The Prime Minister was feeling the heat. From citizens, one of the founders, the press, and from the 'Regional Happenings' constantly filled with CTE alerts. From his point of view it had become a worry in daily Thaecian life. In a 24 hour period, Korsinia took decisive irreversible action, that is now determining the path this region is on and will forever be seen as a defining moment in his term.

in a letter published in The Thaecian Journal, Korsinia made his intentions clear with a call to action for the region:

"We have recently set up a stamp donation program, this program's purpose is to gather enough stamps to send out recruitment telegrams en masse with little to no effort, reaching many nations as we can at once and increasing our population relatively quickly. This has several times in the past, especially under Andusre’s administration, proven to be a very effective way to recruit and so we wish to try this method once more. Alongside our plans to send out massive recruitment telegrams with help from your kind stamp donations, we urge everyone to individually carry out manual recruitment as that can also prove to be an efficient method of recruitment when done by enough people."

Korsinia said he would get results, and results he got.

Since the time of the new policy, Thaecia has gained nearly 30 nations. The welcomers are so busy, Fishergate and SAI asked them to use spoilers or welcome more people with one post. Our chart has a spike at the end of it, and new nations are starting to learn the Thaecian way of life. But for approximately every ten nations gained, an embassy and many healthy, cordial relationships with other regions and nations in other regions were lost. Included in those losses is the closure of an embassy with Thalassia.

This story is persistent and more information is sure to come.

From the outside looking in:

From the outside looking in, this policy has been an disaster. Here is a look at the backlash:

Conch Kingdom closes embassies:

As Conch Kingdom closed their embassy, their ambassador, Ellenburg said, "We were informed of some undesirable activities in mass telegrams about merging and unfair treatment of individuals who were complained about this. We feel staying in association with you would give Conch Kingdom a bad rap. We examined what evidence we have and voted for closure." When Andusre made the case to them that, "if you close embassies with us you will no longer be exempt from a future WA wide recruitment TG so you have an incentive to keep the embassy," their only response was "We have a pretty loyal bunch in Conch Kingdom. I think you will be wasting stamps or whatever you use."

Thalassia closes embassies:

As Veaetmar closed our embassies they said, "We can’t condone recruiters trying to poach established members of active regions and have to stand with our friends in their concerns about this. This isn’t the first time that Thaecia has drawn criticism in this respect and there have to be consequences. On this basis, as an initial step, Thalassia is closing our embassy with Thaecia with immediate effect." When being pushed on the decision, he said "Threats of aggressive recruitment against us if we continue with the closure certainly don’t make me want to defend our relationship with Thaecia" and "people put a lot of time and effort into building their regions and actions by others intended to pull that apart in any way are not going to be looked kindly on."

Other interregional responses:

In addition to Conch Kingdom and Thalassia closing embassies, New West Indies also withdrew their embassy. Furthermore, the interregional irritation and frustration for Thaecia was even worse outside of our former embassy regions.

A pretty telling example of this was on March 14, when Tinhampton, the WA Delegate of Thorossia said "We have had two pages of non-Thaecians - mostly called Kuriko - saying that Thaecia's recruitment is unfair to their communities, followed by Thaecians flat-out refusing to give a s[**]t about what anybody else thinks of such recruitment (so as long as it's legal). Nobody will change their mind because of this, although Thaecia may gain a few dozen new recruits - with Quitman Mississippi, who was banned from the WA until a couple of weeks ago after he plagiarised my "Commend The North Pacific," already among them. The trend I see in the posts quoted above is definitely not helped by a Thaecian representative urging people not to complain about Thaecia's tag:wa recruitment in a thread about Thaecia created by somebody in Thaecia that is literally entitled 'Thaecia Is Looking For New Members.' I've survived a lot of shambles in the past - the Lolbertarians, Neutral Zone, CCD, Femdom Empire (x2), Affordable Transgender Hormone Therapy, any number of Lazarene coups - but this is the single most catastrophic crapshoot (h/t Bruce Arena) I have ever seen on this website, measured in terms of What The F[***]?s per Forum Post."

Harassment on other region's Discords adds fuel to the fire:

Last night on Discord, Andusre wrote, "It has come to the @Admin team's attention that several people have taken it upon themselves to harass other regions' discord servers who were critical of our recruitment tactics. We are fine with opposition to our recruitment tactics, in fact we expect it. However, harassing other regions' discord servers is a step too far, and is completely unacceptable for us. As such, going forward, anyone caught harassing another Discord server because they voiced opposition to us will be either muted, kicked or banned for an indefinite amount of time, determined by the admin team. Doing this helps no one, especially not the Foreign Affairs Ministry or its minister, and thus we will be taking a harsh stance against it. We are considering proposing a law to enshrine this in Thaecian law, however this is in its early stages of development and is subject to the opinions of Congress. We are sorry to the regions who were spammed. Please report such behaviour to us if it occurs again."

This yet another example of how the new policy has a ripple effect degrading Thaecia's reputation on multiple levels from the outside looking in. If the unpopular policy isn't enough to ruin other's views of Thaecia, how the pushback is being handled by people who have taken it upon themselves did it. The impacts seem to be much more profound than a disagreement over telegrams.

From the inside looking on:

To many on the inside looking on, however, this policy has been an enormous success. Our 'regional happenings' is filled with people arriving from other regions. The RMB is full of welcomes. MPs, Senators, and citizens have noticed the increase in nations, activity, and many are happy about it.

Congressional responses:

Member of Parliament Pap Sculgief said publically on the RMB without being prompted, "!t’s really good to see Thaecia’s population increasing! It’s also really good to see activity as well being high! Well done Korsinia and your administration!"

Additionally, Zon Island, another Congressman spoke highly of the new policy when asked by The Thaecian Journal saying, "it seems good as there are more people joining every few hours."

That being said, there isn't full consensus, as some elected officials with a more global perspective, see the negative impacts as well. Marvinville, a senator, said, "I disapprove of it because I think we should only be recruiting new and refounded nations."

Judicial defense:

Others outside of Congress in the Judicial Branch have defiantly defended and praised the policy as well.

Chief Justice Rhyssua said, "I believe that if nations are truly dedicated to their home region, a recruitment telegram would do little to dissuade them anyway. We have drawn criticism for this in the past, but all parties came to their senses a week or two later and the issue quieted down. It is, after all, just a telegram. Some regions have already expressed their intention to begin 'poaching' our members with retaliatory recruiting. I don't particularly take offense to this, since I know our region has a dedicated core of individuals who won't be lured away."

Islonia said, "Our telegrams are unacceptable to people that refuse to understand our argument (same people who say tag:wa telegrams are useless by the way) and oppose us with a big wall of "it's bad, you should expect unhappy people"" and has stood up for the policy on countless other occasions.

General public reaction:

Moreover, for the general public in Thaecia, it is likely that more people will approve of the policy than not because most people will see the benefits play out much more clearly than the drawbacks. The Thaecian Journal will be running a poll over the next few days to test that hypothesis. Click here to take the poll.

One member of the general public who also happens to be Thaecia's founder and former PM, Andusre, is a strong defender of the policy and some suspect he is part of the reason Korsinia adopted it.

The President's position:

President Titanne's take on the WA Wide recruitment telegrams is that: "It’s an unpopular opinion to be sure, but we can’t discount the ruin that WA-wide recruitment telegrams do to our foreign affairs. We also can’t discount the new nations they bring to our region. I’m a very globalist person, but it is clear the value of WA-wide telegrams, and the value of the talent they bring to the region. So, to prevent a mass withdrawal of embassies, we should find allies that agree with us, and seek to continue expanding. It’s the only way."

The contrasting views of two PMs:

Korsinia's new policy has had such profound impacts, it has drawn a response from Rayekka, Korsinia's predecessor, who refused to use similar tactics. It is fascinating to see to highly popular and respected Thaecians have such vastly differing views on such an important issue, an issue that used to draw agreement from across the spectrum. Here is how their views compare:

Another statement from Executive Branch in the works:

As this crisis or giant success, depending on your point of view, plays out, the involved top government officials are working diligently on a comprehensive press release. Islonia said, "Korsinia, Bigtopia, TMS and I are writing a really big statement about what happened recently. You'll get the executive's perspective very soon." Korsinia also said that "We've done a lot of work on it I guess [it will be released in] maybe a day or 2 depending on timezones and accounting for our irl responsibilities. Most of cabinet isn't confirmed so it's a small team."

This article will be updated after the release of the aforementioned statement which is sure to provide further incite into the situation at hand.