[SUBMITTED] It's A Puzzle

[Bears Armed]

This uses an idea that I suggested in the Writers’ Block thread last year but that nobody else has taken up yet.

Foreign demand has outstripped supply of a new educational puzzle toy invented by a Mathematics professor at @@CAPITAL@@ University and manufactured in cheap plastic by the Ministry of Instructive Children's Entertainment Devices.

Submitted version = 2.2, which is as 21.1 but with a few minor changes.

(Version 2.1)

It's A Puzzle

[issue]At a cabinet meeting, your Minister for External Trade, @@RANDOMNAME@@, announces a pleasant surprise. Foreign demand for a new @@NAME@@-made educational puzzle toy, which was invented by a Mathematics professor at @@CAPITAL@@ University and manufactured in cheap plastic by the Ministry of Instructive Children's Entertainment Stuff, is already exceeding forecasts by a considerable factor.
[validity]Communist; not Autarky; probably not a tax rate of 100% (because otherwise giving the inventor a financial reward wouldn't work...)

[option]”This is bringing in significantly more foreign exchange than we had hoped,” the Minister comments. “Maybe we should reward Professor @@RANDOMLASTNAME@@ with a small share of the money, not just because it’s the right thing to do but because that would encourage other @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@ to come forwards with inventions that could help us as well?”
[validity]unrestricted
[effect]swarms of hopeful inventors crowd the industrial ministries’ hallways

[option]“You have been corrupted by your dealings with capitalists!” replies @@RANDOMNAME@@, your Minister for Finance. “If the simple fact that he has helped the @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ people in this way would not be sufficient reward for the professor, then he should be content enough if we give him a medal — say ‘Hero of the @@TYPE@@, Fourth Class’ — for it… and we need all of that money for to pay for essential imports, anyway.”
[validity]unrestricted
[effect]earning @@NAME@@ gold is rewarded with tin

[option] “Bah!” the Minister for Heavy Engineering Industry @@RANDOMNAME@@. “Fancy toys like that are merely decadent frivolities. The people’s factories should concentrate on making things that actually matter, such as tractors to help feed the people or guns and tanks to help defend us.”
[validity]unrestricted
[effect]@@NAME@@ industry’s motto is Guns Before Toys

Changes from version 2.0: Second option modified; speaker in the third option re-titled.

(Version 2.o)

It's A Puzzle

[issue]At a cabinet meeting, your Minister for External Trade, @@RANDOMNAME@@, announces a pleasant surprise. Foreign demand for a new @@NAME@@-made educational puzzle puzzle, which was invented by a Mathematics professor at @@CAPITAL@@ University and manufactured in cheap plastic by the Ministry of Instructive Children's Entertainment Stuff, is already exceeding forecasts by a considerable factor.
[validity]Communist; not Autarky; probably not a tax rate of 100% (because otherwise giving the inventor a financial reward wouldn't work...)

[option]”This is bringing in significantly more foreign exchange than we had hoped,” the Minister comments. “Maybe we should reward Professor @@RANDOMLASTNAME@@ with a small share of the money, not just because it’s the right thing to do but because that would encourage other @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@ to come forwards with inventions that could help us as well?”
[validity]unrestricted
[effect]swarms of hopeful inventors crowd the industrial ministries’ hallways

[option]“We need all of that money to pay for essential imports,” replies @@RANDOMNAME@@, your Minister for Finance. “If the simple fact that he has helped the @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ people in this way would not be sufficient reward for the professor, then he should be content enough if we give him a medal — say ‘Hero of the @@TYPE@@, Fourth Class’ — too.”
[validity]unrestricted
[effect]earning @@NAME@@ gold is rewarded with tin

[option] “Bah!” the Minsiter for Ideological Purity, @@RANDOMNAME@@. “Fancy toys like that are merely decadent frivolities. The people’s factories should concentrate on making things that actually matter, such as tractors to help feed the people or guns and tanks to help defend us.”
[validity]unrestricted
[effect]@@NAME@@ industry’s motto is Guns Before Toys

Changes from first draft: Description & inventor's name changed so that it doesn't reference the RL situation about Rubik's Cube so obviously; validity slightly narrowed; third option drops reference to this toy as a 'Kube'.

It's A Puzzle

[issue]At a cabinet meeting, your Minister for External Trade, @@RANDOMNAME@@, announces a pleasant surprise. Foreign buyers have ordered large quantities of a new puzzle, called ‘Kubir’s Kube’, which was invented by a Mathematics professor at @@CAPITAL@@ University and manufactured in cheap plastic by the Ministry of Instructive Toys.
[validity]Communist; not Autarky

[option]”This is bringing in significantly more foreign exchange than we had hoped,” the Minister comments. “Maybe we should reward Professor Kubir with a small share of the money, not just because it’s the right thing to do but because that would encourage other @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@ to come forwards with inventions that could help us as well?”
[validity]unrestricted
[effect]swarms of hopeful inventors crowd the industrial ministries’ hallways

[option]“We need all of that money to pay for essential imports,” replies @@RANDOMNAME@@, your Minister for Finance. “If the simple fact that he has helped the @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ people in this way would not be sufficient reward for the professor, then he should be content enough if we give him a medal — say ‘Hero of the @@TYPE@@, Fourth Class’ — too.”
[validity]unrestricted
[effect]earning @@NAME@@ gold is rewarded with tin

[option] “Bah!” the Minsiter for Ideological Purity, @@RANDOMNAME@@. “Toys like that ‘Kube’ are merely decadent frivolities. The people’s factories should concentrate on making things that actually matter, such as tractors to help feed the people or guns and tanks to help defend us.”
[validity]unrestricted
[effect]@@NAME@@ industry’s motto is Guns Before Toys

Presumably the RL inspiration is obvious? I think that the Hungarian government took option 1.

I also considered including an option that would have university professors assigned a quota of new inventions each to produce per year, on pain of punishment, but thought that that might be a bit too excessive…

EDIT: Please note that in my opinion the third option’s mention of “guns and tanks” shouldn’t require the validity ‘Nation must have a military’: Instead, if the nation currently doesn’t have a military then making this choice should give it one.

[Australian rePublic]

How exactly does a rubix cube "help" people?

[Jutsa]

One puzzle after another! Seems like a sign or a hivemind, if you ask me.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

I think it'd unusual to assume that in the NS world Rubik's Cubes don't already exist. Even if they might have an NSified name, you'd still expect them to have been around since the 1970s.

That in mind, you should probably lampshade that, by having at least one option speaker point out that this toy is pretty much the same thing as a Rubik's Cube.

[Bears Armed]

How exactly does a rubix cube "help" people?

Government-controlled industry making it as an export item, which proves surprisingly popular abroad => government gains more foreign currency => government can spend more on things that help people (or 'The People', anyway...).

I think it'd unusual to assume that in the NS world Rubik's Cubes don't already exist. Even if they might have an NSified name, you'd still expect them to have been around since the 1970s.
That in mind, you should probably lampshade that, by having at least one option speaker point out that this toy is pretty much the same thing as a Rubik's Cube.

(Even leaving aside the fact that some NS nations haven't yet reached the 1970s IC...)
We should assume that something as relatively trivial as the Rubik's Cube must have been invented as early in NS as in RL? Well, if you insist, but how could people in @@NAME@@ refer to it by name, and maybe compare their situation to RL Hungary's', when they're actually located in a different Reality -- and thus, presumably, wouldn't heard of either Rubik or Hungary -- in the first place? It seems to me that it would have to be an 'NSified' name by which they referred to the earlier invention itself, and [obviously] a non-RL nation in which that earlier invention had been created, and then the reference might become too obscured for some players (especially ones who weren't yet born during the Cube's original period of popularity) to get... making the comparison effectively just 'fluff'...

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Some nations IC have populations composed of bears, that doesn't make it a reasonable assumption for issue writing.

Anyway, technology wise, you should assume that modern day technology exists, plus a handful of "five minutes in the future" techs. This means that if a toy was invented in the 1970s in RL, then it should be assumed to be invented in the 1970s in NS.

As to how you write that without mentioning Hungary or Rubik by name but still acknowledging that it's not a new invention, well, that writing challenge is up to you!

[Bears Armed]

Some nations IC have populations composed of bears, that doesn't make it a reasonable assumption for issue writing.

Anyway, technology wise, you should assume that modern day technology exists, plus a handful of "five minutes in the future" techs. This means that if a toy was invented in the 1970s in RL, then it should be assumed to be invented in the 1970s in NS.

Okay, so every RL technology already exists in NS as well, fair enough… but surely Rubik’s Cube wasn’t a new “technology” in itself, just a new-at-the-time way of applying pre-existing technologies? To me, insisting that Rubik’s Cube (and, by extension, every other RL puzzle or toy or game) must have been invented (not “might”, outright “must”…) in NS as well seems like insisting that every RL marque of car must have an NS counterpart*, or every RL type of chocolate bar, or every book and film…
Could I possibly have a second opinion on the necessity for this?

As to how you write that without mentioning Hungary or Rubik by name but still acknowledging that it's not a new invention, well, that writing challenge is up to you!

Meh. This isn't an idea in which I'm deeply interested, just one that I thought could be done relatively quickly to help redress the editor-mentioned shortage of issues specifically for communist nations. If continuing with this draft means that I have to have at least one of the speakers compare the new puzzle to an NS-ified version of Rubik’s Cube then, obviously, I’ll need to find new names for this new puzzle & its inventor because the old ones would be more appropriate for its predecessor… and not only would (I think) at least one speaker have to refer to the actions that the relevant government took back in the’ 70s (and would need me to come up with an NS-ified, but recognisable, name for [1970s] Hungary if none of the existing NPC nations is a good fit…) but the speakers would have to explain enough about that country’s politics at the time & history since then for these references to mean anything to the younger players… which would probably take more of my [soon, alas, to be much more limited] time than I feel like putting into this draft. If that is the ruling then I'll drop this, and anybody else who's interested can take it over...

(* So now part of my mind is thinking of NS-ified names for cars… and starting to draft an issue about what type of car @@LEADER@@ should acquire for ‘personal’ — as distinct from ‘state’ purposes… which is currently on six options…)

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Could I possibly have a second opinion on the necessity for this?

You're best of telegramming another editor for that. I'll leave you to it.

[Caracasus]

Honestly, I'd be tempted to remove all mention of the Rubric cube and simply state something like this:

[issue]At a cabinet meeting, your Minister for External Trade, @@RANDOMNAME@@, announces a pleasant surprise. Foreign demand has outstripped supply of a new educational puzzle toy invented by a Mathematics professor at @@CAPITAL@@ University and manufactured in cheap plastic by the Ministry of Instructive Children's Entertainment Devices.

Those in the know will get the reference and what it's alluding to. If not, it's still an interesting dilemma.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Yeah, that's definitely work better.

[Bears Armed]

Honestly, I'd be tempted to remove all mention of the Rubric cube and simply state something like this:

[issue]At a cabinet meeting, your Minister for External Trade, @@RANDOMNAME@@, announces a pleasant surprise. Foreign demand has outstripped supply of a new educational puzzle toy invented by a Mathematics professor at @@CAPITAL@@ University and manufactured in cheap plastic by the Ministry of Instructive Children's Entertainment Devices.

Those in the know will get the reference and what it's alluding to. If not, it's still an interesting dilemma.

Yeah, that's definitely work better.

Okay, I'll do that.

EDIT: Done, draft 2.0 posted.

[Bears Armed]

Draft 2.1 posted.

Do you think that I should add a fourth option, whose speaker responds to this situation arising from international trade by urging autarky instead?

[Caracasus]

Draft 2.1 posted.

Do you think that I should add a fourth option, whose speaker responds to this situation arising from international trade by urging autarky instead?

Personally I don't think it's needed. I'd also think it would be rather difficult to go from "we're making lots of these and it's actually pretty good for our economy" to "right, no more trade with the outside world!" in a way that would make sense.

[Bears Armed]

Draft 2.1 posted.

Do you think that I should add a fourth option, whose speaker responds to this situation arising from international trade by urging autarky instead?

Personally I don't think it's needed. I'd also think it would be rather difficult to go from "we're making lots of these and it's actually pretty good for our economy" to "right, no more trade with the outside world!" in a way that would make sense.

I was thinking in terms of the speaker complaining about the "corrupting" effects of trading with capitalists, and wanting to keep the nation's resources within the nation, but it's only an option that I thought some people night want rather than one that I absolutely want to add.

[Trotterdam]

I was thinking in terms of the speaker complaining about the "corrupting" effects of trading with capitalists, and wanting to keep the nation's resources within the nation,

Toys aren't exactly essential resources.

[Bears Armed]

I was thinking in terms of the speaker complaining about the "corrupting" effects of trading with capitalists, and wanting to keep the nation's resources within the nation,

Toys aren't exactly essential resources.

But the oil (or whatever) from which the plastic used to build them is produced might be...

[Bears Armed]

H'mm, now, would 'What A Puzzle!' be a better title than "It's A Puzzle' ?

After thinking further about this, and receiving no feedback on the point from anybody else, I'll stay with 'It's A Puzzle' instead of making that change.

[Caracasus]

Autarky in the real world is usually either practically enforced on a nation via sanctions or - whatever the rhetoric it is dressed up in - is a result of a desire to break with reliance on foreign aid or trade deals that the government feels give foreign powers far too much say in the country. With that in mind, I am very unconvinced of the need for an autarky option here.

Edit: Doubly so as the game incorrectly (for the sake of convenience) treats autarky as no international trade.

It is a fun issue as it stands, anyway!

[Bears Armed]

It is a fun issue as it stands, anyway!

Thank you.
So, ready for submission?

[Bears Armed]

Bump, for further feedback.

[Bears Armed]

In the absence of new comments for a while, despite bumping, this is now on 'Last Call'. Current plan is to submit it in a week's time.

[Verdant Haven]

Minor suggestions for this little bit of the description text:

Foreign demand for a new @@NAME@@-made educational puzzle puzzle, which was...

The word"puzzle" is repeated.

I think @@DEMONYM@@-made might work better than @@NAME@@-made. We would say "American-made" or "French-made" without issue, but the form "United States-made" or "France-made" would be unusual.

[Bears Armed]

Minor suggestions for this little bit of the description text:

Foreign demand for a new @@NAME@@-made educational puzzle puzzle, which was...

The word"puzzle" is repeated.

Oops! Should have been (following editorial suggestion) "education la puzzle toy". I'll fix that now.

I think @@DEMONYM@@-made might work better than @@NAME@@-made. We would say "American-made" or "French-made" without issue, but the form "United States-made" or "France-made" would be unusual.

I'm thinking about this.

[Bears Armed]

I think @@DEMONYM@@-made might work better than @@NAME@@-made. We would say "American-made" or "French-made" without issue, but the form "United States-made" or "France-made" would be unusual.

I'm still undecided about this. Either way around, there are probably going to be nations for which the other way would work better instead... and in RL goods do, I think, more usually get labelled "Made in @@NAME" rather than "Made by @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@".
I'll probably leave the draft as it is, and leave it to the editors to decide whether this detail needs changing (which they could do even if I did change it myself, anyway, of course...).

In the absence of any further comments that lead me to make changes, I'll probably submit this on Sunday afternoon (GMT).

[Bears Armed]

Fixed the quotation marks.

In the third option's effect line, replaced @@NAME@@ with @@DEMONYM@@ (Oops! That really should have been @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@! Hopefully the editors, if they do accept this issue, will catch that detail...)

_____________________________________

Submitted.