NationStates Jolt Archive

Once again wallowing in acronyms, TMGH announces the opening of the HQ for the WBO.

The location of the new complex is approximately five miles north of Chiba City on the southern end of Mhu Thulan, the Hacker mainland. The complex is a sprawling affair, covering approximately one square mile with offices, apartments, tourist locations, and a large meeting hall.

The new headquarters boats highly secured telecommunications, allowing delegates to talk to their home nations without fear of evesdropping. They also will have access to secure Hacker satellites, allowing for the secure exchange of electronic communications. These computer systems are protected by "semi-sentient" firewall systems that are managed and created by Anesca P.H.A.L.A.N.X.

Physical security is provided by a highly trained corps of security guards, many of whom provided security to the Corporate Tower in Chiba City. The buildings are protected by brand new atto-pulse laser arrays, capable of pinpoint accuracy, and lightning-quick targeting. More conventional defense systems are included, in the event of terrorist attacks.

The complex will have several comforts for the delegates as well. A high speed subway system connects the complex to the Corporate Tower. It is well secured and for the exclusive use of delegates and their guests. The official portions are separated from the tourist areas both for convenience, and for security reasons. Tourists are still, of course, welcome to visit.

[bump for weirdos who are up during the day]

"What a security..." Refa sighed, when entering the 'complex'. "I thought the cold war is over? Well, anyway..."

Being the Angstian delegate to the WBO, he had to live here... Not that it was a bad place, though. The Hack was actually fairly... convenient a place for an Angstian. Comparable environment, comparable social structure...

Yes, he would enjoy it.

Although the had some doubts regarding the 'secure' communication lines...

All this similarities, he was pretty sure they would be comparable snakes, as well...

We extend our congratulations to our friends in The Hack on the completion of this project, and will continue to assist in the training of the complex's security corps.

Rachel Knight, Department of External Affairs, GMC Military Arms.

WBO? Wild Bake-Off?

WBO? Wild Bake-Off?
Three cheers for the bake-off..

W00T!
LOLZ!
OMG!

We thank GMC for their continued support in this project.

To our associates in Der Angst, as well as to other members of the World Business Organization, we hope you enjoy your stay in the Hack, and if there's anything we can do to make your stay more comfortable, feel free to call my office and let me know.

- Jessica Hawthorne, Delegate to the WBO
The Semi-Autonomous Technocratic Oligarchy of the Most Glorious Hack

[ooc - Aw... common DA. Doncha trust me? :wink: ]

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A new wind
WBO Headquarters
The Most Glorious Hack
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Kok, the old Ambassador to the WBO and SATO, and his party arrived in the new complex of the World Business Association by subway, without much glamour. Kok – or just Wim to most WBO and SATO heads of state – was moving over to check out the complex and to meet his Knootian successor. Walking into the building, he was not greeted or even recognised. While he was pretty well-known in certain international diplomatic circles, he was still an anonymous bureaucrat to the masses.

Kok had spent decades as the representative of Knootoss to the WBO and the South Atlantic Treaty Organisation. He had spent countless hours conferring with heads of state, who for some reason always insisted on attending alliance meetings themselves. The numerous alliances that the DDR maintained had made this a sheer impossible task. The Knootian Prime Minister would not have any time left to tend to domestic affairs should she attend all those meetings. Decades ago, under the first Vogels administration, some minister had made the totally insane decision to combine the function of ambassador to the WBO and SATO. “For efficiency reasons”, it was said. “After all, both organisations share a lot of members and the goals are not that divergent and we wouldn’t have to have two ambassadors and staff following all that.” And so, the already senior ex-SLP politician had become ambassador to the economic WBO and also to the military alliance SATO.

A Hack diplomat whom he had met before, greeted the grey old man and he greeted back warmly, hoping for a talk. But the diplomat was busy and had more work to do. With a “see you Wim”, he vanished into the crowd.

The complex stood tall, and the main meeting hall was very impressive. The diamond blue towers of the old WBO headquarters had been one of the ambassadors homes for his period of service, but most of his time he had spent in aeroplanes, travelling back and forth from one HQ to the other. The travelling had worn out the old man, who was now in his seventies. Even for the staunch (but sometimes grumpy) compromiser, the eternal diplomat, old age had become too much of a burden. Five miles north of Chiba City on the southern end of Mhu Thulan in the Hack, the journey ended.

---

“We need more space!” shouted a muscled mover with short black hair. An entire floor had to be cleared for this new Knootian office. What was supposed to be an orderly workplace that afternoon was still a chaos of unpacked cardboard boxes, half-laid blue carpets and scattered file cabinets. The Knootians were “a bit late”, as one of the amused Angstian diplomatic staff phrased it.

Ambassador de Vries sat down on a couch that stood in the middle of a hallway. This is going to be another long day , he thought.. His body could take more, but his brain was sleepy from the long days he had made trying to establish himself. And then there was the move to the new Headquarters, and SATO being in the middle of a reorganisation process. Travelling around between the two headquarters had also been more trouble then the relatively young man had anticipated. He muttered to himself: “all those different alliances with their slightly different goals, bah, if it were up to me there would be a big merger tomorrow: if not for efficiency then for my rest.” He tried to count the Knootian memberships on his fingers: WBO, UTP, SATO, BDI, UNAOTO, UFTA, the DRA and the nameless Dutch organisational structure, “friends” to the separatist ideals, permanent emissaries to several regions and alliances such as the Sisgardian mission…” His thoughts went astray: And now parliament wants us to join the Union of Progressive States or whatever they call it”

The new ambassadors thoughts were disturbed. “Sir?”, the black haired mover asked, “I need you to sign this request for more office space. That is, if you want all these, uhm… things, to fit in the workplace. There must have been some miscommunication or miscalculation here.” The young activist-turned-diplomat looked over the paper, and signed it with a graceful gesture. A simple but powerful signature. The new man in town took charge, walked in and started to boss the movers around. That same evening, the furnishing of the Knootian WBO office was finished.

Biography of the new Knootian ambassador to the WBO/SATO:
Intelligence report by [your local agency]

Name: Ambassador de Vries

Age: 31

Function: diplomatic relations with WBO and SATO alliances, representing Knootian interests there. Limited decision-making authority in theory, in practice semiautonomous, supported by his staff. Ambassador can implement own ideas to work with parliament majorities.

Background: Was born on a boat in a working class neighbourhood in Amsterdam, the Jordaan. Originally a freelance painter. Painting became secondary however, as his political ideals became more important, “the thoughts behinds the paintings”, as he put it. Went into politics as a local councillor in Amsterdam – became a rising star within the green KGP. Has leftist ideals but is considered a moderate within the KGP. Headed several large international organisation later on, was a member of NS Greenpeace. He does not have strong day-to-day ties with the green party and is perceived to have become more of a pragmatist with time passing, making him acceptable as a replacement for Kok for the SLP.

Bulletpoints:
-Is less grumpy then his predecessor.
-Has somewhat better organisational skills then his predecessor.
-Has had several clashes with jealous diplomats over his somewhat different career path.
-Definitely a leftist, esp. concerning international aid, civil rights and the environment.
-Radical ideals on WBO/SATO reform. Is quoted to have said: “let’s lump the lot together and be done with it. One big international organisation.”
-Avowedly atheist and almost militantly so. (But that should hardly be a surprise.)

BUMPO

Jessica skimmed over the dossier that had been provided to her by the security staff at the HQ. She jotted down a few notes for future reference before heading over to the security control room. She smiled at the guards, "Hey, pull up the feed from the new guy from Knootoss."

One of the larger screens switched over and she watched the new ambassador trying to get moved in. She frowned, "How much shit does he have?" She sighed and thanked the guards before heading over to what seemed to be rapidly becoming the 'Knootoss Wing'.

She navigated her way around the various movers and staffers, before finally locating Ambassador de Vries. She smiled a charming smile, "Ambassador? Pleased to meet you. I'm Jessica Hawthorne, the Hack's Delegate, and something of the local welcoming committee." She glanced around at all the movers, "I trust you're getting settled in with minimal difficulty?"

De Vries looked up: “…. Ah, how nice,” he said as he shook hands with Jessica Hawthorne.

He then looked around at the chaos himself, alert that there would not be more errors. He noticed one of the movers putting computers on top of eachother in the corner of a room. “Hey, be careful with that, he shouted. Put those next to each other in the next room. A Hack technician will install them for us in an hour or so.”

He turned back to Jessica, smiling again. “Sorry for the interruption. Well, as you can see we are still busy moving in. There have been some, uhm, minor communication errors, but I’m sure that it will all be worked out soon. I expect it all be done today. We just have a lot of stuff to move.”

He explained himself, as if to excuse himself for the extra office space they had requested: “You see, I want everyone in my staff to have fixed places in either the WBO or the SATO office instead of them constantly moving around along with me, which takes more space but in the end it will save money. We also want to do some more economic regulation through the WBO instead of bilateral embassies and lastly there have been some new government regulations that require us to record more of what we actually do around here. Sure, it is very good for transparency and public accountability but it eats time.”

Jessica looked around at all the movers, smiling, "Yes, I noticed that you're... moving a lot of stuff in." She watched several more filing cabinets were moved in, "A lot of stuff..."

She consults a rather small PDA briefly. "Well... it looks like the extra space won't be a problem. We'll just shove the Angstians into the east wing. However, I'm a little concerned about the logical path you're trying to follow... It seems that you're essentially doubling the size of your staff, which doubles your workload, doubles salary costs, and all that other fun stuff. If you want, we can set up some satellite communications and streamline the whole set up, and greatly reduce your staffing, and improving efficiency." She smiles charmingly, her golden eyes sparkling a little.

"Thank you very much for the offer, but you should know the fist rule of bureaucracy: the more funding the better. I’ve been here for only a few days and the ministry immediately approved all my suggestions that would make this place more expensive and rejected most efficiency proposals. The only viable thing I could push trough was an end to the ridiculous travelling of the staff. Dirty politics behind this. You see, I am ‘controlled’ by the ministry of foreign affairs, while Economic Affairs controls the bilateral delegations to foreign nations – including the WBO ones and some of the embassy staff." He sighed, and looked at Jessica: “So apart from dealing with Lavenrunzian temper and Angstian plotting there is this political infighting. Nice job eh?” He smiled to let Jessica know that he didn’t really mind.

As they chatted, they watched a mover carrying two boxes trip over an electrical wire on the far side of the room.

“Ouch, that should hurt”, he commented, but about your offer: I’d have to clear that with the staff first. After all, they wouldn’t like it if started doing their work for them. That said, I heard many good things about Hack information technology. Did you not rank very high in the world? ”

Jessica smiles, "Ah, well... you see, I'm coming from the position of an economist, not as a bureaucrat. However, the... peculiarities of your government aren't really a concern. We made this complex more than big enough to accomidate your, and everyone else's, needs." She laughs slightly and adds, "I'm personally amused by the Anstian plotting. It's fun to outsmart them," she winks.

She looks mildly pained at the mover falling, but doesn't seem overly inspired to help out. "And yes, we are one of the highest ranked nations in the world. According to the UN. However accurate they may or may not be."

"I'll send over my systems engineer then to work something out", de Vries says. "Now, if you'll excuse me I have to sort this mess out. I'll see you again at the first meeting. Ok?"

Jessica nods, "Of course, of cour-" her pager goes off mid word. She glances down at the message displayed, and she smiles despite herself. After a couple minutes she blinks, and notices deVries giving her an odd look. "Ah... yeah... first meeting. Sounds good." She wanders off.