South Pacific Coral Guard

South Pacific Coral Guard

Group overview
Formed	26 June 2020 (2020-06-26)
Jurisdiction	the South Pacific
Status	Active
Headquarters	Coral Guard Offices - tspforums.xyz & Discord
Key document	Charter of the South Pacific

The South Pacific Coral Guard, often abbreviated to (SP)CG, is a group of trusted nations of the South Pacific who are tasked with maintaining high levels of endorsement. They thus form a firewall of endorsements and influence around the Delegate of the South Pacific, together with the Council on Regional Security protecting the Delegacy from illegal usurpation or coups.

History

The South Pacific Coral Guard was founded by the Council on Regional Security on June 26th, 2020, through Council Regulation Ⅲ. Concurrently, Council Regulation Ⅱ established a dynamic, automatically updated endorsement cap as a replacement for the static, merely periodically reviewed cap. Eligible nations had to privately submit an application to a CRS member, who'd then forward it to the whole Council to discuss and finally decide on. At this point, SPCG membership simply allowed nations to hold more endorsements than regular nations in order to build more influence, but already included the official duty to aid the CRS in times of crisis.

In late August / early September of 2021, Erinor and Jay Coop announced their resignations from the CRS in quick succession, the former for feeling unable to contribute to the security-focused Council anymore, and the latter out of a desire to join the South Pacific Special Forces, with which the then-active CRS membership requirement of holding a certain number of WA endorsements within the region was incompatible. CRS member Sandaoguo subsequently started a discussion in the Assembly about reworking the way the CRS is set up, primarily removing the WA membership requirement, since almost all players with extensive security knowledge simultaneously defend with the SPSF and likely wouldn't cease this activity in order to join the Council.

Following extensive discussion by the Assembly both on the forums and Discord, HumanSanity formulated the discussion results into an amendment proposal on October 28th, 2021. The amendment would remove all the endorsement-related requirements and duties from the CRS and shift them to the SPCG, effectively splitting the region's security apparatus in two more specialized agencies. An alternative suggestion by Aumeltopia for a three-way split was debated but ultimately dismissed, and HumanSanity's amendment passed the Assembly on the 19th of November with a landslide 84.1% majority. Coral Guard members were henceforth officially tasked with promoting endorsement culture in the South Pacific and building infrastructure and hosting events to that end.

The Council on Regional Security began internal discussions on changing their SPCG policy, especially relating to the endorsement cap, in response. Council Regulation Ⅳ was implemented on the 2nd of January, 2022, and re-defined the SPCG's endorsement cap to directly depend on the Delegate's endorsement count rather than that of Council members, while tying the regular endorsement cap to SPCG endorsement levels instead. Furthermore, in their new capacity, the Coral Guard collectively coordinated changes in the Local Council's RMB rules ‒ to allow CG members to publicly ask for endorsements on the RMB ‒ and SWAN's Knighthood policy ‒ to require endorsing the Delegate and all CG members instead of CRS members ‒ in order to adapt to their extended responsibilities.

Functions

The Charter of the South Pacific defines a number of duties of the South Pacific Coral Guard directly in regional law in Article Ⅸ's sections 17‒19. Additional expectations and mechanics are found in the CRS' regulations.

Duties of the SPCG

Members of the SPCG are expected to maintain high levels of endorsement in the South Pacific on-site. Thereby, they'll gain more regional influence, making it harder for any rogue Delegate or other Border Control Regional Officer to eject them. During such a coup or foreign invasion, they can thus form a considerable firewall preventing any such actor from holding onto their seat for too long, since their high endorsements make them a prime target for focusing the Coalition's endorsements on a trusted nation to take over the Delegacy and end the coup/invasion (even though if possible, a CRS member would take that role). Additionally, in times of crisis, the CRS is authorized to deliver any directive to the SPCG members in efforts to restore the legitimate government, up to and including the removal of specific nations from the region.

The SPCG is further tasked with building, promoting, and maintaining a growth-oriented cross-endorsement culture between the nations of the South Pacific, creating as many high-influence nations as possible within the limits of the CRS-set endorsement cap. For this, they are allowed to create infrastructure and conduct regional events.

Regional Endorsement Cap Reference

The general endorsement cap of the region is defined by the Council on Regional Security, which has decided to tie it to the endorsement levels of the Coral Guard, currently being set at 80% of the least-endorsed SPCG member. This direct dependence of the endorsement cap on the Coral Guard poses the imperative mandate for the SPCG to boost their endorsement count as much as possible, coordinating among themselves the sending of telegrams, internal standards for endotarting activity requirements, and devising strategies for helping their less-endorsed members gain more endorsements.

Membership

Nations of the South Pacific can attain membership in the South Pacific Coral Guard through a direct and secret application to the Council on Regional Security. In addition to meeting a number of objective requirements, the applicant must describe to the Council why they should be trusted with a higher endorsement cap and how they will be able to maintain such high endorsement levels, especially considering that the regional endorsement cap would be directly tied to them as an SPCG member. The CRS will then discuss the application and hold a formal vote on whether to appoint the applicant to the Coral Guard. The applicant will be privately informed of the result. If the Council has decided to appoint them as SPCG member, it will also forward the appointment to the Assembly.

Requirements

A few membership requirements are directly set in the Charter of the South Pacific, and would thus require a three-fifths majority vote by the Assembly to be changed. Currently, they are:

• maintaining a nation with World Assembly membership in the South Pacific;
• having served
  • six consecutive months as a legislator, or
  • two terms as a Local Councillor; and
• meeting additional endorsement count / influence requirements set by the CRS in a Regulation, of which currently none exist.

The CRS has made it clear that objectively qualifying according to these requirements does not subjectively qualify an applicant for SPCG membership.

Roster

Currently, there are 14 members of the South Pacific Coral Guard, including four of the six CRS members with World Assembly membership (signaled in bold).

№	Flag	Name	Appointment
1		Auphelia	14 August 2020
2		Concrete Slab	14 August 2020
3		Poppy	14 August 2020
5		Aidenfieeld	18 November 2020
7		Griffindor	18 November 2020
8		Purple Hyacinth	12 January 2021
9		Land Without Shrimp	13 June 2021
10		Tin the Free	17 August 2021
12		anjo	4 January 2022
13		Amerion	12 January 2022
14		PenguinPies	12 January 2022
15		Tsunamy	12 January 2022
16		Farengeto	6 February 2022

In total, 16 members have ever been appointed. Two members have resigned, and none were involuntarily removed yet.

External Links

• Council on Regional Security forums
• SWAN Dispatch on the Coral Guard
• On-site Coral Guard member comparison