. Still, and South Korea and India in late 2024.

The effects of the TPP weren’t apparent in the USA at first as companies in each respective countries were gearing up for increased international trade. At first, several US companies scaled down on local production to build factories in other countries of the TPP, notably in Mexico and the Philippines, using the TPP as leverage to get around local labor laws and town zoning rules.

The first blow in the USA came in late 2024 when Tata, the biggest Indian car maker, sued the USA to allow their cheaper less safe versions of their cars to be sold in the USA on the basis that safety and emission regulations on cars were an hindrance on their profit margin.

Tata claimed that without those safety regulations, they would be able to see a car on the US market for as little at 4000$ and that if someone really needed a car for just small trips, they should be able to buy it with full knowledge that it wasn’t as safe as other cars. In short, it was up to the customer to choose.

An internal arbiter ruled in Tata’s favor and soon enough, Tata dealerships exploded around the USA and even Canada, since is was discovered that the arbiter ruling made a precedent eliminating any chances for Canada to avoid the same fate.

Tata cars became wildly popular for their low cost and other companies, including not only the big three but also South Korean and Japanese companies had to reduce the cost of their own cars to compete.

Toyota sued to eliminate unions in it’s factories even in their own country, their employees were unionized. Tata had sued to have the same regulations in the USA as they had in India, but Toyota, desperate to even the playing field, sued to even more conservative laws in the USA than in their own country.

Their victory hit the industry like the first domino in a proverbial cascade. General Motors managed to get rid of its costly pension plan and Ford eliminated all minimum employee requirements in skeletal remains of their collective bargaining agreement to robotize almost all of their operations. When they launched their factory for the Ford Minima, their cheap model made to compete with Tata, only 6 employees worked in the whole factory, including 2 security agents and an accountant.

The biggest blow to the USA occurred in 2025, when a Brunei crown corporation created just for that very purpose successfully sued the USA to eliminate it’s minimum wage laws and Canadian provinces to drop their ban on unpaid internship.

The USA and Canada, unable to spend money to alleviate the effects of the judgement, both saw a massive reduction in both income tax and sales tax revenues as the middle and lower class were reduced to utmost poverty. Deficit rose and both countries were nearing bankruptcy as critical as New Zealand had the previous year and Australia in 2023.

In 2027, Québec and British Columbia both seceded from Canada as a way to eliminate their participation into the TPP. In 2028, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick jointly planned to have their own referendum on the same day but a last minute supreme court decision made at the request of Ontario voided Canada’s participation into the TPP on the basis it violated the Canadian constitution. The three provinces cancelled their referendum and British Columbia rejoined Canada, but Québec simply signed a free trade agreement with its former country, happy to be sovereign at last.

Massive economic measures were made by the signatory members of the TPP and Canada fell in a recession, but managed to resume its trade with Europe which had dropped during it’s TPP years.

A similar court case the USA failed to reach a positive verdict since the clause in the Canadian constitution that was detrimental to the judgement was missing from the US constitution.

In 2029, Vermont joined Canada and Texas seceded from the USA to form an independent Republic. In 2030, New Mexico joined the Republic of Texas (renamed the Republic of America) as a second and equal state, with Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma joining it in 2030 and Mississippi and Arizona.

In 2031, multiple states seceded from the union and either remained independent, such as California or formed local unions such as the Washington-Oregon compact or the New England treaty confederation.

Most surprising was the secession of a few cities who became independent Republics like the old days of city states, including Kansas City and Minneapolis-St-Paul (in both cases having their halves reunited at once), New York city and Chicago, while some counties still in the USA either seceded from the USA or joined a neighboring association like the Florida panhandle joining the Republic of America.

Many of these newly independent state barely did better than in the TPP crippled USA, but a few became beacons of hope, like Kansas City who managed to be a haven in the middle of poverty.

Which brings us to a special case. The city of Talossa was a former Alderman district of Milwaukee who had seceded to be allowed to help the local university and its students, using the name of a micronation founded in 1979 by a Milwaukee teenager.

During the TPP problems, many US and even Canadian cyber-cits (citizens of the micronation from abroad) of Talossa moved to the city of Talossa to benefit from the low cost homes reserved by major Swanson for that very purpose, creating a sort of micro-economy similar to a diaspora financed revival of third-word countries. Even a cyber-cit from as far New Zealand, Miestra Schiva, ended up moving to the city after the collapse of her native country.

The wave of secession in the USA and the departure of many non Talossan residents of the city of Talossa energized the local population and in 2031, the City of Talossa became the Republic of Talossa, an actual independent and free country immediately recognized by the other secessionist states such as the Republic of America.

It’s also in 2031 that the Secretary of State of the Kingdom of Talossa, Marti-Pair Furxheir, moved with his family to the Republic and began organizing the legislature of the new country while building the Internet framework for the newly independent country, including it’s phone system and it’s .rt domain names which stand both for Regipats Talossan (Kingdom of Talossa) and Republic of Talossa, but which he successfully marketed as meaning Real Time which turned it into an international success.

In 2032, many other now mostly empty Alderman districts of Milwaukee joined the Republic of Talossa adding industrial capacity to the Republic and gave even more welcoming capacity to the new country.

When the North West Passage failed to materialize as a viable alternative to the St-Lawrence river waterway, the Republic of Talossa’s port on the Michigan lake became a major way point for merchandise in transit in direction of the various newly independent regions of the former USA, massively surpassing the port of Detroit: after all, the port of the former city of Milwaukee was already bigger than the port of Chicago and new improvements made it massively attractive, bringing major revenues and sustaining the economy of the newly independent Republic.

Here is the last draft of the ESTO charter, as it is going to be published in my book, the “Resident Miracle Worker and his downfall”.

1. Preamble

To be determined

2. Purposes and Values

2.1 Purposes

The purposes of the Ephemeral State treaty organization are:

2.1.1 To maintain intermicronational peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace

2.1.2 To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen peace in the micronational community

2.1.3 To exchange ideas, knowledge, technologies, human and financial resources in order to help increase the quality of each of the member states

2.1.4 To achieve co-operation in solving intermicronational problems of an economic, social, cultural, technological or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion

2.1.5 To raise the awareness of the world about the micronational community

2.1.6 To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of micronations in the attainment of these common ends.

2.2 Values

The organization and its members shall act in accordance with the following values:

2.1.1 Peace : All Members shall settle their intermicronational disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that intermicronational peace and security, and justice, are not endangered

2.2.2 Respect: All members shall respect the sovereignty of other member states, of the privacy of its citizens and of the particularities of each member.

2.2.3 Growth: All Members shall help the improvement of other member states when they request help and when such help may be given.

2.2.4 Cooperation: All Members shall give ESTO every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the present Charter, and shall refrain from giving assistance to any state against which ESTO is taking preventive or enforcement action.

3 Membership

3.1 Member States

3.1.1 Membership in ESTO is open to all micronations devoted to peace which satisfy the following requirements:

3.1.1.1 Size: Every member state must have and maintain at least 7 voting and active citizens, counting only those whose identity has been verified to the satisfaction of the general assembly.

3.1.1.2 Age: To be admitted as a member of ESTO, a micronation must have been in existence for at least 2 years, including at least 1 year since its oldest constitution.

3.1.1.3 Nature: Every member state must be peaceful in nature and accept and carry out the obligations contained in the present Charter

3.1.1.4 Presence: Every member state must have a permanent presence of the Internet. This means a clear and informative web site which states the nation’s policies and history. A forum doesn’t qualify as a permanent presence.

3.1.2 The admission of any such state to membership in ESTO will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Executive Council.

3.2 Associate Member States

3.2.1 Micronations may request to join ESTO as an associate member if they do not fulfil either the Age or the Size requirement of full member states, provided they fulfil all of the other requirements for membership.

3.2.2 Full member states losing citizens and having less than 7 voting and active citizens do not lose their full member status.

3.2.3 Associate member states have the same rights and obligations as full member state with the following exceptions:

3.2.3.1 They do not have a vote in the general assembly

3.2.3.2 They cannot be a member of the executive council

3.2.3.3 The Secretary general may not be from an associate member state, unless he or she is also citizen of a full member state

3.2.4 The procedure for Joining ESTO is the same for associate members and full member, but one or both of the restrictions (Age and Size) are explicitly specified in the membership proposal for associate members.

3.2.5 The age restriction of an associate member is automatically lifted when the state is 2 years old and at least a year elapsed since the adoption of its oldest constitution.

3.2.6 The size restriction is lifted when the executive council confirms that there are at least 7 voting and active citizens in the associated member state.

3.2.7 Once both restrictions have been lifted from an associate member state, it automatically becomes a full member.

3.2.8 Membership of associate member states must be reviewed every year by the general assembly until they become full members.

3.3 Suspension

3.3.1 A Member of ESTO against which preventive or enforcement action has been taken by the Executive Council may be suspended by the general assembly from the exercise of the rights and privileges of membership in ESTO upon the recommendation of the Executive Council.

3.3.2 The exercise of these rights and privileges may be restored by the Executive Council or the General Assembly.

3.4 Expulsion

A Member of ESTO may be expelled from ESTO by the General Assembly for violation of the principles contained in the present charter.

3.5 Inactivity

A Full Member of ESTO may be summarily expelled from ESTO by the Secretary-general if they do not vote in any general assembly for a period of one year, not taking into accounts periods during which the member was suspended from voting rights.

4 Organs

4.1 Principal organs

There are established as the principal organs of ESTO:

4.1.1 A General Assembly

4.1.2 An executive council

4.1.3 A Secretariat

4.2 Creating new organs

New subsidiary organs as may be found necessary may be established in accordance with the present Charter, by a vote of the general assembly.

5 The General Assembly

5.1 Role

5.1.1 The General Assembly may discuss any questions or any matters within the scope of the present Charter or relating to the powers and functions of any organs provided for in the present Charter, and, except as provided in Article 5.3, may make recommendations to the Members of ESTO or to the Executive Council or to both on any such questions or matters.

5.1.2 The General Assembly may call the attention of the Executive Council to situations which are likely to endanger intermicronational relations or the rights of the citizens of a member state.

5.2 Composition

5.2.1 The General Assembly shall consist of all the members and associate members of ESTO.

5.2.2 Each member state shall not send more than 3 representatives in the general assembly.

5.2.3 Each representative may only officially represent a single micronation, but may be citizen of several member state.

5.3 Restriction

5.3.1 While the Executive council is exercising in respect to any situation the functions assigned by the present charter, the General Assembly shall not make any recommendation with regard to that situation unless the Executive Council so requests.

5.3.2 The Secretary-General, with the consent of the Executive Council, shall notify the General Assembly at each session of any matters which are being dealt with by the Executive Council and shall similarly notify the General Assembly, or the Members of ESTO if the General Assembly is not in session, immediately the Executive Council ceases to deal with a situation.

5.4 Executive council reports

5.4.1 The General Assembly shall receive and consider trimesters and special reports from the Executive Council;

5.4.2 These reports shall include an account of the measures that the Executive Council has decided upon or taken as part of their operation.

5.5 Voting

5.5.1 Each full member state shall have one vote.

5.5.2 When members of the general assembly fail to vote on a motion of the assembly, they are counted as having abstained.

5.5.3 Decisions of the General Assembly on important questions shall be made with a two-third absolute majority of the general assembly including the concurring or abstaining votes of the permanent members of the Executive council. These questions shall include:

5.5.3.1 Admission of a new full or associate member in ESTO

5.5.3.2 Suspension of the rights and privilege of membership

5.5.3.3 Expulsion of members

5.5.3.4 Creation of a new permanent member of the executive council

5.5.3.5 Amendments to the present charter

5.5.3.6 Budgetary questions

5.5.4 Decisions on other questions reserved for the general assembly; including the determination of additional categories of questions to be decided by a two-thirds majority, restoration of a suspended member state and annual renewal of an associate member state; shall be made by an absolute majority of the general assembly, including the concurring or abstaining votes of the permanent members of the Executive council.

5.5.5. The concurring or abstaining votes of the permanent members of the Executive council are not required for any type of election.

5.5.6 For the purpose of counting the required number of vote to reach an absolute majority or a two-third absolute majority, member states who have not voted in the past 6 months shall not be counted.

5.6 Sessions

5.6.1 The General Assembly shall meet in regular trimester sessions or in special sessions as occasion may require.

5.6.2 Special sessions shall be convoked by the Secretary-General at the request of the Executive Council or of a majority of the Members of ESTO.

5.7 Procedures

The General Assembly shall adopt its own rules of procedure, including the method of selecting its President.

6 The Executive Council

6.1 Role

6.1.1 The Executive council makes all of the decisions about ESTO between sessions of the general assembly, with the exception of decisions reserved for the general assembly.

6.1.2 Any actions taken by ESTO itself not otherwise reserved for the general assembly shall only emanate from the executive council.

6.2 Composition

6.2.1 The Executive Council shall be consisting of minimum of 3 and up to 11 members of ESTO.

6.2.2 It shall be composed of approximately a third of the number of full member states of ESTO, within the bounds of the previous article.

6.2.3 The Republic of Talossa, as founder of ESTO, shall be a permanent member of the Executive Council.

6.2.4 The non-permanent members of the Executive Council must always outnumber the number of permanent members of the Executive Council.

6.2.5 The term of non-permanent members of the Executive Council shall be fixed to 1 year, with approximately half of the non-permanent members elected via a single transferable vote ballot every 6 months in a general assembly.

6.2.6 A non-permanent member of the executive council may not serve more than 2 consecutive terms on the council, but can be a candidate again on the following election.

6.2.7 Each member of the Executive council shall have one representative, which may be replaced at any time by the member state. Each representative in the Executive council may only be citizen of a single member state.

6.3 Scope

The executive council decisions are binding for all member states.

6.4 Chairperson

6.4.1 After each non-permanent member of the executive council election, the executive council shall elect amongst its members a chairperson to organize the agenda of the council.

6.4.2 The Chairperson is only responsible for keeping the order in the executive council and to speak to the general assembly in the name of the whole executive council when a decision has been made.

6.4.3 The chairperson of the executive council has no official capacity outside of the general assembly or the executive council.

6.5 Voting

6.5.1 Each member of the executive council shall have one vote

6.5.2 Decisions of the Executive Council on procedural matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of two-third of the members.

6.5.3 Decisions of the Executive Council on all other matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of two-third of the members, including the concurring or abstaining votes of the permanent members;

7 The Secretariat

7.1 Role

7.1.1 The General Secretary of ESTO is in charge of the administration of ESTO itself. He or she is also the spokesperson of the General Assembly, of the Executive council or of ESTO.

7.1.2 He or she is personally responsible for the maintenance of the various ESTO documents, such as its charter, the content of its websites, its reports or its publications, even if some of these functions are delegated to other officials or an outside firm by the general assembly.

7.1.3 He or she is personally in charge of all ESTO non-elected officials.

7.1.4 Any of the tasks of the General Secretary may be delegated to a non-elected official of ESTO, by the General Secretary or by the General Assembly.

7.2 Selection

7.2.1 The General Secretary of ESTO and all non-elected officials must be at all time citizen of at least one of the member states. The General Secretary of ESTO cannot represent a member state in the General Assembly or the Executive Council at any time in his or her mandate.

7.2.2 The General Secretary of ESTO and all non-elected officials may not be the head of state of any micronation

7.2.3 Notwithstanding any other rules of ESTO regarding discrimination based on age, the General Secretary of ESTO must be at least 18 years old

7.2.4 The General Secretary is elected for 1 year using a ranked ballot method by the general assembly. The General Secretary may not be elected from the same micronation twice in a row.

7.2.5 The initial General Secretary of ESTO will be selected by the Republic of Talossa until the first general assembly of ESTO will elect its first General Secretary.

8 Citizenship

8.1 Citizenship rights

8.1.1 Citizenship in a member states can only be revoked by the following methods:

8.1.1.1 By voluntary resignation

8.1.1.2 By a court of law

8.1.1.3 By violating a clear and universal mandatory activity law

8.1.2 Citizens of member states that are less than 14 years of age must have at least one of their parents as a citizen of the member state

8.1.3 Immigration laws of member state must require either an oversight of the legislature of the state or a referendum to officialise new citizens, as well a requiring a proof of identification

8.1.4 A bill or charter of rights shall protect the basic rights, freedoms and protections guaranteed to the citizens of member state.

“In the beginning was the Word. Then came the fucking word processor. Then came the thought processor. Then came the death of literature. And so it goes.”

Book Presentation

Hyperion is Hugo Award winning book by Dan Simmons published in 1989. It is a frame story book or other words, it is a collection of multiple independent stories told within a greater story.

In Hyperion, the Earth was lost due to the Big Mistake (creation of a black hole in Russia which tore apart the Earth) and humans colonized hundred of planets and split into multiple factions.

The biggest of them (The Hegemony) unified most of the worlds into the WorldWeb, a series of worlds connected via farcasters allowing instant travel between them so that one of the rivers for example, flows on all of the worlds of the Hegemony, with each segment being located between two farcaster portals.

The story speaks of the last seven pilgrims making a pilgrimage toward the Time Tombs (old artefacts not built by humanity)  as they are about to open on the non-connected backward world Hyperion, where they hope to meet the mystical killing machine called The Shrike, a tall being made of metal with 4 arms covered in blades and razor blades which normally is only made for killing. All while the enemies of the Hegemony, nicknamed the Ousters, are about to attack and possibly raze Hyperion.

When a prime number of pilgrims make it to the Time Tombs, the Shrike, according to legend, listens to their wish, grants one and kills the other pilgrims whose wish was denied.

On the way to the Time Tombs, the seven last pilgrim decide to tell their individual tales so that with the shared knowledge of why they are on the pilgrimage, they might have more information on how to survive the confrontation with the Shrike.

As a result, as the 7 pilgrims travel in the fascinating Hyperion wilderness, we hear the tale of one of the last catholic Priests who came to Hyperion some years before to save a colleague and reads from that colleague’s diary, we learn how one of the most decorated colonels came to fight along side the Shrike on Hyperion several years before that after a fight with the Ousters, we also learn of the last fate of the Earth and the early colonization of Hyperion by a poet.

We also learn about why the elderly Jewish scholar decided to bring his infant child on such a deadly mission and the tragic story of his daughter who suffers from the Merlin sickness and now ages in reverse, since she meant the Shrike in one of the time tombs. Sadly, after his story, the templar disappears so we fail to hear his story.

We also hear the tale of Brawne Lamia, the only female adult of the group, who is a private investigator with interesting information on the Technocore, the AI group which seceded from humanity. We end the stories with the former consul of Hyperion who tells the story of Siri, the woman who instigated a rebellion quite a few years ago on the world of Maui covenant, adding his own footnotes and recent activities.

The book ends with the group reaching the valley of the time tombs.

Critical Review

I had read Hyperion back in 1991 or 1992 and until now, this has been one of the books I had been the most divided upon. On one hand, the book is clearly a masterpiece of science-fiction: the themes are exciting and original and the universe it is set upon is one of the most diverse I have ever seen, despite the obvious lack of aliens (apart from the world of Hyperion).

Most sci-fi authors introduce a single or perhaps two new concepts in their books, but Dan Simmons goes for the total: Facasters, Thought processors, Treeships, fugue state, ousters, labyrinthine worlds, the Technocore, the hegemony, the Time Tombs, the Shrike, anti-entropic fields, Merlin disease, the Hawking Drive, the cruciform, time debts, the AllThings  and so many others the books might feel intimidating.

But it’s not. As explained above, the book is told in 6 stories made by the pilgrims each exploring only some of the facets of the universe so that you only take in part of the world at a time. The ending was seriously too abrupt and didn’t solve much, but not all of the books have a proper ending so I tried not to be judgmental.

And yet, I hated the extremely soft sci-fi in which most of the various aspects seemed eccentric only for the purpose of making the story interesting. As if the author wanted a great sci-fi book so he  crammed as many mysteries so that people would marvel at his creativity.

Granted, it didn’t feel like that, but once I was done, I was left with my appetite… and I was right to, for the Hyperion Cantos isn’t told in a single book, but rather in 4 distinct volumes and the remaining 3 apparently reveal the secrets to the mysteries of the first rather than just continuing on expanding them. If I had only known then that sequels were upcoming and that the direct sequel, Fall of Hyperion was already available. As it turns out, I am currently listening to that sequel so expect a review in August 2015’s edition of Preßeu Zespenat

My biggest remaining problem is that many of the stories told within the story are actually told by an absent narrator and as a result, they do not feel like a discussion among the pilgrim but rather like a collection of independent short stories stitched  together in a novel. For example, one of the pilgrims might reveal something pivotal to the story of another and yet, we do not see the reaction of that other character. Or one of the characters reveals a major hidden secret which would cause the other 5 (or 6) to gasp and react and nothing is shown.

As for my initial impression that the book’s setting was made complex just for the purpose of having a complex story? It is already partly redeemed in the first few chapters of the sequel and I read spoilers indicating to me that perhaps, my impression was completely wrong and everything will be explained in due time.

The Audio book however, shines over the book by having not a single, but rather 5 readers so that each section has it’s own voice and tone. For example, the reader playing the Poet read his part in a funny drunken tone which makes it much more alive than the other parts of the story. Of course, the readers who play a part in the stories also play them in the interludes between them so that it feels as though we have a full cast even if a few play multiple roles (or one plays all of the other characters? Sadly, I didn’t find an actual voice distribution per character).

In short, I highly recommend it, even if it ends abruptly… but make sure you have access to the sequels!

It is scheduled to be published monthly, every 15th of the Month.

The company was planned to have a board of administration but many of the potential co-founders have not yet confirmed their participation and approval in time for the publication of the first issue. We will keep you updated once all members of the administration will have taken their seat.

Our editor-in-chief is Marti-Pair Furxheir in his personal capacity. He is also our webmaster.

All articles in this issues are copyrighted by their respective authors who each granted a non-exclusive copyright license. Preßeu Zespenat is the owner of the copyright for legal purposes and will act on behalf of its authors if any article is reproduced without permission and without appropriate attribution toward the author and Preßeu Zespenat.

Extracts of “The Miracle Miracle Worker and his downfall” are presented from a draft version and might change in the final copy.

Book extracts in general and Talossa 2038 chapters cannot be reproduced or added to any media aggregation system as they are not news articles.

All articles authored by Marti-Pair Furxheir are written in a personal capacity unless noted as being official chancery communication. The same applies to other officials writing for Preßeu Zespenat

The magazine is published using WordPress in general, and more in particular, the plugin IssueM made by the company ZEEN101.

The PDF version is created using a registered copy of the add-on IssueM to PDF paid by Marti-Pair Furxheir from his pocket. The plugin was modified to add the issue name as the bottom of each page and the change was submitted to ZEEN101 for inclusion in future versions.

The WordPress Theme is named Ribbon and was downloaded free of charge from MyThemeShop.