[SUBMITTED] Not Pilgrims vs. The World?

[Tinhampton]

The Order of Ultra-Violet, a hateful Tasmanian extremist sect of Violetism

What's the difference between "The Order of Ultra-Violet" and good old-fashioned vanilla-flavour Ultra-Violet? Or are we talking about the difference between the International Order of Good Templars and Movendi International here?

Option 1: How exactly can one jumbo jet destroy the entirety of @@CAPITAL@@ - if not a significant portion of it - when two jumbo jets barely managed to wipe out a few blocks of Manhattan? (Note also that @@CAPITAL@@ is underground for some nations.)

Option 4: Why would you go to war with Gullivad rather than Tasmania?

Throughout: Air @@NAME@@ is the proper name for your nation's flagship carrier, not @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ Aircraft.

[The Free Joy State]

I don't see how options 2A/B is different to the pre-existing "negotiate with terrorists" issue.

It's just "Ultra-Violet" not "The Order of Ultra-Violet".

This would still work better as a two option issue. Your first effect references the "trolley problem"; this issue would be stronger if you actually based the issue on the trolley problem. The middle option is extraneous and has been covered elsewhere.

Tinhampton is correct that we use "Air @@NAME@@".

[Daarwyrth]

This would still work better as a two option issue. Your first effect references the "trolley problem"; this issue would be stronger if you actually based the issue on the trolley problem. The middle option is extraneous and has been covered elsewhere.

I agree. Those are the type of issues that actually cause the player to feel the weight of the dilemma. I feel that two options in this particular case would be indeed quite fitting.

[Minskiev]

Alright, let’s do this one at a time.

1. You’re right, I must have confused it with the Order of Violet. Ultra-Violet is correct, and the Order of Violet is correct.

2. When did I say it’d wipe out all of @@CAPITAL@@? The plane would just fly into the most important part of it, because that’s the biggest target.

3. While true, surely the plane would make the ground above collapse on @@CAPITAL@@, right?

4. Gullivad is purely Ultra-Violetist; Tasmania isn’t.

5. If you say so.

6. It’s not like the whole issue is focused on negotiation.

7. Already addressed.

8. Fine, I’ll try it.

9. Again, already addressed.

10. Alright, then.

[Jutsa]

It doesn't feel like much of an issue to choose between "blow up the plane" and "submit to it".

Negotiation is still viable, I feel, solely because it's not just "negotiate and your problems will go away".
A better way of thinking about it would be "Try to negotiate and politely threaten to blow up the plane. If it doesn't work, the plane gets blown up closer to cities causing potential panic and additional destruction. If it does work, then you might save the passengers".

A somewhat grim effect line might be "small planes are used as fireworks"

Definitely, 100%, keep the other two options though. I really do have hopes for this one.

[Minskiev]

Well, two say that two options works better. Another says three.

The Ultra-Violetists would have the option to kill some hostages if negotiation was tried, because they’d know for sure that the plane would blow up if they didn’t cooperate. Granted, the hostages would still die either way, but still.

I’m getting lost just thinking of this! Alright, let’s break this down. If you tried to negotiate, and they accepted, that might take too long, and the plane would still crash. Or, the terrorists could go back on their word. Not to mention that the terrorists could just refuse, and kill some hostages before they get blown up. If someone became Chief Transportation Actuary, or whatever their job was, you’d think they’d be smarter than this. I’m going to leave negotiation out of this, because it’s unlikely that Ultra-Violetists so extreme would be able to settle down with infidels, and not achieve their goal: terror.

[Westinor]

I'm not sure if referring to the terrorists as just "Ultra-Violet" is the correct form here. If I'm not wrong, referring to a few of these terrorists is simply "Ultra-Violetists", right? So a more logical and less ambiguous way to refer to them would be "a group of Ultra-Violetists".

Also, "unfortunately" doesn't seem like the best starter for the second sentence. That implies "Oh no, this happened. Oh well.", and you need a bit of urgency to get this issue off the ground (see what I did there )

[Jutsa]

Wellh, I wouldn't say extremist terrorists would negotiate either. That'd be the point of trying to negotiate. The plane still wouldn't crash, but it would still cause potential panic and maybe one or two extra casualties if it doesn't work out.

That's the idea behind my proposed second option. It emphasizes the trolley problem:
Either you pull the lever and definitely kill a bunch of people, or you wait to pull the lever, which will either most likely kill a bunch of people and risk making things worse,
or possibly save everyone (or at least almost everyone). It'd be a risky thing, but it would definitely be something worth consideration.

And, of course, present option 2 as it stands is "Play chicken. Let them go, we'll have no blood on our hands, and if they crash into us, which they'll probably do,
we'll have an excuse to declare war on the place those terrorists come from".
Which is a terribly different take on the whole trolley problem, it's like ditching the lever entirely, blowing up the whole train, and declaring war on the train station. Or something.

Actually, by this logic, it actually does kind of make sense to have Ultra-Violet in the description simply for that last point's sake.

Hope this communicates my somewhat oddball thought process a little bit better, though, and explains why I'd love to see another option that...
while maybe not negotiate per say, would be sensible to at least try to sway the pilot.

[Trotterdam]

Keep in mind that 99% of plane hijackers in history did not intend to crash their planes. The reason the 9/11 attacks were so successful was that they were completely unexpected, as the authorities were still thinking of the terrorists as normal hijackers (who can usually be negotiated with once they land the plane) and didn't realize they were crazy enough to use the planes as kamikaze missiles. Indeed, the passengers on one of the four planes heard about what happened to the other three thanks to their cell phones, and realizing that they would probably all die regardless, figured they had nothing to lose and successfully took out the hijackers themselves (and then all died when the plane crashed in the middle of nowhere). After this, there has been some talk that it may be best to simply shoot the shoot the planes down if something like this ever happens again (achieving the same result of saving the target at the expenses of killing the passengers who were probably going to die anyway)... but it never actually did, so this suggestion has never been put into action.

[Jutsa]

Huh. Neat. O_o

Wellh, that'd definitely put negotiation back up there. Still feel like it could be option 2 thanks to rl events, but still.

I still think a third option should be in there though. It just wouldn't make sense to have the two options be "blow it up" and "chicken game it".

On the other hand, because of the circumstances, I'd still feel like a negotiation option highlighting the potential risk (perhaps emphasized by a punchy effect line)
would be sufficiently different from other existing hostage issues.

[Minskiev]

I thought the trolley problem was simply:

“Kill one friend or kill five strangers”, or something like that.

Also, that’s quite interesting, Trotter.

[Noahs Second Country]

I haven't read this whole thread but this mildly reminds me of the D. B. Cooper case.

To me that seems like it would provide a larger set of options and an interesting premise with a real-life inspiration.

[Minskiev]

Perhaps that could be a different issue? After all, my only issue experience is with aircraft. Oh, and crayons.

[Minskiev]

I’m questioning having option 3. On one hand, trolley problems only have two choices; kill 1 you know, and save many, or kill many to save the one you know. On the other hand, crazy nations might not want to save anyone. However, they might be able to simply kill more if they picked an option where more are killed, thus reducing the option count. But, my two options both save the many, yet in different ways. 1 saves the capital by ditching the plane, and 2 saves the plane and maybe the capital by ditching a few hostages.

...

This may take a few changes.

[Minskiev]

Alright, I’ve given it more thought.

You can’t base this ENTIRELY on the trolley problem, because you can’t save the plane and sacrifice the city; there’s just no way to do that.

So:

Option 1 would be to save the 5 (city) and kill the 1 (plane), check

Option 2, since you can’t do the opposite of option one, would be a riskier option one, with more “reward”, and so risking the 1 and the 5 to...save the 1 and the 5? Check...

Option 3 would be for those bent on causing chaos and destruction, to kill 1 and 5 for some twisted personal benefit. Check.

Option 1 is necessary, because it’s crucial to the premise. Option 2 isn’t too crucial, but possibly needed to reach out to other types of nations? Perhaps the more authoritarian ones? Option 3 is sort of crucial, to reach out to the more ironic and crazier nations.

Well, I’m both confused and sorted out now.

[Jutsa]

Not a super in-depth comment, but personally I never saw this strictly as a trolley problem.

[Minskiev]

Not a super in-depth comment, but personally I never saw this strictly as a trolley problem.

It was kind of thrown in due to Candle’s comment on my effect line. I only wrote that effect line as a comedic one..

[Minskiev]

Alright, any last suggestions before I put this into last call?

[Tinhampton]

"@@A@@ Air @@NAME@@ airplane" will always give you "an Air @@NAME@@ airplane," regardless of the value of @@NAME@@.

[The Free Joy State]

[option] “I bet y’all 100 @@CURRENCYPLURAL@@ that those damn nuns don’t do a damn thing with the damn plane,” declares your unusually patriotic Minister of Foreign Relations. “They don’t got the courage of a @@ANIMAL@@ flipped over, and they know it. They may kill a few hostages, but I know they ain’t gonna damn touch my damn city under my damn watch. Demand that they land the plane away from @@CAPITAL@@, and tell them that they’ve got the right to remain silent, cuz’ I know they’ll throw their hands up quicker than the Galliennais.”

It's been hijacked by nuns?

What does this option actually do -- betting that the terrorists heading straight for @@CAPITAL@@ aren't actually going to do anything, and telling them to nicely land the plane, doesn't actually seem like a workable solution.

[Minskiev]

They’re calling them nuns as an insult.

And keep in mind that terrorists MOST of the time don’t want to crash the plane, because it’s not necessary for terror. 9/11 was just a bunch of murderers.

So I suppose the issue is kind of around national policy of potentially deadly hijacks. One’s for no risks, just blow the plane up. The second’s for eh it’s super unlikely they’ll do anything. I guess making it more clear it’s a policy change could work.

[The Free Joy State]

They’re calling them nuns as an insult.

And keep in mind that terrorists MOST of the time don’t want to crash the plane, because it’s not necessary for terror. 9/11 was just a bunch of murderers.

So I suppose the issue is kind of around national policy of potentially deadly hijacks. One’s for no risks, just blow the plane up. The second’s for eh it’s super unlikely they’ll do anything. I guess making it more clear it’s a policy change could work.

1. "Do nothing" doesn't make much of an issue option.
2. It may or may not be a policy change -- that would depend very much on the nation.
3. You don't need to worry about the policies. Just focus on writing a strong issue. Policies would be decided on should it be picked up for editing at some future point.
4. And "nuns" reads like a typo of "nuts", not an insult.

[Minskiev]

Oh, I didn’t mean like policies that you see in the policy tabs. I just used the word policies because it fits.

[Trotterdam]

And keep in mind that terrorists MOST of the time don’t want to crash the plane, because it’s not necessary for terror. 9/11 was just a bunch of murderers.

Rather, most hijackers aren't terrorists (in the sense of having a political motive). A common motive for hijackers is just wanting to use the passengers as hostages for ransom money. A surprising number of hijackers don't want anything beyond diverting the flight to a different destination than scheduled (I dunno why they didn't just buy a ticket for a plane that's going there to begin with, but then people who think hijacking a plane is a good idea under any circumstance are probably not perfectly sane).

Wikipedia notes that:

In a five-year period (1968–1972) the world experienced 326 hijack attempts, or one every 5.6 days. The incidents were frequent and often just an inconvenience, which resulted in television shows creating parodies. Time magazine even ran a lighthearted comedy piece called "What to Do When the Hijacker Comes".

More pertinent is that if the hijackers have goals other than simply wanting to kill everybody, they'd probably make some effort to tell you what those goals are. Even if they haven't yet, the point is to open negotiations and hear out what they want, not just assuming they're bluffing and will walk away without hurting anyone or receiving any kind of concession. (On the other hand, a common tactic for governments is to wait for the hijackers to land the plane so they have more time to negotiate, then have the police storm and capture them while they're on the ground and vulnerable rather than actually negotiating.)

That said, note that #656 already covers questions related to whether you should pay ransom money to save hostages.

[Minskiev]

And keep in mind that terrorists MOST of the time don’t want to crash the plane, because it’s not necessary for terror. 9/11 was just a bunch of murderers.

Rather, most hijackers aren't terrorists (in the sense of having a political motive). A common motive for hijackers is just wanting to use the passengers as hostages for ransom money. A surprising number of hijackers don't want anything beyond diverting the flight to a different destination than scheduled (I dunno why they didn't just buy a ticket for a plane that's going there to begin with, but then people who think hijacking a plane is a good idea under any circumstance are probably not perfectly sane).

Wikipedia notes that:

In a five-year period (1968–1972) the world experienced 326 hijack attempts, or one every 5.6 days. The incidents were frequent and often just an inconvenience, which resulted in television shows creating parodies. Time magazine even ran a lighthearted comedy piece called "What to Do When the Hijacker Comes".

More pertinent is that if the hijackers have goals other than simply wanting to kill everybody, they'd probably make some effort to tell you what those goals are. Even if they haven't yet, the point is to open negotiations and hear out what they want, not just assuming they're bluffing and will walk away without hurting anyone or receiving any kind of concession. (On the other hand, a common tactic for governments is to wait for the hijackers to land the plane so they have more time to negotiate, then have the police storm and capture them while they're on the ground and vulnerable rather than actually negotiating.)

That said, note that #656 already covers questions related to whether you should pay ransom money to save hostages.

Right, just mixed up hijackers and terrorists, I guess. Also, good point about the ransom money. Ultra-Violetists aren’t really normal hijackers, so I suppose that doesn’t really fit. They’d land the plane right into a building. Well, here we go again.