After public tech demos, leaks and teases, a video teaser has been released for what appears to be the latest game in the Borderlands series.

Publisher 2K says more will be revealed at the Gearbox PAX East panel tomorrow, March 28 at 2pm EDT / 11am PDT at Borderlands.com for Gearbox’s PAX East livestream.

International Times:

March 28th - 11:00am PDT / 18:00pm GMT / 19:00pm CET / 20:00pm EET

March 29th – 2:00am GMT+8 / 3:00am JST/KST / 5:00am AEDT

I, for one, can't wait to see what this is all about! I will be bringing more details about it in full on my blog here and on the upcoming SciFi Sunday article!

Greetings Asgardians!

I am running for the position of Mayor of Toronto for Asgardia. It is my hope that I can help with representation for other Asgardia communities within the Golden Horseshoe so that we can build the southwestern Asgardia community so that other leaders can step up and take charge.

As part of the digital team I have already stepped up to help represent the Asgardia community in organizing the social media moderation team of Civic Asgardia and help organize online and offline events for Asgardians. I plan on leading by example with the Toronto community to show the world exactly what the Asgardia community is about and act as your representative to the administration of Asgardia.

My Plan As Mayor

Arrange monthly/bi-monthly meet and greets

Asgardia has been mostly a virtual nation up until now. Meeting in person will help bring us together to help  create a thriving Asgardia community. We will be able to make personal and business connections, give in person feedback and suggestions, hear news about Asgardia events and organize our own. It will also allow prospective Asgardians come and meet some of the people that make up Asgardia and help answer any questions they may have about it. Having a set place and date would allow new Asgardians to complete their in person verification as well as allow us to organize outings, educational seminars, and other such fun events.

Help support Asgardia business owners

As a business owner myself, I see the great potential of the global community reach that Asgardia can bring. It’s my aim to help business owners bring their services and/or products to our community so that we can help build the Asgardia economy and services that we can provide.

Organize and Develop Community Initiatives

One of the goals of my term as mayor is to successfully advocate for the next Parliamentary Assembly session to be held in Toronto and turn it into a multi day event in which Asgardians from all over the globe can attend. I would also like to start building the foundation for educational events and support systems in cooperation with local colleges and universities. Begin the creation of civic volunteering outreach programs and youth engagement programs.

In conclusion, I hope that you will vote for me so we can all build Asgardia together!

Hello Asgardia,

For those of you who may not know me, I am the Head of Community Affairs for Asgardia. I have been overseeing the social media and volunteer teams for Asgardia for the last year. Recently, I was given the mandate to help in the process of increasing Asgardia's image to the greater public and bring in fresh ideas and services to the Asgardia community. I wanted to update you on what has been and is still in progress to work towards these goals.

Firstly was to restructure parts of Civic Asgardia and the volunteer teams to help with the new direction. The first emphasis was to offer support administrative wise to the Central Election Committee. "Nikari" Steve Miller was loaned out as Elections Manager and volunteer teams were brought on board to help with the final weeks of the elections to offer logistical support. Seondly was to bring up email and social media response time to help public and community questions. Third was to begin applying best practices to the volunteer intake and training process in order to start better caplitalising on existing and new volunteer skillsets. Finally, several projects were planned on new online presences for Asgardia to bring information and new services to the nation as well as add greater communication and transparency of Asgardia actions.

One of the first projects that we worked on was the new Asgardia Space News website in which Asgardia endeavors to bring news about Space, Technology, Science, Engineering, and related topics of interest. This site will be going through some evolutions in the coming weeks, firstly to launch translations of the articles into the other twelve languages of Asgardia starting with Spanish and then to the others once the process is smoothed out and we have reliable and accurate translators for the other languages. We are looking at new avenues for content for the website and to slowly work away from syndication of news to producing our own original news stories. We hope that the community will visit this site, comment on articles and continue to give us feedback on the type of content that you would like to see on this site.

Another project that is nearing completion is a unified web contact form. This form will be attached the the new websites and will be adapted for use on the existing Asgardia.space website. This contact form is to allow the community and public easier access to support avenues so that we can help them better with any issues they have and answer their questions in a more timely manner.

Also, there was the creation of an opt-in monthly newsletter. This newsletter will allow us to communicate closer with the community and keep them 'in the loop' on Asgardia news and events.

Our biggest project, however, is still currently in progress and we hope to launch in part after the elections are over. It is a new Asgardia community site, a 'home' for Asgardia where Community and Business based services and functions will be offered. We will be launching an online roadmap for this site which will be publically viewable and updated regularly with progress of this site. To give you an example of the services that will be offered on this site are:

- The Asgardia Business Center. A multiphase project that will allow businesses of all sizes to connect with consumers, allow for start up and charity funding initiatives, job boards for businesses to recruit talent, mentorship opportunities, and incubator projects.

- Asgardia Community Activity and News. Listings for Professional Asgardia Associations, professional and interest guilds and clubs.

- National Community Center activities and news from Asgardia centers around the world.

- Online resource library for scientific papers and other open resource literature.

- All ages Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), a resource to offer education for all Asgardians no matter the age they may be. Eventual plan is to partner with accredited institutions in order to offer high level accredited courses.

- Asgardia Publication House which would offer online and hardcopy versions of written materials created by Asgardians.

- Asgardia merchandise store so that Asgardians can buy official Asgardia branded items to show their Asgardia pride.

- New and improved forums and online collaborative tools to allow Asgardians to communicate and work more closely together.

... and many more services that will help bring our community together and show the world what we have to offer as a nation.

I plan on having discussions with members of Parliament and with the Ministries about this site and how it can work in concert with the future laws and projects yet to come.

I would like to thank everyone who has already stepped up and offered their help and expertise in getting these endeavors off of the ground. We still have a lot of work ahead of us but I know that if we all (Volunteers, community members, MP's, Ministers) work together we can show the world that Asgardia is a leader to the stars and show that what we bring can benefit all of humankind.

Cheers!

Rebekah Berg
Head of Community Affairs
Asgardia

Hello Asgardia!

It's that time a year again! The time when writers everywhere start a monthly project in hopes of reaching a certain goal by the end of the month.

NANOWRIMO

Are you participating? I know I am! Let's hear from you on how your doing and support each other through this challenge! We've created a thread on the forums just for it!

https://asgardia.space/en/forum/forum/literature-101/topic/nanowrimo-2017-7982/

Hello Asgardia!

We'd like to let you know that uploads to the Asgardia-1 satellite are still open until October 1, 2017!

After that time, uploads will be restricted to the website only and uploads will not be transmitted the to satellite before launch. After, uploads to the satellite will be technically restrictive in terms of files sizes.

So if you haven't uploaded your file yet, do so today!

Kind regards,

Rebekah Berg

Head of Community Affairs

NGO Asgardia

Hello Asgardia,

As requested by the community, we have made the new temporary National Symbols available for download for citizens personal use on the Asgardia.space website. Asgardians may use the national symbols of Asgardia for non-commercial purposes only, such as introducing and promoting Asgardia, forum or Facebook avatars, etc.

https://asgardia.space/en/national-symbols/

Using any national symbols or elements of the Asgardia visual identity, including any use for commercial purposes, requires explicit written consent from Asgardia, and is otherwise prohibited.

Good day Asgardia!

Did you see the Asgardia Answers Live Stream held by Lena De Winne on August 19, 2017? Here is a link to the YouTube archive version of it:

Asgardia Answers Live Stream - August 19, 2017

Can access YouTube? We have transcriptions available in several different languages here:

English

Chinese

Greek

Hindi

Italian

Portuguese

Turkish

Don't see a language you want? Check the pinned post on Facebook for your country community page and request for them to do a translation!

Hello Asgardia!

Here is a friendly reminder about online safety.

Asgardia will never contact you to learn your account details. We will not message or email you to request money. No one should ever ask for your password.

Asgardia: the Space Nation is free for everyone to participate in. Donations are only accepted through the donations page on the Asgardia.space website.

Similar to any secure online business transactions, never share your login information with anyone.

Cheers!

Rebekah Berg

Head of Community Affairs

NGO Asgardia

Hello, Asgardia!

Welcome to the second installment of Let’s Talk, Asgardia! Today, I would like to address some of the questions and concerns from the community regarding leadership elections that are currently under way. I am going to focus on how the community itself can participate in this process and ensure that the leaders they think are best are elected.

Participation Equality

On June 13, 2017, elections for leadership began. In these elections, Asgardians can nominate themselves and vote for others.

FUN FACT:

As of July 8, 2017, there were more than 5,000 leadership nominations!

The leadership positions are open for all Asgardian citizens. Leaders need to show the community what they can do in their position as a leader. They need to become involved in the community online and in person. Unlike many countries around the world, where there is a cost associated with running in an election, signing up to run in Asgardia is free. In Asgardia, everyone has equal footing and an equal chance to prove to the community that they are the best person for the job.

FUN FACTS:

In order to remain impartial, those who are employed by NGO Asgardia, as well as the National Community Managers (formerly Chapter Advocates), are disqualified from running in the leadership elections.

Also leaders at the Trendsetter and Ambassador levels are disqualified from volunteering with Civic.Asgardia; this allows them to devote more time to leading their regions.

How to Evaluate a Leadership Candidate

Are they using their real name? Are they displaying their real picture?

We welcome transparency in Asgardia and are striving to make a responsible society. As with any real government or elected position, community leaders in Asgardia must be accessible, and they must be real. This is not a popularity contest. These leaders will be expected to sign important documents with their real name, and to engage with real-world people and businesses to help build Asgardia. If they want to be leaders, people must show their face and use their real names.

What type of content is included in their campaign posts?

Asgardia is a fledgling nation. It needs community leaders with vision and drive, leaders who can help to create a solid foundation that withstands the test of time and that supports Asgardia’s case for statehood to the United Nations. Our first leaders are breaking ground to lead us into the future by supporting Asgardian citizens globally and within their local area. Whether an elected leaders works within a single city or whether they represent an entire country, community leaders build Asgardia.

Is the candidate located in your relevant area?

Debutant level candidates can only be supported by voters within 300km of their location. While Asgardians can vote for Strategist, Trendsetter and Ambassador  candidates anywhere in the world, voters must remember that if leaders are far away, they may not consider your local needs when elected.

Questions to Ask Leadership Candidates

(What we want to learn about people by asking these questions.)

What types of topics have they discussed on the Asgardia forums and social media outlets?

Leaders must be able to engage with the local community constructively and professionally. They need to be aware of local concerns and ideas, and be able to provide feedback and suggestions that will help Asgardia in a positive manner.

Are they skilled in both English and their local language(s)?

Like the United Nations, Asgardia must have an operational language, which is currently English. Leaders must be able to understand the policies and processes in order to enact them within their areas. Also, they must be able to lobby effectively for their local citizens.

Do you feel they can professionally represent your area to both Asgardia and to the public?

Successful leaders must convey not only confidence, but also must communicate the goals of Asgardia to its citizens and the public. Leaders will be an important part of how the public perceives Asgardia.

How conversant are they in Asgardia policy and procedure?

While representing your area, your leader must understand Asgardia’s history and culture. Use common sense as you evaluate their ability to properly answer questions about Asgardia and its policies and procedures.

What are their plans to help Asgardia grow?

Asgardia grows through member support. Leaders help engage and mobilise citizens in their communities. Ask questions and learn how your candidate plans to help Asgardia become a successful nation, a helpful nation, a long-lasting nation. Use your own judgement in evaluating if these goals are realistic and in line with the core concept of Asgardia.

How will they encourage local members to gather and participate in Asgardia?

Asgardia is a virtual nation, but it is made up of real people. In-person events and responsible management of resources are important in the expansion of our nation. Ask direct questions to find out what they have planned in this area.

What potential do you anticipate for business growth, fund-raising, professional accreditation, and community development grants?

A strong leader needs to grasp many aspects of the community. Nation-building is more than politics. A candidate must have a plan to work with Asgardian businesses. They should have ideas about how to generate revenue and how to encourage citizens to help Asgardia grow.

Have they responded to questions from the community previously?

Leaders themselves grow and evolve. Look at your candidate’s behavior online over the past few months. Find their posts in the forums. Look to see if their behavior matches their statement of intent.

For Next Time

If you have any suggestions for a future Let’s Talk, Asgardia!, please leave a message for me here or send a comment to your national chapter or center.

Cheers!

Rebekah Berg

Head of Community Affairs

NGO Asgardia

Hello Asgardia!

We wanted to let everyone know that the automatic removal process is now up and running. Which means that if you no longer want to be a member of Asgardia you can log into your profile and now click on 'Delete Account' at the bottom of the screen.

What this means:

• Your account will be locked from logging in
  • Your personal data will be removed from our database
  • Your personal profile on the website and on forum will no longer be viewable
  • Your email address will be flagged as an account that was removed
  • Your votes on the national symbols will be removed
  • Your agreement to the Constitution will be removed
  • Your posts on your personal blog will be removed
    Your Candidate profile will be removed (if applicable)
  • Your posts on the forum will be removed
  • Your username will remain but still be associated with your locked account
• 
  

If you change your mind and would like to be restored, you will need to email citizens@asgardia.space with the request. They will restore your account and provide a temporary password for you to log in. Once you re-log in you will need to input your personal data and reaffirm your agreement to the Constitution.

We ask for your patience as there may still be bugs in the system that we are trying to fix but are endeavoring to provide this convenience for you.

Kind regards,
Rebekah Berg
Head of Community Affairs
NGO Asgardia

Hello Asgardia!

We have a couple of public service announcements for you today.

The team has gone through the satellite files and removed some due to violations of copyright and trademark. Please check your upload to see if it was part of this action. If so, you have until July 20 to upload a file to be included on Asgardia-1 at launch. Otherwise, it will not be uploaded until November when it is deployed.

We are very concerned by the amount of petitions that we have had to reject due to petitioners not submitting properly. Some of the most common mistakes are:

- no real name and picture attached to the petitioners profile
- not listing who the petition will need to be sent to once it has been completed

Please see the Head of Community Affairs blog post on Effective Petitioning that was posted for the community's information here: https://asgardia.space/…/asgard…/7163-effective-petitioning/

It is important for the community to be able to use this system so we ask the petitioners to please follow these steps so their voices and opinions can be heard.

Thank you!

Hello Asgardia!

Welcome to the first installment in my series of Let’s Talk Asgardia! Today I want to address some of the confusion in regards to the Asgardia-1 satellite and the upload limits to its database.

About Asgardia-1 Satellite
Asgardia Citizens and the Satellite
Limits and Types of Data Storage

About Asgardia-1

The Asgardia-1 satellite was entirely funded by Head of Nation Dr. Igor Ashurbeyli. It was manufactured in cooperation between Asgardia and Nanoracks LLC by NearSpace Launch Inc . NanoRacks LLC is providing end-to-end launch services for Asgardia-1 satellite.

Asgardia-1 is a “2U” CubeSat, it’s dimensions are 10 x 10 x 20 cm (3.94 X 3.94 x 7.87 in) and weighs approximately 2.8 kg (6.17 lbs). It will have four deployable solar arrays and will primarily be a data storage satellite with a solid state drive of 0.5 terabytes (500 gigabytes or 500,000 megabytes apprx).

FUN FACT:

A CubeSat belongs to a category of nanosatellites (1-10 kg/2-22lbs). It is made of a cube structure (thus the name CubeSat) and each cube has size 10 x 10 x 10 cm (3.94 X 3.94 X 3.94 in).

About the launch and deployment of Asgardia-1

The scheduled date for the launch of Asgardia-1 is set for Fall 2017. Even though there is a preliminary launch schedule for some months to come, spaceflight is still an experimental domain and it is traditional to announce launch dates much closer to the launch.

Asgardia-1 will be part of a payload included in an Orbital ATK Antares rocket carrying the ninth Cygnus cargo vehicle to the International Space Station. The launch will be from the NASA Wallops Flight Center in Chincoteague Island, Virginia USA.

FUN FACT:

Asgardia-1 was originally planned to be part of a Space X payload launching out of Cape Canaveral, Florida later in the year. Since an opportunity for an earlier launch presented itself the Head of Nation decided to advance the launch.

The cargo vehicle will deliver Asgardia-1 to the ISS and stay as a part of the ISS assembly for a period of approximately 2 months. After the de-docking it will fly further up to perform another part of experimental programme. This will include deployment of Asgardia-1.

FUN FACT:

Once deployed, Asgardia-1 will have an approximate orbital period (the time it takes for it to circle the Earth) of 92.57 minutes. It will be travelling at about 7.8 kilometers per second (or 4.85 miles per second) which would be 28,000 kilometers per hour (or 17,500 miles per hour).

Asgardia citizens and Asgardia-1

Asgardia-1 will contain a database of all Asgardian legal documents and symbols, the adopted the Declaration of Unity and the Constitution of Asgardia, as well as the personal files submitted by Asgardia citizens. The database will be given to NanoRacks on 04 August, 0001 (20 July 2017) where it we will uploaded onto Asgardia-1 prior to launch.

After launch, there will be times in which the database onboard Asgardia-1 will be able to be updated. The first time it will happen is after the deployment, or in other words not before November 2017.

Before and after launch, all Asgardian citizens (up to the first 1.5 million) who have accepted the Constitution of Asgardia will be allowed to upload their files to the www.asgardia.space website for free to be added to the database that will be added to and updated on Asgardia-1.

After that free storage will not be offered.

FUN FACT:

All the files which Asgardia people have uploaded will be permanently be kept on Asgardia satellites thus providing a continuous virtual presence of all people of Asgardia in space.

Limits and Types of Data Storage

There are currently three amounts of virtual upload space being provided to Asgardia citizens.

1. The first 100,000 citizens can submit up to 500KB per-person to Asgardia-1. (Those whose certificate of Asgardia number is between 1 and 100,000)
2. The next 400,000 citizens can submit up to 200KB. (Starting with number 100 001 of certificate of Asgardia ad counting the next 400 000 people)
3. The next million citizens after that to register and accept the Constitution can submit up to 100KB each.

After that, free storage will be closed.

Determining Your Storage Amount

Seeing your storage amount you are in is quite easy. First log into asgardia.space profile. Go to the satellite upload page and on the bottom left corner, above the upload button, it will show you the amount of upload space you have been provided or on the ‘Upload Your File’ page after you click on the ‘upload file’ button.

EDIT: I earlier stated that you can confirm your upload limit by checking your Asgardia ID number, this was incorrect. My apologies! What is displayed above the upload button or on the upload page are where you can confirm your upload amount.

Types of files and copyrights

You can upload four different types of files to the website.

Text files must be in .txt format.
Image files can be any image type but remember some types are larger than others
Video files must be in .mp4 format
Audio files can be either .mp3 or .aac format

All material uploaded must be either be your own or copyright free material. Asgardia respects copyrights, trademark rights, other intellectual property rights. Any files found violating that will be deleted from the site upon discovery.

In case of the copyright violation it will be a responsibility of a person to face any legal consequences. Asgardia is providing storage space with clearly identified conditions of how to use it. Violation of the rules is under the responsibility of each user.

Private or not private?

Currently, there is a contest being run that you can enter when you upload your file to the Asgardia.space website. It allows you to post your file publicly to be voted on by pressing ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ and the one with the most ‘like’ votes will win expanded space. These will always be public.

However, if you choose not to enter the contest, you will have three options. Public will show your file to the public, including ones not logged into the Asgardia.space website. Friends only will display only to those you have added to your friends. Private is just that, private and no one can see the file except the moderation teams.

I hope that this first installment of Let’s Talk has cleared up any questions the community has about the satellite. If I have missed anything, please email your questions to citizens@asgardia.space and they will be able to answer them for you!

Cheers,

Rebekah Berg

Head of Community Affairs

NGO Asgardia

Hello Asgardia!

Due to the notice that went out letting leadership candidates on Asgard 7, 0001 / June 24, 2017 several candidates removed their candidacy from all positions and found that they could not reapply to just one position. We have enabled it so that those affected should be able to reapply their candidacy.

Please note, if you remove your candidacy after this time you will need to wait until the next election cycle to apply to run again.

Good luck candidates!

Good day Asgardia!

We would like to let you know that if you are currently experiencing technical difficulties on the candidate screen please email a detailed report and screenshots of your issue to elections@asgardia.space . This will allow us to investigate the problems in a more timely manner.