[SUBMITTED] Mutually Assured Defection

[Westinor]

[title] Mutually Assured Defection

[desc]One of your top advisers has defected to the nation of Blackacre, and taken with him valuable information on the whereabouts of your nuclear armaments. However, a top governmental official from Blackacre defected and arrived in @@NAME@@ just last night, carrying with her equally valuable information on the whereabouts of Blackacre’s nuclear armaments. Your advisers have come to offer you some advice.

[validity]Valid for nations with weapons of mass destruction/nuclear weapons

[option]”This event has showed a gaping hole in the security of our nation.” says your Minister of Intelligence. “We need to make sure this never happens again-tap all the calls of your ministers, have my agents follow them and monitor their activities online…” he leans in close and whispers in your ear, “and we can get rid of the opposition while we’re at it, eh?”
[effect]Politicians who don’t think before their every move disappear overnight.

[option]”We should be looking at it this way-why don’t we make it more appealing for them to defect to us?” queries your Minister of Propaganda. “If we release information online about how great @@NAME@@ is and how horrible Blackacre is, we’ll have droves of defectors flocking to us in no time, and with them, valuable intel! To speed up the process, we can offer any defectors instant entry into our country, so that they don’t get caught up in that whole border control mess.”
[effect]The Customs Office is flooded with “defectors”.

[option]”Does everyone not see the problem here?” exclaims your Minister of Diplomacy. “The reason people defect and bring information with them is because they feel oppressed, and antagonistic to their government. Why don’t we start treating everyone better here, and suggest the same to Blackacre? That way anyone who wants to defect won’t feel the need to...Why are you looking at me like that?”
[effect]Politicians are pampered to prevent them from defecting.

[option]”I think you’re all ignoring the fact that Blackacre has our nuclear codes!” shouts your constantly-frightened Minister of Homeland Security. “We have to regenerate all of our codes as quickly as possible!” His sister, the much more sinister Minister of Defense, cuts in. “Don’t forget, we now have an extremely useful asset in the stolen Blackacrean codes… It’d be a shame if we didn’t put them to use!”
[effect] Neighboring nations tremble in fear everytime @@NAME@@ mentions fireworks.

[SherpDaWerp]

Surprisingly enough, I can't find any pre-existing issues that deal specifically with defection.

IMO there needs to be an immediate-consequences option, where you ignore the long-term issues surrounding defection in favour of re-generating all your nuclear codes so that Blackacre can't access them, while also using your newfound knowledge of their codes to threaten them in return.

[Westinor]

by SherpDaWerp » Fri May 01, 2020 6:03 pm
Surprisingly enough, I can't find any pre-existing issues that deal specifically with defection.

IMO there needs to be an immediate-consequences option, where you ignore the long-term issues surrounding defection in favour of re-generating all your nuclear codes so that Blackacre can't access them, while also using your newfound knowledge of their codes to threaten them in return.

Oh that makes sense-should I revise all of the options to a more immediate consequences kind of result or just add an extra one

[SherpDaWerp]

Oh that makes sense-should I revise all of the options to a more immediate consequences kind of result or just add an extra one

It's good at presenting a dilemma about how to prevent defecting in the future, which is something that the issue base doesn't have already, I just think someone there should mention something about a short-term response.

I would just add an extra option that deals with the immediate consequences, not re-tool the whole issue.

[Australian rePublic]

Options 2&3 apply to plebs. Options 2&3 do not apply to high ranking government officials with access to nuclear codes

[Ko-oren]

Pretty good balanced options, but as mentioned, they're mostly about the future. Another thing I miss (which may make the issue unnecessarily long) is an option where the defector from Blackacre isn't trusted - what if it's a spy? That puts @@NAME@@ at a disadvantage where they can't trust the information they have gotten from Blackacre's defector, but Blackacre still has all the information on @@NAME@@. There could also be an option that means short term war against Blackacre.

I could keep going, there are a million ways to go with this. I hope to see a set of complementary options (which are pretty good right now: authoritarian, propaganda abroad, and somewhat pacifist). Nations with very little in the way of defence (but still with nuclear weapons, as per the validity) could just dismiss it anyway.

[Trotterdam]

Another thing I miss (which may make the issue unnecessarily long) is an option where the defector from Blackacre isn't trusted - what if it's a spy? That puts @@NAME@@ at a disadvantage where they can't trust the information they have gotten from Blackacre's defector, but Blackacre still has all the information on @@NAME@@.

It may just feel that way, when there's a good chance that in fact Blackacre has the same problem. Just because we know that the defector to Blackacre is legit doesn't mean Blackacre does.

[Trotterdam]

(but still with nuclear weapons, as per the validity)

Speaking of the validity:

"The reason people defect and bring information with them is because they feel oppressed, and antagonistic to their government."

The validity suggests that this is (game-mechanically) objectively not true, since the only requirement is having nuclear weapons, and aside from that you'd be equally likely to receive this issue regardless of how well you're treating your citizens.

It's a bit awkward to be told you need to do something you're already doing as well as you possibly can.

Perhaps there could be alternative versions where the defector's interests are always something opposite of your current politics.

[Westinor]

by Trotterdam » Sat May 02, 2020 9:11 am
Ko-oren wrote:
(but still with nuclear weapons, as per the validity)
Speaking of the validity:
Westinor wrote:
"The reason people defect and bring information with them is because they feel oppressed, and antagonistic to their government."
The validity suggests that this is (game-mechanically) objectively not true, since the only requirement is having nuclear weapons, and aside from that you'd be equally likely to receive this issue regardless of how well you're treating your citizens.

It's a bit awkward to be told you need to do something you're already doing as well as you possibly can.

Perhaps there could be alternative versions where the defector's interests are always something opposite of your current politics.

Would that be through making two different versions of option3, per say? like making one that applies to maybe a nation with a capitalist system and one with a socialist system?

[Westinor]

by Trotterdam » Sat May 02, 2020 9:11 am

Perhaps there could be alternative versions where the defector's interests are always something opposite of your current politics.

So I came up with two versions of option 3,

[option]”Does no one see the problem here?” exclaims your Chief of Staff. “The reason that the minister defected was because he was harboring anti-capitalist values. We have to carefully vet our staff to make sure this doesn’t happen again, and that all ministers are loyal to our party.
[effect]A common insult towards the opposition party is “defectors”
[validity]Nation has capitalism as a policy

[option]”Does no one see the problem here?” exclaims your Chief of Staff. “The reason that the minister defected was because he was harboring anti-socialist values. To ensure the stability of our nation, we must carefully vet our staff to make sure that this doesn’t happen again, and that all ministers are loyal to the Workers Party.
[effect]Applicants for a governmental position must memorize and recite the entirety of the @@DEMONYM@@ Communist Manifesto to prove their loyalty.
[validity]Nation has Socialism as a policy

This one deals with difference in economic policy,

[option]”Does no one see the problem here?” exclaims your Minister of Diplomacy. “The reason people defect and bring valuable intel to our enemies is because they feel oppressed! Our foremost duty is to the people and their wellbeing, and the first step to ensuring that is allowing free elections...Why are you all looking at me like that?
[effect]@@NAME@@ has allowed elections in order to stop people from defecting.
[validity]Nation does not hold elections.

[option]”Does no one see the problem here?” exclaims your Minister of Internal Affairs. “People defect because they’re given a chance to see the other side of things, the wrong side of things. All of those opposition candidates, and the dirty news outlets that support them… The only way to prevent this again is to ban them all.”
[effect]The nation has cracked down on the opposition in order to prevent defection.
[validity]Nation holds free elections, has free media.

and this one with political freedom. Are they too authoritarian or similar to the first option?

[Westinor]

by SherpDaWerp » Fri May 01, 2020 11:00 pm

I would just add an extra option that deals with the immediate consequences, not re-tool the whole issue.

So I made another option,

[option]”I think you’re all ignoring the fact that Blackacre has our nuclear codes!” shouts your constantly-frightened Minister of Homeland Security. “We have to regenerate all of our codes as quickly as possible!” His sister, the much more sinister Minister of Defense, cuts in. “Don’t forget, we now have an extremely useful asset in the stolen Blackacrean codes… It’d be a shame if we didn’t put them to use!”
[effect] Neighboring nations tremble in fear everytime @@NAME@@ mentions fireworks.

Does this work alright?

[Westinor]

Options 2&3 apply to plebs. Options 2&3 do not apply to high ranking government officials with access to nuclear codes

What should I do to fix these up?

[Westinor]

Pretty good balanced options, but as mentioned, they're mostly about the future. Another thing I miss (which may make the issue unnecessarily long) is an option where the defector from Blackacre isn't trusted - what if it's a spy? That puts @@NAME@@ at a disadvantage where they can't trust the information they have gotten from Blackacre's defector, but Blackacre still has all the information on @@NAME@@. There could also be an option that means short term war against Blackacre.

I could keep going, there are a million ways to go with this. I hope to see a set of complementary options (which are pretty good right now: authoritarian, propaganda abroad, and somewhat pacifist). Nations with very little in the way of defence (but still with nuclear weapons, as per the validity) could just dismiss it anyway.

So I came up with an option that kind of deals with war against Blackacre,

[option]”There’s a way to deal with this defection problem and the nuclear codes.” growls your Minister of War. “Why don’t we demand that these Blackacrean nincompoops hand back over the defector, and if they don’t, we blow them off the face of the planet! That way there’s nowhere to defect to!”
[effect]@@NAME@@ bombs common tourist destinations that won’t “give up defectors”.

Do you think it works alright? Also I feel like the part about the information from Blackacre's defector deserves an entirely independent issue-I feel like there are so many ways that could go

[Candlewhisper Archive]

This is a good premise, well-executed.

I'd suggest trying to trim down the opening a little.

Also, if you intend this for contest, you'll need to pay more attention to the exact formatting and things like that, such as straight quotes, not capitalising effect lines and so on. None of those details matter as far as success at getting published goes, but the issue writing contest is partially designed to seek a new editor, so it'd be a good show of attention-to-detail to address these things.

[SherpDaWerp]

[option]”I think you’re all ignoring the fact that Blackacre has our nuclear codes!” shouts your constantly-frightened Minister of Homeland Security. “We have to regenerate all of our codes as quickly as possible!” His sister, the much more sinister Minister of Defense, cuts in. “Don’t forget, we now have an extremely useful asset in the stolen Blackacrean codes… It’d be a shame if we didn’t put them to use!”
[effect] Neighboring nations tremble in fear everytime @@NAME@@ mentions fireworks.

That seems like a good immediate-consequence option, yeah.

I would suggest editing your new option(s) into the Opening Post of this thread, so that we can read them more easily in context of the other options.

[Westinor]

by SherpDaWerp » Tue May 05, 2020 6:00 pm
Westinor wrote:
[option]”I think you’re all ignoring the fact that Blackacre has our nuclear codes!” shouts your constantly-frightened Minister of Homeland Security. “We have to regenerate all of our codes as quickly as possible!” His sister, the much more sinister Minister of Defense, cuts in. “Don’t forget, we now have an extremely useful asset in the stolen Blackacrean codes… It’d be a shame if we didn’t put them to use!”
[effect] Neighboring nations tremble in fear everytime @@NAME@@ mentions fireworks.
That seems like a good immediate-consequence option, yeah.

I would suggest editing your new option(s) into the Opening Post of this thread, so that we can read them more easily in context of the other options.

Okay, thank you!

[Westinor]

by Candlewhisper Archive » Tue May 05, 2020 3:54 am
This is a good premise, well-executed.

I'd suggest trying to trim down the opening a little.

Also, if you intend this for contest, you'll need to pay more attention to the exact formatting and things like that, such as straight quotes, not capitalising effect lines and so on. None of those details matter as far as success at getting published goes, but the issue writing contest is partially designed to seek a new editor, so it'd be a good show of attention-to-detail to address these things.

Thank you! I think I wont make this for contest, I just want to try and author an issue. Is there anything else you think I should try and edit?