The Northern Ocean Summit

[Achkaerin]

To the nations of the Great Northern Ocean:

There have been many attempts at bringing the nations of Mundus together to work as one for a common cause, most have failed and they have failed for many different reasons whether it be lack of engagement or unwillingness to step up by the members or something more simple, having seen three failed attempts to manage this I am of the opinion that the future of Mundus in this sense is that of a far more localized one, for it is only on the local level where the leeway exists to accommodate the unique nature of each individual state.

The Great Northern Ocean is the largest body of water on Mundus and we are the nations responsible for it's safety, security and longevity. We are also a community bound together by our geography and while we have not always agreed with each other for example some of us were on opposite sides during the Great War, I do believe that there is now an opportunity for us as a community to come together and determine through discussion and understanding what we want the shape of our region of Mundus to be like. If the future of Mundus is indeed to be at the local level then it would be remiss of us not to look at our own region and see if something can be developed.

Therefore I invite you to the Marble Palace in Valtheim to discuss this and hopefully to build the future of our region.

Signed in friendship

Emperor Peter Azurewind

OOC - I'm flexible on this but I would suggest map wise that the Northern Ocean begins approx level with the northern coast of Vaguzia.

[Izhitsa]

Two copies of the letter arrived in Izhitsa: one in the former king’s palace in Hrabohrada, and one in the High Lord’s office in Tilhuitnah. Matvey Karamovo tore open his copy, read it, and dialed a Tilhuitnah number on the former prime minister’s rotary phone.
“Yes?” answered the phone.
“This is Chairman Karamovo. I need you to put me through to the High Lord’s office.”
There was a pause.
“What?” came the reply.
“The High Lord’s office! Put me through to Lord Dzhavid’s office!”
There was another, slightly longer pause.
“Sorry, I still can’t hear you! What did you say?”
“Now, look here. I am Chairman Matvey Karamovo of Izhitska Ednota and---”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Mister Chairman! You’ll be wanting Antek then. I’ll put you through.” Finally! thought Matvey. He never would’ve relocated his office to Hrabohrada if he’d known that the phones here were so useless.

Antek Dzhavid was looking at reports on the reconstruction of Trkh. Trkh was hit particularly badly in the war. The docks were the first part of the town targeted by the few bombers Yach had available. They were the town’s livelihood and an important center of nationalist naval power. They were also storing several thousand tons of fuel, which started a fire that wasn’t put out for three days. Well, they said “put out”. In reality there just wasn’t anything left to burn.
The phone rang. He picked it up.
“Ahoy?” he said.
“Ahoy, Antek!" said Matvey. "Have you checked your mail yet today?” He hadn’t yet. Antek always waited until just after lunch to check his mail. It really helped to put an anchor in the middle of his day.
“It’s here on my desk. Is there something in particular you wanted me to read?”
“There’s a letter here from Achkaerin. Did you get one too?”
Antek sifted through his inbox and located it. “Yes, I believe so.” He took a letter-opener from the corner of his desk and slit it open. He raised an eyebrow as he read it.
“How do you feel about a trip to Valtheim?” asked Matvey.

Emperor Peter Azurewind:


We agree that a community of Northern Ocean nations is needed now, especially in light of recent crises along this region. In light of the differences many of us have had, it would be a shame to miss an opportunity to smooth over our past conflicts. We will personally be attending this summit with translators, as our English is not up to the levels necessary for international diplomacy. We hope Izhitsa can help bring real change to the Northern Ocean.

Signed,
High Lord Antek Dzhavid
Chairman Matvey Karamovo
Izhitsan Provisional Government

[Beatrice]

Emperor Peter;

While I am well known to hold reservations regarding international institutions the hand of friendship the Holy Empire has shown to the Kingdom in these darkened times endears in me faith in hearing your vision, and weighing it upon its merits without bias.

I shall be attending the Summit personally, however, I would ask that discretion be afforded as to not encourage our enemies to entertain any rash ideas whilst I am outside of the Kingdom.

Akasha Di-‘nh-mi-Re, Sovereign of Sovereigns, Divine of Appearance, Beloved of Amun, Chosen of Ra, Lord of the Three Lands, Ruler of Justice like Ra, High Priest of Every Temple, the Eye of Horus, Satisfied is the heart of Ra.

[Achkaerin]

OOC - as always anyone with a border on the Northern Ocean, which as Cartographer I'm defining as north of the red lines on the spoiler image below (I'm open to opinion but that is my rough working) is still welcome to turn up even if they haven't responded to the invite but I figured it was time to move it along

Spoiler: show

It was a rather special day in Valtheim, it was the first official day of spring, the day the cherry blossoms bloomed and danced their dance on the winds of the north. It was a day full of traditions, fun and laughter. However for Peter today was about something else, it was about the opportunity to get something truly significant done. It had taken three years worth of bi-lateral negotiations to get to this point first with Vaguzia, then Seaforth and most recently Dragovah to get a foundation for what Peter hoped would be born today, it was long past time that the nations that formed what he called the Northern Ocean Community came together and met to discuss what could be a significant tapping of the potential of each nation. The community was largely dominated by nations recently emerging from isolation or in the case of Izhitsa a civil conflict, of course Clysperis was in the midst of its own internal conflict and Peter hoped that that fight was nearing its end. Each of these circumstances had in conjunction with the three years of diplomacy before now formed the shape of what the Emperor hoped they'd be able to build, a community that was respectful, that benefitted from each other, that was responsible and ready to take responsibility for their own region. Peter didn't expect it to be easy to get something like this done but he believed it was achievable.

Given what the intent was it was perhaps not surprising that Peter had asked his niece Sakura to be present, she was one of Mundus's most experienced diplomats and was no stranger to tricky summits. Also present was Cheryl Holmes, the Minister for the Diplomatic Office which was a fancy way of putting her in charge of the 'Prefect system' of ambassadors that Achkaerin employed, it also gave her a portfolio that was useful at summits such as this. Peter smiled as, with his bionic arm, he straightened out his jacket usually this was the bit where he'd be placing a bet as to who would show up first but not today he was perhaps a little nervous about this to think about such things. He walked out of his study and into the main hallway of the Marble Palace, Sakura was stood there waiting, she fell in step beside Peter and the pair walked out front out of the Palace where Cheryl was waiting, now they just had to wait and see who arrived and when.

[San Huberto]

OOC: My nation isn't on the map yet, but when my claims are processed I'll be well above the red line, so I'm gonna hop on in.

To The Most Excellent Emperor Peter,

We agree wholeheartedly with your analysis, in international politics, the global and the all-encompassing is emphasized to the neglect of the local and the national. Subsidiarity, the belief that no larger unit, be it social, economic, or political, should perform a function which can be fulfilled by a smaller unit, is one of the founding principles of Distributism.

Of equal importance is the wellbeing of our Common Home, the Great Northern Ocean. It is the artery that binds together our community of nations. The physical safety, political stability, and ecological health of this body of water are issues too large for any single polity to ensure.

It is with good faith towards all nations of the Great Northern Ocean and ill will towards none that we agree to meet at the proposed place and time. We shall select a representative for this conference forthwith. We anticipate our meeting to be amicable as well as fruitful.

With warm and respectful regards,

The gathered Delegates of the Constitutional Assembly of San Huberto

[San Huberto]

Juan Nepomuceno Barrientos was tired. He had caught a red-eye flight from San Huberto City, to reach a connecting flight to Valtheim, and was now being driven through its bustling streets, inevitably to arrive at the Marble Palace. He had come to terms with the fact that he would not have a chance to sleep many hours ago, and so contented himself by seeing as much as the city as he could through his window. Valtheim was quite photogenic, as well as many times larger than San Huberto City, or any city in his nation for that matter. He wondered how the city might look during the stormy season he had heard about, perhaps just a photogenic in a melancholy sort of way.

Barrientos glanced again through his notes, notes covering the nation Achkaerin, the city of Valtheim, the other nations that would be present, directions from the Assembly on how to proceed. He almost wanted to laugh, his directions indicated that if the opportunity arose he should press for recognition of San Huberto's claim to the Emerald Strait, a request more comical than likely. Perhaps the rest of his notes were more serious. Truthfully, he had only given them a cursory glance, but no matter, his assistant had been pouring over the brief documents for days and could probably recite them by memory. He was accompanied by a young man, over 10 years his junior, but slightly taller, named Eduardo, went by Lalo, a graduate student in Political Science from the National Autonomous University in the capital, interning for the Constitutional Assembly. Lalo's mood seemed to alternate between ecstatic and terrified, his first time out of the country no doubt, and on a diplomatic mission too. Barrientos on the other hand was calm, bored even. He knew the truth, he was no diplomat, he was a glorified courier, sent by the older members of the assembly who would rather re-litigate issues that should have been settled by the civil war than actually write a constitution. His job was simply to carry the results of the meeting back to them, any agreement that might come out of this summit would have to be approved by the assembly. If a fax machine could where a suit they would've elected to send that.

Barrientos would've preferred that, as annoyed as he was he couldn't blame his fellow delegates for their decision. He would much rather be at home too. As slow and tiring as the assembly was, it was a real chance to achieve in a few months what had eluded the party for decades: success. Not the half measures and policy failures that had been so common until now, but real success. With a constitution geared toward their platform, the promises of previous generations would finally be achieved.

His political daydream was interrupted as he felt the car slow, and then stop completely. They had arrived finally at the Marble Palace. "Stand behind me", Barrientos whispered to his associate before exiting the car. He could could see a trio awaiting them in front of the palace. As the pair advanced toward the monarch and his companions, Barrientos was now surely as anxious as Lalo was. Upon reaching the group Barrientos was at first unsure if a handshake would be appropriate, given the Emperor's status as well as the status of his right arm. Regardless, after a slight pause Barrientos extended his hand and began, "Your Imperial Majesty, may I be the first of my countrymen to offer you our friendship?"

[Beatrice]

Following Barrientos was Akasha, Pharaoh of the Kingdom of Clysperis. She wasn't sure what to expect of this Summit although, as she had relayed in her message to the Emperor, he had gained at least her unbiased ear toward his proposals.

"Emperor Peter," she said with a nod, "Your message was one I greeted with curiosity. It is with keen interest that I await those proposals you've invited us here to be presented with. The Kingdom holds perhaps a natural air of skepticism toward the moves of large powers in their building of regional blocs and institutions however, as promised, I shall present to you a fair and open ear."

[Izhitsa]

Matvey Karamovo hated flying. Somehow, shoving himself into a cramped metal tube which would then proceed to shake his guts out as it sputtered precariously six miles above the surface of the Earth never appealed to him. He glanced gingerly at his third and final sick bag as the plane began its final descent.
Dushan Ondrevich buckled his seatbelt. This was his first time flying, but a lifetime of hitching rides on freight trains and the backs of trucks had prepared him for the turbulence, if nothing else. For the entire trip he found himself staring out the window over Karamovo’s green face.
Antek Dzhavid spent the trip working on his next history of Yach. His previous book had covered the conflicts between Yach and Izhitsa’s crusader states, ending with the installment of an Izhitsan Orthodox Governor in Yach in 1634. He was now poring over writings from the pre-Izhitsan period. As the plane touched down, he decided to dedicate a section to Medieval Yachese philosophy.
Bartolomey Hatsek couldn’t stop looking at his watch. The flight began nearly thirty minutes behind schedule, and he was not going to let Izhitsa’s first impression in Achkaerin be a lack of punctuality. He’d slipped the pilots 1000 revni each to fly through a thunderstorm, and this seemed to have been worth it. Karamovo might curse the turbulence, but being sick was always better than losing face.

Bartolomey and Dushan had been largely working in the background since their return from Dragovah[1]. They’d been busy working with Tytor on opening Izhitsan embassies and attempting to force Matvey and Antek to calm themselves down a bit in preparation for the summit. So far they’d managed to stop either of them from issuing an angry statement for over two weeks, which they considered such an achievement that they’d gone out and had a celebratory quart of beer together the night before the flight.

The group exited the plane, Matvey held onto Dushan for support.
“Is it really true that Emperor Peter’s got a robot arm?” whispered Matvey.
“Are you joking? Where’d you hear that?” replied Antek.
“I don’t know, someone at the bar mentioned it or something.”
“Someone at the bar?” hissed Antek. “Are you serious?”
Bartolomey cleared his throat. “Chairman, before you plod down this line of conversation, perhaps you’d like to ask someone who can actually answer your question?”
“Yes, Mr. Hatsek?” said Matvey.
“The Emperor lost his original right arm in a terrorist attack,” said Bartolomey. “His current one is a prosthetic, and a rather good one at that. I wouldn’t recommend you to mention it.”
“Right then.”

The group arrived at the Marble Palace somewhat later than they’d hoped. Antek was rather disappointed that they weren’t the first delegates there. He recognised Akasha from the newspapers, but not the other one. As they approached the Achkaerinese, he whispered something into Bartolomey’s ear. “Emperor Peter,” said Bartolomey with a slight bow, “on behalf of Chairman Karamovo and High Lord Dzhavid, may I just say how pleased we are to work with you on some wider change in the Northern Ocean community. I and my counterpart Mr. Ondrevich will be translating for the Chairman and the High Lord.”

1.	As Dragovah seems to have gone missing, I'm assuming that the negotiations with Dragovah were complete around when that RP started (February?) and those characters are now free to do this.

[Achkaerin]

Peter shook Barrientos's offered hand.
"I hope that today marks the beginning a strong and long lasting friendship between our nations." Peter said smiling "I look forward to learning a thing or two about your nation."

The Emperor didn't have much time before Akasha arrived hot on Barrientos's heels. Peter greeted her.
"I'm optimistic that I may be about to change that sceptical mind of yours." he said "Sakura will show you and our other esteemed guest her from San Huberto inside."

Then came the Izhitsan's this was one rare occasion where Cheryl had to mutter to Peter precisely who was who as the group approached. Peter greeted each of them in turn.

"Welcome to Valtheim." Peter said "I hope you will indulge me a little later on there is a minor matter I'd like to discuss with you. However for now let's see what change we can bring about."
OOC - Anyone else turning up after this point should assume they've been here all along please

It being a rather warm day in Achkaerin for a change, the Emperor had decided that having talks in the gardens would perhaps be more pleasant. There was table for them to sit at, another with refreshments on. Peter waited for everyone else to take their seats before sitting down himself.

"If anyone would like some refreshments then please feel free to help yourselves." Peter said "Allow to begin by thanking you all for coming today. As you may have gathered from my invitation I'm hoping to formulate today a relationship between our nations that creates a strong foundation on which our region of Mundus can build from. Over the last few years one by one different areas of Mundus have started to take responsibility for their own affairs working together and it has proven successful. We represent nations that sit on the largest expanse of water on Mundus, we're all bound together by that, it gives us common ground to work from in forming the basis of a future relationship to ensure the safety and prosperity of our region.

I believe there are five pillars on which this should be based - diplomacy, trade, travel, culture and security. I believe we have shown over the last few months with the war in Clysperis that although nations do disagree on certain matters that we can work together for something that is in our mutual interests, whether it be the destruction of a rebellion or the foundation of beneficial ties spanning our ocean. Normally this is where someone produces a pre-prepared piece of paper, but not today. I think we should discuss what we want to see first and put things down as we go."

[DaveIronside]

President Mikhael Dretsyj scribbled down the five pillars that Emperor Peter had just spoken of. "If I may begin on behalf of Safraen" the President began, "Our region is very different to that of others. We're 17,000km or so across, we have a vast variety of different cultures, languages and religions. While this does not mean your plan is doomed to fail it does make things less simple than say a MICA arrangement. I personally also believe that we sit with an issue before we even begin. The war in Clysperis already demonstrates divisions among us. Several occasions myself and Duke David of Vanora" He gestured to his counter part sat opposite, "requested and spoke of a need to lessen military activity in the Gulf of Safraen. Every single time our calls were not listened to. We saw a naval presence there beyond even that of the time when the CIS had to come and deal with the virus within our nation. It is not as though during the crisis Safraen and Vanora magically stopped patrolling the Gulf ourselves yet nations from over 4,000km away believed they could impose rules over it. I think we should perhaps begin not by looking at where we want to go but look at fixing where we've been."

[Beatrice]

"With due respect, President, I am terribly sorry that the plight and suffering of my People at the hands of terrorists has inconvenienced you so. However, it would be remiss of me to note that the party with which you have grievances is not even sat in this room with us. I mean you had what, three Achkaerinese ships in the Gulf, with the remainder being within the Clysperi EEZ? I will now defer to Emperor Peter to clarify any points he may wish to see addressed on this matter."

[Izhitsa]

Matvey Karamovo said something to Dushan Ondrevich. Antek Dzhavid made a nod to agree.
"Chairman Karamovo," said Dushan, "proposes that perhaps our first order of business should be on travel, as out of the three— er, five pillars, it's the least likely to cause any discord between the good people speaking here. After all, don't they say that tourism brings nations together?"

[San Huberto]

At this moment, Barrientos chose to interject, "Señor Karamovo has the right idea. Let us not bicker before the discussion had even begun. Perhaps we should set an Order of Business? Let us inaugurate this summit with a dialogue about travel, as the Izhitsa delegation so astutely suggested, and from there I would propose that we move to culture, then onto diplomacy, trade, before ending with security, which appears to be a contentious issue."

Barrientos paused for a moment and, fearing he may have overstepped, quickly added "Of course, that is simply my own observation, I would defer any such decision to the gathered delegations or to His Imperial Majesty, our gracious host."

"Continuing with the topic of travel, perhaps mutually reduced visa fees for citizens of signatory nations would be a suitable place to begin? Or a fast-tracked visa application process for citizens of all our states?"

[Achkaerin]

"Very quickly in relation to the Gulf of Safraen matter" Peter said "As the Pharaoh has stated we're talking from the Achkaerinese side of things about three ships in international waters and the remainder in the Clysperi EEZ, this was publicly clarified in a press release when the governments of Safraen and Vanora voiced their concerns. Quite why the government of Dragovah decided to throw the size of fleet it did into the equation is a mystery and not something I can answer, however what we can learn from that is that communication and the need for clarity in communication is a must.

In regards to the travel ideas when it comes to visas I personally would favour the fast tracked option for a variable time period depending on the reason for travel, for example a business visa may require a longer stay than a tourist visa and a student visa would potentially have to be longer still."

[DaveIronside]

President Mikhael Dretsyj shook his head, "We have gathered to apparently work as one for a common cause. If we are to do that then we need to ensure the problems that have stopped that in the past are addressed. That is what I called for but instead of trusting their physical neighbours with stopping things such as arms smuggling a massive fleet is brought into the area and that fleet does one single operation that involved nothing that couldn't be done with one ship. We then try and turn things towards travel, yet if as we've shown already we can't work as a region then I have little hope on being able to put together something as complex as a visa relaxation. So far we have yet to address anything this region has in common to mean we need a visa relaxation. There is however an issue that I would like the people in this room to consider first. That is slavery. Our own nation were effectively made slaves at one point by the USR, to the south of us all is Tamora a nation that permits slavery. Tamora are friends with both Clysperis and Abydos both of whom could potentially be part of this organisation. I think before dealing with Visa relaxation we should consider the fact that having visa free travel could potentially link us to having to make decisions on slaves in Tamora. The North Sea is likely to be a key trading route for Tamora in the coming years, are we going to allow that trade to happen if it involves slaves? What we determine here as a body will probably look at trade and business. I for one would not be comfortable the visa rules we set up being utilised in a way that supports slavery in any form. The first decision we need to make is what will our stance on slavery be?"