First Debate Transcript: @Hamborn and @xshotss
The first debate was conducted on Discord in the #conference-hall channel at 9:30 AM on Saturday, 4/18 between @Hamborn and @xshotss. This is an edited transcript of the debate. Edits focus largely on removing side commentary so the transcript is more readable.
Note: after the debate concluded, @xshotss dropped out of the election due to RL. However, I have still included their responses here.
Opening Statements
HumanSanity: Greetings all and welcome to the first of two Prime Minister debates for the April 2026 election. I’m HumanSanity, extreme old fart and former Prime Minister and Minister of several other things, and I’m hosting. Today, we have @xshotss and @Hamborn joining us.
You can find each of their campaigns below:
xshotss
Hamborn
I will start with a few general questions for both candidates. Then, I will ask directed questions to each candidate about portions of their campaign and platform. Then, we will have an opportunity for candidates to ask each other questions before each candidate gives a closing statement. Questions will be posted with a time limit and if candidates take longer than the time limit to post their responses, I’ll move on to the next question without waiting for a response.
To start, I asked both candidates to prepare a brief opening statement in advance and welcome them to share those now.
xshotss: Hello everyone, and thank you for having me.
I’m running for Prime Minister because I care about the activity and long-term health of the region, and I believe there’s real room to improve how we engage people. My campaign is focused on strengthening culture and integration, making participation more consistent, accessible, and rewarding for all of our members. I also want to make the government feel more open, with more comprehensible paths for people to get involved and join us in our mission for a greater South Pacific!
Hamborn: Hello TSP,
I’m Hamborn an ancient TEP player and actually in legislatorship and in SPSF of TSP.
My mission will be mostly on Gameside.
Questions for both candidates
Note: for the remainder of the debate, I set a time limit for each question, and moved on if a candidate did not answer the question in time. If a candidate’s answer to a question is entirely missing, that is why. I did not include time limits or other hosuekeeping chatter in the transcript.
Why run?
HumanSanity: Thank you both. Now, we’re going to transition to questions for both of the candidates.
First (which shots already addressed somewhat): what motivates you to run for Prime Minister and why now?
(I reserve the right to ask follow up questions to candidates at any time because I’m benevolent like that)
xshotss: I think that I had a lot of fun in my first experience when I got the first taste of executive experience (my time as MoC and SoC). After some things happened in our government which were controversial and I won’t mention here, it actually got me super hooked with government-related activities again. So after a short hiatus of just hanging out in the community, I think it’s my time to try it out and move up the ranks.
Biggest Challenge for TSP
HumanSanity: What do you think is the biggest challenge that TSP is facing right now and what is your proposal to address that?
Hamborn: The delegacy mostly XD, I say that because the interim-delegate and resign of Erstavik was chaotic to my view and also some thing that happened inside Assembly.
xshotss: I think our biggest challenge is that our government feels too exclusive. It can feel kinda intimidating for new players. That’s why I plan to introduce ideas like Secretaries and improve guides in Integration to give our citizens a better chance at supporting our region and getting real hands-on experience.
HumanSanity (as a follow up for Hamborn): What relevance does the Prime Minister (or your campaign for Prime Minister) have to that?
Hamborn: Because, it’s better to have a stable head of state that represent TSP.
Ministry Structure
HumanSanity: The Prime Minister has broad latitude in selection of their Cabinet–including potentially creating new portfolios or eliminating existing ones. Would you make any changes to the structure of the Cabinet employed by Utopia in their administration (e.g. Defense, Foreign Affairs, Integration, and Culture in addition to staffing OWL)?
xshotss: I think the only change I’d probably make is removing Culture Groups and reintroducing the Secretaries of Culture. As a previous secretary of culture myself, that position helped me get actual experience of being in an executive position while being in a low-risk environment under guidance of my respective minister of culture. Like I said in Utopia’s campaign, I feel lik the Cultrue Groups dilute responsibility too much and don’t really contribute as much in comparison to giving our citizens a real position with real orders from a real government official.
Hamborn: Yes, in my campaign I said I would center on Gameside like the Local Assembly which I already said that their will be a new ministry if my purposal is validate by Assembly. The rest of the cabinet won’t move.
Ministry nominees
HumanSanity: Have you already started reaching out to potential nominees for Minister seats? Why or why not?
Hamborn: I won’t because I won’t touch the cabinet and for the new one need is related to an Assembly resolution.
xshotss: No. One of my main points of my campaign is having cabinet applications, which are applications that allow every citizen to apply for a spot and I’ll consider them when I pick my cabinet.
I also plan on reaching out to people experienced in roles that I’m not like OWL with lordnwahs to give me recommendations based on his experience.
HumanSanity (as follow up for Hamborn): What do you mean by you “won’t touch the cabinet”?
Hamborn: I mean that the cabinet won’t change, the ministy of that term is good, I don’t see why to change
Foreign Affairs
HumanSanity: Both of you mention foreign affairs largely as a footnote, with Hamborn barely discussing it and xshotss mostly emphasizing “do it more and make it visible”. Neither of these are a foreign affairs direction. What do you view as our biggest foreign affairs challenge right now and how will you respond to it? Which specific regions do you want to build closer relationships with or distance ourselves from and why?
xshotss: I’m not going to act like I’m experienced with Foregin Affairs because I’m not. I think it’s fine for a Prime Minister to reach out to different people of all fields of the South Pacific to get their opinion on the matter. I don’t want to be a jack of all trades, master of none.
I think our biggest challenge is probably that we don’t make our relations with other regions clear enough, that’s pretty much it. If my Minister of Foreign Affairs or anyone in the FA council thinks otherwise, I’m more than happy to rethink my choice.
Hamborn: As you already know, I didn’t hear about Foreign affair that’s why I couldn’t make a statement on the Utopia’s term. However, I think our biggest foreign affair challenge is to keep our relationship with others the same or upgrade it. And I think it would be to MoFA to decide on which region to build relationship.
HumanSanity (as follow up for xshotss): What is an example of a way to make our relations with another region “more clear”?
xshotss: By communicating to our citizens on what is happening between other regions and the South Pacific. I know that ambassadors already do this, but it’d nice to have an official channel or something similar.
HumanSanity (another follow up): How would you accomplish this while maintaining confidentiality necessary for effective foreign affairs?
HumanSanity (as follow up for Hamborn): Can you give an example of how you would want to upgrade a relationship?
xshotss: I’m not taking about behind-the-scenes stuff or anything that’s confidential, I meant like an “archive” or channel that would make general information about relations more clear. Because I think reading up about Foreign Affairs if you’re a new person without all of the background information is kind of painful.
Hamborn: By helping systematicaly the region that are less than 500 nations because it important to help little regions that we have embassy with it.
HumanSanity (another follow up): What would it look like to “help” those regions?
Hamborn: By treaty, mostly, defenses one
Culture
HumanSanity: Both of your campaigns around culture focus on “do it more” (xshotss’ campaign has the added element of bringing back Secretaries of Culture). What tools and strategies will you use to ensure that more actually happens? On the flip side, in a world of limited resources, what culture projects will you prioritize?
xshotss: I agree that just saying “more” isn’t enough, so my focus is on structure and responsibility. A monthly schedule helps, but more importantly, roles like Secretaries and a defined mayor role mean there are specific people accountable for making things happen consistently. I also want to spread out activity by supporting community-run events, so it doesn’t rely on a small group. In terms of priorities, I’d focus on consistent, low-effort things like polls, the mayor role, and regular recognition, since those keep activity steady, while bigger events build on that rather than replace it.
Like my RMB Mayor hosting an event idea ^
Hamborn: The news, and RMB mayor. I will also ask to integration team to add a paragraph on culture of TSP in the welcome telegram.
HumanSanity (as follow up to xshotss): What do you think should be improved about the RMB Mayor role relative to how it is maintained now? In reference to you saying “a defined mayor role”
xshotss: I think it’d be encouraging to give the RMB Mayor role a little more responsibility (ie. hosting an event of their idea) rather than just doing polls. It’d give a lot more people the need to run for it as it’d be a more fun experience. It’d also mean my Minister of Culture wouldn’t have to come up with all the ideas themselves!
HumanSanity (as follow up to Hamborn): What would be in that paragraph?
xshotss: Showing who’s are the ministry, what TSP cultural event (like Max barry day…), RMB mayor. And on event that happens mostly like every months (The schedule of the Cultural Ministry.)
Ministry Staff Applications
HumanSanity: The past two terms saw the return of open applications for Ministry staff for the first time in several years. Did you support that change or not? If you supported the change, reflect on how the current administration has done with rolling it out and specify any ways that you might improve on it.
xshotss: I mean, of course I supported it. My Cabinet Applications idea is quite similar.
Like I said, I genuinely support every Prime Minister reaching out to every niche of the South Pacific (FA, Defense, RP) to get the most exeprienced and wise’s opinions. I think that just picking people off of your own experiences is not fair at all. I doubt that any Prime Minister knows every single qualified person in every part of TSP and every single person that wants to participate in government. I think it was a fantastic change.
Hamborn: As my main mission outside the gameside one, is to improve the political help for new one in TSP. As I saw by myself, the administration ask if they have a question and explaining. I didn’t find how to improve right now.
HumanSanity: Both of you identify this shift towards the executive application for “de facto” rules as a positive one. Can you identify a specific positive result we’ve already seen from this change (or explain why we haven’t achieved that yet and how you would accomplish it)?
xshotss: Short and simple, I think it made getting involved way less intimidating for the people that applied. We need to make a good chunk of positions easily accessible for the average citizen instead of a complicated path of being randomly picked by the head of government.
Hamborn: Not that much, It need time to see a change
Griffindor Recall & CitComm Controversy
HumanSanity: This past term saw the Prime Minister get into a little controversy surrounding how they lobbied in the vote to recall Griffindor from CitComm in the Assembly. Regardless of your thoughts on that specific issue, do you believe that it is appropriate for the Prime Minister to be involved with Assembly business in this way (e.g. via directed private messages to members)? How would you approach legislative campaigning if elected (especially on issues that might be key to your agenda)?
Hamborn: No I think it shouldn’t be involved in Private Messages. However, if a legislative campaign show up, I would campaign in the debate and not in Private Message
HumanSanity (as follow up to Hamborn): You said in your campaign thread that the PM should have a legislative agenda and identified your Local Assembly as an initiative you want to push. How optimistic are you about pushing this through the Assembly?
Hamborn: I’m optimistic because I think the debate will help pn modifying the draft to make it better !
xshotss: I answered in a similar way to Welly’s questions about the Prime Minister having a legislative agenda. I think that if my or someone else’s government should have a legislative agenda, it should be the exact same as any other legislator doing it. The same as contacting people with evidence from both sides, explaining your vote, et cetera.
HumanSanity (as follow up to xshotss): Can you be more clear. Would you be willing to engage in direct message campaigns around your agenda?
xshotss: Probably not. But I don’t think what Utopia did was really related to anything that would benefit his government, so legislative agenda has never really crossed my mind. I would, for example, support the Assembly by fixing ambiguous or gray areas related to cabinet and their responsibilities. That’s pretty much the only involvement I would have in the Assembly that I would like.
I much rather prefer the Assembly being its own insitution and a tool we can all contribute on, not something we should specifically intend to sway in our campaigns.
HumanSanity (as follow up to xshotss): I wanted to ask another follow up. In your opening statement, you referenced recent controversy in the Assembly as a motivating factor for your campaign. This was (pretty obviously) the recall vote that I referenced earlier.
Why did that process motivate you to run for PM?
xshotss: Because it motivated me to share my opinion with others and contribute in the debate on whether it was illegal or not. I think that sprialed from my sudden involvement in the Assembly, to me being interested in the government again.
Questions for each candidate separately
HumanSanity: Now, we’re going to move on to the next part of the debate – directed questions for each of the candidates. After that, I may ask further follow ups.
xshotss
HumanSanity: The integration section of your campaign highlights the need for a “start here” guide in TSP. Why do you think none of our current Dispatches satisfy the goals of this guide and what specific elements do you want this guide to include? Furthermore, you talk about the importance of an early warm welcome to the region for new members. What will you do as Prime Minister to make those warm welcomes more frequent and better?
xshotss:
“The integration section of your campaign highlights the need for a “start here” guide in TSP. Why do you think none of our current Dispatches satisfy the goals of this guide and what specific elements do you want this guide to include?”
I think I maybe I wrote it in an incorrect way or you misconstrued it as this. But I just meant, as Integration has made massive improvements in the last term, I just wanted to keep this momentum going. We can always find ways to improve on our guides by making it shorter, using clearer or more general language for new people, and so on. I meant we always need a “start here” guide, not that we need a new one.
“Furthermore, you talk about the importance of an early warm welcome to the region for new members. What will you do as Prime Minister to make those warm welcomes more frequent and better?”
I think that it’s genuinely rewarding to have someone of high importance and of high power to welcome new members to the region, mask them, etc.. I feel like our top government officials should be connected with new people instead of hiding in the background.
HumanSanity: Are you advocating for any specific policy changes – or are you more talking about a personal committment to welcoming new members?
xshotss: I’m advocating for the latter
Hamborn
HumanSanity: In your campaign, you outlined a vision for a Local Assembly for gameside members that serves as a second house of the legislature. Why do you believe it is important to elect you as Prime Minister in order to implement this vision? How will this plan avoid the pitfalls from when we had the Local Council (a three-member elected government for the gameside) in the past? How will your proposed Local Assembly be secure from nefarious actors given that there is no avenue for on-site background checks?
Hamborn: By the fact to get in you need to be nominated by 2 Wa nation that are in TSP for more than 6 months plus an investigation on their interaction in/out Tsp. And because i made that in my pm campaign for visibility of everyone in TSP which is cool to open a new legislator house.
HumanSanity: Right now, it feels cool to open a new legislative chamber, but long-term it becomes a part of our government. Why are you confident such a chamber would stay active and productive? Why will this be different than the old Local Council, which turned into a delapidated moderation body rather than an actual on-site government?
Hamborn: It’s different because the local assembly won’t be moderator, in fact, it’s the Assembly for gameside that can’t be on forum but are known and that a minimum of people like. I see that they may also vote for cabinet appointment too and retention votes. Inactivity can happen but I’ll encourage to purpose idea to the rmber
Asking the other candidate a question
HumanSanity: Now, I want to leave time for both candidates to ask one another a question.
xshotss: I kind of asked all the questions I wanted to ask in the other candidate’s campaign thread, so…
Hamborn: Do you’ll have a presence on Rmb gameside and post to talk ?
xshotss: Yes, I think that gameside presence is very important. I’m currently quite active on the RMB and talk with people there a lot of times as well.
It’s the same with introducing people to our community, our top government officials should always be connected with the youngins.
Closing Statement
HumanSanity: I want to thank both candidates for taking the time to participate in the first of our two Prime Minister debates in the April 2026 election! I want to give you both an opportunity to give a closing statement after the debate explaining why the region should vote for you as Prime Minister.
xshotss: Thank you for having me here. I’m happy that we have a lot of people wanting to get involved in this election, and I hope you consider my campaign and my points when you cast your vote.
And always, cake!!
Hamborn: Goodbye Tsp,
I think that this debate may helped on who to vote and make idea on our campaign.
I may note, that I’m in government of on my alt region that is a frontier and a rp member of TEP on another alt.
Hamborn, a random cakeist