WA Headquarters

WA Headquarters exist within an odd and unexplained realm of NS that is simultaneously relevant to all dimensions, worlds, universes and regions.

The WA Headquarters comprise a massive and enigmatic complex that simultaneously exists in all dimensions, worlds, universes and regions within the NS-verse. Ostensibly its purpose is hosting the NationStates World Assembly and its affiliated agencies and business partners, but so many weird and inexplicable things have been reported in and around the complex, it's impossible to know what its real function is. Add to that, the resolution that commissioned the headquarters is seemingly so preoccupied with placating the organization's many eccentric diplomats with booze and various other amenities (including, naturally, mental-heath facilities) that there doesn't seem to be a lot of room for conducting actual business within the WA's walls. Nonetheless, the buildings allocated for WA purposes, though they don't look like much on the outside, are somehow equipped to meet the needs of the thousands of member delegations (and who knows how many more observers) that meet regularly at WAHQ to negotiate relevant matters. The HQ campus contains several historical landmarks that are recognizable to most active WA members, as well as facilities for both the General Assembly and Security Council. Flying monkeys and a cackling, skywriting "witch" have also been frequently sighted at the WA.

History

Shockwaves reverberated throughout the international community when diplomats to the former United Nations awoke one fateful April morning to find their beloved UN Headquarters burned to the ground. The investigation into the apparent arson attack would prove inconclusive; the culprit was never identified, and the most likely suspects -- Aram Koopman, Susa Batko-Yovino and Max Barry -- could not be held because no evidence was found to implicate them. To top it all off, all UN diplomats were now homeless, and they couldn't even escape following the Continuity Of Government resolution's secret emergency plan because the WA's first official act was to invalidate all standing UN legislation. They quickly sorted the legal end of things by immediately commissioning a new international meeting-place under the World Assembly Headquarters resolution, but it is not clear where the WA met before the building was completed.

The WA did manage to complete quite a bit of vital business in the interim, however, including the passage of WA General Fund, during the debate for which participants noted with chagrin that due to infighting among competing contractors, not to mention all the extended "coffee breaks" taken by The Palentine's exceedingly lazy Teamster construction workers, the new headquarters still had not been completed. The Strangers' Bar had bounced back quite quickly, when loyal customers, rather than sit around and wish for more drinks to arrive, pulled together, in record time, makeshift digs in the old UNHQ parking lot. Since diplomats do not like to be separated from their drinks very long, during this period it is assumed the General Assembly met in a giant tent in the same parking lot, for easy access to the bar during breaks and downtime.

Construction on the brand-spanking new WA building was probably completed shortly before April 2009, when the Strangers' Bar celebrated its Grand Reopening. It was around this time that observers reported a shimmering office building, dozens of stories high, towering over the very spot where UNHQ once stood. And even then, the work of the lingering construction crews was not yet done, for in the coming months a separate building for the infant Security Council would have to be procured, in an parallel universe where regions can "invade" each other, and the use of blue and orange in a marquee is cause for international outrage.

Administration

Under the World Assembly Headquarters resolution (Resolution #8 or GA#8), WA Building Mgmt is the office that sees to all business relating to maintenance and management of WA headquarters. WABM, formerly UNBM, the bureaucracy-choked office that has for years taken responsibility for upkeep and order in both the UN and WA headquarter buildings, are the people who immediately become every WA ambassador's new best friends, because they are the ones who allocate office space. WABM always makes a point of telling delegations that their office requests will eventually -- eventually -- be taken care of, but that bureaucracies often run slowly, and there are many other matters that need to be sorted first, like urgent work orders, much-needed repairs and renovations on various floors, plumbing emergencies, thefts of office and cleaning supplies, reports of mutant creatures clogging the air-conditioning ducts, and a backlog of office requests dating back to 2002.

Resolution #8 stipulates that available office space be rented (never sold or granted, given the high rate of turnover in WA-active nations) to member and observer nations, and numerous nations have already taken advantage of this provision, with office locations ranging from traditional office suites to broom closets, bathroom stalls, airships that dock on the roof, spacecraft orbiting miles above WAHQ, and porta-potties in the parking lot. The WA Secretariat and all committees and commissions authorized by the WA are also allocated real estate within the complex, not to mention the many shops, restaurants, supermarkets, etc., that also rent space, making the WA a virtual shopping mall within an office building. Despite the humble building's seeming lack of facilities for such a gargantuan enterprise, somehow all the needs of WA members, observers and vendors are met.

WABM is also responsible for maintaining an office directory for WA headquarters, but is beleaguered by so many constant departures and arrivals of new and old WA members that updating office listings has become quite a challenge. (GA#8 is controversial in that it lists "ignoring or delaying requests for office space for weeks on end" among WABM's duties.) Members and observers have taken to squatting in empty and abandoned offices prior to approval as a result; for a description of various unofficial member offices within WAHQ, see this discussion.

General Assembly chamber

General Assembly chamber.

A dominating feature of both the UN and WA headquarters, the General Assembly chamber is the historic venue where international legislators meet to discuss improving the world, one resolution at a time. At least, that's what the official histories will tell you. More often, these clown-college rejects are too busy heaving pastries at each other, staging food fights, or just out-and-out brawling amongst themselves to give any thought to "improving the world." The chamber itself, by all accounts, is simply huge, large enough to include a desk for each of the WA's tens of thousands of member delegations, and balconies equipped to seat thousands more. The vast hall is multiple stories high and fitted with exorbitantly tall windows, to give debate participants room enough to stage dozens of defenestrations at once. However, for various legal and diplomatic reasons, the chamber has always been strategically placed close to the ground level, to decrease fatalities.

Strangers' Bar

The internationally (in)famous World Assembly Strangers' Bar is one of the oddest and most unconventional features of WAHQ, and arguably one of the most historically significant, as it has been a permanent fixture of the UN/WA since its founding by Enodia in 2004. According to some WA historians, the bar was the first part of the new headquarters to be completed, while the rest of the building was simply built around it. These same historians might tell you that this oddity is due to the intrinsic cultural and diplomatic importance of the drinking establishment (as it is a rather popular place for informal meetings and gatherings of WA diplomats), but the more obvious explanation for the bar's precedence would be the high rate of alcoholism among WA officials (and with all the lunacy regularly transpiring in the main chamber, who can blame them?). The bar is located on the fifth floor, easily accessible from the General Assembly hall, with various other alcoves and niches reserved for private drinking parties scattered throughout the rest of the headquarters. For example, there is an "airport bar" located on the roof, for passengers of the many airships and spacecraft that regularly dock there. Points of interest in the main bar include a noted Kawaiian shrine, a vast mirror behind the counter which must be protected by a steel grate in case of brawls, and artistically pleasing stained-glassed windows overlooking the WA campus, which constantly have to be replaced due to bar patrons regularly crashing through them.

Campus and landmarks

A vast and aesthetically designed campus, acres wide, surrounds the main WA building. The network of plazas and walks spidering out from the complex form a global arboretum of sorts, featuring trees and plants from every part of the NS world. The lush greenery wreaths the Vastiva Memorial Reflecting Pool, the man-made, 3,000-foot-long pond that stretches from the patio just outside the General Assembly chamber to a canopied walkway on the far end of the campus; the pool is the also main repository for defenestrated delegates who frequently splash-land in its waters. In fact, one explanation for the pool's existence is WABM's concern to avoid lawsuits by "cushioning" the fall of ejected diplomats. The pond -- which has been a fixture of the campus since the UN days and is also tied to the "nation" Iron Felix -- is named for the former nation of Vastiva, a diplomatic giant from an earlier era in UN/WA history, noted mostly for ridiculing weapons bans and mocking sovereigntists before running afoul of an irate Secretariat member in 2005.

Famed Yeldan sculptor Yœthe Gørr has also left his mark on the WA, with his masterpiece My Struggles amongst the Feral Babies of Glog adorning a courtyard near the WA building. Felix acquired the statue for the then-UNHQ in 2006 during the aftermath of the legendary UN Fair Wage Convention brawl, when a dueler badly damaged a statue of UN founder Taf Drater Dratsab.

Another body of water on WA grounds is the pristine natural lake, glistening at the heart of an international park, which is reserved for quieter recreation and relaxation of visitors to WAHQ and so is thankfully somewhat removed from the craziness of the General Assembly and the Reflecting Pool. The lake is encircled by a gondola line, which has been obscured by landscaping so as to preserve the lake's natural beauty, but still gives passengers spectacular views of the lake, the rest of the grounds, and the neighboring amusement parks, sports stadiums, shopping malls, hotels and car dealerships, which also cater to WA diplomats.

Security Council headquarters

Ostensibly to reduce instances of childish infighting between members of the General Assembly and the Security Council, WA Building Mgmt eventually arranged for a separate meeting-place for the newer chamber of the WA. The Security Council meets in a separate dimension, where diplomats (or rather, the "players behind" them) have little need for "fourth walls" to keep out wind and weather. Depictions of the chamber have it oddly suspended over a body of water that has been nicknamed "Lake Security Council," alluding to a story that General Assembly diplomats once flooded the Security Council chamber out of frustration over early voting delays. An inter-dimensional monorail line is said to transfer delegates freely from one chamber to the other.

See also

• World Assembly Strangers' Bar
• The Office: General Assembly edition
• NSwiki: An offsite resource - includes some discussion on WAHQ
• Commission on the Security Council Headquarters