My efforts in civcraft have been almost entirely devoted to Aytos in my 2.0 career, participating in politics and in local business. However before Aytos was founded I was an Orion citizen, and I have maintained a second home in that city ever since. But until yesterday, I had barely participated in Orion politics. I'd like to offer an explanation for my recent involvement.

Why we should root for Orion's survival

Orion's presence to our north is a valuable asset for Aytos. Having a highly developed economy close by was a great help in establishing our city at time before there were rail networks connecting the world. And for our entire history our security has benefitted from Orion's alternating between being a regional griefer magnet and a regional griefer deterrent. The bottom line is, just by existing as a strong and stable nearby state, Orion has helped our economy and our security for our entire existence.

So if Orion undergoes "civsplosion" and its security and economic infrastructure disintegrate, Aytos stands to lose a lot. Yes, we might pick up some stray population, but that's it. It's not in our interest to be eclipsed by an over-powerful Orion empire, but it is also not in our interest for our northern regions to be abandoned to griefers and warring tribals. My understanding of their political situation is that the latter is the more likely outcome in the medium or long term, if steps are not taken.

Orion's present predicament

Aytos has had PR government from a very early stage, so we have never had an opportunity for discontented masses to develop, and we never will. Our recent adoption of ministry government has preserved that advantage while also leaving our executive branch free to do their jobs mostly unhindered.

Orion's political system developed quite differently from ours. It began as an oligarchy of its founders, but transitioned early on to a majority rule, winner-take-all democracy. This type of democracy (unlike PR democracies) is prone to chaotic policy reversals between successive administrations, and Orion was no exception to this. Unhappy with this system, Orion then passed a new constitution which stripped out most democratic elements and installed their oligarchs as a permanent ruling bureaucracy. This solved their problem of executive stability and continuity, similarly to the way Aytos's ministry system has solved the same problem for us. Unlike Aytos though, Orion has thrown the baby out with the bathwater by eliminating elections and popular representatives entirely.

The result of this is that discontent has been brewing for some time, and if things are left alone we can look forward to major violent upheavals in their society, which as I have said, is not in Aytos's best interest.

Hence I have exercised my personal perogatives as an Orion citizen in attempting to establish a "popular assembly" body that may help the ruling bureaucracy get back in touch with their people before it is too late. This is for Aytos's benefit, in my belief, but it is not to be viewed as an activity of the Aytos Foreign Ministry. Unless we are invited to take an advisory role in an effort toward reforming the Orion government, something that is highly unlikely, there is not much that our Foreign Ministry can do.