[DRAFT] Meals, Rarely Edible

[Brilliania]

Title: Meals, Rarely Edible

Issue: The @@NAME@@ army, known for their good combat skills, always had 1 weak point. That weak point is their food rations. Soldiers have severe complaints and want different Meals, Ready to Eat. Soldiers have very little morale in battle because of the rations. A combination of chefs, soldiers and peace protesters have come to your desk to discuss the options.

Validity: Not available for nations with mandatory vegetarianism or without an army.

[option]"These dehydratated meats are really disgusting. No wonder the soldiers are so depressed!" says @@RANDOMNAME@@, chef and owner of a restaurant in @@CAPITAL@@, in an annoyed voice, while spreading said dehydratated meat on a cracker from a MRE. "Why not give these soldiers a gourmet dinner in a can? We could have some traditional eastern @@DENONYMADJECTIVE@@ @@ANIMAL@@ stew, an exotic rice dish with fish, and even real bread for breakfast! It will be just like a fancy restaurant meal!"
[effect]Army rations are being plated and served in fancy restaurants.
[stats] Culture increases a lot, Defence Forces increases, Industry: Arms Manufacturing increases, Industry: Pizza Delivery increases, Industry: Cheese Exports increases, Sector: Agriculture increases, Pacifism decreases, Death rate decreases

[option]"Who cares about the army anymore?" says @@RANDOMNAME@@, a peace activist, while doing something on their phone. "The army only invades other nations just because some fancy-schmanzy leader orders it? What about the people living in these other nations? We should disarm ourselves and actually use these funds for something else, like education." They continue to use their phone, before they say "I need to go, I have a Grumblr post to finish."
[effect]Peace activists party while other nations are planning to invade @@NATION@@.
[stats] Defence Forces drops to 0, Industry: Arms Manufacturing drops to 0, Pacifism increases, Niceness increases, Inclusiveness increases

[option]"Disarming ourselves? Are you crazy?", says @@RANDOMNAME@@, a current serving soldier of the @@DENONYM@@ army, while screaming at the peace activist. "We should not disarm ourselves, but atleast cancel the production of these horrible rations and give us the ability to hunt our own food. Atleast that has more variations than these 2 different ration menus." They then accidentally shoot a hole in your office's roof. "Whoops, maybe I shouldn't have that gun in your office in the first place."
[effect] Many @@DENONYM@@ soldiers die of starvation.
[stats] Death rate increases, Lifespan decreases, Niceness decreases

[Trotterdam]

Okay, first of all, use proper [option], [effect], and [stats] format, as explained on this page.

Many @@DENOMYMADJECTIVE@@ soldiers, both current and former soldiers, have pointed out the bad quality of @@DENOMYM@@ rations.

It doesn't read good to use "soldiers" twice like that. Drop the second occurence.

Also, use consistent macro format. Should be @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ both times. ("@@DEMONYMNOUN@@ rations" would mean rations made out of @@DEMONYMNOUNPLURAL@@...)

Former army Sergeant @@RANDOMMALENAME@@ replies angrily to your question.

Any reason he has to be male? You don't use any pronouns or other gender-dependent stuff. Some nations have male-only militaries, but NationStates also allows you to have female-only militaries, so it's not feasible to accomodate that.

"These meals were unbearbly bad! I have seen poor Bigtopians having nicer meals than our rations! We need to create rations which are actually palatable!"

It's spelled "unbearably", but this argument is just really bland and needs to be spiced up (but read below first).

Effect: Soldiers get proper rations with variation.

Now now, you can do better than that. No NationStates option should ever tell you that you did something reasonable. Exaggerate, exaggerate, exaggerate!

I would expect something about soldiers eating gourmet food, but then funnier.

option 2: Food producing tycoon @@RANDOMNAME@@ proposes something else: "Maybe we could use our food industries and culinary experience to create rations suitable for a king. We could have canned @@ANIMAL@@ stew, some traditional @@DENONYM@@ patê and even some luxurious caviar! Our army could be the most cultured in the @@REGION@@!"
Effect: Soldiers enscript just for the rations.

So on that note, this option is basically "the previous option, but more", which makes it not interesting enough to be its own option. Unless you can think of something better to distinguish them, the two should be combined into one option.

Also, argh, be considerate to nations with compulsory vegetarianism.

option 3: Noted civil rights and neutrality activist @@RANDOMNAME@@ protests against the army. "Why do we need to feed the soldiers? Why do we even have soldiers? We should abolish the military for a peaceful and tolerant future! If we did that, we can also spare some hard-earned @@CURRENCY@@s to defend ourselves!" says @@RANDOMNAME@@ while holding up several protest signs. "ABOLISH THE ARMY! ABOLISH THE ARMY!" are the last things you hear before @@RANDOMNAME@@ marches away to protest.

If you do something like this, it will generate three different @@RANDOMNAME@@s. I don't think that's your intent.

[Brilliania]

]If you do something like this, it will generate three different @@RANDOMNAME@@s. I don't think that's your intent.

What should I use instead?

[Trotterdam]

]If you do something like this, it will generate three different @@RANDOMNAME@@s. I don't think that's your intent.

What should I use instead?

Use @@RANDOMMALENAME@@ or @@RANDOMFEMALENAME@@ the first time, then pronouns. (Or rephrase the whole option so the person doesn't get mentioned so many times.)

[Candlewhisper Archive]

One way of doing this that is possible under recent macros, but not yet used, is to use partially random names.

For example calling someone @@RANDOMFEMALEFIRSTNAME@@ Jones, and thereafter referring to her as Ms. Jones.

You can also do @@RANDOMSURNAME@@ for a similar trick, thereafter referring to by the first name.

[Minoa]

Option 1 could have a cheeky reference to the RCIRs in France (reference: http://www.mreinfo.com/international-ra ... ench-rcir/). I've actually watched a lot of MRE/military ration reviews and there seems to be more praise for RCIRs (Source: gschultz9/YouTube) than MREs. Ironically, US rations used to be in tins, especially during the Korean and Vietnam wars.

[Brilliania]

Bump, as I now have the 500 million citizens needed to submit an issue.

[Outer Sparta]

Bump, as I now have the 500 million citizens needed to submit an issue.

We should keep these rations as is." to some young future conscripts before being attacked by one of the conscripts. "Darn youngsters!"

Capitalize the T in to. In fact, you should have a speaker directed in a way that he/she is saying it to them. Besides that, it looks good!

[Australian rePublic]

I like it

[AAjihara]

You probably want to do "most cultured in @@REGION@@" instead of "in the @@REGION@@".

[Devernia]

Here's a minor edit:

Soldiers enscript just for the rations and are known as the fanciest army in @@REGION@@

[Brilliania]

AAjihara and Devernia, I have fixed these issues/typos

[Brilliania]

Bump 2: Electric Bumpaloo

[Australian rePublic]

You're MRE acronyms make sense only to those who are in the military, amd only the military of your IRL nation. Though I suppose it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things...

[Brilliania]

You're MRE acronyms make sense only to those who are in the military, amd only the military of your IRL nation. Though I suppose it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things...

I'm not American, nor French. I'm actually Dutch.

[Australian rePublic]

You're MRE acronyms make sense only to those who are in the military, amd only the military of your IRL nation. Though I suppose it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things...

I'm not American, nor French. I'm actually Dutch.

I don't recall saying you were either American or French...

[Brilliania]

And another bump

[Minoa]

Options Two and Three should be swapped in order. After the "Octogenarian veteran" option and before the disarmament option, there could be another option that cuts rations so low or abolishes it entirely, that soldiers have to hunt to survive.

[Drasnia]

Fun issue, but I also have some suggestions. First off, try referencing the original initialization (MRE) before using all the alternatives. Most older people playing this game will understand it without it, but the younger people - tweens and teens - might not. There also needs to be a bigger problem than "the food is bad" or else the narrative doesn't make sense. Just a couple ideas off the top of my head are soldiers getting sick because of the food or depression/suicide because it is so demoralizing.

Secondly, it usually works better to have your option start with a snip of the speaker saying something followed by the speaker's description. Also make your speakers do something funny or relevant. Instead of " Food producing tycoon @@RANDOMNAME@@ proposes an idea:" do something like "With dehydrated meat being this bad, it's no wonder our soldiers are _____," scoffs renowned chef @@RANDOMNAME@@ while spreading pate on a cracker from an MRE."

Thirdly, try to avoid rhetorical questions when having the characters speak. It actually makes them less authoritative and discounts there opinion. By rephrasing it from "Why not do this?" to "We need to do this!" you create a much more urgent and imperative request.

Finally I'll reiterate what others have been saying: much like the food in the issue, the effect lines are bland. They need some flavor too.

[Brilliania]

Completely revamped the issue.

[Brilliania]

The bajillionth bump.