Sky HavenBoard

"My tenure has been by far the longest in history, and it's getting parodic. I'm going to come clean. I'm spearheading a major push for governmental transparency, and I'm just going to start by admitting that I was never democratically elected. The leader of HEP-1 has historically been selected by the HAP. Right now, our apparatus for sham elections is in seemingly irreparable shambles, so we are just not doing it. I'm the President until we can organize another election. Elections for the legislature are relatively uncorrupted and are going to continue for this duration."

This news comes on the heels of a dramatic push against black market activity coinciding with the abolition of zoos. Temper Victoria has declared her intention to release animals from zoos without allowing even the faintest rise in poaching activity, and over the course of her abnormally long time in office - three terms and counting, in a state with statutory single-term limits - she engineered an intense shift in the politics of the nation to achieve that. These shifts have now been formally ratified into law. A crackdown on misrepresentative statements by elected officials has been included as the government is taking a hardline stance against dishonesty in the leadership, which it sees as an obstacle to the destruction of the international trade in exotic animal parts. Investigations against and formal censorship of the media have been scaled back, likewise because President Victoria believes media transparency will assist in unifying the government against poaching.

A prominent journalist recently requested that the government promise not to spy on the citizens 'anymore', and President Victoria concluded her recent address, "Finally, addressing the recent statement by a certain Mr. McGill, we already weren't spying on you. I know it's difficult, but please be less paranoid."

The sham elections have proven to be an open secret as criticism of President Victoria has focused on a perceived anti-intellectual bent in her raft of new regulations governing the treatment of people and animals, rather than condemning her for holding onto office. Criticism has also been brought forward that animal welfare restrictions are cracking down on sources of food and foreign exchange that the public needs to eat, leading to an upwards jolt to the famine rate. The obvious complaints by zoo-lovers have flourished that this will predictably make the public less happy. Addressing specifically the restrictions on statements by public officials, a popular (and recently jailed) legislator stated in an interview that those regulations have a chilling effect on the quality of discourse in the nation, dumbing down the public and creating room for conspiracies to flourish against anyone who customarily dissembles, which (he said) "must be acknowledged to be really quite common, as even sarcasm and white lies have been condemned by President Victoria as forms of dishonesty".

(OOC: With apologies to anyone who discerned the origin of the character's name, as my President Victoria is certainly not the President Victoria from the fiction I borrowed her name from! That President Victoria is entirely comfortable with keeping secrets indefinitely.)

As usual, the 29th of April has come, and with it, a Constitutional holiday permeating throughout the entire nation. Today is the Mourning Day, the date which marks the apocalypse that in the long gone past struck all of humanity in the world of Teraft, destroying not only the planet, but replacing the entire universe with anew. Except for the corrupted, unstable scattered pieces of Vila Boro, main territory of the Boro Kingdom. A broken oasis of a wiped reality amidst a second. So corrupted, that all of the few survivors were brought magically to a third universe, where all of us in this Region reside.
Such a foundational event is of course extremely important to the country as a whole. A sacred event which opened gates for the thriving nation of many cultures that Novespes is today, however also a tragedy that forever will remain rooted in the memories of the survivor's descendants. The 29th is a day for all to cheer for the sucesses of our people, and hope for even better outcomes in the future; pay respects for all the hard-work and challenges beaten by the first people to arrive in today's Novespes City in the border of New Eren with the Glenland, for the ones who died and thrived exploring the new continent; and to mourn for the people that did not survive the apocalypse, for the loved ones that were lost in the deep voids below Boróis, for the thousands that simply stopped existing in a mere second as the second universe engulfed the original, and for the ones that survived the initial blast, only to fall weak on the events after. Today, Novespes cherishes glory through pain, and pain through remembrance.
As by protocol, the official flag will be replaced during the day by the Mourning Flag, and masts in most government buildings replaced too. Houses and buildings will flow the Mourning Flag outside windows for the whole day and noise reduced in all cities. As people will remain reserved and silent inside their enviroments spending time with their known ones without intense movement. The country enters a state of mourning and Mojanguists in special abide by the cultural norms stablished during centuries for this day in respect for all the history involved in the event. The majority of the population, of all different origins and religions, go on their days normally, but still respecting the bases of the holiday, also paying respect for the people who died in the apocalypse, as those perished beyond the beliefs of faith. Tourists and foreigners currently in Novespes are advised to also respect the social norms and avoid making excessive noise and chaos in the cities, as streets will be way clearer during the day; which does not mean cultural tourism related to the cerimonies and events that happen in the holiday are frowned upon. Everything is allowed and agreed upon by the locals as long as it isn't disruptive. (And obviously, a lot are very indifferent anyways).
The Past Reveals the Path, Novae Spes in Nova Terra