Hosted by @ProfessorHenn on October 19th, 2025, in #conference-hall on the South Pacific’s Discord server, with @Heliseum, @Trivalve, and @Utopia participating.
ProfessorHenn
Welcome all. I’m ProfessorHenn, incoming Delegate and moderator for today’s debate between our three candidates for Prime Minister for the November '25 - January '26 term.
We’ll start with opening remarks, followed by one question from me to the candidates, one question from the candidates to each other, our collection of anonymous questions, and closing remarks.
@Utopia, you’re up first.
The Age of Utopia
Hello everyone! I’m running for PM on a campaign of an explicit and detailed agenda which my ministers will execute, taking advantage of the central power of the PM in a way where it really hasn’t been utilized despite seemingly being designed for it. I’ve posted my campaign which details what I plan do if I become PM, and it’s quite lengthy as I have lots of stuff I’d like to implement.
ProfessorHenn
Thank you. @Heliseum, up next.
Heliseum
Hello my fellow South Pacificans! Thank you for considering me to be your next PM. I hope to present a plan for the Prime Ministership that focuses on the structure of the Executive, intensely on encouraging involvement, and setting us on a better path for the future. We deserve a healthier Coalition. I look forward to your questions. (edited)Sunday, October 19, 2025 21:08
ProfessorHenn
Thank you. @Trivalve, finish us off.
Trivalve
Hello all! I am very grateful to have the opportunity to campaign to be your prime minister again. I can’t wait to potentially work with all of you in bettering our region and make it a positive experience for all who come to be a part of our community. I wish my fellow candidate luck and may the best candidate win!
ProfessorHenn
Thank you.
For our next segment, I’ve prepared one question for each of you. Let’s start with @Heliseum.
Your campaign flagships the re-establishment of the Ambassador Corps as your agenda for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. What policies will they be promoting, and which regions do you envision as strong partners of the Coalition in the future?
Heliseum
I’ll answer the latter part of the question first, which heavily informs the first. The first set of regions I want to strengthen our relationships with are what I briefly referred to as our “traditional defender allies”. An easy shortlist for these could be the Aegis Alliance.
We’ve seen the rise of a fairly tight-knit indie coalition this past year, and I would like to see the same happen for us and Aegis. On a cultural level, that means events, of course, reforming an N-Day coalition, etc.
The ambassador program, I wish to reinforce, is as much for our sake as our allies – it is an avenue for involvement, training, and retention.
ProfessorHenn
Thank you. @Trivalve, up next.
Your campaign features “Oversight” as a Minister-level position you intend to fill. What accountability do you expect this Minister to uphold against separate branches of government and institutions of the Coalition?
Trivalve
So the oversight position will hold no actual power over these IC branches. The way MOO will uphold accountability is by doing activity checks. I hope to set it up in a way where MOO will be in contact with one member of each branch where they can communicate on progress. Now I do understand that some divisions like the CRS don’t get a lot of activity since not a lot happens so simple things like name calls to see who is still active and checking their relevant areas will be sufficient enough in that regard. MOO is just an area for us to get the information we need on where our problems lie so we can use braches such as the assembly to solve them.
ProfessorHenn
Thank you. @Utopia, finish us off.
Your campaign focuses heavily on a culture agenda, and on appointing several Ministers to assist with executing that agenda. Do you believe everything will be accomplished, and if not, what are your priorities for the term?
The Age of Utopia
Ideally I would like to see everything accomplished. In the event I need to prioritize, I will seek to balance my agenda across the community as a whole. My polls policies are very easy to implement, and I would really like to hold discord VC game/movie nights. The discord events are also an excellent opportunity for inter-regional events. Card giveaways, and my MoC RMB Awards are also very easy to implement as well, and while not my top top priority are very likely to be seen even if I have to prioritize given how they’ll be simple.
ProfessorHenn
Thank you.
Next, the candidates will present one question to each of the other two, where they will answer, before we proceed to the next candidate to ask their questions. @Trivalve, start us off.
Trivalve
So Heli, what sort of training process are you going to use when adding people into the beginning areas of your three sections of government?
Similar to Utopia, are you planning on doing any training on government to those who are interested?
The Age of Utopia
Yes. Part of the whole purpose of a PM-derived cultural agenda is I can appoint brand new ministers with ease. The RMB Mayor elections also are great for highlighting people who want to get involved further into governance.
Heliseum
This varies wildly depending on the specific area.
The SPSF already has a built-up training regime. Though I’ve been working on updating the documentation as MoD, the overwhelming bulk of that will stay in place in accordance to my current MoD agenda.
The Ambassador Corps will receive a small amount of training (including a mandate of their duties) when first coming on, though the hope for the program is that it will be very easy to figure out, and that the amount of duties will scale with someone’s time there. A formal program a-la SPSF training, is probably not necessary.
For Culture, I’m afraid I can’t go through each program in the time I have here (right about here is where you joked about how long I was taking), but it would be project and job-specifc, overseen by whoever was leading that group within the Ministry.
ProfessorHenn
Thank you everyone. @Utopia, fire away.
The Age of Utopia
@Heliseum, you have no Ministry of Integration in your Tripartite Ministry plan/diagram, and while you’ve said “Recruitment and Integration […] is an area that I plan on spearheading personally,” that still leaves the rest of the ministry absent. Do you have any plans for the same kind of structure for the Integration Ministry, or are you axing it as a ministry altogether?
I wish to get the prevalent members of our RMB into an advisory team to help with the running and creation of events
@Trivalve , how do you plan on organizing your RMB Advisory team? Telegrams aren’t a great method of communication, but many people who frequent RMB don’t have discord or check the forums frequently. We’ve seen the problems of this with Zhuanghwei as MoC this term. Your RMB Advisory team is seemingly the only part of your culture agenda in your campaign beyond “do an event.”
Trivalve
So my advisory team isn’t RMB-centred, sorry if I didn’t communicate that properly. It was more to rebuild the domestic advisory to help train up those from the RMB who are interested in learning about regional decision-making and are willing to move to the discord. Players will not be able to get involved in our government if they don’t join the discord or forums so I have no plans of doing our communications over TGs.
Heliseum
My ultimate goal (i.e. what I would love to see beyond this immediate term) would be that Recruitment and Integration become its own ministry separate from, but working closely with, the Ministry of Culture. I could honestly see them sharing the same ‘middle tier’ space in the DAC. I fully plan in this term to recruit for beginner positions in Recruitment and Integration.
I didn’t introduce it in this campaign as a fully separate Ministry for this term because of the decision not to appoint a Minister. That decision itself was twofold: Firstly, as you mentioned, it is so central to my vision for the term that I will be very heavily involved there directly (and I don’t believe so heavily in not allowing ministers their own agendas). Secondly, admittedly, I was worried about the very high likelihood that I wouldn’t be able to find an appointee. That being said, if someone is reading this and thinking “I mean I’d love to work on Recruitment and Integration!” please reach out.
In the end, my thought was that if I don’t/can’t appoint a minister, and they would be sharing DAC, perhaps Recruitment and Integration needs to start as an intense separate project and grow into being its own Ministry. Maybe that can happen over the course of the term, but I didn’t feel confident promising that out the gate.
ProfessorHenn
Thank you all. @Heliseum, close us out.
Heliseum
@Utopia:
You’ve admitted that your tone and approach to ministers (i.e. that you want them to follow your agenda and not come into the office with their own) may deter some people from wanting to serve in your cabinet. Particularly within Defense and FA, where a certain amount of trust and experience is necessary to run the ministry, what is your plan for if you are not able to convince someone to take on those roles?
Your MOO proposal has been the cause of quite some controversy. You’ve removed the OOC bodies from your proposal, but it still lists “Chair of Assembly, CRS, High Court”. Do you believe the Cabinet has the authority to oversee non-executive IC bodies like these? If not, what ‘overseeing’ will be done if those bodies refuse to give a MOO access to things like their private areas or activity information?
Trivalve
Yeah so I don’t plan on giving MOO any sort of say over these departments. It is not my desire to exert power over them or gather information I would not normally have access to. If at any point the MOOs questions goes into information they aren’t allowed to have the branches will have every right to decline the handing over of this information. I only want activity checks, nothing more.
The Age of Utopia
In the event where I’m unable to find a MoD, I will rely on the SPSF Officer Corps and Admiralty to help execute my agenda. For MoFA, I would lean on the FA Committee. Regardless, I would have to take on a lot of the agenda myself in addition to leaning on those organizations, which I am prepared to do if necessary. My Defense agenda is certainly not an area where I lack expertise, as I am a Lieutenant of the SPSF, and while my FA experience is lacking, my agenda does not focus heavily on FA, so I believe I would be fine if I had to take it on myself as well.
ProfessorHenn
Thank you kindly.
Our penultimate segment features questions submitted to myself that will be presented anonymously. All questions are directed at all candidates, so I am requesting a response to each.
In the previous administration we had a GA policy, meaning that while the Delegate’s vote was still decided democratically, OWL occasionally advocated for voting in a particular direction. In the current administration, OWL has functioned more administratively and hasn’t taken official positions on resolutions.
Would you be in favor of reinstating a GA policy, or would you prefer OWL to remain neutral? Additionally, would you support reviving the practice of publishing analyses of resolutions?
Heliseum
I am definitely open to the idea of having a more unified GA policy, especially one that attempts to counterbalance the NatSovs that have essentially strangled the GA. I fully admit that the GA is not an area that I have a ton of experience in, so I can and will be having more detailed conversations about this with the director of OWL and other interested members of the Coalition.
As far as analyses, I would love that sort of thing! So long as we have people willing and able to do it, regular publications are my jam.
Trivalve
Honestly I wouldn’t mind the community voting on how we vote in the GA, again that would be another good way to integrate people into our regional and give them that regional decision-making training. And yes I would support the reviving of resolution analysis, would be a good way for our newer nations to get an understanding, of any GA resolutions they might not understand.
The Age of Utopia
I don’t oppose OWL giving recommendations for WA resolutions. However, I would not want to bind OWL into publishing analyses of resolutions, as that is something (similar to newspapers) where I believe it is best left to people seeking to do it out of passion, and adverse to make those who don’t feel like they’d be able to maintain doing them do them. I would support OWL if they seeked to do them, but would not be expecting them to. I am also in support of if OWL wanted to give them only for the resolutions they felt like/are most contentious.
ProfessorHenn
Do you have any legislative priorities to pursue as the Prime Minister?
Trivalve
In terms of legislation, I do want to see newer faces making attempts at righting proposals. Maybe having someone give run-downs of how the legislative team works and how to best write proposals to members who have recently joined could be a good way to rekindle activity within the assembly.
The Age of Utopia
I would like to see SPROUT seen through, and would like to use the power of the executive to help implement it where desired. Otherwise I do not have any specific legislative priorities.
Heliseum
This is an easy one: A million times yes . Executive reform. I mentioned in my campaign that I wish to use the PM seat as a test kitchen. Long lasting change has to come through the legislature because we, as of now, see an entirely new executive every three months. However, it’s hard to just legislate change into being. If there’s anything that I can do to model, test, tweak and inform change, I want to be here for that.
ProfessorHenn
How will your terms be different from this term and what specifically are you looking to change?
Trivalve
I am really hoping to put integration as a big focus of this term. I want to see newer faces putting their foot in the ring so that we can get different ideas and perspectives in our government and new faces in our prime minister and delegate roles.
Heliseum
I want to say out the gate that I have an immense amount of respect for Kringle, and I’m not here to bash the man. He would admit, though, that he did not have the time to get through the things that he wanted to do, and with the executive as it is, that meant nothing at all got done. The whole chain of action died.
My term will be all about removing these single points of failure. My paramount goal is to bring people into the executive, setting us onto the path such that terms like this last one, where one person being unable to be active breaks the whole executive, are no longer a concern.
The Age of Utopia
Kringle has gotten essentially nothing done this term. As a broad point, stuff needs to get done.
More specifically, I will be helping my ministers execute the agenda, and checking in on them to ensure that things are getting done. The two go hand in hand. The specificity of my agenda (in addition to timelines I have planned out in my planning docs) make it easy to see when stuff is and isn’t getting done. If my ministers are not getting things done, I will be there to help them when needed, and if they need to step away then I will also be there to help with that.
ProfessorHenn
Folks have been bringing up the possibility of returning to elected ministries. Do you think that’s a good idea and why / why not?
Trivalve
I am not entirely sure on that, I feel like that extends the start-up process of the cabinet a lot, which can shorten the amount of time available to get things done. We may also fall into the trap of favouritism where the same face keeps getting elected as minister which prevents newer faces who want to try from getting in.
Heliseum
I think this is a good idea in the long run, because I believe elections bring out ideas and spur activity. We cannot expect the PM to always have detailed agendas for every facet of the executive, so often things don’t get discussed about in the way they should. However, there are a million questions that we need to ask ourselves about implementation first, including what the role of the PM becomes in this situation. It can’t be done overnight, but it’s a conversation I would absolutely love to have with the assembly.
The Age of Utopia
I would not oppose it. I think that it encourages agendas in a manner which allows for everything to be covered fully within the election, and not leaving it up to hope that the appointed ministers have something if the PM doesn’t. It also puts more pressure on ministers to achieve what they’ve promised, as they are more directly responsible to the assembly and citizenry.
ProfessorHenn
Thank you all for your responses. We shall move into closing remarks. @Trivalve, you’re batting leadoff.
Trivalve
I would like to thank everybody again for giving me this opportunity. My fellow candidates have demonstrated amazing ideas and I wish them the best of luck as we move onto voting.
ProfessorHenn
Thank you. @Utopia, you’re up.
The Age of Utopia
It is my goal as PM to ensure adequate coverage to all areas of the executive and community. My agenda is fairly comprehensive to ensure that coverage. I intend to govern the executive as PM in a way which has not quite been done before, and seek to change the perception of what the executive should get done through that.
So far this election has been very fun and enjoyable, especially thanks to my fellow candidates, who I wish best of luck to
ProfessorHenn
Thank you. Close us out, @Heliseum.
Heliseum
My plea to the voters: We need to come to terms with the fact that TSP has a people problem. Not in that the people we don’t have aren’t lovely (they are 
), but that we are struggling to get enough people to do the things we would want to do as a region. We, as of now, essentially have no executive. Whatever candidate you vote for needs to be focused on significant reform in the areas of recruitment and integration, including providing adequate opportunities for new people to participate in the executive. It’s time to focus on change for the future, not just events for the now. I believe the candidate willing and able to do that is myself, and I hope you agree.
Thank you to the Coalition, thank you to the moderator and best of luck to my fellow candidates.
ProfessorHenn
Thank you all. Before we allow you to leave the stage, there remains one final question.
Ice cream, ice cream, or ice cream?
Trivalve
, , ?
The Age of Utopia
Cake. Always and for all time.
Trivalve
But actually Pie
Heliseum
Ice cream is great (on top of a lovely slice of pie)
ProfessorHenn
Unfortunately, none of these are the correct answers, so I will be revoking your citizenship and assuming control as Prime Minister again. Thank you for participating in our democracy!
The Age of Utopia
Thank you Henn for hosting this debate
it’s been wonderful
Heliseum
Please don’t make me liberate my home lol
Coup bad
Official campaign statement
Trivalve
Yeah thanks Henn! I may or may not steal your lampshade after that comment.
ProfessorHenn
You will not succeed. 
Campaign Topics
Heliseum
Trivalve
The Age of Utopia