So, because it needs new tread for some reason.
This issue, #515: Little Green Men [Wagner the Great; ed:Lenyo]
The Issue
Overnight masked soldiers in unmarked green fatigues have appeared. Heavily armed and well-equipped, they have seized control of a southern portion of @@NAME@@. These "Little Green Men" seek independence from the @@TYPE@@, but they are known to be loyal to Blackacre, a nation that shares linguistic and cultural history with @@NAME@@. Your inner circle has convened an emergency meeting.
The Debate
1. Sweating heavily and panting after running to the meeting, Defense Minister @@RANDOMNAME@@ begins, "We do not have the resources or troops to fight, let alone recapture the South. It's chaos in the armed forces: I have officers defecting across the chain of command, and I'm not sure we can trust the remaining ones. We need to radically increase military spending and carefully monitor all unreliable elements within our ranks. With a reorganized military, we can at least prevent this crisis from getting completely out of hand."
2. Minister of Internal Affairs @@RANDOMNAME@@ exclaims, "We have lost this territory, but we can still hold onto the south-east. My sources report that they too are planning an uprising. Let me send in paramilitaries and hired guns to pacify the unruly provinces, and we just might prevent a civil war. Sure, the paramilitaries are known for being heavy-handed extremists, but they're a hell of a lot cheaper than rebuilding our long-neglected military, especially since they bring their own guns."
3. "And you call yourselves @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@," says @@RANDOMNAME@@, the ambassador from Maxtopia, while smiling smugly. "@@NAME@@ and Maxtopia share a common enemy, so it's perfectly reasonable for us to grant you some generous loans and military experts to run your patriotic campaign. Maxtopia's security services could even help you remove spies from your officer corps. Admittedly we'll want all our money back later, but you can always slash a social program or ten to fund the interest payments."
4. "Some province wants to secede? Go right ahead," opines @@RANDOMNAME@@, who doesn't seem to be taking this meeting seriously. "The South still depends on @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ electricity. Let's see how fun their lives are with blackouts day after day."
Like allready said:
"1. Rebuild the military and attack the region in question.
2. Hire extremist paramilitaries and "pacify" (read: attack) other unruly regions.
3. Receive foreign loans and military experts and run a "patriotic campaign", i.e. attack. (Also: slash social programs to pay for it.)
4. Allow the region to secede, but put in place one or more embargoes.
My nation is pacifist, so the first three options are out. I ended up choosing #4, which resulted in a 17.4% drop in political freedoms. Now, allowing regions to secede seems like a pretty big political freedom to me. That doesn't mean we, as a nation, should be happy about it, or bend over backwards to cater to it, hence the embargo. Sure, there's a bit of push and pull between those two in terms of political freedoms, but ending up at a 17.4% negative? Option 4 clearly states that the region is allowed to secede, yet the result is: "the government refuses to transmit electricity to secessionist regions", "secessionist" not "seceded". So the result is: thinking about seceding? No power for you. As opposed to: want to secede? Sure, goodbye, have a nice time. No power for you, jerks. I know the textual results don't always accurately reflect the statistical results of a chosen option and that this is NationStates so issues might have some "wacky unexpected effects LOL", but often the so-called unexpected effects are foreshadowed if you read carefully. E.g. the entire second half of the second option of this very issue implies that the hired guns are going to be doing way more than just pacifying. Unless the somewhat apathetic attitude of the advisor from #4 should be taken as some sort of warning we're going to be playing fast and loose with this, which seems kind of... unsatisfactory?
So, there should be another option here to let them seccede, not lowering everything, or at least effects of the last option changed.
5. This nation is great and if you're dumb enough to want to leave, whatever, have a nice life.
