Lüc da Schir
Sir Lüc da Schir, UrB is a Talossan citizen from the province of Belacostă, currently serving as Minister of Finance. He was granted citizenship on March 21st, 2012/XXXIII, left Talossa on June 14th, 2020/XLI, and rejoined on April 8th 2022/XLIII.
Sir Lüc is a former three-term Prime Minister, a former leader of the Moderate Radical Party of Talossa and held various positions in Cabinet between 2014 and 2018; he additionally served in the Cosă between 2012 and 2014 and since 2022, and in the Senate between 2014 and 2020, presiding over both Houses of the Ziu.
He additionally served in the Civil Service, as Cabinet Secretary and Backend Secretary, and currently serves as both Deputy Scribe of Abbavilla and Deputy Secretary of State.
Sir Lüc was knighted in the 2022/XLIII Extraordinary Honours in late November, becoming one of two new inductees in the revived Order of the Flag. In July 2023/XLIV, he additionally received the Seneschal's Medal of Merit alongside three others, for their role restoring the national webpresence during the so-called 2023 Wittpocalypse, and concurrently the Seneschal's Medal for Culture alongside Glüc da Dhi, for their work creating and conducting the Talossan Cycling Association Tour.
Talography (2022-)
Sir Lüc rejoined Talossa in early April 2022/XLIII; he had occasionally made bets with partner-in-crime Glüc da Dhi about applying for citizenship should certain improbable sporting events happen, though none happened, save for his favourite rugby team winning the 2021 Pro14 Rainbow Cup. No similar bet was placed on the Italy national rugby team ending its ultimately 40-match winless streak in the Six Nations Championships, though upon Italy's away 22-21 win over Wales, he decided this was a clear enough sign he should rejoin after all. This roughly coincided with the ten year anniversary of his first grant of citizenship.
Upon rejoining, he initially mostly stuck to personal projects, such as making the new Översteir feature-complete, and took part in Chat Room-type activities such as TMT20 and TCAT. Soon after, he rejoined the Royal Civil Service as the new Permanent Secretary of Backend Admin, essentially resuming his duties as Wittmeister and administrator of the backend of Talossa's web presence; he also rejoined the Cosă, running first in the Parti Tafialistà list, and later under the Free Democrats of Talossa's label, having negotiated his presence on their list as an independent. He was elected to serve as Túischac'h in both the 58th and 59th Cosă.
During the 60th Cosă, he again renewed his alliance with the FreeDems, and as a member of the ¡Avant! multiparty accord, joined the Fourth Schivă Cabinet as Minister of Finance.
Political Talography (2012-20)
During his first stint in partisan politics, Sir Lüc generally identified as a pragmatist, a derivativist and a moderate reformist on issues such as the monarchy and the Organic Law, which generally identified the MRPT's ideology under his tenure as leader.
2012-2014 (Opposition and Da Dhi Cabinet)
While his political career actually started among the ranks of the RUMP, he quickly moved towards the Moderate Radical Party of Talossa, which he joined before the elections to the 44th Cosa, on April 15th, 2012. He sat as an MC for the 44th and 45th Cosa; he was also elected as Maestro of Benito on July 22th, 2013.
After former party whip Alexandreu Soleiglhfred renounced to being renominated in late 2013, da Schir was appointed to replace him, simultaneously becoming the new deputy leader of the party. Following the MRPT's electoral win, he was selected to serve as Minister of STUFF in party leader Glüc da Dhi's cabinet. As party whip, he also led the MRPT's parliamentary caucus during the 46th Cosa.
2014-2016 (MRPT leader, first Cabinet, junior coalition partner)
Following Glüc da Dhi's decision not to stand for reelection as leader of the MRPT, da Schir was elected as the new leader; he also announced his candidacy to Benito's Senate seat on July 23rd, 2014, in the province's first election to a full senatorial term since 2012, a race he won unopposed. He closed his three-term tenure in the Cosa without missing a single vote, and he resigned from his post as Maestro of Benito on October 22th 2014, following his election as Senator.
Despite the MRPT losing a share of its centrist vote to the reformed Progressives and the newly formed Liberal Congress, the party won once again first place among the coalition parties and da Schir succeeded to his fellow party member da Dhi at the helm of the government, forming the First Da Schir Cabinet. At almost 17 years of age, he was the youngest Talossan ever to be sworn in as Prime Minister, and only the third Seneschal to hail from the province of Benito, the previous being Thomas Buffone over twenty-two years before.
The term was notable for the estabilishment of the Interior Ministry; da Schir also touted it as "the first truly successful government in a long time", but was criticised as being distant from daily Wittenberg conversations, and attracted some controversy - such as by firing Clerk of Corts Bradley Holmes, an opposition Senator, and by botching the initial cabinet list by confusing the name of two coalition partners, listing Munditenens Tresplet as Foreign Affairs Minister instead of Munditenens da Biondeu. The government was famously bombarded by cartoonist Elo Cutor from Beric'ht Talossan; da Schir remarked that the RUMP was "bringing the opposition to the government outside the Ziu and inside the pencil of anonymous cartoonists".
Da Schir also served as Attorney-General pro tempore in April 2015 when, at the Cosa's dissolution, Txec Róibeard Nordselva resigned to return to his job as a magistrate. As such, he had to unexpectedly challenge King John's role in the Proclamation Crisis in the Uppermost Court, a petition that was dismissed by the Cort, with Nordselva himself voting to do so.
In the rundown to the elections for the 48th Cosa, the two coalition partners to the left of the MRPT (ZRT and Lib) allied in the Free Democratic Alliance; the Liberal Congress's Carlüs Xheraltescu having previously proposed an alliance to the Moderate Radicals too, which was rejected due to the longstanding ModRad tenet of running on its own terms by not making deals before an election. The newly formed pact, which enjoyed a theoretical advantage of 52 seats to the 42 of the MRPT coming in to the elections to the 48th Cosa, managed to narrowly stay in front of the Moderate Radicals by a single vote after the elections, and as such took the lead of the broad coalition which had been governing Talossa since early 2014. As such, da Schir accepted a role as Distain in Free Democrat leader Xheraltescu's cabinet, temporarily filling in for Owen Edwards as Acting Finance Minister as well in an arrangement that effectively turned permanent over time.
During the term, he was honored with the Order of Benito on April 29th 2015 by Maestro Vitxalmour Conductour.
With the party in disarray after a poor performance in the coalition, da Schir took a number of steps towards reorganization, such as offloading some of his tasks to other members (Ian Plätschisch being appointed to the office of Party Secretary after a three-Cosa tenure by da Schir) and initially advocating for not joining any coalition in the next government. He later reneged on this, viewing with unease the increasing polarisation of Talossan politics between RUMP and Free Democrats, and attempted to form a "centrist pole" together with the TNC and Progressives. This never happened, however, even though a similar agreement was reached separately with the TNC's leader Breneir Itravilatx.
The party suffered an emphatic and expected nine-seat loss; however, it still held the balance of power together with the other centrist parties, as the MRPT and TNC combined were tied in seats with the eventual winner, the Dien Tresplet-led Free Democrats. Deeming unacceptable the Free Democrats's demands for external support, with a number of members in both parties still wary and resentful of the previous coalition's outcome, the MRPT joined a coalition government with the RUMP and the TNC, led by Cresti Siervicül, with da Schir accepting a role as Distain.
In his new role, da Schir focused on legislative projects and took it upon himself to improve the Cabinet's inner workings, estabilishing a forum that has been in use since then. He was reportedly happy with the overall atmosphere, a coalition with the RUMP helping him to know better people he had earlier regarded as political adversaries.
2017-2018 (second and third Cabinet)
After a good performance by the party in the previous coalition, da Schir led the party to their then-biggest success, winning 79 seats in the Cosa and first place overall. He was also reelected as Senator for Benito, winning 11-5 against his Free Democrat opponent Taiwos. This ushered in a second term as Seneschal for da Schir, heading a coalition between the Moderate Radicals and the Free Democrats. He briefly served as Acting Mençei from August to October 2017.
In the run up to the 51st Cosa elections, da Schir won reelection to a third term as leader of the MRPT. Taking advantage of a positive record and a general sense of apathy in the other parties, da Schir led the Moderate Radicals to a second straight record breaking election, gaining four more seats and over 40% of the vote share; the party also coming close to achieving an overall majority in the Senate, but ultimately losing the decisive race in Maricopa, ostensibly due to the Free Democrats refusing to endorse the Moderate Radical candidate and largely choosing either Béneditsch Ardpresteir or to abstain. This led to the previous coalition being renewed and a third term as Prime Minister. This also remains so far the only time since Reunision that the leading government party was able to increase its support and lead another government.
In the waning days of the 51st Cosa, da Schir announced he would partially retire from national politics, by stepping down as leader of the MRPT one Cosa in advance and ruling out any involvement in the next couple of Governments, concurrently declaring his bid for a third term in the Senate. He planned to focus the next phase of his Talossan life on Senatorial activity - where he mentioned he would seek to take a more independent stance, while still having no plans to relinquish his Moderate Radical membership -, legislative projects and reforms (such as parliamentary bylaws and Organic reform) and on other interests, such as journalism and political punditry.
As part of the elections for his successor as Leader of the Moderate Radicals, he nominated and endorsed Ian Plätschisch, da Schir's long time deputy as Party Whip for most of the latter's tenure as leader. He was ultimately replaced as leader by Plätschisch on June 8th, and as Seneschal on July 29th.
2018-2020 (Semi-retirement from partisan politics: Mençei and Civil Service)
Da Schir was opposed in his bid for a third term in the Senate by a fellow three-term Seneschal, albeit of the Republic: Free Democrat Eiric Börnatfiglheu. After a somewhat bitter campaign, he won reelection with 75% of the vote, an increase of 8% on his previous reelection bid. He was nominated and confirmed to sit on the first incarnation of the Senate Rules Committee, and proposed a slate of ten standing rules to form the core of the Senate's new bylaws. At the end of the 52nd Cosa, six of those ten had been approved by the Senate, with the remaining four yet to be discussed. He was elected Mençei on November 30th, as previous holder Gödafrïeu Válcadác'h resigned to serve on the Cabinet. In his role as the Senate's presiding officer, he tried to increase awareness of the institution and activity, such as by promoting and issuing official order papers.
After the dissolution of the 52nd Cosa, Da Schir unexpectedly "suspended" his membership in the MRPT, albeit without quitting outright, citing a general sense of apathy and indifference in the party, an outdated manifesto, and noting that, especially with the recent defection of former leader Plätschisch, he would likely have been left running the party alone without being the actual leader. He announced he would sit in the Senate as an independent Moderate Radical. The MRPT ultimately folded in early March 2019, after a brief effort by three remaining members to relaunch the party failed. Da Schir ended up as the longest tenured member of the party, with exactly 2500 days (almost 7 years) between joining and suspending his membership.
Da Schir and his sister Erschéveþ ran for the 53rd Cosâ with an interim label, winning 23 seats; following the Free Democrats's electoral victory, he once again took part in negotiations and agreed to support Miestrâ Schivâ's minority government. During the term, he was re-elected as Mençei for the 53rd Cosa with the support of six colleagues, and he was involved with the final push to amend the 1997 Organic Law.
From the summer of 2019, da Schir agreed to become a civil servant in the Royal Civil Service, in the newly estabilished role of Permanent Secretary to the Cabinet, initially limited to being a clerical role for the management of Government assets. Upon the retirement of Minister of STUFF Sevastáin Pinátsch, da Schir unofficially took over the management of the backend of the national web presence, and oversaw the final phases of the migration to a new hosting company, the shutdown of KingdomOfTalossa.net and the birth of Wittenberg XIV, which launched in early December. Shortly afterwards, his civil service duties were officially enlarged to include the dual role of Wittmeister of the new Wittenberg, and of "Api dal Telaragnha" ("Web Monkey"), administrator of the backend of the national web presence.
In the 54th Cosa, he was elected to a second full term as Mençei. Upon notice of the Government's intention to nominate Viteu Marcianüs to an Uppermost Court vacancy, he negotiated with the government to estabilish an official public hearing conducted by the Senate, which took place in January 2020. Such a vetting process had never been done before, and da Schir was reported to be hoping it would set a precedent for other high profile nonpartisan nominations.
Hiatus and renounciation
Da Schir announced an extended hiatus from Talossa on May 1st 2020/XLI, citing Coronavirus-related family issues. He later renounced his Talossan citizenship outright on June 14th, shortly after completing his third term as Senator by casting votes for the final Clark. Despite his renounciation, he still kept in touch with Talossans off-Wittenberg, with occasional appearances on the (un)official Discord server, particularly regarding his work on the new Översteir, of which he released a major update in October. He also made a point to still refer and think of himself as a Talossan, even though not a citizen of the Kingdom of Talossa.
Personal interests
Journalism
Da Schir started off his involvement in journalism as the chief editor of the Talossan Observer news company, which he founded in the late March 2012. Due to a chronical lack of time and to his involvement in national politics, however, the outlet stopped all publications since mid-2014. As part of the 2014 Talossan Journalism Awards, his piece "The Talossan Observer's Analysis on the January 2014 General Elections" won the Article of the Year award, and he was one of the two runner-ups to the title of Best Journalist of 2014.
Da Schir also contributed to the first issue of Preßeu Zespenat with an article about his last thoughts as Prime Minister, and took part in the launch of RT Radio, although he pulled out of its management early on. Active contributions to outlets have generally ceased, though he continued contributing through interviews up until leaving Talossa.
Talomat and Exit-polls
After the Observer's activities ceased, da Schir released "exit polls" for almost every general election between 2015 and 2018, around half an hour before polls are closed. The projections were created by assigning to each individual citizen a chance of voting for each party, and simulating the outcome 10.000 times; each citizen also has a chance of showing up to vote, that decreases over time using a formula derived from the turnout pattern of previous elections, and influences the eventual outcome of the projection by predicting the final turnout ahead of time.
In 2019, instead of working on an exit poll, da Schir published a voting advice tool dubbed the "Talomat", based on the German "Wahl-o-mat", with the help of a number of other Talossans. He also created a delivery website for The Péngöpäts Times's live streams, collaborating with with Munditenens Tresplet and Glüc da Dhi to bring Talossa coverage of the results of the April 2019 General Election.
The Talomat was relaunched for the following general election as well, when da Schir launched with little fanfare the Talossan Democracy Institute, a nonpartisan organisation that aimed to increase awareness of Talossan politics. While TDI was meant to work on additional projects, such as opinion polls and debates, this was contingent on da Schir being able to attract additional people to help with TDI, which never happened.
Following da Schir's return to Talossa, Talomat was revived for a third time in the February 2023 General Election for the 58th Cosa.
New Översteir
Between March and April 2020, Da Schir worked on a new version of the Talossan-English translation tool, l'Översteir, in cooperation with SIGN's Marcel Tafial. The new translator was first teased during the April 3rd Curantoina, and a 1.0 version was completed around April 10th with a fully working conjugator.
Version 1.1.0 was released in October 2020, most notably including noun/adjective declension and quality of life improvements, after which most major work ceased and minor fixes were implemented by Tafial. After rejoining Talossa, work resumed and da Schir incorporated all (old and new) fixes in a new 1.1.1 version, released in May 2022.
A (for now) final Version 1.2 went stable in August 2022, making Översteir feature-complete for the moment. Future bugfixes may occur, but further major updates are increasingly unlikely as to-dos, such as speech synthesis, become nontrivial to implement.
La Curantoină
"La Curantoină" (The Quarantine) was a revival of the Talossan Evening Chat Show that took place during the near-global quarantine due the 2019-2020 novel Coronavirus pandemic, hence the name. Two episodes were shot, both streamed live on Da Schir's personal YouTube channel, with a third being discussed but ultimately not taking place. The second episode is still available for rewatching. Da Schir mostly acted as the host, despite repeated attempts at deflecting the task of conducting the show to other people, mainly Marcel Tafial. During both episodes, da Schir displayed public health announcements in Talossan ("Lavetz las maes" and "Restetz à casă"), as a nod to his and Tafial's then-current work on the new Översteir.
TalossaWiki and history
Before his hiatus, Sir Lüc was generally one of the most active contributors to TalossaWiki; he frequently was the top editor by number of edits in the "Active users" list, and he would occasionally be the only contributor to appear on the "Recent changes" page, which lists all edits in the last 30 days.
Though not involved in its creation and initial running, he took an active interest in seeing the Wiki grow, as he believed it would be an effective tool to record details of Talossan history before they were forgotten. Through seeking to enlarge TalossaWiki, he developed a keen interest in Talossan history, and eventually read virtually all of the historical material available to him, from books to transcripts of early Witt threads, both publicly available and in unpublished archives that were made available to him.
Fantasy sports and podcasting
Sir Lüc is the directeur sportif for Talossan Cycling Association Tour side Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS), whose name was initially supposed to be a nod to Glüc da Dhi's permanent hiatus from politics, and to the fact da Schir had then not followed cycling for many years, thus expecting to be mostly supporting da Dhi's hiatus passtimes. The team has contested all TCAT legs since the inauguration of TCAT in the summer of 2022, and won the second leg, shadowing the 2022 Vuelta a España.
As a side activity to TCAT, Sir Lüc and Glüc da Dhi also released three installments of a cycling and Talossa-related podcast, Centraseiră, with at least two additional installments being taped but not released due to
Sir Lüc is the manager of Talossan Fantasy Football team Els Çeumarscheirs (The Skywalkers), a play on his own name, which competed in the league from 2013 to 2019. The team was the runner-up in the 2016 edition and ended in third place in 2018 (after winning the regular season with a 11-3 record) and in 2019. The team was also entered in the reformed 2023 edition under the GHST moniker, due to ESPN not accepting the word "Çeumarscheirs", which da Schir assumed was because of "arsch" being interpreted as profanity, but was later proven to be due to the letter "Ç" being unsupported.
Other interests
Da Schir served as bandsman tubist, despite actually playing the trumpet, in the 1st Platoon of the Zouaves of the Royal Bodyguard with the grade of Corporal, before being dismissed in 2019 during the reformation of the Zouaves as a fully cultural endeavour.
In late 2019, Da Schir was responsible for the shooting, editing and music for a videotaped Speech from the Throne, in the 40th Anniversary of the independence of Talossa, delivered by King John.
Offices
Current
| Member of Cosa | 44th 45th 46th 58th 59th 60th |
| Preceded by Alexandreu Davinescu |
Finance Minister 15 Jul 2024/XLV - Present |
Succeeded by Incumbent |
| Owen Edwards | 3 Jun 2015/XXXVI - 20 Dec 2015/XXXVI | Alexandreu Davinescu |
Past, legislative
| Preceded by Sir Alexandreu Davinescu |
Túischac'h dal Cosa 9 Feb 2023/XLIV - 14 July 2024/XLV |
Succeeded by þerxh Sant-Enogat |
| Preceded by Gödafrïeu Válcadác'h |
Lord President of the Senate 30 Nov 2018/XXXIX - 14 Jun 2020/XLI |
Succeeded by Gödafrïeu Válcadác'h |
| Preceded by Tric'hard Carschaleir |
Senator for Benito Senate for the 47th Cosa - Senate for the 54th Cosa |
Succeeded by Eiric S. Börnatfiglheu |
Past, executive
| Preceded by Glüc da Dhi |
2nd Leader of the Moderate Radicals 11 Aug 2014/XXXV - 8 Jun 2018/XXXIX |
Succeeded by Ian Plätschisch |
| Preceded by Cresti Siervicül |
Seneschal 1 Jan 2017/XXXVIII - 29 Jul 2018/XXXIX |
Succeeded by Ian Plätschisch |
| Glüc da Dhi | 19 Sep 2014/XXXV - 24 Jun 2015/XXXVI | Carlüs Xheraltescù |
| Preceded by Miestrâ Schivâ |
Distain 25 Jun 2015/XXXVI - 20 Dec 2015/XXXVI |
Succeeded by Miestrâ Schivâ |
| Miestrâ Schivâ | 4 Apr 2016/XXXVII - 31 Jan 2017/XXXVIII | Ian Plätschisch |
| Preceded by Alexandreu Davinescu |
Minister of Stuff 24 Jan 2014/XXXV - 20 Sep 2014/XXXV |
Succeeded by Sevastáin Pinátsch |
| Preceded by Carlüs Xheraltescu |
Head of the New Citizen's Committee 25 Jan 2014/XXXV - Oct 2014/XXXV |
Succeeded by Beneditsch Ardpresteir |
Provincial
| Preceded by Tímoþi Asmourescu |
7th and 16th Maestro of Belacostă 26 Oct 2023/XLIV - Present |
Succeeded by Vitxalmour Conductour |
| Mic'haglh Autófil | 22 Jul 2013/XXXIV - 22 Oct 2014/XXXV | Incumbent |
| Preceded by Istefan Perþonest |
2nd Arvitieir Prima of Benito 27 April 2014/XXXV - 16 April 2016/XXXVII |
Succeeded by Istefan Perþonest |