[Draft] Failure with Power

[Fachumonn]

Description:
An unwarned and surprising power outage that toppled many power lines just happened throughout @@NATION@@, heavily affecting almost unreachable towns and villages, and thus causing the nation to devolve into chaos. Although it has been temporarily resolved, people worrying about the future desperately try to get your attention in the hopes that you will choose their idea.

Option 1:
“We have to help these poor towns that are out of the way!” exclaims country-lover @@RANDOMFEMALENAME@@ who spent a total of 9 hours coming down just to see you. “You have to have teams and supplies ready to deploy instantly near every legalized town or village to fully protect them. Otherwise, we may starve to death waiting for help that will never come!”

Effect: People “helping” towns way out into the country are reported to never come back.

Option 2:
Suddenly, an overly excited graduate student who just majored in Information Technology rushes into the room. “You know-how, nowadays, everyone has a phone, right?” he shouts. “Well, I was thinking, what if we just gave everybody an alert on a perfectly fine and not-suspicious app through their phones whenever we think a power outage is going to happen! Then, everybody will be able to prepare and minimize the damage. It’s brilliant!”

Effect: Every day @@DEMONYM@@ citizens prepared and prepared and prepared for a supposed “powerrr owtage”.

Option 3:
“No, you idiot! Not everyone has a phone. And even if we did, I’m not about to download some suspicious third-party app. Whatever made you think that?” questions a 40-year-old mother who told you she prefers to stay anonymous. “Anyways, I think the state should issue a broadcasted warning on every device, whenever there is a chance of a power outage. This means that as long we trust the state instead of some weird smartphone app, it can be displayed to everyone.

Effect: People have had more and more trust in the state sending them broadcasted alerts ever since it was almost accurate once.

Option 4:
“Both of you are off by at least 5 days!” yells harsh and widely-believed authoritarian police chief @@RANDOMMALENAME@@. “Us police need to keep our eye on things! It’s the only way to truly make everything safe. Just let me control and deploy men to every street in @@NATION@@, and they will be horridly strict and pu–oh wait I meant to keep order on the street and keep everyone safe during a power outage! Right!”

Effect: It is interesting there have been way more reports about police cruelty as of late.

[Verdant Haven]

Hello and welcome :-D Good to see another person dip a toe in the issue drafting pool. If you haven't already, be sure to take a look at the "How to write an Issue" FAQ thread, here: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=424657

With regards to this issue, based on your previous post in The Writer's Block, I think I kind of understand what you're going for... but not entirely. Questions:

- How does a power outage topple power lines? Lines don't come down just because there's no power flowing through them. Was it meant the other way around? If so, why did it occur? What actually is meant to be happening, and how did it come about?

- How would a loss of power to some "almost unreachable towns and villages" cause the nation to devolve into chaos? What is supposed to have happened? What problem is the leader trying to fix?

- Why would there be widespread starvation due to a power outage? Nothing has blocked roads, nothing has disrupted shipments, and apparently the speaker in option 1 had no difficulty getting all the way to the capital unimpeded. Why would there be a supply shortage, and what help do those towns need? If this is an infrastructure problem (power lines, power stations, etc), what purpose is served by a go team with MREs?

- If a power outage is going to cause all of this danger and chaos, how would knowing about it a few seconds in advance help anything? I don't get what the early warning system in options 2 and 3 is supposed to do. A power outage doesn't generally cause physical danger you need to take shelter from, which is what warning systems are generally meant to provide time to do. The only warning system for power outages I've ever heard of is one for a town in extremely northern Alaska, where it actually goes off after power goes out, when the town kicks over to a municipal battery back-up. The alarm warns people the battery back-up has engaged, so they have time to get home and start their generators before the batteries go dry and things start freezing over. It may be worth asking why people in these remote towns don't have access to generators themselves - it's a pretty common thing for folks living like that.

- Be aware of policy and validity checks that an issue might need as a result of certain descriptions. Not every nation allows personal cars (option 1 talks about driving), not every nation allows smartphones, internet, or computers (options 2 and 3 are about phone apps, devices, etc), some nations mandate the metric system (option 4 uses imperial). Some of those are relatively minor and can be easily adjusted, but it's always easier to write it with those in mind than to try and edit it after you've already decided you like how it sounds.

- Make sure it's clear what each decision does and how it addresses the problem presented. How are options 2 and 3 really different here? Both are about the government sending a warning that does... I don't know what. Option 1 is about having teams with some kind of supplies?

- Make sure it's clear what the actual problem is. The issue description just says "chaos" and doesn't actually say what happened or why. Option 1 seems to suggest a major failure of a logistical networks. Option 2/3 is addressing some kind of oncoming natural danger. Option 4 is treating the problem as criminal in nature. They don't seem to be trying to solve the same problem.

[Fachumonn]

Will work on what you said when I have time.

[Outer Sparta]

In my view, I would frame this issue as an infrastructure problem with a faulty power grid at fault. That would probably explain why power lines are being toppled and an overhaul of the actual infrastructure of the power grid would be the problem that's being fixed.

[Fachumonn]

In my view, I would frame this issue as an infrastructure problem with a faulty power grid at fault. That would probably explain why power lines are being toppled and an overhaul of the actual infrastructure of the power grid would be the problem that's being fixed.

Yeah, edits will be made tomorrow night (est.) Ill see what I want to do with it then.

[Tinhampton]

Power Outage Looming! as the title of an issue about the leader of a major devolved, pro-@@NAME@@ government - think California, Uttar Pradesh, or Scotland if the Unionist parties had enough seats for a coalition - suffering a massive loss of support within @@HIS@@ inner circle would be funny as all fuck. Power Outage Looming! as the title of an issue about a power outage that's already happened, never mind "looming," is extremely 2004. Which is not a good thing.

Your effect lines are very long (and often contain commas, which is also a Not Good Thing).

The speaker in Option 2 suggests that alerts be delivered through means of an app. This is despite the fact that most emergency alerts are delivered through SMS or some sort of nationwide push notification thing that isn't attached to anything of the sort - which appears to be what the speaker in Option 3 suggests. These two options are ridiculously similar; you should probably cut one out and definitely heed Verdant Haven's advice on both.

[Fachumonn]

In my view, I would frame this issue as an infrastructure problem with a faulty power grid at fault. That would probably explain why power lines are being toppled and an overhaul of the actual infrastructure of the power grid would be the problem that's being fixed.

Yeah, edits will be made tomorrow night (est.) Ill see what I want to do with it then.

^
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Power Outage Looming! as the title of an issue about the leader of a major devolved, pro-@@NAME@@ government - think California, Uttar Pradesh, or Scotland if the Unionist parties had enough seats for a coalition - suffering a massive loss of support within @@HIS@@ inner circle would be funny as all fuck. Power Outage Looming! as the title of an issue about a power outage that's already happened, never mind "looming," is extremely 2004. Which is not a good thing.

Your effect lines are very long (and often contain commas, which is also a Not Good Thing).

The speaker in Option 2 suggests that alerts be delivered through means of an app. This is despite the fact that most emergency alerts are delivered through SMS or some sort of nationwide push notification thing that isn't attached to anything of the sort - which appears to be what the speaker in Option 3 suggests. These two options are ridiculously similar; you should probably cut one out and definitely heed Verdant Haven's advice on both.

[Fachumonn]

Made a few small edits but will do what OS said, redraft, and base this around a power grid. You might want to check back in a few days.