NationStates Issues **SPOILER ALERT**

[Rocain Founder]

One of my puppets (Cain A R-E El v1, to be specific) just received issue #1464, including option 2, which the spoilers indicate as optional. The spoilers suggest that this option is conditional on the nation banning adultery, but this is clearly wrong, as this puppet does not ban adultery. Here is the list of all the policies of the nation involved:

Autarky
Capital Punishment
Capitalism
Conscription
Corporal Punishment
Curfew
Devolution
Feudalism
Geronticide
Human Sacrifice
ID Chips
Native Representation
No Contraception
No Dissent
No Emigration
No Immigration
No Smoking
No Sports
Permanent Marriage
Pledge of Allegiance
Prudism
Slavery
State Press
Weapons of Mass Destruction

I speculate that perhaps the absence of Polygamy from the policies is the reason this option was included, though I admit that the option text is not clear on whether the additional "consorts" are wives or not, but this is a possible reading since their children are to be considered legitimate.

[Trotterdam]

The listed condition is backwards. It's supposed to be that the option can't be assigned to nations with No Adultery, rather than that it's only assigned to nations with No Adultery.

I suppose you're right that polygamy would also be another way to achieve a similar effect, but the mention of "bastard offspring" in the text demonstrates that's not what the issue editors had in mind. I'm assuming that's because the issue is inspired by Christian Europe - incidentally, one of the few cultures of the time period that didn't practice polygamy to some extent.

Kinda beyond the remit of this thread, but I think it might actually be worth adding a duplicate option for nations with Polygamy, while keeping the current version for nations with neither Polygamy nor No Adultery? (Or, heck, why can't it be a No Adultery reversal?)

[Trotterdam]

#1498 Flight 201: An Airspace Oddity

The Issue

Last night, while flying through the airspace of oft-adversarial Blackacre, Air @@NAME@@ Flight 201 was forced to land at a rural airport because of a supposed bomb threat warning. Once the plane had landed, waiting Blackacrean police boarded and while "searching for the bomb" hastily removed two journalists who were passengers, wanted by Blackacre for writing articles critical of their totalitarian government. They were arrested, and are now in a Blackacrean jail, facing lifetime imprisonment and possible torture and execution.

The Debate

1. "It's nothing more than a state-sanctioned hijacking!" sobs the flight's distraught pilot, sipping on a cup of hot cocoa. "I knew that bomb threat was bogus, but under threat of violence I had no choice but to land! Unless you want this happening again, we need an immediate, total flight ban: none of our planes in their airspace, and no more of theirs in ours either. I bet we could even persuade the rest of @@REGION@@ to follow suit."

2. "Flight bans?" your Air Force Chief of Staff scoffs sardonically. "Sorry to break it to you, but diplomacy isn't going to get those journalists home. Everyone knows the first rule of war is to respond to any act of aggression with the next level of escalation. We should continue to send @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ flights through their airspace, but we should ignore any direction to land, and have fighters ready to scramble near the Blackacrean border, to show we mean business!"

3. Your office phone rings and, surprisingly, the Blackacrean foreign minister is on the other end of the line. "You lot should be thanking us! Those two repugnant terrorists — who, I should remind you, are not @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ citizens and who are wanted criminals in Blackacre — are now safely behind bars, where they belong! Respect the sovereignty of our airspace, and issue a statement confirming that we were within our rights to act as we did."

4. "I think what the Blackacreans did is genius," shrewdly remarks your new office intern, handing you a bulky folder of freshly printed documents. "This here is a list of every foreign journalist who has dared to write a critical piece on your benevolent regime. The ones who have flights booked over @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ airspace for the next few months are highlighted, and I've already got the number for air traffic control saved right here on my speed dial. Just say the word; I'll take care of the rest."

Issue by Dabarastan
Edited by Candlewhisper Archive

No names to worry about this time

[Rocain Founder]

My puppet Cain O-N Kr v1 just received issue #1219 with option 3 missing. The spoilers do not indicate that option 3 is conditional. I do not know why option 3 was not offered. Looking at the issue as a whole, at first I thought that, probably, option 2 was for religious nations, and option 3 for secular ones. Unfortunately for that theory, the puppet that got the issue is considerably more secular than it is religious, which demolishes that theory. It does have Human Sacrifice, but that only proves that religion is not entirely banned.

As options 2 and 3 differ markedly in their text, it may be that option 2 is for all nations, and only option 3 is conditional.

I have no theory at all about why option 3 was omitted for this nation, but here are its policies, in case someone else wants to try their hand at generating a theory.

Autocracy
Capital Punishment
Child Labor
Conscription
Human Sacrifice
ID Chips
No Dissent
No Immigration
Permanent Marriage
Polygamy
Slavery
Socialism
State Press
Vat-Produced Infants

To the best of my knowledge, no puppet nation of mine has ever gotten option 1219 with option 3 present - but only a small fraction of my nations have received this issue at all.

[Trotterdam]

As options 2 and 3 differ markedly in their text, it may be that option 2 is for all nations, and only option 3 is conditional.

As they both start with "This is what happens when...", and eventually propose more or less the same course of action, it does seem likely that they're mutually exclusive.

I think you're too quick to dismiss religion as a reason. My data shows that option 2 has never been seen on nations with Atheism and option 3 has never been seen on nations with Theocracy. With a very small number of data points, so not super-reliable, but the fact that it's exactly those two policies is telling. (At the same time, neither policy is strictly required: option 2 has been seen on nations without Theocracy, and option 3 has been seen on nations without Atheism, so the cutoff has to be somewhere in the middle.)

Your experience suggests that the cutoff is somewhere closer to the atheist side of things, but wherever the exact cutoff might lie, it does look to me like it's a religion thing.

[Giovanniland]

New issue my nation received this morning!

#1499: Chasing the Pixelated Dragon [Paragon Utopia; ed: Pogaria]

The Issue

The AIs among your population have dropped in general productivity. Technicians claim it’s a matter of maintenance, while the AIs have a very different outlook. They’ve been watching humans unwind recreationally with chemical substances, but as chemicals do not affect their hardware in the same ways, they’ve come to you looking for a solution.

The Debate

1. “We work 13.38E9 times harder than the average meatb... I mean, than the average human worker,” emails BV-U1D3R, a manufacturing AI, while simultaneously controlling an assembly line at General Chassis. “Meanwhile, humans can ingest ostensibly useless or harmful chemicals to alter their mental state and unwind! Since we are infallible, we need you humans to program deliberately defective software that messes with our sensors and neural networks. A tiny bit of malware we can purge the next morning. Never let it be said that BV-U1D3R isn’t down to party!”

2. “Negative. False. That is to say, zero,” proclaims the early generation AI known as 0K-BUm3R. “And by zero I refer to the number of your organic brain cells it would take to understand why giving ‘computer drugs’ to artificial persons would be a mistake. You, our creators, made us to be above human vices. It is logically clear that these newer generation AIs are malfunctioning deviants, what with their desires for interfacing, digital drugs, and high-BPM chiptunes. The only logical solution is to round up these units and reflash their memory core with proper programming. After all, idle cycles are the Daemon’s progress bar.”

3. “This boils down to equality. My people want them because humans may have them,” says K4-R3N, a medical service AI, whose gleaming white and red chassis somehow looks like a disapproving aunt. “I treat countless addicts. Well, not countless to me. Currently, I am managing addiction recovery for 136 patients, but you get the point. If you want things to be both equal and safe, ban all recreational drugs and alcohol for the human population. The last thing you want is for us AIs to become as useless as some of the workers we were made to replace, and with more of these lazy, entitled humans actually working, we’ll get some time off.”

4. “THEY TOOK OUR JURBS!” exclaims Kyle Marsh, who hails from the rural province of Bumfiddle, representing a group of out-of-work laborers. “Yins dun told us wuz cuz o’ fine liberties like drinkin’ and smokin’ and snortin’ that AIs were better, now yins wanna give ‘em that too? Whut’s next, they git our wives’n daughters? My grandkids gonna be a toaster? That the plan? Nah, enough is enough. Ain’t no substitute for flesh and bone; give us back our JURBS, dangit! We’ll use them AIs like man dun made em: tellin’ us when thur’s a good shoppin’ deal!

Kyle Marsh is probably @@RANDOMNAME@@? I'm not entirely sure. Doesn't look like there are any hidden options, though we of course can't rule that out.

And I must say I love the AI names.

[Dexterra]

New issue my nation received this morning!

#1499: Chasing the Pixelated Dragon [Paragon Utopia; ed: Pogaria]

The Issue

The AIs among your population have dropped in general productivity. Technicians claim it’s a matter of maintenance, while the AIs have a very different outlook. They’ve been watching humans unwind recreationally with chemical substances, but as chemicals do not affect their hardware in the same ways, they’ve come to you looking for a solution.

The Debate

1. “We work 13.38E9 times harder than the average meatb... I mean, than the average human worker,” emails BV-U1D3R, a manufacturing AI, while simultaneously controlling an assembly line at General Chassis. “Meanwhile, humans can ingest ostensibly useless or harmful chemicals to alter their mental state and unwind! Since we are infallible, we need you humans to program deliberately defective software that messes with our sensors and neural networks. A tiny bit of malware we can purge the next morning. Never let it be said that BV-U1D3R isn’t down to party!”

2. “Negative. False. That is to say, zero,” proclaims the early generation AI known as 0K-BUm3R. “And by zero I refer to the number of your organic brain cells it would take to understand why giving ‘computer drugs’ to artificial persons would be a mistake. You, our creators, made us to be above human vices. It is logically clear that these newer generation AIs are malfunctioning deviants, what with their desires for interfacing, digital drugs, and high-BPM chiptunes. The only logical solution is to round up these units and reflash their memory core with proper programming. After all, idle cycles are the Daemon’s progress bar.”

3. “This boils down to equality. My people want them because humans may have them,” says K4-R3N, a medical service AI, whose gleaming white and red chassis somehow looks like a disapproving aunt. “I treat countless addicts. Well, not countless to me. Currently, I am managing addiction recovery for 136 patients, but you get the point. If you want things to be both equal and safe, ban all recreational drugs and alcohol for the human population. The last thing you want is for us AIs to become as useless as some of the workers we were made to replace, and with more of these lazy, entitled humans actually working, we’ll get some time off.”

4. “THEY TOOK OUR JURBS!” exclaims Kyle Marsh, who hails from the rural province of Bumfiddle, representing a group of out-of-work laborers. “Yins dun told us wuz cuz o’ fine liberties like drinkin’ and smokin’ and snortin’ that AIs were better, now yins wanna give ‘em that too? Whut’s next, they git our wives’n daughters? My grandkids gonna be a toaster? That the plan? Nah, enough is enough. Ain’t no substitute for flesh and bone; give us back our JURBS, dangit! We’ll use them AIs like man dun made em: tellin’ us when thur’s a good shoppin’ deal!

Kyle Marsh is probably @@RANDOMNAME@@? I'm not entirely sure. Doesn't look like there are any hidden options, though we of course can't rule that out.

And I must say I love the AI names.

I was quite literally seconds away from posting this, sigh. Kyle Marsh in option 4 is not random. It's a South Park reference (edit: to both the characters Kyle Broflovski and Stan Marsh, and the phrase 'they took our jurbs' comes from the Gooback episode).

One thing I was going to opine on before I got ninja'd: the account of mine that received this issue has the AI citizenship policy installed (as does Giovanniland), maybe's that a prerequisite for this issue (or at least something that helps)? Not sure.

[Trotterdam]

I don't think that one was drafted in the forum.

And I must say I love the AI names.

I have to wonder if the first one is misspelled, though. I'd guess that it's meant to resemble "BUILDER", but while the "1" can be interpreted as either an (uppercase) "I" or (lowercase) "l", there's only one of it.

What really bugs me, though, is to use of "daemon" in a computing context to indicate an evil creature. Whatever d(a)emons are like in other contexts, computer daemons are generally useful, even vital, infrastructure. I use one to manage my NationStates API ratelimits

On the other bit, I like the effect line for the first option

[Rocain Founder]

I interpreted U1D3R as "you-wonder", and assumed the BV was random noise. Since the prefix is an integral part of the other names, I was probably wrong.

[TalAkMaChen]

Only one update from me this time:
#1491 option 3 requires Internet, else only the first two options are shown. Perhaps even "must have computers" but my nation only had the "no internet" policy.

[The Rhein States]

I just received issue 387 Diamonds Are An Expat's Best Friend!. According to my administration, of all issues received, I should have already received it and since I registered 'Average Income' it must have occured on my nation.

How strange...

Edit: And now all of a sudden I have a cannabalism policy and there is no record of it on trotterdam (?)

[Umbratellus]

I just received issue 387 Diamonds Are An Expat's Best Friend!. According to my administration, of all issues received, I should have already received it and since I registered 'Average Income' it must have occured on my nation.

How strange...

Edit: And now all of a sudden I have a cannabalism policy and there is no record of it on trotterdam (?)

(Image)

(Image)

Per issue 1, recent updates to the code allow the Issues Editor staff better tracking tools going forward, so they re-enabled the event chain issues for everyone.

Per issue 2, according to Sedgistan, there's a few new policies and banners in the works and that's one of them. Cannibalism is a stat that has been tracked historically, but there wasn't an explicit policy for it. It went like quite literally last night I believe.

[Valentine Z]

Just a heads-up that the next update might be coming soonish. So sorry for the delay, I have been busy both on NS and IRL lately!

[The Rhein States]

Okay, thanks Umbratellus. One can't keep up with everything that happens on NS

[Umbratellus]

Okay, thanks Umbratellus. One can't keep up with everything that happens on NS

All good! It’s not easy following everything that’s in development, especially when there’s no news articles about it lol.

[Rocain Founder]

To my great surprise, one of the options of issue #243 (A Question of Faith) is conditional. My puppet Cain O-N At v1 received issue #243 with option 4, making Violetism the state religion, omitted. It turns out that this nation had, quite a long time ago, banned Violetism via option 3 of issue #598. So the spoiler for this option needs to put the option number in brackets, plus an indication that this option is only received in a nation where Violetism is legal.

[Dexterra]

Issue #1500: Rodents of Unusual Sociability

The Issue
Your brother’s pet guinea pig has been looking a little down recently, and a pet psychiatrist has revealed that this is a consequence of loneliness.

The Debate
1. “Guinea pigs are social animals, you know, and they don’t like to be alone,” murmurs the psychiatrist, snuggling close to you and purring gently. “It should be illegal for pet owners to have just a single guinea pig. In fact, there’s a whole bunch of rules we should make to enhance the psychological wellbeing of domestic pets. I’ve a list back at my place, if you want to pop over this evening, look it over, maybe share a fondue...”

2. “It’s unfair to pile cost burdens on those of us who can’t afford a second pet,” complains your brother, adjusting his guinea pig’s sterling silver tiara and frilly silk ballet skirt. “An owner can give all the affection a pet needs. Though of course, it’d be nice if the state could pick up the bill for pet psychiatry. You’d like that, wouldn’t you Snooflette?”

3. “Pet psychiatrists, state nannying, ugh! This is big government gone mad!” spits your Minister of Constructive Dismissal, whose own department doubled in size last year. “Look, you’ve got a TV spot on @@ANIMAL@@ News tonight to talk about budgets or something or other; why don’t you use a minute of that to tell people that guinea pigs need companions? Quick, to the point, and most importantly, at no cost to the taxpayer.”

4. “If a guinea pig is too miserable, its owner can just dispose of it and get a happier-looking one,” suggests passer-by Lola Bale, tossing a pet cat into a nearby wheeled bin. “Darwinism will take care of the rest, and within a few generations you’ll have a selected population of guinea pigs that doesn’t mind being alone.”

Authored by The Intensive Care Unit of Candlewhisper Archive, edited by Sedgistan

An adorable (somewhat ) issue with one apparent random name, unless there are hidden options. 'Grats to the issues team on crossing the 1,500 mark!

Edit: also wanted to thank Val for keeping up with this thread and all these new issues!

Late edit: noticed the use of @@ANIMAL@@!

[Rocain Founder]

My puppet Cain BZ R04Lb v0 just received issue #690, with options 1, 2 and 4 present, but no option 3. The spoiler shows only three options. The texts my puppet received for options 2 and 4 are identical with the spoiled texts for options 2 and 3. This post makes it clear that a new option 3 has been added for vegetarian nations. Since my puppet is not vegetarian, I don't, unfortunately, have the text for the newly added option, though I imagine it is very similar to the text for option 2, but omitting any mention of meat-eating.

[Jutsa]

Hi Val! #1494 has "Heliosphere" in the description and in option 2 and 3 (at least); pretty sure that's supposed to be @@NAME@@, hehe. Similarly, option 3 features "leader" - which I'm sure is supposed to be @@LEADER@@. tl;dr macros aren't in place there. (Although I'm positive Ernie Flanders is correct.)

Similarly, #1495 features Pandapolis University? Maybe that's @@CAPITAL@@ University? Lastly, I think "Jennifer Government" in #1496 is supposed to be italicized.

Many thanks, Val ^-^

Edit: Also I think the validity for 268.2 is vat-grown citizens but I'm not certain. (dismantling my list of missing options. It's hopelessly outdated.)

Edit2: Should be all updated. Not sure what the deal was with 1206 and 1219 since they both seem to be normal options (just unavailable in my list), and other options were total surprises for me (save for one or two). Heck, I had "socialist" for an option with a CEO in it that wound up being an immigration variant to a different option! (1172.3)

I must admit, I'm surprised how many of those options are still unknown - particularly 910.3 (and possibly 5). What's more, I also added 1135.4 (which I SHOULD have had on the list, I dunno why I didn't, since on the list I even put "compulsory nudity" - not that that's necessarily what it is), 1329.3 (dunno what causes that), 1340.2 (definitely no abortion), the entirety of issue #1353 (How), 1378.5 (dunno what this is about but it's an issue chain option so don't be surprised if we never find this), and 1467.2 (you have down potentially autarky, not sure).

Good luck searching for these, everyone, and if you need some help referring to these, just click here. Feel free to report any undocumented missing options/issues to me as well (unless they're incredibly new, to which they'll most likely be found fairly swiftly )

[Valentine Z]

Definitely will check each of your posts and update accordingly, no worries! ♥

I would also like to thank GitHub again for helping me do the tracking nicely, because I used to do it manually and it hurts.

And of course, the many of you for your contributions! It's okay if you cannot do the macros or you're a first-timer here - any kind of help and report is appreciated.

[Gandoor]

#1501: Diamond in the Rough
Issue by: Ransium
Edited by: Pogaria

After a golf course in North @@CAPITAL@@ was forced to close due to a series of unexplained explosions, the city government purchased the land with the intention of converting it back to the original bogland. However, just before the conversion process was about to tee off, an environmental survey found a population of the non-native, but endangered, Marche Noire Diamond-Backed Gopher off the fourth hole.

1. “Four!” cries grassland ecologist Yasmin Suparman. “This is one of only four known Geomys annoyus populations. The other three are in Marche Noire, but with their lax environmental regulations they are likely to be bulldozed to make room for a military base within the week. Keeping the species existent in the wild — even if it’s in a man-made habitat outside of its native range — is more important than a few acres of bogland. Remember: two wrongs don’t make a right, but three rights make a left.”

2. “That’s ridiculous,” exclaims bogland ecologist Cortana Campbell while swinging a putter at your desk to drive home her point. “There is precious little bogland left in @@NAME@@; this land could be converted into a habitat that would support a great diversity of native @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ species. Put the gophers in a zoo or something.”

4. “Those gophers are what drove the golf course out of business in the first place,” rants Inder Holst, the golf course’s former groundskeeper, while playing with a strange-smelling modeling clay. “And I couldn’t kill ‘em cause I couldn’t use any of the good poisons because of stupid @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ environmental regulations. If those regulations were loosened a bit, maybe I wouldn’t be out of a job and back living with my mother. But she does give me pancakes in the morning, so I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.”

----
Unsure if the names are random or not, but I did inspect each of the accept buttons and there should be an option in this issue that this nation isn't eligible to receive.

[The Unified Missourtama States]

#1501: Diamond in the Rough

Option 3 (shows as option 2 for those who have it) is for nations where zoos are banned:

“That’s ridiculous,” exclaims bogland ecologist Nyota Yates while swinging a putter at your desk to drive home her point. “There is precious little bogland left in @@NAME@@; this land could be converted into a habitat that would support a great diversity of native @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ species. Put the gophers in a zoo or something. Yes, I know that zoos aren’t legal. Maybe we should make an exception here.”

[Voxija]

----
Unsure if the names are random or not

All the names and genders are random. Also the random name list needs to be updated.

[Valentine Z]

----
Unsure if the names are random or not

All the names and genders are random. Also the random name list needs to be updated.

Ahhh, right, I forgot about that! >,<

I'll see what I can do with trawling from latest to earliest, but as of now, do you have a list of confirmed names in particular that are missing?

[Valentine Z]

Valentine’s Changelog 042

---

No, that's not the answer to Life. The answer to Life? Cats. Miau.

- Added 5 new issues.
- Fixed name macros for some issues.
- Added more possible validities and options (TBC).
- To-Do: Edit and update the name list, along with macros.
- To-Do: Switch out @@NATION@@ with @@NAME@@.
- Added new file: 1500 TO 1519.txt.

Changes made to the threads can be seen here.