[DRAFT] Launchpad Fire to Forest Fire

[The Pacifican Islands]

Okay, so this is my first jab at a issue. There aren't many space related issues, so please give feedback.

Title:
Launchpad Fire to Forest Fire
Description:
After falling rocket stages and debris caused a massive forest fire in one of @@NAME@@'s most renowned forests, the validity of the space program has been called into question.
Validity:
Not valid for nations that don't have a space program, not valid for nations without a good environment
Options:
[option]"The space program is a leech to our economy and our nation!" Screams @@RANDOMNAME@@, a renowned environmentalist, bursting into your office. "We don't learn anything useful from space exploration! Have you ever needed to know how fast the orbit time of the farthest planet of the sun is? No. It is so unsafe! Falling debris and rocket stages can cause many issues to the well being of our people, like, I don't know, having a entire forest burn down. Have I mentioned the costs? It makes me shudder."
[effect] the space program has been shut down
[stats] safety increases, science decreases significantly, economy decreases slightly, environment increases, lower tax

[option]"Actually, the space program has jade many fruits." Says @@RANDOMNAME@@, the leading rocket scientist and the director of the space program. "Do you know what we would have lost if we didn't start a space program? Solar panels! Water filters! Even Velcro! Future technology can be invented too, and in some years, we can live like those people from, whats the show called? Star Walk? Star Hike? Whatever. But anyways if these people keep opposing us like a thorn in the behind, we'll never advance.
[effect] protests have been stopped and the space program has been expanded
[stats] science increases, political freedom decreases slightly, safety decreases, economy increases

[option]"If ask me, this science nerd so stupid!" Says a person clad in a thick jacket and a large Ushanka hat, speaking with a thick accent. "Back when my country had days, we had so good program of cosmos. Look at capitalist hippie enviwomentalist next to me. Nyet, this what wrong with society. If intergrate army and space, nation will good. Sure, my country lose cosmonaut, but we were more effective at "Public Relations". People who say things disappear. Da? We discuss later in lap dance vodka bar."
[effect] gigantic missile silos have been seen all over and protesters disappear
[stats] science increases, military increases, political freedom decreases, civil rights decrease slightly, authoritarianism increases

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Interesting concept, I like it. Welcome to the GI forum!

This is already very sound and solid writing, so any criticisms are just tweaking around the edges.

Description:

Many issues start with "After" and almost as many with "Recently".This is grammatically fine, but because of the weight of what has gone before, I think this opening is starting to create a sense of homogeneity. Can you consider starting the sentence in a different way, even if it is just a synonym for "after"?

"Renowned" seems to be an odd adjective to describe a forest. Also, it'd be good to use synonyms to avoid word repetition as much as possible. So broadly, I'd change it to something like:

In an unlucky turn of events, falling rocket stages and burn debris from a space launch caused a massive woodlands fire in one of @@NAME@@'s most ancient and verdant pine forests.

Option 1:
Surprisingly, "leech" is so far used only once, and bursting into the room a mere three times. There's a tonne of speakers identified as "environmentalist" though, and more engaging imagery and description would be preferable. Also, be mindful of punctuation and capitalisation: 'screams' not 'Screams', for example.
'Renowned' is a good adjective here, though perhaps a more specific description than environmentalist would be good? How about instead, a 'soot-covered Park Ranger'?
Finally, try and compress the same information down into a few sentences that flow better. I can see there's multiple points being made by the speaker, but I think we can say the same thing in fewer words.
The effect line is what some of us call "telling, not showing". Broadly, what you've done is describe the decision made. This was popular in early issues, but the broad trend now is to either describe an entertaining (but logical) consequence, or to in telling us what decision we've made, to describe it in an interesting way.

So, for example, instead of 'the space program has been shut down' you could go with: 'moss and lichen grow over derelict space shuttles, the remnants of an abandoned space program'

I note you're an active rper: use that experience at description and imagination, and apply them to your effect lines. If they're funny, so much the better, but I believe first and foremost, they should be beautifully written.

I'll leave off comment on the other two options at present - this post is more to engage in the idea of overall style and structure.

Keep working on this draft, and I'm sure we'll have something that will add to the game.

[Team Rhysha]

I like the whole premise and originality of the issue.

A few things though.

I would add a 'From' in front of Launchpad in the title. I think it would make more sense that way.

Also, the effect lines for option 2 and 3 need some work. Some more humor would probably help.

[Trotterdam]

I do not like this issue.

I have never heard of this being a problem, despite occasional failed launches being a fact of life (space is hard), and space agencies often make efforts to place their launch sites strategically so that any failed launches are likely to fall into the ocean.

Numerous forest fires happen every year, and most of them are for reasons that have nothing to do with space launches. In fact, most everything has nothing to do with space launches, because we just don't do that many of them. Rockets could literally be powered by virgin sacrifice and they'd still kill less people than other forms of murder.

This argument seems to be born of the anti-everything school of environmentalism, which I am not fond of and hurts the cause of serious environmentalism.

[The Pacifican Islands]

I do not like this issue.

I have never heard of this being a problem, despite occasional failed launches being a fact of life (space is hard), and space agencies often make efforts to place their launch sites strategically so that any failed launches are likely to fall into the ocean.

Numerous forest fires happen every year, and most of them are for reasons that have nothing to do with space launches. In fact, most everything has nothing to do with space launches, because we just don't do that many of them. Rockets could literally be powered by virgin sacrifice and they'd still kill less people than other forms of murder.

This argument seems to be born of the anti-everything school of environmentalism, which I am not fond of and hurts the cause of serious environmentalism.

Hi. I like technology and everything, but I do feel like this could be a problem. http://gizmodo.com/part-of-a-rocket-eng ... 1727544878

I'm not a environmentalist and I do not feel like this issue is a issue (ha). If you have a problem, please tell me how to correct it.

[The Pacifican Islands]

Edited stuff, added Elon Musk option

Title:
Launchpad Fire to Forest Fire
Description:
In a unlucky turn of events, falling rocket stages and debris from a recent space launch caused a massive forest fire in one of @@NAME@@'s most beautiful and enriched forests, and now the validity of the space program has been called into question.
Validity:
Not valid for nations that don't have a space program, not valid for nations without a good environment
Options:
[option]"The space program is a leech to our economy and our nation!" screams @@RANDOMNAME@@, a ash-covered camper who is also a renowned environmentalist, bursting into your office. "We don't learn anything useful from space exploration! Have you ever needed to know how fast the orbit time of the farthest planet of the sun is? No. It is way too unsafe, which you should already know. Have I mentioned the costs? Now excuse me, I need to change out of this."
[effect] environmentalists have taken to torch the recently abandoned space centre
[stats] safety increases, science decreases significantly, economy decreases slightly, environment increases, lower tax

[option]"Actually, the space program has many fruits." Says @@RANDOMNAME@@, the leading rocket scientist and the director of the space program. "Do you know what we would have lost if we didn't start a space program? Solar panels! Water filters! Even Velcro! Future technology can be developed from our space program. But anyways if these people keep opposing us like a thorn in the behind, we'll never advance to the stars."
[effect] protesters have been threatened with rocket engines
[stats] science increases, political freedom decreases slightly, safety decreases, economy increases

[option]"Or we could open space up." exclaims Alon Mollusk, the founder of SpaceY, a fledgling space company. "If we open space up to private companies, we could avoid issues like this forest fire. I am working on the Sandpiper 9 rocket, whose first stage could land on a floating platform, completely avoiding the issue of a forest fire! Anyways, companies are more accountable than the government. If you let us launch rockets to your space station, we could open a whole new world of possibilities."
[effect] multimillionaires have started to construct a mission to the moon
[stats] science increases, economy increases, tax decreases, civil rights increases very slightly, religion decreases

[option]"If ask me, this science nerd so stupid!" Says a person clad in a thick jacket and a large Ushanka hat, speaking with a thick accent. "Back when my country had days, we had so good program of cosmos. Look at capitalist hippie environmentalist next to me. Nyet, this what wrong with society. Environmentalist may even be capitalist puppet of Maxtopia! They no want us good military. If integrate army and space, nation will good. Sure, my country lose cosmonaut, but we were more effective at "Public Relations". People who say things disappear. Da? We discuss later in lap dance vodka bar."
[effect] protesters have been falling into massive missile silos seemingly everywhere
[stats] science increases, military increases, political freedom decreases, civil rights decrease slightly, authoritarianism increases

[Candlewhisper Archive]

I do not like this issue.

I have never heard of this being a problem, despite occasional failed launches being a fact of life (space is hard), and space agencies often make efforts to place their launch sites strategically so that any failed launches are likely to fall into the ocean.

Numerous forest fires happen every year, and most of them are for reasons that have nothing to do with space launches. In fact, most everything has nothing to do with space launches, because we just don't do that many of them. Rockets could literally be powered by virgin sacrifice and they'd still kill less people than other forms of murder.

This argument seems to be born of the anti-everything school of environmentalism, which I am not fond of and hurts the cause of serious environmentalism.

You have a point here, though it'd be a shame to lose an entertaining issue for realism reasons. Verisimilitude reasons, sure, but never realism!

Maybe a suitable fix to this would be to reframe it as a privately owned space agency, and tweak the options accordingly. So, for example, we could assume a default of private spaceflight being legal, and have option 3 make that illegal.

It could even be that we keep non-commercial spaceflight as a default and then create another issue, with receiving this one being dependent on commercial spaceflight being allowed first, much as I had The Genetics of Aesthetics be dependent on having a national database of citizen genomes (not really revealing anything here, as it says that much in the description).

Of course, I leave that up to the author. I think as it stands, it might not pass close scrutiny for realism, but it has as much in-universe verisimilitude as many or most issues in this game. I mean, we're talking about a game where a celebrity assaulting her servants with a Faberge egg is a repeatable issue, where deaths from bungee jumping is a major cause of death, and where timber woodchipping is a frequently critical industry while media and finance are non existent, and where a good number of nations have compulsory recreational drug use. In a world like that, a space agency forgetting there's a forest next to their launch site seems quite feasible.

We've obviously got a fair amount of tolerance for an unrealistic narrative.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

BTW, nice work on revised effect lines. I appreciate your effort here!

In my opinion, they're a lot better than the original ones, though are perhaps still a little clumsy, and risk looking out of context if read on a Nation page by a visitor to that nation.

[Trotterdam]

You have a point here, though it'd be a shame to lose an entertaining issue for realism reasons. Verisimilitude reasons, sure, but never realism!

My problem isn't exactly realism, but rather the "You want anything cool or useful at all? YOU'RE EVIL!" attitude. This issue is basically telling you that you can't continue having a space program without causing lots of collateral damage (unless you dismiss the issue, which I would), and, at best, maybe you consider that an acceptable sacrifice.

The issue isn't really criticizing anything specifically related to a particular technology, it just seems to be born of the thought that technology in general is evil.

I mean, we're talking about a game where a celebrity assaulting her servants with a Faberge egg is a repeatable issue,

But there, the fact that the assault was specifically with a Faberge egg wasn't really relevant to the issue, it was just some extra humor. The main point of the issue was "rich person commits crime, should she be allowed to pay off the damages to avoid jail time?", which is perfectly reasonable, and would indeed come up multiple times.

That's NationStates issues as they should be - humorous renditions of a theme that could come up in real life.

and where timber woodchipping is a frequently critical industry while media and finance are non existent,

There are issues about both of those, they just aren't reflected in the stats yet. Don't the editors also tell us not too worry too much about stats in this forum?

and where a good number of nations have compulsory recreational drug use.

Token crazy options are a longstanding tradition of NationStates, but they should be found on issues that also have at least two sane options on opposite sides of the political spectrum. An issue with only crazy options is too much, even for NationStates.

In a world like that, a space agency forgetting there's a forest next to their launch site seems quite feasible.

I thought scientists are supposed to be smart. I'm not sure how anyone who even thinks to construct a dedicated launchpad in the first place - a place specifically designed to be exposed to huge gouts of flame - could possibly neglect to clear the surrounding area of flammable materials.

Even if it does happen once, you'd simply fix the issue, and maybe fire those scientists and hire new ones. It's not an inherent problem to space operations, and so doesn't make sense as a reason to stop space operations in general.

[A Humanist Science]

It looks like two entire sentences actually reference the fire issue. The rest is just a general cost-benefit debate concerning a space program. There isn't any debate about what to do about forest fires, but rather about whether to keep or ax the space program.

So, remove the two references to fire and replace with the environmental impact of toxic debris or of, say, a space worm experiment getting spread all over the forest.** There are all kinds of ways a space program can trash an environment that dont require rocket scientists intentionally parking liquid oxygen bombs next to giant piles of kindling.

Also the last option is kinda stereotype-y in a not so good way.

(** Worms being used in an orbital experiment aboard the space shuttle Columbia were found alive in the debris field weeks after the vehicle disintegrated during reentry. This actually is a thing.)

[Outer Sparta]

I thought I had a forest fire issue that only covered general topics. I don't know if this is feasible enough.

[G-Max]

Relocate the launch pad? There's a reason why real-world launch pads are kept far away from forests.

we're talking about a game where a celebrity assaulting her servants with a Faberge egg is a repeatable issue, where deaths from bungee jumping is a major cause of death, and where timber woodchipping is a frequently critical industry while media and finance are non existent, and where a good number of nations have compulsory recreational drug use... We've obviously got a fair amount of tolerance for an unrealistic narrative.

You don't say?

An issue with only crazy options is too much, even for NationStates.

NS issue options are quite often written in a comically exaggerated style; as a result, there are plenty of issues with only crazy options.

Also the last option is kinda stereotype-y in a not so good way.

My beef with #3 is that it doesn't actually solve the problem of, as you put it, "parking liquid oxygen bombs next to giant piles of kindling". All it does is add a few nuclear warheads to the mix. I don't see how that could possibly go wrong.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

==> The Pacifican Islands

In case it's not clear to all, my opinions always remain my opinions only, and not an official stance of the editing team in general.

I think the "launchpad fire to forest fire" premise is within acceptable limits of the game's reality. However I also respect the feedback here by Trotterdam, A Humanist Science and Team Rhysha here, and you shouldn't consider my advice here as being above theirs in any way.

Ultimately, of course, as an author, its entirely up to you what you do with the advice received, and in what changes you make before submission. It would, however, be a good idea to respond a little more to Trotterdam's concerns here, and to let us know what you're thinking on the subject.

[A Humanist Science]

Some copyediting/suggestions, etc.

Title:
Launchpad Fire to Forest Fire

Description:
After falling rocket stages and debris caused a massive forest fire in one of @@NAME@@'s most renowned ancient (?) forests, the validity of the continued need for a (?) space program has been called into question.

Validity:
Not valid for nations that don't have a space program, not valid for nations without a good environment
Options:
[option]@@RANDOMNAME@@, a renouned environmentalist, bursts into your office. "The space program is aleech to our economy and our nation!" Screams @@RANDOMNAME@@, a renowned environmentalist, bursting into your office. "We don't learn anything useful from space exploration! Have you ever needed to know how fast the orbit time of the farthest planet of the sun is? No. Plus, it is so obviously unsafe! Falling debris and rocket stages can causemany issues to the well being of great harm to our people, like, I don't know, having a entire forest burn down. Have I mentioned the costs? It makes me shudder."
[effect] the space program has been shut down extinguished
[stats] safety increases, science decreases significantly, economy decreases slightly, environment increases, lower tax

[option]"Actually, the space program has jade many fruits benefits., " says @@RANDOMNAME@@, the leading respected rocket scientist and the director of the space program. "Do you know what we would have lost if we didn't start a space program? Solar panels! Water filters! Even Velcro! Future technologyEven better technologies can be invented too, and, in some years, we can live like those people from,...what's the show called? Star Walk? Star Hike? Whatever. But anyways, if these people keep opposing us like a thorn in the behind, we'll never advance.
[effect]protests against the space program have been stoppedsnuffed out,and the space program has been expanded
[stats] science increases, political freedom decreases slightly, safety decreases, economy increases

[option]"If you ask me, this science nerd so is stupid!" says a person clad in a thick jacket and a large Ushanka hat, speaking with a thick accent. "Back when my country had days, we had so good program of cosmos. Look at capitalist hippie enviwomentalist environmentalist next to me. Nyet, this what wrong with society. If intergrate army and space, nation will good. Sure, my country lose cosmonaut, but we were more effective at "'Public Relations".' People who say things disappear. Da? (We discuss later in lap dance vodka bar.)" <-- beyond NS's general PG-13 limits?
[effect] gigantic missile silos have been seen all over and protesters disappear
[stats] science increases, military increases, political freedom decreases, civil rights decrease slightly, authoritarianism increases

Option 3 still kinda bugs me. Generalized cultural stereotypes are kinda problematic, in my opinion; this might be improved if it could be made more a parody of a specific public official know to have strong opinions (who happens to like to ride horseback without a shirt, etc), rather than a parody of an entire ethnicity. Also, it's not clear to me how this option really affects the "rockets causing forest fires" problem.

EDIT: or maybe option 3 might have the speaker insist that Fearless @@LEADER@@ do more to help moose and squirrel.

[Australian rePublic]

ALL space programs are built in areas where people don't mind if they crash. All of them. Space ships, bupy design, on Earth, will crash on the East. This is why nations with East Coasts locate them there, because if it crashes into the water, noone gives a shit. Also, you're saying that space expolartion is dangerous, despite the fact that they only destroyed forest. That makes them bad for the environmeng, but not dangerous

[The Intergalactic Universe Corporation]

Nice issue. But I agree with Australian Republic on the fact that space launch pads are usually built in areas that people wont mind spacecraft crashing into. But, there is some possibility that the spacecraft flew for sometime before exploding or something.