United Blue Directorate

The United Blue Directorate (UBD) was founded on August 7, 2007 by Lyons and is based on the values of prosperity and security for all of it's members. The UBD is a blue team alliance and strives to ally itself with other blue alliances to better it's core values and ensure it's part on the world stage. has and always will be at the heart of the United Blue Directorate, and to this day, the UBD maintains a strong government whilst allowing its members to influence policy.

Preamble
The Charter of the United Blue Directorate serves as the incontrovertible and highest system of laws, which all members, including Directors and Ministers, must abide by. The Charter is to be interpreted and enforced by the Directors and their cabinet as it aims to ensure the safety, prosperity and success of each and every member of the United Blue Directorate. The United Blue Directorate (UBD) is an alliance which embraces and promotes world peace, freedom and prosperity for all. The UBD respects the rights of all nations to govern as they please while abiding by this document during their membership.

Directors and Ministers
The government of the United Blue Directorate is as follows. The leadership of the United Blue Directorate shall consist of three Directors who are elected by the general membership every three months. The role of the Directors is to oversee all areas of the alliance, and to guide the alliance in a way that is ultimately beneficial to its members. If a Director resigns, then a new Director shall be elected from the parliament within one week. These three directors will also appoint a cabinet of 7 ministers to oversee each ministry. All directors have an equal say in all matters concerning the alliance and must reach decisions by majority.

There are seven ministerial posts - Internal Affairs, Finance, Recruitment, Trade, Foreign Affairs, Education and Defence. The Directors reserve the right to remove any minister from his position without prior notice for any reason. The role of the Ministers is to oversee their specific area of alliance governance and make day - to - day decisions based on current UBD law, whilst deferring to the Directors rule.

Parliament
Parliament is the main contact point between the general membership and the government of the United Blue Directorate. Any member of the alliance may propose a bill or suggestion to parliament. If the bill receives support from at least five members including one official the bill will be moved to voting for three days. Any member of the United Blue Directorate reserves the right to form a political party to further advance a political ideology. Political parties may propose legislation if they so wish. Political parties may advise their members to vote for a Directorship candidate or for a particular bill or suggestion but may not enforce this or ostracise members who do not.

Membership
Joining the United Blue Directorate All prospective members must :-


 * 1) Register to the forums.
 * 2) Post an application for membership in the UBD forums.
 * 3) Become a member of the blue team unless a special waiver is issued by the Directors.
 * 4) Agree to the terms of membership.

The applicant will either be accepted or denied by a Director or an appropriately masked Minister. Certain situations may require the delay of membership (i.e. offensive wars, or other alliance issues). Once they are accepted they shall be allowed to put “United Blue Directorate” as their Alliance Affiliation and be given membership masking views of the forum. After they have been accepted into the alliance they may vote in the UBD parliament. They shall also be given the full protection of the United Blue Directorate.

Code of Conduct
Members are expected to represent the United Blue Directorate in a positive fashion, which includes refraining from threatening other alliances or nations. Acting disrespectfully towards others will not be tolerated regardless of the rank or position of the person. All of our members are expected to behave honourably at all times. The Directors of the UBD reserves the right to define what is acceptable to members and what sanctions can be placed on members. Further rules regarding breaches of representation and sanctions may be formulated and approved by parliament.

Resignation
You may leave The United Blue Directorate at any time. If you feel that you need to leave the alliance for whatever reason you are asked to post a letter of resignation in the UBD forum with and appropriate reason. If you have received any type of financial aid in the last 21 days you are required to pay it back within a week of your resignation. Failure to comply with this will result in this aid being forcibly removed from your nation.

Foreign Policy
The Foreign Policy of the United Blue Directorate rests in the hands of the Directors. The Directors will seek approval from the parliament for a general policy before setting down to specifics by themselves.

Tech Raiding and War
As a member of The United Blue Directorate you are allowed to declare war on any unaligned and inactive nation, after first asking permission from a Director or Minister of Defence. However, if you declare war on another nation without approval, the alliance will not be required to help. Any attempt by a UBD member to intervene on the behalf of a member who is carrying out an unauthorised attack does not represent the views and decisions of the UBD. The UBD refuses to take responsibility of those nations who declare war on an aligned nation without permission. Any such action may lead to a warning, fine, suspension, exile, or possible military action. Any member of the United Blue Directorate who comes under attack will have the full support of the United Blue Directorate behind them through any and whatever means. Only with an unanimous verdict by the three Directors may the United Blue Directorate as a whole go to war.

Nuclear weapons
Any nation of The United Blue Directorate that wishes to produce nuclear weapons shall be encouraged to as a means of deterrence and increasing the strength of the nation and the alliance. However, nuclear weapons are never permitted to be used in a first strike except with permission of a Director and the Minister of Defence. Any nation that does strike without prior approval shall be subjected to expulsion from the alliance. Any nation that has been struck unprovoked by a nuclear reserves a right to retaliate with any means necessary including nuclear strikes.

Amendments to the Charter
Amendments to this Charter can be proposed by any member of the alliance thought the use of the parliament. If the parliament passes the amendment, the three Directors must give majority approval to the amendment.

The Directorate
There are three Directors of the alliance who are elected every three months. These three Directors appoint and oversee the ministries and the running of the alliance. Elections are open to all UBD members and each may vote for 2 candidates.

Ministries
There are currently 8 ministries that any member may be appointed to. They handle certain aspects of the day to day operation of the alliance. A Minister may choose an Assistant Minister if he so wishes. Each minister is assigned by the directors after the public elections close and the new directors organize themselves. Assistant Ministers are picked by there respective minister. If a ministry has a double duty (such as the Ministry of Defence catering for both Defence and Intelligence)the minister may pick 2 assistant ministers. These ministries are:

Internal Affairs
This ministry is mainly responsible for tracking and communicating with UBD members. The staff maintain accurate member lists and provide support for mass messaging of newsletters and security alerts. The Minister of Internal Affairs can also help with administrative tasks on the Cyber Nations forums such as nation sitting for UBD members.

Foreign Affairs
This ministry co-ordinates diplomatic efforts, receiving regular reports from diplomats across planet bob and managing interior embassies. The Minister of Foreign Affairs is responsible for providing information and responses to diplomats on the UBD forums as well as overseeing the creation and reviewing of treaties.

Trade
The UBD trade ministry caters for UBD protectorate alliances as well as the alliance has a whole and matches up resource trades and tech deals between UBD buyers and sellers. The Trade Minister may work in conjunction with the Finance Minister to organise boosting technology deals (3m for 50 tech instead of 3m for 100 tech to boost weaker NS nations).

Recruitment
The ministry of recruitment is responsible for the messaging of unaligned nations on Cyber Nations and the admittance of applicants to our forums. This ministry liaises with the Directorate bank to ensure that funds are secured for new members and rewards reach those who have recruited well. The UBD currently offers cash incentives to both applicants and recruiters to maintain a steady growth in member count and to encourage pro-active recruitment.

Education
This ministry aims to educate all new and existing members of the UBD in "nation-craft"; i.e how to run their nation effectively for the benefit of themselves and the alliance. This ministry is home to vast quantities of reading material and dedicated staff who review and offer advice to nations who have submitted an audit request.

Finance
The ministry of finance, or the Directorate Bank as it is commonly known, co-ordinates the distribution of funds from senior members of the alliance to recruiters, recruits, boostees and veterans. Regular contributors to the bank are rewarded with prestige and medals to acknowledge the sacrifice they make for the good of the alliance. The Directorate bank also oversees the distribution of aid to UBD protectorate alliances.

Defence
The Directorate Defense Ministry (DDM) is based out of the Directorate Defense Complex (DDC) on the United Blue Directorate forums. Primarily tasked with the day to day defense of the Directorate, the DDM caters for


 * 1) Tech raiding
 * 2) War planning, co-operation and supervision
 * 3) Task Force Pegasus (TFP) management
 * 4) Battalion and Squad Rosters
 * 5) Battle doctrine formulation in conjunction with the Directorate Military Academy (DMA)
 * 6) Intelligence gathering

An assortment of other myriad duties related to prosecution of battle against the enemies of the Directorate is also held responsible to the DDM. The main instrument of policy of the DDM is Task Force Pegasus. TFP is an elite unit of NS varied nations of the UBD tasked with attacking tech raiders, and making both retaliatory and preventative strikes against Directorate enemies. TFP nations are required to have a large warchest among other things. There are four battalions of the United Blue Directorate
 * 1st Battalion - 'Ironsides Division'
 * 2nd Battalion - 'Hell on Wheels'
 * 3rd Battalion - 'Spearhead'
 * 4th Battalion - 'Breakthrough Division'

Wars

 * UBD Civil War
 * War of the Coalition
 * Eight Minute War
 * Second Unjust War

Political Projects
The United Blue Directorate has had a long history with the change of government types and systems. These are some of the previous (and present day) examples of the projects that happened behind the scenes.

Totalitarian
The first version of the alliance was as a totalitarian alliance ruled by the supreme leader Lyons. The system worked quite well until the point where Lyons had RL issues to contend with and later went to fight in the GWIII for his old alliance SOUL. Upon leaving he appointed mdnss69 as supreme emperor of the alliance

Meritocracy
Seeing as the totalitarian system of government was to be unfair on the rest of the membership, mdnss69 with the help of Russell07, reformed the leadership to include 4 Directors of mdnss69, Lyons (who had returned after the war), Russell07, and GrimCity. Slybomber later joined as a full Director. The system was accompanied by a parliament who proposed and passed legislation for the alliance. It was then up to the Directors to oversee the legislation and carry it out. The system proved to be a success with the inconvenience of waiting for a majority vote. There was also issues with the system still being unfair as Directors were only appointed by full Director approval and the conservative side some of the Directors did not allow for added Directors.

Democracy
The United Blue Directorate elected its first ever Directors in March 2009. Slybomber, Zak R. and Romny were elected as Directors and appointed a cabinet of ministers to oversee the running of the alliance. The system is still in operation today.

Political Parties
Political parties were founded to express as a group the political ideologies of a group of people.



The first and oldest functioning party is The Core, founded by Mdnss69 and then led by Wateraddict. Its main values lay in military strength and centralized power to govern the UBD with strength and decisive moves. Many regarded the Core Party as the right wing/fascist bloc of the party. Later proposals within the Core party have highlighted the need to 'demilitarize' the party and make it more a club where conservatives can voice their opinion. This has been considerable opposition within the party over this proposal. The Core was by far the largest political party within the UBD at times controlled complete monopoly over the parliament. The Core, after a absence, returned on November 2nd, 2009 under the leadership of Mdnss69 & Zak Rochner. As of May 3rd, 2010 after a controversial election Corran Dralling was elected Core president.

The second party arose in opposition to Core party monopoly. The Blue Party, a liberal party, lead by Russell07 but disbanded as discord arose over certain legislation, namely the freedom of speech bill which was being advocated by Max Kigame, a member of the Blue party at the time.

The Libertas Party of The Iron Cross (The Libertas Party) was founded by Max Kigame and co-founded by Kitler shortly after the blue party disbanded. This party was a lot more liberal, perhaps even socialist in its views concentrating on establishing an increasingly democratic United Blue Directorate and the spreading of power amongst members in addition to promoting a strong economic and organizational program. During the course of the party, Max Kigame accused the Directors of threatening to take over the party. The party disbanded shortly after.

The liberal party founded was the Libertad Party founded by Romny. It was established after The Iron Cross Party broke apart. The party presented itself as a middle of the road party which is neither right wing or left win.

The last party to be set up was the Immersion Party set up and run by TomDog. This party never really took off the ground.

Further discord arose within party ranks as a group of UBDers signed a contract (instigated by Winstonopia) to say that they will never join a political party within the UBD and are promoting the complete disestablishment of all political parties. This though was partially caused by the abandonment of the blue party along with the controversy that arose when Max Kigame created The Libertas party. Finally, in November 2008, the Directors dissolved the forums for polticial parties sighting too much in-house fighting as the main cause. People are still allowed to set up poltical parties yet however they will not be granted a forum to work from.

As of May 26th, 2009 a new party was opened called the Blue Unity Party, which was formed by Napoleon and Corran Dralling. They created there own forum and ideals settled on the overall unity of the UBD and openess of their policies. As of June 12th, 2009 the BUP party had grown to 4 members. On August 30th, 2009 co-founders Napoleon & Corran Dralling decided, due to inactivity & lack of members, that the Blue Unity Party was officially disbanded. Link to said announcement

On April 23rd, 2010, a new party called the Blue Dragon Party was created by SnowWolf to counter the Core. It's main focuses are Foreign Affairs and dragons. It is thought to be more left wing and liberalist. Early in it's history, it already gained five members, equaling the Core in membership. Many of the members were government members. About two days later, it had it's first election, in which founder SnowWolf won by one vote, 3-2, Russell coming in second. Later on in it's history, it gained an unexpected member, Napoleon, the co-founder of the former Blue Unity Party. It's flag contains a blue dragon. On June 8th it merged with the Flubber Pary. Link to DoE:

On April 25th, 2010, a member called Andrew Hester formed The United Nations Party. This short lived party recieved no members except for it's founder. This party was disbanded on shortly after it's only member & founder left on May 13th 2010. Link to DoE:

On May 24th, 2010, a new member Mr. Flubb(current AMoT)created The Flubber Party. On May 26th it recieved it's first member, Slybomber. The Flubber Party has no core vales. On June 8th it merged with the BDP. Link to DoE:

On June 8th, The Flubber Party & Blue Dragon party merged into the Blue Communist Mudkipz Party. All members of the respective parties where automatically added to the BCMP. The BCMP is leaded by Mr. Flubb & SnowWolf, and despite their name, are not actual communists. Party Sub-Forum: Link to DoE:

Clubs
In order to revitalise intrest in recruiting and activiy, the UBD was split up into 5 clubs: Team Discovery Channel, Team Pac Attack, Team Fluffernutters, Team Hustler Turtle and Pixels R Us. Although these clubs were not orgainised along political lines, they allowed for competition within the alliance. All 5 teams battled it out on the forum for cash prizes, pride, honour, and for bragging rights. In the end the clubs were disolved due to lack of leadership. Certain members still claim allegiance to their club and battle it out in CNTE under the AA of their club name.

UBD in CN:TE
The UBD has reached out and brought the UBD to CN:TE by 2 aspects. One is Mdnss69's "UBD War Machine". The second is Corran Dralling's training program known as "Spartan Training". The UBD War Machine first instigated a war against WAPA, and then combined attacked the alliances of both FOK and Orbit Black. In later rounds UBD War Machine merged with GDA and again pre-empted on WAPA. By round 8 the UBD War Machine disengaged from GDA and reran its own operations under the control of the UBD CN Military as a training program.

Fun Facts
These are some fun facts about the United Blue Directorate:


 * Capital - The UBD's World Headquarters are located in downtown Haverhill in the United Lyons States, the nation of the UBD's founder, Lyons. The headquarters houses the various ministerial offices(located at the top levels of the two eastern towers) & the military's main commanding office(located in the western towers). The UBD's Parliament is also located in Haverhill, only 2.3 miles northeast of the headquarters building. The parliament seats 550 people representing the total nations of the UBD.


 * Official Side Arm - Officially adopted on March 13th, 2010, the Israel Weapons Industries made gas operated Desert Eagle is the standard issue side arm for all UBD government, military, and civil personnel. The Mark XIX variant of the Desert Eagle used weighs 1,998.6 grams and is 374.7 millimeters long. It is a .50 Action Express caliber with a effective range of 200 meters and has a clip of 7 rounds.


 * Official Assault Rifle - Officially adopted on March 24th, 2010, the selective fire M4A1 Carbine(shown with ACOG Sight & hand grip)is the standard issue assault rifle for the UBD's Army, Navy, and Marines. The standard version of the M4 used weighs 2.7 kilograms unloaded(3.1 kilograms w/ 30 rounds) & is 838 millimeters long with stock extended(757 millimeters retracted). It fires the 5.56x45mm NATO round in a 30 round magazine at 910 meters per second with a effective range of 500 meters. It has a fire rate of 700-950 rounds per minute. It is highly customizable & can sport a variety of attachments like scopes, grips, even grenade launchers. It can be fired in either semi-automatic or fully automatic.
 * Official Main Battle Tank - Officially adopted on March 24th, 2010, the M1A2 Abrams is the main battle tank for the UBD's Army & Marines. It weighs 61.3 tonnes, is 2.44 meters tall & is 9.77 meters long total. It carries a crew of 4. It's armed with a 120 millimeter M256 smoothbore main cannon with 1x 12.7mm M2HB heavy machine gun & 2x .308mm M240 machine guns. It can travel at 67.7 kilometers per hour on roads & 48.3 kilometers per hour off-road and has a operational range of 465.29 kilometers. They cost $6.21 million each.