Global Organization for Liberty and Defense

The Global Organization for Liberty and Defense, also known as GOLD, is a moderate-sized alliance located in the Yellow sphere. It is currently one of two sanctioned alliances within the Yellow sphere.

History
GOLD began as a merger of three of the largest alliances in the yellow sphere, CNDI, BoSS, and Exion. Together, they hoped to bring stability, peace and economic prosperity to their members, and attract more nations to the yellow banner.

GOLD was officially created on October 8th, 2006, but was only open to members of the three merging alliances - Exion, Cyber Nations Defense Initiative and the Brotherhood of Soverign States. This move was mostly to allow everything to get properly settled before introducing new members to the mix. However, as of October 21, 2006 - approximately 2 weeks after the merger, GOLD was opened to the public. To date, GOLD's member count has almost doubled since opening to the public; a major achievement for an alliance not based from offsite boards.

Though originally setting out to promote neutrality and to help bridge the divide caused by The Great War, GOLD soon signed MDPs first with NAAC and LUE. This came with a plethera of NAPs involving CIS, ROCK, IRON, Shadow Council, ODN, GATO, the Legion, NAAC, and Nordreich.

The Silent_01 Affair
During the months of November and December 2006, GOLD saw steady growth under the leadership of its first Premier Cramzpatio of Somalia. It was during this period that tensions within GOLD reached a breaking point.

A particular member, Silent_01, had repeatedly agitated many members of GOLD and had already caused early issues between GOLD and the NPO. Infamous for manipulations, backing out of tech deals, and general asshattery, Silent_01 finally went too far when, against the specific orders of the GOLD leadership, she ran for Yellow Team Senator, displacing GOLD member Enrique Barrentos. In the conflagration that followed, it was discovered that she secretly edited her application to GOLD, disavowing her oath and leaving the post "EDIT: I wonder if anyone will notice :P".

As it turned out, someone did notice, and she was promptly expelled from GOLD. After refusing the GOLD request that she leave the Yellow Team and her Senate position, Silent_01 was nuked on November 26, 2006, 11:54 PM (CST) by Enrique Barrentos, acting under orders from GOLD's Security Council. Following a quick and decisive flurry of attacks in which Silent_01 lost over 600 infrastructure in a day, she surrendered to the combined forces of GOLD and FAN and switched to the Green Team, reliquishing her senate seat.

Some national rulers within the Yellow Trading Sphere, like Pennglock of FAN, still maintain that Silent_01 is actually closely associated with the Cyber Nations admin team and could quite possibly be one of their girlfriends.

The Second Great War
Most people in the Cybernations community know the story of the Second Great War. In the immediate escalation to the conflict, GOLD joined the League as it's first non-signatory member. When LUE proclaimed that it would come to the defense of any FARK members that joined thier ranks, GOLD prepared for war. With the udeclared war between GOONS and LUE raging, the NAAC decided to come to the aid of their ally and declared that they would defend LUE against any and all enemies. With this entry of NAAC and the continued conflict with LUE, this effectively brought the entire League, including GOLD, into the war.

Following GOLD's declaration of war on all aggressors towards our MDP ally LUE; GOLD members began attacking Initiative nations, primarily those of the NPO. Overall, GOLD's military performed well during the war, capitalizing on their low profile as an alliance (they weren't as prime a target as the NAAC or LUE itself) and the confusion caused by the masses of attacks against the NPO. Because of this, GOLD managed an impressive tally of 3 enemy anarchies for each friendly.

The relatively few anarchies of GOLD members helped alieviate the rebuilding costs in GOLD.

In early April of 2007, the members of the Republic of Cancelled Kombat voted to merge and join GOLD as a part of the same alliance. The official declaration was April 2nd, 2007. This show of good faith has significantly helped out both parties and the promise of a mask is in the near future for GOLD.

The Third Great War
On the 19th March, the NPO and a number of its allies declared war against GATO. This was in response to accusations by the NPO that GATO had been inciting hatred towards NPO and The Initiative, also accusations of GATO spying on the NPO. There was also a leaked correspondence between The Initiative alliances of plans to deal with the allies of GATO if they should come to GATO’s defence. This in turn led to the involvement of the major alliances; The Legion, NAAC, /b/, CDS and ODN. GOLD at the time held PIATs with /b/ and ODN, and there was much debate within GOLD as to whether the alliance should get involved in this war to assist our current allies and former League allies.

On March 25th it was announced to Planet Bob that GOLD would not enter the war, this was not an easy decision to reach but due to the remarkable growth of the alliance in the weeks prior to this point and the soon to be announced merger with R.O.C.K. it was felt entering the war would only serve to undo all the hard work that had now put GOLD into a position to be masked.

Following the conclusion of The Third Great War and the announcement by admin of the audit, GOLD was masked as the 6th strongest alliance on Planet Bob. This was greeted with many BBQs in the alliance and alliance nations, the hard work of many had paid off.

Attempted disbandment and counter claims
On June 10, Thomas20 anounced that he was disbanding the Global Organization for Liberty and Defense.

Many denounced this action, citing it was illegal under the terms of their Charter. Following this, two threads claiming that GOLD was not disbanding were created.

One, created by Howso, proclaimed himself Acting Preimer until further notice. The majority of Planet Bob refused, at first to reconise this, citing that what Thomas had done was a legal action therefore GOLD was no more.

The second, created by General Ego, instead proclaimed that due to lack of Premier, The Security council would control GOLD until a new Premier was elected. This time however, Planet Bob recognized that GOLD was still continuing as a functioning alliance and that they had not disbanded.

How ever it is viewed, what followed was mass confusing among the cyberverse with some claiming that GOLD had disbanded whilst others supported the new Government.

GOONS made their own annoucment concerning their views of GOLD. 

Government
GOLD's central government is constructed of a lead official (The Premier), 7 Advisors (The Security Council), and an offical court of law (The Judiciary Council), as well as various other ministries, which change depending on the situation.

The Premier
The Premier is the head of the GOLD alliance. The Premier may serve a term of up to four months, before an election must be held. There is no limit to how many terms a member may hold as Premier.

The Premier has veto rights on any bill that passes the general membership, though a majority vote of the Security Council may counter this veto.

The current Premier is not yet elected. The Security Council is, at present, acting as Premier until the next election.

Past Premiers:
Cramzpatio of Somalia

Machiabelly of Prince Edward Island

thomas20 of S.N.C.F.W.

The Security Council
The Security Council is made up of 7 members, elected to be the Advisors to the Premier. These members are in charge of the more day-to-day operations of the Alliance, and are in charge of setting up Ministries and appointing Ministers, and choosing and appoint members of the Judiciary Council.

Of the 7 Security Council Members, 3 are considered "Senior Members". To be elected as a Senior Member, the candidate must have served at least 1 term as a "Junior" Council member. Senior members gain no additional powers or responsibilities, but instead have a 1-month longer term. Due to the recent merger with Republic of Cancelled Kombat, the Security Council was expanded for one term.

Security Council members serve terms of two months (for Junior), or three months (for Senior). The current Security Council members are as follows:


 * General Ego (Until June 18, 2007)
 * EMATO (Until June 18, 2007)
 * Dan2680 (Until July 18, 2007)

The Judicary Council
The Judicary Council was the Court of Law for GOLD. Following legislation passed by the GOLD Security Council on March 27, 2007, the Judiciary Council was dissolved. The three Senior Security Council members thus assumed all the duties of the Judiciary Council. This move streamlined trials and expanded the court's sentencing powers to include military actions as per the GOLD Charter.

Any GOLD member may bring a trial before the Senior Secutiry Council members. Should a Senior Security Council member be in question, their position will be temporarily filled by a Junior Security Council member appointed by the Premier. All appeals will be decided by a combined vote of the Junior and Senior Security Council.

Ministers & Ministries
Ministries are seperate departments, all with given powers to help the Security Council with day-to-day tasks. Ministries and their ministers are all created and subject to the Security Council. Ministries can be removed or added at any point by a vote of the Security Council. All ministers are appointed by the Premier with the approval of the SC, and are appointed until they are removed from office or step down.

The Current Ministries (and their Ministers) are as follows:
 * Ministry of Defense (Minister: Cflames89)
 * Ministry of External Affairs (Minister: Howso)
 * Ministry of Finance (Minister: Toichus Maximus)
 * Ministry of Internal Affairs (Minister: Varsus)
 * Ministry of Recruitment (Minister: El Pilchinator)

Yellow Senator
GOLD continues to support Enrique Barrentos as their choice for Yellow Senator and he is active in this pursuit, often imposing sanctions on tech raiders attacking semi-active alligned or non-alligned Yellow nations. In this position, he serves the Yellow Sphere as well as GOLD. He also coordinates actions with the current FAN Senators, when necessary, to further speed sanctions in the Yellow Sphere ensuring prompt and accurate assimilation of information and activity.

Treaties
GOLD currently holds NAP's with the IRON, the Shadow Council, Legion, ODN, and GATO. GOLD also has PIATs with IRON, NADC and ODN.

A complete list of GOLD's Treaties can be found Here.