Worldbuilding Realism Consultation Thread Mk. 4

[Special Aromas]

Asking how much it will cost is a how long is a piece of string question, given that even the estimates will also be totally wrong. It's easy to budget a cost for a building or an airport because the costs are derived from a program of works, based on known production rates and design quantities. A design program is a different beast given that the deliverables are intangibles and that don't have specific requirements for completion, hence it usually proves to be wildly inaccurate.

A project of 500+ professionals and admin, including researchers and engineers, will cost at least $1 billion per annum to continue without manufacturing anything. This is your initial overhead, likely the minimum annual cost for your initial R&D component, without actually producing anything. Once the project leaves the development phase and into the production phase, the overhead will increase by a factor of 5. What kind of staffing is required post-production to maintain the capability is anybody's guess.

[Ardoki]

I'm trying to create some sort of nobility in my country. No idea if it will still have any influence at all, but it's good for history I guess.

Now, in my empire the military and prefectures and stuff were administered by people appointed by the grand emperor (didn't have to be nobles). So, I'm guessing this would mean we won't have the whole Duke -> Count -> Baron feudal nobility thing.

So how could the nobility have worked? I'm thinking the nobles will have certain obligations of course (both in behaviour and financials), so perhaps a more loose aristocracy where wealthy individuals could buy their way in (get a title, the estate, the prestige and all the privileges, for a fee of some sort)? Now the fee. An initial significant contribution or regular payments? Or maybe a bit of both?

But the noble titles are were I've really been stuck. I'm guessing just a single title would be fitting, since the way the nobility is structured (I guess there could be higher titles for purchase, I mean this might be an idea worth considering?). The whole 'lord/lady' thing is a bit generic. Patrician is cool, but also a bit cliche. Any ideas for good titles?

[Great Nortend]

If they're all administrators, of land, the military, state institutions, then perhaps you could call them all stewards or something similar.

[Manokan Republic]

What is a normal government budget as a percentage of gdp?

Generally between 35-50% for a developed liberal democracy with a welfare state. As you might guess, nations with more robust welfare states will trend toward the higher end of this range (and may even exceed 50%) while nations with less generous welfare states will fall toward the lower end of this range.

The United States is an outlier and falls below this range but it is also an outlier given its limited welfare programs so this is unsurprising.

Actually the U.S. spends more per citizen on welfare programs and government programs in general than most other countries. If you look at say, healthcare spending for example, the U.S. spends more per citizen than any other country in the world, and 3rd in direct spending per citizen, while military spending is obviously higher, as is disaster relief and foreign aid. For a break down of the raw numbers, the U.S. spends more money per citizen than any other country in the world in healthcare costs when direct and indirect spending is considered, with 4,197 dollars per person directly from the government, and 3,442 indirectly, for a combined total of 7,619 dollars when government mandated insurance spending by businesses on it's workers is considered; in comparison the UK has 2802 dollars per person directly spent from the government, Japan 2965, Denmark 3841, France 3247, Australia 2614, and Canada 3074 per person. So the U.S. outspends Canada, France, the UK, and virtually every major country in the world by a wide margin. In regards to direct spending, the Netherlands (4,495) and Norway (4,981) outspend the U.S. slightly, and Switzerland gets rather close but is just under at (4,178), in comparison to the U.S. at 4,197. However, these countries have more money per capita than the U.S. (although exact figures vary), and so for the U.S. to be spending nearly as much as them or more when indirect spending is counted means that relative to the Purchasing power of the country, it's higher. So it's not just the most spending in total, but one of the highest proportionate to the overall wealth as well. As a percent of total GDP, healthcare spending was 16.4%, well above the OECD average of
8.9% and the next highest spenders - the Netherlands (11.1%), Switzerland (11.1%) and Sweden (11.0%).



The U.S. government spending is about 4 trillion a year out of a 20 trillion dollar economy, so that's around 20%, however it's worth noting that the tax burden is different from the total GDP spending given that some government projects make money, there is overspending that causes debt, and the way they do the calculations is different, and as well it depends on the year. However, when local state or city spending is included it can be more than that, but it's not as relevant for military calculations unless police are a part of your military of vice versa. The U.S. also spends more on the military than other countries, so we can expect a higher percent of military spending on GDP for more militarized nations. A good rule of thumb is that usually between 1-6% of the total GDP of a country is spent on it's military, with around 3-4% for the U.S., slightly higher for Israel (4.8% as of right now), and other such countries, and much lower for certain European countries. So if a country has a 3.6 trillion dollar economy, like say Germany, and it spent 1% of it's GDP on the military, that would be 36 billion dollars, where as if it spent 5% of it's GDP on the military, that would be a 180 billion dollar annual military. You can shift the figures around according to how militarized and big you percieve your country to be. Some country's, like Oman, have 12% spending, while some have less than 1% or no military at all and are protected by bigger country's, notably Panama or various territories of France.

[Manokan Republic]

I'm trying to create some sort of nobility in my country. No idea if it will still have any influence at all, but it's good for history I guess.

Now, in my empire the military and prefectures and stuff were administered by people appointed by the grand emperor (didn't have to be nobles). So, I'm guessing this would mean we won't have the whole Duke -> Count -> Baron feudal nobility thing.

So how could the nobility have worked? I'm thinking the nobles will have certain obligations of course (both in behaviour and financials), so perhaps a more loose aristocracy where wealthy individuals could buy their way in (get a title, the estate, the prestige and all the privileges, for a fee of some sort)? Now the fee. An initial significant contribution or regular payments? Or maybe a bit of both?

But the noble titles are were I've really been stuck. I'm guessing just a single title would be fitting, since the way the nobility is structured (I guess there could be higher titles for purchase, I mean this might be an idea worth considering?). The whole 'lord/lady' thing is a bit generic. Patrician is cool, but also a bit cliche. Any ideas for good titles?

It could be religious or military oriented, and you could have like Lord, Paladin, Knight etc. or it could be more like Knight, Captain, Lieutenant, General etc.

In China, a high ranking officer was basically in charge of a village, due to the fact the village people were all essentially a part of the militia, so someone who was a politician in charge of an area could also be considered a military officer which, obviously grants more prestige than just being a local mayor or something. You're a "Captain of the Guard", with the guard of course being the name of the militia. The local citizen's Guard and all that. I'm not sure if it's something you want to use xD

The word Prefect is also pretty cool, and a generic name for a leader. So the "Prefect of Lancaster" or something to that effect. The term prefect was is used widely and was used by the Romans. So, roman or other latin rankings could also be used, and the term prefect could be a generic name for an officer or leader of a local area, sort of a hybrid of the two. The term prefect also widely applies to the police or in schools to disciplinarian figures, so it sort it's sort of often applied to mean a keeper of the peace so to speak, someone who polices things, like a leader of order. Which is not too different from governing an area. Just some ideas, idk.

[Iceland-Norway-Denmark]

I'm trying to create some sort of nobility in my country. No idea if it will still have any influence at all, but it's good for history I guess.

Now, in my empire the military and prefectures and stuff were administered by people appointed by the grand emperor (didn't have to be nobles). So, I'm guessing this would mean we won't have the whole Duke -> Count -> Baron feudal nobility thing.

So how could the nobility have worked? I'm thinking the nobles will have certain obligations of course (both in behaviour and financials), so perhaps a more loose aristocracy where wealthy individuals could buy their way in (get a title, the estate, the prestige and all the privileges, for a fee of some sort)? Now the fee. An initial significant contribution or regular payments? Or maybe a bit of both?

But the noble titles are were I've really been stuck. I'm guessing just a single title would be fitting, since the way the nobility is structured (I guess there could be higher titles for purchase, I mean this might be an idea worth considering?). The whole 'lord/lady' thing is a bit generic. Patrician is cool, but also a bit cliche. Any ideas for good titles?

Of course an aristocracy doesn't have to wear that on its sleve. They could just as well call themselves something like Lobbyests or members of the Politburo.

[Ardoki]

Still working on all this, but I'm thinking we had prefectures (ruled by prefects) and then beneath that sub-prefectures (ruled by sub-prefects). So, that would be the civil administration of the empire. With the military separate (like led by generals and stuff), but taking some orders from the civil administration (like stopping riots or rebellions back in the day before police), but still under the command of the capital and what not. So civil and military administration I would like to have been more meritocratic, not sure how possible this was back in the day, but at least officially anyone could become a prefect or general.

I'm leaning towards the nobility being some sort of patriciate. I think I've actually managed to shift through my thoughts and get a better idea of where I'm going. Just typing it out helps me organise my thoughts and find new idas a lot. So thanks everyone. :0

[Radimostan]

https://www.nationstates.net/nation=rad ... id=1154929

Thoughts?

[Manokan Republic]

Still working on all this, but I'm thinking we had prefectures (ruled by prefects) and then beneath that sub-prefectures (ruled by sub-prefects). So, that would be the civil administration of the empire. With the military separate (like led by generals and stuff), but taking some orders from the civil administration (like stopping riots or rebellions back in the day before police), but still under the command of the capital and what not. So civil and military administration I would like to have been more meritocratic, not sure how possible this was back in the day, but at least officially anyone could become a prefect or general.

I'm leaning towards the nobility being some sort of patriciate. I think I've actually managed to shift through my thoughts and get a better idea of where I'm going. Just typing it out helps me organise my thoughts and find new idas a lot. So thanks everyone. :0

Sounds awesome

You can have a prefect... ran by a prefect! It also seems neutral enough not to imply religious or other overly specific views.

[Silver Commonwealth]

So far, I have tried to flesh out SC's governing concept.

Commonwealth is extremely nationalist, yet somewhat internationalist at the same time, as it wants to conquer the world under its banner, and its plans for far future are aimed at stars - going out in space, and start to colonize it as well, eventually attempting to unify the Solar System, and go even further. Economically, it is a weird bunch - its economic officially is a planned economy, and it is somewhat socialistic in economics. However, it still has corporations, but under strict state's control, as state can decide, how much wage CEOs will receive - it could theoretically strip them penniless, if it wanted. At the same time, however, its companies are very large - an entire industrial sector might be covered by two or three state megacorps at most, or even only one (For an example, all Commonwealth's fast food being produced by one company, and its branches). Labor unions are around, but still under state's management.

A large part of its conquest strategy is cooperation with like-minded, or close regional groups. So, it is essentially a decentralized world autocracy - while government directly administrates parts of land in Eastern US (Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey), the rest of the Commonwealth is governed either by local parties, political groups, or warlords, and although they pledge allegiance to the central government, they govern with a high degree of autonomy, and in some places - practically independently, like their own fiefdoms. Commonwealth is split in about 14 Commonwealth States (Including Antarctica), which consists from about 89 administrative regions (Including capital region, and excluding Antarctica, as it still is more of a Territory), and with countless of other small autonomies inside them. That has a potential to create some serious regional conflicts, however - as relationships between the local governors are not always as rosy, as central government might want people to think.

However, when there are decisions, which might affect the entire Commonwealth, representatives from all states come in meetings in Commonwealth's HQ. It has about 2800 seats, with each region having 200, and smaller ethnic groups have representatives too. (In some cases, major political players like military industrialists also are representatives, if there aren't enough other representatives) Decisions are usually made by voting by all representatives. Those meetings are announced only in very urgent, or serious issues - regional matters are handled in local governments, which are smaller in size.

Leaders usually are elected by the Party's members after the previous leader dies, resigns, or gets thrown out of the office. Of course, only Party's members can participate in the elections, and common citizens are pretty much excluded from them. As General Secretary of the Commonwealth currently is a Supercomputer, Party's members elect the other Secretary instead, who is a human. While the General Secretary has more powers than a democratic president, indeed, their powers aren't actually as absolute as someone might expect - power is actually split between the Party's members themselves, in order to make harder for one person to make drastic change, if something would go wrong, essentially making it an oligarchy. However, this system is still pretty totalitarian. Situation is pretty similar with regional governors, and autonomy leaders.

It also has a staunch anti-monarchist stance, so it seeks to suppress it worldwide.

As Commonwealth is moving towards becoming a world entity, it is logical, that it would be diverse - in fact, a lot of the religious leaders (Including neo-pagans) work together in a special council, in which they decide the matters of faith. However, at the same time, it also keeps cultures separated - people from other cultures usually don't interract with each other, except through high-ranked officials, or few tourists, and racism is still a very big issue. (Tourists in SC's world are people from other regions, as it is moving towards a world entity, after all. Also, Commonwealth is very conservative socially - reactionary, even.)

Thoughts? (I know, that realistically it would be pretty unstable, but I wanted to try out some more unique system.)

[Danternoust]

How large should a nation's strategic grain reserve be? Especially if a nation's leaders ascribe to a secret prophecy that several lean years are coming?

[Great Nortend]

It depends surely on how large the nation is and how much grain they consume.

[Ardoki]

How many levels of administrative division levels are really necessary in a unitary state?

If the central government is responsible for all legislation, would just two subdivisions be fine (prefectures and sub-prefectures)?

[Danternoust]

It depends surely on how large the nation is and how much grain they consume.

If a nation had forty years to prepare for it, I think 100% of a year's consumption in dehumidified warehouses would be reasonable.

[The Akasha Colony]

It depends surely on how large the nation is and how much grain they consume.

If a nation had forty years to prepare for it, I think 100% of a year's consumption in dehumidified warehouses would be reasonable.

Dried grains don't keep for 40 years. Hard grains generally won't keep longer than 15 years if totally sealed and properly stored unless they're frozen, but this results in high energy costs.

[Radimostan]

How many levels of administrative division levels are really necessary in a unitary state?

If the central government is responsible for all legislation, would just two subdivisions be fine (prefectures and sub-prefectures)?

Yes, even though that would more likely depend on size. Also, what about municipalities?

[Gallia-]

How large should a nation's strategic grain reserve be? Especially if a nation's leaders ascribe to a secret prophecy that several lean years are coming?

20 oz of rice/person-day. You can dip it down to 12 oz if you're kinda nutty and going full starvation/sawdust ration but don't expect much physical effort/labor from someone with that amount of food intake. Protein/vegetable/fruit/dairy should be supplied too, obviously. Potatoes are also a grain, as are pretty much any starchy tuber, so count them as such.

[Danternoust]

20 oz of rice/person-day. You can dip it down to 12 oz if you're kinda nutty and going full starvation/sawdust ration but don't expect much physical effort/labor from someone with that amount of food intake. Protein/vegetable/fruit/dairy should be supplied too, obviously. Potatoes are also a grain, as are pretty much any starchy tuber, so count them as such.

Well, my nation isn't run by Nazi sociopaths who would point at one person and say, you shall pass, you have good genes, and point at another and say, you get shortchanged, you must act without benefit of rations, and live under martial law until you slowly starve to death.
Which I guess isn't unusual on NS, so it may have permanently altered your expectations.

But obviously those with the skills required to keep society running, the pregnant, and children must be well fed, and everyone else receives reduced rations since no one wants to see their own countrymen starve to death. I've read that calorie intake for some jobs can reach 3000 calories though, mostly soldiers and manual laborers though.

Fortunately I think the rest can be made up through reduced corn to biofuels, drought or winter resistant wheat, and diverting animal feed to barely palatable bread or biscuits.
Although interesting enough, bakery waste, skittles, and more are used as animal feed, so... I guess it wouldn't be that bad of a disaster.
"U.S. could feed 800 million people with grain that livestock eat, Cornell ecologist advises animal scientists"
"Corn Used to Create US Biofuel is Enough to Feed 412 Million People for a Year"
headlines from different years, but it gets the point across.

[Republic of Penguinian Astronautia]

So give or take 100-150 billion give or take right. That is... a lot cheaper than I thought it would be. Especially since I expect it to be done over the course of a long period of time and preparation say 10 years, it seems like it would be manageable.

Probably closer to $200-300 billion given the delays. Maybe significantly more. Over the course of probably at least 15-20 years of R&D and testing before the final vehicle is assembled and launched. 10 years is actually very short as far as major space programs are concerned. This is why so many space programs get cancelled; political lifetimes are very short and it can be very difficult to keep programs funded throughout the entire run of the program as fickle governments demand results without a good understanding of the process.

$50-100 billion basically assumes everything works exactly to plan, no mistakes are made, no unforeseen challenges are discovered, and there are no interruptions (political or otherwise) to the process. It ignores all of the potential costs of politics, kickbacks, and contractor profit.

But factor in any of these things and costs for complex space programs skyrocket. They don't just increase 10-30%. They tend to increase by full multiples. Especially for complex programs that absolutely need to work the first and only time. Just look at the ballooning costs of any major NASA project regardless of the contractor. This particular proposal combines so many firsts and unknowns that it is basically guaranteed to run into extremely serious delays and overruns.

Part of the Orion concept is that the power of NPP negates any need for advanced construction techniques.

[Silver Commonwealth]

I took a political test for my NationStates nation, to see, where it would land. This was the result. I wonder, what ideology it could possibly be?

[Kedri]

How likely would a Creole develop in a place like Kedri.

Due to it’s history and heritage of piracy, Kedri is a very diverse society and many languages can be heard, and there are a variety of cultures and ethnicities as well. Naturally, they would need a common tongue to be able to communicate with each other and sustain their confederation.

What would determine what language would become the Lingua Franca of the country? Since the many of the pirates were from the British Isles, I always assumed the majority of Kedrians would speak English, but I could see it borrowing words from other languages found in Kedri, like French, Chinese and indigenous languages.

Would a pidgin or creole logically develop, or would English dominate?

[Great Nortend]

How likely would a Creole develop in a place like Kedri.

Due to it’s history and heritage of piracy, Kedri is a very diverse society and many languages can be heard, and there are a variety of cultures and ethnicities as well. Naturally, they would need a common tongue to be able to communicate with each other and sustain their confederation.

What would determine what language would become the Lingua Franca of the country? Since the many of the pirates were from the British Isles, I always assumed the majority of Kedrians would speak English, but I could see it borrowing words from other languages found in Kedri, like French, Chinese and indigenous languages.

Would a pidgin or creole logically develop, or would English dominate?

It's hard to say, but I would assume English would dominate as the legal, formal or official language with overt prestige within the community, with a creole maybe being a 'common' lingua franca for the covertly prestigious local cultural languages such as French, indigenous languages or Chinese.

EDIT: My own questions here. I am trying to come up with a compelling reason why gas lamps would still be used for street or public lighting when electric lights are used for domestic lighting. Electricity in Great Nortend is mostly generated by wind and water power (using traditional windmills and waterwheels in towns and villages, and coal fired steam generators in large cities).

I've proposed that traditional wind and water mills can't generate enough power to supply both domestic and street lighting, as a single mill only produces around 11 to 18 kW which could light maybe around 275-450 incandescant 40W bulbs but only around 33-54 330W street lights emitting 400 candlepower. Assuming around 10 40W bulbs per connected house being all on, a single mill could power 30 houses. With an average town population of 40,000 people, and around ten people per house, there would be 4,000 houses. Assuming half are connected, 2,000 houses would require 67 mills. Since gas is more dangerous in confined areas, electricity is used for homes and gas for the street. Furthermore, electric light bulbs are more prone to vandalisation owing to their glass bulb, thus influencing the decision in favour of gas lights. Is this a possible situation do you think?

[Danternoust]

Is this a possible situation do you think?

Gas lamps are dimmer. Electric light is more efficient, although light pollution is bad. Factors in cultural decisions have many inputs, and realism is limited in conceit to whatever is plausibly considered in real life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_light ... door_usage

High temperature gas lamps would be more efficient. Perhaps my country uses Halogen.

---

Danternoust uses environmentally sustainable factory farming practices, mandating a
minimum "Mandela ratio" of animal size to cage size (reasonable overhead room, ability to walk in small circle), with antibiotics only allowed to be applied to animals diagnosed as sick. Directly applying ammonia to fields is banned as it gases natural organisms in the soil. As a result, the fertilizer industry subsidizes chicken farms, and ammonia is used to sanitize (avoiding fecal-oral transmitted diseases and avian epizootics) and enhance chicken manure, which is then applied to the fields.

High levels of efficiency is achieved, food waste (often rotten) is fed to insects and worms, which are in turn fed to chickens, and the remainder is again, used as fertilizer/compost.

This puts an upper limit on the intensity of agriculture in Danternoust, which may not be a bad thing.

Dovecotes are still used in some areas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio

[Gallia-]

20 oz of rice/person-day. You can dip it down to 12 oz if you're kinda nutty and going full starvation/sawdust ration but don't expect much physical effort/labor from someone with that amount of food intake. Protein/vegetable/fruit/dairy should be supplied too, obviously. Potatoes are also a grain, as are pretty much any starchy tuber, so count them as such.

Well, my nation isn't run by Nazi sociopaths who would point at one person and say, you shall pass, you have good genes, and point at another and say, you get shortchanged, you must act without benefit of rations, and live under martial law until you slowly starve to death.
Which I guess isn't unusual on NS, so it may have permanently altered your expectations.

"Starvation ration" refers to something similar to a subsistence ration that people in wartime Italy and Germany received, i.e. 1,800-2,000 calories/day. 3,000 calories/day is adequate to sustain a manual laborer in a factory for probably 10-12 hours/day. 20 oz rice/person-day is 10 servings of rice. 12 oz rice/person-day is 6 servings. The former falls into USDA recommendations, the latter falls into European Union recommendations. It obviously depends on historical experience, but we know that starvation/subsistence diets of =<1,800 calories/day leads to mental/cognitive and physical deficits pretty much across the board.

For a physically active human being who works, 3,000 calories is probably the minimum. If you're expecting actual food scarcity, you may end up cutting that in half and just having people exist in fallout shelters or something like a tin of half-starved human sardines.

Obviously, if you wanted to starve-work people to death, you would feed them "nothing" and work them "always", which is generally what happened to Nazi camp prisoners. Naturally, this leads to cannibalism.

[Danternoust]

Naturally there is something wrong with the political process when:
"We shouldn't do this, it might cause panic."
*achieves an outcome that people when self-informed wouldn't choose for themselves*
"It's too bad they're eating each other."

Naturally, this leads to cannibalism.

Or conflict. Sometimes I wonder what goes on when planning agencies see the risk from fungus like the potato famine and go, "this might lead to an exciting outcome, let's wait and see, and do nothing until then."