[DRAFT] One Small Broken Circuit, One Giant Explosion

[Aplexiana]

This is my first issue, so here goes:

Validity: has a space program

Three days ago, the expensive and important spaceship Adventurer I exploded a few seconds after takeoff, killing all 6 astronauts on board. Now, the study on what caused the explosion has concluded that an astronaut accidentally broke off one of the circuit boards in the inside, which stopped the anti-overheating process while exiting the atmosphere, which caused the rocket to burn up.

@RANDOMFEMALENAME@, mother of one of the dead astronauts, and coincidentally a priest of @FAITH@, charges into your office with a petition. “@LEADER@, this space program is a waste of money. We humans are not meant to cross the border into that dark unknown, and we are wasting our valuable taxpayer @CURRENCYPLURAL@ on this charade! Our children are giving up their precious lives for this! You’ll find everyone agrees with me...” She keeps yelling as your guards drag her away.
Effect: Centuries later, future civilizations dig up an oddly shaped huge pickle made of metal, and wonder what it is.
Cancels space program

Then, your Minister for Scientific and Other Questionable Endeavours, @RANDOMMALENAME_1@ bursts into the room on an untested prototype for a hovercar, before falling off, and letting the hovercar bust through your new window. “@LEADER@, you can’t be serious about this! This mistake is just food for thought! We have a new prototype, and it’s ready to go! Don’t listen to that religious fanatic! The Adventurer II will stand the test of time and any stupid astronauts that break any important parts, well, it’s just their fault!”
Effect: The days of the year are being marked with the combustions of Adventurers II, III, IV, and so on.
Might cancel religious policies?

"Excuse me, excuse me, but wouldn't this be the fault of the weakly built circuit in question? I mean, only @DENONYMPLURAL@ would be so stupid!" The Brancalandian Ambassador elbows their way into your office, much to the chagrin of everyone else. "You should stop these obvious breakables from being included in these important expeditions!" The ambassador keeps talking as he gives everyone a spontaneous and much-unappreciated shower.
Effect:
Suddenly, a bright light bursts into your office. Outside the window, you see a disk-like object touch to the ground. A ramp goes down, and a green object descends from the craft. It floats into your office and opens its mouth-like appendage. “Who dares to venture into the territory of Nurblax the Third? You, humans, do not have the necessary cognitive ability to explore and claim MY kingdom! Therefore, I shall have to destroy all your odds and ends which make you exceptional. Goodbye.” And it floats away.
Effect: @DENONYMPLURAL@ are reduced to watching PSB documentaries about the cavemen as how-to videos.
Cancels the policies relating to technology? maybe.

[Socio Polor]

Sorry, I don't have time to give any real constructive feedback on this just yet (I only skimmed the draft), but I must say I love your title!

[USS Monitor]

Why was a self-destruct button installed in the first place? It doesn't make sense.

[Aplexiana]

Thanks SP!

[Aplexiana]

Why was a self-destruct button installed in the first place? It doesn't make sense.

True, but, when is there no self-destruct button?

[Makdon]

True, but, when is there no self-destruct button?

On a spaceship? I'd imagine always. This is fun and fairly well written, but as is it's not really reasonable. You've got to justify why there's a button, otherwise it makes no sense

[Aplexiana]

Also, I need help with my effect lines. They suck.

[Eagle Air]

True, but, when is there no self-destruct button?

On a spaceship? I'd imagine always. This is fun and fairly well written, but as is it's not really reasonable. You've got to justify why there's a button, otherwise it makes no sense

Draft 2 is out now! My third option is weak, tho. Any help would be appreciated!

[Eagle Air]

Sorry, I'm logged in as my other nation.

[Eagle Air]

THIS IS APLEXIANA SPEAKING

[Socio Polor]

THIS IS APLEXIANA SPEAKING

I recommend posting with your main nation in this thread to avoid confusion.

Now regarding your issue. The concept is very intringing to me (Seeing as though I'm a nerd ), but I have to agree with the others that this draft makes little to no sense. I've never heard of any manned rocket ever having a self destruct button on board. If a rocket were to have a self destruct button at all, it'd most likely be located at the control center. I suggest either rewriting this premise entirely, or if you can, explain why there's such a sensitive button on board where it can inadvertently be pressed. Good Luck!

[USS Monitor]

THIS IS APLEXIANA SPEAKING

I recommend posting with your main nation in this thread to avoid confusion.

I dunno... I thought the capslock puppeteering was funny.

As for the draft itself, it's not the worst prose I've ever seen. It's just not usable because the premise is too illogical. Maybe try again with a premise that makes more sense?

[Lelscrep]

Instead of a self-destruct button, possibly try something like a faulty switch that broke during takeoff due to a lack of quality testing. If you wanted to possibly add another option (your choice obviously) you could try something like a space military proposed by the nations military general (or enthusiast). Like over-the-top space army with death rays and light sabers and the like, I love getting issues with a comedic nature such as this. I'd also shorten the effect message of the third choice, and remember that not every option needs to affect policy, it can just be stat changes.

[Aplexiana]

Thanks for that, Lelscrep!

[Aplexiana]

Need help with effect line for option 3, plz.

[Australian rePublic]

Option 1- there is a single modern religion which has exclusively female priests. There are many religions which have exclusively male priests- including the two largests religions- Most of Christianity and Islam- who collectively make up, what? 40% of the world's population? I suggest making the priest a male

[Lelscrep]

Need help with effect line for option 3, plz.

You could just do something like "parts must shine like a mirror to get into the space program." Remember not all taglines need to be hilarious.

[Makdon]

Option 1- there is a single modern religion which has exclusively female priests. There are many religions which have exclusively male priests- including the two largests religions- Most of Christianity and Islam- who collectively make up, what? 40% of the world's population? I suggest making the priest a male

I really don't think that's a particularly useful change. The gender of the priest really means nothing, as we can't know what the player wants their major religions rules to be, if they care at all, so I think leaving it as random is fine

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Going to start with just the premise, as I try not to use up time reading options for premises that don't work. If we can get this base premise sorted, we can move onto the rest.

Three days ago, the expensive and important spaceship Adventurer I exploded a few seconds after takeoff, killing all 6 astronauts on board. Now, the study on what caused the explosion has concluded that an astronaut accidentally broke off one of the circuit boards in the inside, which stopped the anti-overheating process while exiting the atmosphere, which caused the rocket to burn up.

So first off, general writing points:

The English is odd here, not really sounding like colloquial writing. No professional news report or government account has ever described a spaceship as "the expensive and important spaceship". It just doesn't happen, because everyone knows spaceships are expensive and important, so they're not adjectives that need to be applied. It's much like saying "the mammalian and alive human being Taylor Swift today released a new popular for-profit pop single which she is planning to sell to people who like her music."

Likewise, general rule of writing prose is that numbers up to ten should be written in words not numerals, unless being attached to specific units of measurement.

The sentence beginning "now" is a run-on sentence. Read it out loud, and you'll see why that's the case. These sorts of sentences generally feel disjointed and clumsy. While you can use them deliberately for comedic effect or literary referencing (vide 970 For Want of a Nail), they're more generally regarded as bad writing.

General writing aside, let's look at the story.

It seems unlikely a study could establish circumstances of an incident to the level you're describing. It might note a circuit board to have failed prior to the crash, and it might have somehow discovered that the astronaut broke it off, but it can't determine this as being "accidental". Instead, I would suggest that an analysis could speculate as to a cause.

It also seems unlikely that a broken circuit board would stop the "anti-overheating process", and indeed it's pretty unlikely that an official NASA-style report would refer to measures to counter reentry heat in this way. The primary old-fashioned measures were blunt-body designs and ablative material, though newer craft tend instead towards better insulating materials, and adjusting the angle of attack of a shuttle to around forty degrees. That process is often computer-assisted, but as we're talking about a rocket, there's no such process.

I think if you want to do an issue about spacecraft, you should do some research first.

[Australian rePublic]

Option 1- there is a single modern religion which has exclusively female priests. There are many religions which have exclusively male priests- including the two largests religions- Most of Christianity and Islam- who collectively make up, what? 40% of the world's population? I suggest making the priest a male

I really don't think that's a particularly useful change. The gender of the priest really means nothing, as we can't know what the player wants their major religions rules to be, if they care at all, so I think leaving it as random is fine

To a religious person (and many people put their real religions into this), the gender of the priest is an impirtant detail

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Regarding Christians and Muslims, I'd note that most interpretations of Catholicism do indeed forbid female priests, so if depicting a Catholic priest, the character should be made male. Many other Christian denominations allow female priests. Regarding Islam, most Muslims don't recognise the concept of ordained priests at all. Imams are prayer leaders, though whether they are "just prayer leaders" or "special people who lead prayer" is one of the major Sunni/Shi'a divides, as I understand it. Regardless, it seems unlikely that most Muslims would read the word "priest" and think that a Muslim is being referred to.

Regardless, the practices of some religions should not be used to apply generalisations to all religions, or to a non-specified religion within NS.

If you're referring to a real life religion that has priests exclusively of one gender, then you should use that gender.

If the story requires a particular gender of character for the humour and/or context of an option to be delivered, then you should use that gender.

Otherwise, you should use a random gender.

The key thing I want to emphasis here though is that this is a diversion from the actual problems with the issue. Leave the priest whatever gender you want - it won't affect whether this issue is published or not. You should, however, address the flaws of the core premise already described.

[Lelscrep]

I really don't think that's a particularly useful change. The gender of the priest really means nothing, as we can't know what the player wants their major religions rules to be, if they care at all, so I think leaving it as random is fine

To a religious person (and many people put their real religions into this), the gender of the priest is an impirtant detail

Isn't the main stand-in religion of Nationstates the worship of Violet? I don't think real world religion needs to have too much of an impact here.

Aplexiana you can change the gender of the priest to settle this criticism, but I don't think it's too important.

[Aplexiana]

Going to start with just the premise, as I try not to use up time reading options for premises that don't work. If we can get this base premise sorted, we can move onto the rest.

Three days ago, the expensive and important spaceship Adventurer I exploded a few seconds after takeoff, killing all 6 astronauts on board. Now, the study on what caused the explosion has concluded that an astronaut accidentally broke off one of the circuit boards in the inside, which stopped the anti-overheating process while exiting the atmosphere, which caused the rocket to burn up.

So first off, general writing points:

The English is odd here, not really sounding like colloquial writing. No professional news report or government account has ever described a spaceship as "the expensive and important spaceship". It just doesn't happen, because everyone knows spaceships are expensive and important, so they're not adjectives that need to be applied. It's much like saying "the mammalian and alive human being Taylor Swift today released a new popular for-profit pop single which she is planning to sell to people who like her music."

Likewise, general rule of writing prose is that numbers up to ten should be written in words not numerals, unless being attached to specific units of measurement.

The sentence beginning "now" is a run-on sentence. Read it out loud, and you'll see why that's the case. These sorts of sentences generally feel disjointed and clumsy. While you can use them deliberately for comedic effect or literary referencing (vide 970 For Want of a Nail), they're more generally regarded as bad writing.

General writing aside, let's look at the story.

It seems unlikely a study could establish circumstances of an incident to the level you're describing. It might note a circuit board to have failed prior to the crash, and it might have somehow discovered that the astronaut broke it off, but it can't determine this as being "accidental". Instead, I would suggest that an analysis could speculate as to a cause.

It also seems unlikely that a broken circuit board would stop the "anti-overheating process", and indeed it's pretty unlikely that an official NASA-style report would refer to measures to counter reentry heat in this way. The primary old-fashioned measures were blunt-body designs and ablative material, though newer craft tend instead towards better insulating materials, and adjusting the angle of attack of a shuttle to around forty degrees. That process is often computer-assisted, but as we're talking about a rocket, there's no such process.

I think if you want to do an issue about spacecraft, you should do some research first.

Okay, thanks for the feedback. Will do!

[Aplexiana]

I really don't think that's a particularly useful change. The gender of the priest really means nothing, as we can't know what the player wants their major religions rules to be, if they care at all, so I think leaving it as random is fine

To a religious person (and many people put their real religions into this), the gender of the priest is an impirtant detail

Not to seem impertinent or something, but I don't think it matters.

[Australian rePublic]

I think the best course of action would be an internal investigation into why it was easy to accidently break something so important. I'm not sure if @@LEADER@@ would get involved, as this is soley within the jurisdiction of the space agency