The BIG GOVERNMENT Guide

As you may well know, the way Tor runs is going to change drastically within the coming days.  You no doubt have many questions about how its going to work. Well, its rather simple on the surface with a lot of complications down underneath, and throughout this guide I’ll attempt to explain it all to you.  By simply reading this, you’ll be more prepared to be placed in charge of the welfare of thousands of imaginary individuals than many real politicians are.   If you haven’t already, your first step should be to read the Mos Novus Councilium, which is the charter of the council.  After that, come on back and read up on some hot OOC chatter about the Torian government.

GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Here are some popular terms you might encounter throughout the guide:

Advisory member: a council-member with a special area of knowledge, on the council to inform the representative members.
Aligned member[: a council-member who is also in a guild.  There are 3 aligned seats on the council.
Arbitration: the process of deciding or deliberating on an issue or referendum.  This usually involves the issue being presented and discussed.  In the TRC, arbitration is always decided by a vote.
Floating seat: after 3 aligned and 3 unaligned candidates have been elected, the person with the next highest number of votes, whether aligned or unaligned, is elected to the floating seat.
Mos Novus Councilium: this is the title of the TRC’s charter.  It is the rules by which the council abides.
Referendum: an item to be decided upon.  This can be anything from putting a law into effect to taking a certain action.  Referenda may be presented to the council by citizens or politicians.  If the council devotes its time to a referendum, it enters arbitration.
Representative member: a council-member who represents the citizens of Tor as an aligned or unaligned member. 
TRC: an acronym for the Torian Representative Council, the governing body of Tor.
Unaligned member: a council-member who is not in a guild.  There are 3 unaligned seats on the council.

THE COUNCIL
---What is it?---
The Torian Representative Council is the governing body of Tor.  It’s job is to ensure the welfare of the city of Tor.  It does this by passing laws, dictating military directives, and attending to the upkeep of the city and its citizens.

---Who is it?---
All sorts of people become involved with the TRC, but at its core it is made up of 10 people.  Under normal circumstances, only 7 people on the council cast votes.  These politicians are known as the representative members of the TRC.  3 of them are representatives from various guilds around Tor; these are the “aligned members”.  3 of them are unguilded representatives of the people; these are the “unaligned members”.  The last member can be either aligned or unaligned, whoever has the most votes but hasn't been voted in  These 7 people make the big decisions.  The last 3 people are known as the advisory members of the TRC.  Under normal circumstances they don’t cast votes.  Their main job on the council is to make sure the representative members know what is going on in Tor and offer opinions on the best way to handle it.  Each advisory member has an area of expertise that we’ll go into later.

---How is it?---
All TRC members get to where they are by being elected.  People who want to be on the TRC will announce to the public that they are campaigning and do whatever they feel is necessary to get themselves elected.  On election day, the the 7 representative members are elected by the general populace; each citizen of Tor gets to vote for 1 aligned member and 1 unaligned member.  The 3 aligned members with the highest percentage of votes, the 3 unaligned members with the highest percentage of votes, and the person with the next highest amount of votes who was not elected as either an aligned or an unaligned member are now the representative members of the newest TRC.  Once these seven members are elected, their first job is to vote on the 3 advisory members of the TRC.  Advisory members can campaign too, but they aren’t voted on by the public.

---Can I run?---
Sure you can, Jimmy, sure you can.  More importantly, you should be asking; what positions can I run for?  Listed below are the positions, and what it takes to be elected as one.

• Advisory member: Anyone can run as an advisory member, but out of all the positions this is also the most demanding.  It is only suitable for senior players and staff NPCs.  Wait, did I say staff NPCs?  That’s right, some NPCs may show up to offer their services as advisory members.  And chances are that they make better advisors than you, at least in their particular fields.  Of course, there is also a chance they will make worse advisors.  Enough about them, though, lets talk about you.  Whether you are in a guild or not, you can run as an advisor.  If you were smart enough to read Mos Novus Councilium you know that advisors come in three flavors, which I’ll go into below:

• Martial Advisor: The martial advisor is the go-to guy for all matters military.  If there is a issue on the table that involves offense or defense, you’ll be the one that the representative members reference.  What does this mean?  It means you’d better know a lot about troops, tactics and trenches, because the council will be asking for your opinion.  This position is more suited to a character who has military experience on a macro level (commanding troops) rather than someone who is simply an experienced fighter (though experience helps too).  It also helps to have good connections with people who can keep you informed (such as scouts) so that you can do your job better.

• Civil Advisor: The civil advisor is a council-member who can offer knowledge in many subjects, but it all comes down to the health of Tor.  If you think that you’d make a good civil advisor, then you no doubt have a strong knowledge of the marketplace, public health and sanitation, and culture.  Like the martial advisor, this is a macro-level position, so before you decide to run for it make sure you can cope with all the facets of the position.  As always, it helps to have a number of people to rely upon to make sure you know what’s happening within Tor.

• Esoteric Advisor: Lets face it, sooner or later the TRC is going to have to deal with something that isn’t quite natural.  Be it the Everdark, the Resolve or a city-wide snotling invasion, they’re going to need someone who knows about the arcane.  This is you, esoteric guy.  While you may not need as much “leadership” experience as the other two advisor roles, you’re going to need to have a healthy understanding of Principatus, Daesermos, and everything in-between.  There are also many questions you’re not going to have the answer to, so be prepared to take action and try to find out when the council needs you to.

• Representative Member: Ah, the representative members.  The Lucky(?) Seven.  The movers and shakers of the council.  These are the positions that get to vote, which means people want to run for them.  But wanting to and being able to are two different things.  So lets see if you can be a representative member.  As you’ll recall, there are two types of representative members:

• Aligned Representative: Are you in a guild?  If you answered “No”, just keep on moving partner, because this section isn’t for you.  Out of the 7 representative members, 3 are aligned representatives or the floating seat.  They’re called that because they’re in a guild.  If you’re in a guild and you want to be a part of the government, this is usually the position for you.  You get to represent your guild’s interests in Tor and make sure your organization gets a piece of the pie.  Of course, you’ll probably want to take an interest in people outside your guild too, since they’re the ones who are supposedly voting for you.  Do you need to be the guildmaster to be your guilds aligned representative?  Nope.  You just need to be in a guild, which means if your guild wants a hand in the government now would be a good time to get together and decide who you want to run.  Can more than one person from your guild run?  Sure they can, but there are only three aligned seats and even if you and two other guild members get the top 3 percentages of the vote, only the highest will join the council as an aligned representative.  That’s not to say that you can’t have more than one guild member on the council; if you’re elected as the aligned representative of your guild, another guild member could hypothetically be elected as an advisory member as well.

• Unaligned Representative: Are you in a guild?  If you answered “No” then you’re in the right place, because only non-guilded characters can be elected as one of the 3 unaligned representatives or the floating seat.  If you want to be an independent part of the government and represent the common folk, then this is your position.  The unaligned representatives serve as a counter-balance for the aligned representatives and as something of a wild-card.  There’s 4 unaligned representatives and only 3 aligned representatives because this is a government of the people.  As such, you’ll be expected to represent the people if you want their votes.  This position is simpler than the aligned representative, but no less involved.  In fact, without a guild to offer you ideas on how to conduct yourself and what ideas to bring to the table, you’ll probably have to be more innovative than the aligned representatives if you want to be successful.

---Okay, so I know what to run for, but how do the election work?---
So you’ve got your little suit and your Mos Novus Councilium , and you’re ready to become a member of the council.  Or maybe you just want to vote for somebody.  Well this is where you learn how.

As with all good elections, an election date will be set.  How will you know when it is?  Simply put, it will be all over the place.  One or two weeks prior to the election date you’ll see a post in the Torian Representative Council Public Forum as well as one in the Torian Tribune.  There will be posters about it in-game, and every time you walk down the street some dirty, would-be politician will be pestering you about how he’s running in the upcoming election.  If all you want to do is vote, all you need to do is watch, listen, and decide who to vote for. 

If you want to become a part of the council, your job is slightly more involved.  First of all, you will need to declare your candidacy.  Fortunately for you, there will be a thread created specifically for this in the Torian Representative Council Public Forum .  There you will find more detailed directions, but basically you’ll be asked to put down your name and the position you are running for.  This will get you on to the ballot, which we’ll get to later.   Of course, simply declaring your name and the position your running for is a poor way to run a campaign, so you’ll probably want to expand to your efforts to The Last Port and in-game as well.  Maybe you’ll even consider writing a letter to the Torian Tribune.  The point is that when the next week or so is through, you’ll want to be satisfied with your effort, because when election day rolls around you’ve either got it or you don’t.

On election day you’ll find another post on the Torian Representative Council Public Forum, as well as a place to vote IG with items that will also direct you to this post.  It will probably be called “OFFICIAL BALLOT OF THE FIRST TORIAN REPRESENTATIVE COUNCIL” or something like that.  If you were a smart candidate you’ll see your name on this ballot because you declared your candidacy one or two weeks ago.  This ballot will have instructions on it, but what it will basically amount to is this: you’ll be asked to copy and paste the ballot as a private message to the person who posted it, unchanged except for indicating the candidates you wish to vote for.  You’ll get two votes, one for an aligned member and one for an unaligned member.  If you have more than one active character, you’ll be asked to do this once for each character who wishes to vote.  Be sure to follow the directions or risk your vote being discarded!  Be sure to be timely because voting will only be open for a one-day period!  If you will be unable to access a computer on election day, you may send in your votes prior to the election day provided you have a good reason.  And that is all she wrote.  Once the votes are tallied the new Representative Members of the Torian Representative Council will be declared.  The people will cheer, the winners will raise their arms in victory, and the losers will skulk away plotting revenge.

---I declared my character as running for an advisory position, why didn’t he/she get any votes?---
Once again, the advisory members of the council are not elected by the people during the public election, but by the newly elected council.  The rationale behind this is that they are non-voting members of the council and, as representatives of the people, the newly-elected aligned and unaligned members of the council should be smart enough to appoint good advisors.

---Can I rig the election?---
Sure you can, Jimmy, sure you can.  If you go about it in an intelligent manner, you can do just about anything in Requiem.  If there are players or NPCs who would benefit from a rigged election, they may even be willing to help you.  On the other side of the coin, there are also players and NPCs who might be willing to cut off your hands if you attempt such a thing.  It’s up to you to decide if the benefits outweigh the risks.

Be sure to continue checking in as more questions arise and are published within!