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by Escade. . 570 reads.

Gameplay Magazine - Featured Personality: Fedele


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Featured Personality: Fedele


Our guest today is Fedele, an NSer with a long and storied history, a great drawl that comes out sometimes when he voice chats, a deep appreciation of Gwen Stefani and some choice liquors, and is a promoter of BDE. He's also great at encouraging people and has strong leadership skills. Check out his upcoming duet with Halo Rahl featuring the song LinkShallow from the movie A Star is Born.

This interview took place on Discord, mostly over Voice Chat. For those interested, trying to VC and type is not as easy as you might imagine :P

How did you learn about NationStates? How long have you been playing NS?

It was a stray Google search in March of 2005 that landed me on the site. I imagine I was bored over spring break or something. I was in high school at that time.

What is the significance or story behind your nation's name and flag?

My first nation was Scardino and my second nation was Fedele. Both are Italian names. There was a third nation that I founded, but I believe it was deleted by the moderators and I don't remember the name. I remember just having an Italian flag on Scardino and Fedele, switching to the Sicilian flag, before founding The Lone Wolves United. When I decided to start LWU, Scardino adopted the wolf face that currently takes up the center with a black background. The current flag is a nod to that with elements of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms surrounding it, giving it a bit of personality. Fedele's flag was just the Italian flag or a revolving door of forgettable placeholders until, in The North Pacific, around late 2005 or early 2006, Fedele settled on “Anarcho-Fascism” as a parody political philosophy that posited that, “When given absolute freedom, the people will oppress themselves.” Most good jokes have an element of truth to them, after all.

For this philosophy, Tweedy designed a wonderful flag, that has since been lost to the ether, that had a fasces with the anarchy “A” as the axe head in the center. Tweedy had made thousands of flags and the imagefrog or whichever account he had stored it in was long gone so, in 2016, a full decade later, lacking memory or reference, he recreated it as faithfully as he could and did, I believe, another good job despite being different. Whatever his other faults, he did flags well. A complicated situation involving counterintelligence and subsequent leaks made it impossible for me to stay and contribute to The North Pacific and Cormac, then delegate of Osiris, invited me to come take a leadership role in the military there. The humor of the flag was lost on the inter-regional community and, despite his eagerness to defy the cries of self-righteous indignation, I decided the flag wasn't worth the trouble it was causing him. I changed my flag to an orange background with a white circle and a chainsaw for a while before Fedele’s flag again went through a litany of designs of little significance, including the “NS pretty girl” meme in 2017. After becoming delegate and following a painful episode where The East Pacific had to rid itself of a recent culture of perversion and permissiveness, the region adopted the lotus as a symbol of purity and rebirth and Fedele adopted the fleur de lis in the same spirit.

Well, nearly the whole history of my time in NationStates is told in flags.


Lone Wolves United was founded to "bring together a bunch of people on the fringe but bring them together in one place with a purpose." Like a wolf pack.

Tell us about your early career in NationStates and what inspired you to stay in the game.

I spawned in the the North Pacific and I created a couple of puppets. Pixiedance was a tyrant delegate at the time in TNP and quickly banjected me. That was my first experience in the game.

I think many players actually “came alive” in the game because of a banjection :P

Another puppet of mine was founded in the Pacific. I got to see all the hail and the jingoism and ultra regionalism of Unlimited in NPO. It made an impression on me. You could see pretty quickly that it was a pretty fun parody of real world dictators.

However, I didn’t want to play along with those regions. I wanted to lead something. I wanted to create something that was different. I wanted to speak to the kinds of people who I wanted in a region.

That’s why and how I started Lone Wolves United. The goal was to bring together a bunch of people on the fringe but bring them together in one place with a purpose.

One thing I observed early on was that the delegate had all the power in game. So I figured out that mechanic and identified a region that didn’t have a founder. I took my nation and two puppets and had them all join the WA. Moving directly from The Lone Wolves United, with ADN watching in passive bewilderment as I later learned, I took the delegacy and banjected everyone from the region and refounded the region. This was before influence and all of that, of course.

The Mods came in and deleted one of my puppets. I got a WA ban on the other one. A Moderator sent me one of those angel telegrams that said that was illegal, briefly explained what region crashing was, and directed me to the FAQ..

And so I tell people now days that LWU was co-founded by Unlimited and the moderators.

XD. Can you tell us how Gwen Stefani influenced the LWU?

Gwen Stefani was a heavy influence on early LWU, shaping the culture of upbeat irreverence, spontaneity, and welcoming people of a broad range of backgrounds and experiences, which in particular has never been common for such a historically lean and tight-knit region.


Gwen Stefani was critical in inspiring the LWU!

How did you find your way to the East Pacific?
If I remember correctly, Evil Wolf joined The North Pacific first largely because he was told he couldn't. I followed him there to join his fight and ended up contributing there for quite a while. We had to fight to be there because raiders weren’t welcome.

Was that a view towards raiders only or anyone from the R\D sphere? What time period was this around?

The North Pacific, along with almost all of the other feeders, was a defender region at the time and specifically forbade citizenship for crashers, invaders, or imperialists. Evil Wolf and I appealed to their liberal sensibilities and challenged perceived loopholes in court, ultimately winning the right to citizenship.

I stayed in The North Pacific for a few years and had several positions, elected and appointed. After I had an unannounced a semi-retirement from the game, I came back and was banned from TNP in part for counter-intelligence actions I had taken. Given an admin role as a joke, I copied the IP address list and used it to catch TNP spies operating in LWU. This list was ultimately leaked to a hostile person by a general in LWU, which created a great deal of trouble. As I understand it, this general was eventually forgiven but the admin team decided that I was permanently banned from TNP for this.

Cormac invited me to Osiris to bring my GCR experience and I served as field marshall and helped turn around the military. I received an honorary title of nobility there as well.

Around this time Yuno left Osiris and invited me to TEP. After a little while I saw that there was some opportunity to make a positive difference and contribute. Following months of checking it out and observing, I decided to take more responsibility and gradually fell in love with The East Pacific.

What do you like most about being a member of TEP?

TEP really brings together all kinds of people from all over the world. All different creeds, perspectives, and ethnicities. It’s an amazing region for being so active and dynamic. I really love the region. We have roleplayers, defenders, raiders, and people with such varied interests in one place.

What are your thoughts on the various gameplay venues (forums, Discord, gameside\RMB)?

I don’t think forums are dead but I think our purpose in how we use forums has changed over time. Forums are usually, in my view, for organizing the government and keeping an official record for government and long form roleplay.

With such an active and engaged region, Discord has proven to be, by far, the most fitting platform for the level of activity and varied interests that people bring to the table. It’s also created some challenges.

The admin team in the East has had to adjust to the new realities of so many cliques, the breakneck speed of communication, and the challenges inherent in keeping all of our players safe across these communities and platforms, even the subcommunities like the handful of unofficial RMB servers.

Also, in the East, our RMB is just a beast for its ability to pump 100 messages at a go and its brute simplicity. Some of these players engaging in the RMB are really impressive and are putting intricate roleplay posts and detailed discussions on a quickly moving medium that gets called “dead” any time there is a few minutes in between posts. Our RMB never ceases to amaze me.

What made you decide to become delegate? How has the experience been so far?

I didn’t really decide to be honest. For a while I wanted to become a feeder delegate, but I didn’t think anyone would see me in that role given my involvement in LWU.

One election cycle, a number of people nominated me and I had a stronger than expected showing. Yuno encouraged me to run again and, after many people nominated me and pushed me to run, I won the election with a healthy majority and support even from people running against me.

As for the experience so far, I'll admit that it’s a stressful job and, even just recently, I had to discuss with admin teams of other regions another extremely stressful situation. Some challenges are in-character and some are out-of-character and never should have been here to begin with. So that’s the dark part of the job.

There’s upsides as well though. Every day I have 1-2 dozen telegrams and usually well over 100 notifications from all these people who want to talk to me and ask questions, and ask for advice about NationStates. Sometimes I intervene in roleplay disputes. What I enjoy the most about being delegate is feeling like I've got thousands of friends that I'm talking and engaging with.

What is one thing that you feel you’ve done well as delegate so far?

I have done one thing well as delegate and it is surrounding myself with fantastic people. My cabinet is some of the best f*cking people you can find in NationStates. I have an all star cast of ministers in my cabinet. And all of the stuff we’ve been able to accomplish is amazing. Every single member has a goal and is working toward accomplishing those goals.

What is one thing you want to see happen in TEP under your second delegacy?

One of the things that we haven’t pushed yet as a region, that I don’t have direct control of but am pushing it is serious overhaul of the Concordat. It’s just a mess of loopholes and amendments that makes it a legislative equivalent of Frankenstein’s monster.

The legislative branch needs to look at the Concordat and evaluate it. Really begin with the simplest question which is, “What do we want from this governing document? What do we want it to do?”

From my perspective, the Concordat needs to give clear direction to the region without getting in the way of the region.

We can look at the recent citizenship applications mess - our own laws have gotten in the way of us functioning as a region. The magisterium needs to step up and use its authority to really address the way the Concordat limits us as a region.

Legislation is often the most onerous aspect of this game for me :P

This generation of the magisterium needs to look at the big picture. We need to not get caught up in the minutiae. We don't want to get bogged down in bureaucracy that strangles the life out of the region.

What do you do for fun when you're not on Nation States?

I've got four kids. I spend most of my time with my wife and kids. Then, I spend a lot of time working and doing NS between work appointments.

I might go fishing once in a while. Really, I prefer to spend a lot of time with my family.

NationStates is a great place to learn skills. What are some skills you wish you could learn and what are some skills that you would teach?

Anything I could teach, someone else could teach better than me. I think I’m delegate because I’m good at delegating and a Jack of All Trades.

For example, I could teach a course with Davelands on “When Is the Right Time to Make Concessions and When to Stand Firm.” I could help teach flag design but would need help from Gnapr. Culture and recruiting and the World Assembly are all subjects I know about but I'm not the real expert on any of them. Our ministers fill that need for specialized knowledge. A passion of mine has always been for military gameplay, which I took over personally and moved into a role that supports our foreign affairs ministry.

What is your favorite movie and book?

My favorite movie is 3000 Miles to Graceland. It’s about a bunch of Elvis impersonators trying to rob a casino who turn against each other. My reading has been mostly nonfiction with a work emphasis, speckled with works from Ernest Hemingway, Stephen King, and a few other authors.


3000 Miles to Graceland is an action adventure crime film from 2001.

Beyond Gwen Stefani, what kind of music do you appreciate?

Most of the music I listen to is metal. There’s also Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, and Andrea Bocelli.

Have you read the Harry Potter series?

No, I have not.

Oh no! :O

It’s probably something I will read to my children as they grow up.

Awww, that’s so sweet :) What is one thing you hope to happen in 2019? Whether in the real world or NationStates?

In the real world, I just hope that my family is happy and healthy. When it comes down to it, that’s all that matters.

In NationStates, I want the East to continue to gain focus and clarity on its unique culture and personality.

If you were Max Barry for a day, what would you do?

If I were Max Barry, I would do away with API telegrams, limit recruiting telegrams to stamps or individual telegrams and reconsider how and when different kinds of interactions should be able to be blocked.

If you could become delegate of any region, outside of TEP, which region would you pick?

Nasicournia.

Thank you to Fedele for this interview! It's been fun seeing him work on making TEP a safer more positive place.

P.S. You have to check out Gwen Stefani to truly understand Fedele's soul

Escade

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