What question do you want to ask AU?

[Brettenwald]

Is there an actual reason for the Chairwoman's immortality? It's the aspect of her character I find most interesting.

Ninja'd again! Blast! Uhh, crap. I can't think of a question for you RN, sorry Azur.

Eyy, Bretten, what's the last song you added to the mega-playlist? Sorry for the boring question, I too couldn't think of much.

Cal Tjader's album Amazonas, from 1976. Latin jazz plus synths equals the funkiest goddamn thing you'll ever hear.

/skipme

[Kiu Ghesik]

*snip*

YES! FINALLY! So to say again:
1) What animal is the most feared by the Ghes? Is it some kind of rodent or parasite that affects pastoralists?
2) Would the Ghesites be thalassophobic if they ever come into contact with an ocean?
3) Would the Ghesites use bronze vessels or clay-based ceramics? It may seem trivial but it's probably gonna go a long way in the way the archaeological record presents timelines.

1) Er... probably wolves or if they exist in the Basin coyotes. They depend on yaks quite a bit so animals that could threaten their livestock would be feared greatly, and while they'd certainly notice the effects of rodents and parasites and shoo them when they could (I've played with southern camps having cats for that purpose) I doubt they'd have enough of a grasp of germ theory or even basic biology to make the connection and really fear those creatures. The more immediately imposing ones would likely dominate their thoughts on the matter.
2) As thalassophobic as someone who's never been on the open ocean would be, yes. There's a reason people fear the ocean, after all, and given that they associate the most violent and dangerous of their "deities", the East Wind, with the sea, I suspect that they'd be more likely to be thalassophobic on a cultural level, since it would be more of a taught phobia.
3) Clay-based, though I feel like they'd prefer straw or wicker baskets over both for carrying purposes given how much more lightweight those are. Bronze is really quite rare in the Basin even on the verge of the early Iron Age and they wouldn't have the luxury of using bronze for vessels when it would be better off going into other tools, I think. Though it wouldn't be uncommon- most of their bronze tools are purchased directly or indirectly from the Northerners and thus they'd be able to buy bronze vessels for a hefty price off of those peoples. That would probably play merry hell with projections of cultural distribution, I think.

/skip

[Ihsalihna]

Dear Las Palmeras,

What gave you the genius idea of populating a comfy wholesome nation with tomboy catgirls?

[Comerciante]

Which technology on your technology page do you personally believe will be developed and widely used first? Did you attempt to make their levels (common, rare, development) realistic according to present day progress?

"Boy, this is kind of a hard one! But I'll do my best.

If I had to take a guess then I personally believe that Laser Weaponry will more likely hit the mainstream first of all scifi technology. Lasers already exist even if not in the exact way I or others who dream of going PEW! PEW! dream of them being in and they already have military applications.

As for the classifications? Well, they aren't really based on current day progress or anything. The classifications are based on how feasible it is for lone entities to large entities to obtain and maintain them. Green Tech are things you can get by yourself and take care of by yourself, Blue Tech require group efforts whether as few as maybe 5 or 6 people or as large as a Nation like Comerciante, Red Tech are for a variety of reasons simply not worth the trouble that involves getting them.

Particle Beam Weapons draw negative attention from a large amount of the International Community that would really like to put the War behind them.

Cybernetic Enhancements are expensive and don't really net many positive gains that you can't achieve by just buying a robot.

Personnel Energy Shielding isn't practical because of the nature of how Energy Shielding is created via EC (Energy Crystal). EC when refined is very fragile in small quantities, and to counter this you make the EC larger so it can handle some jostling. A practical personnel energy shield generator is just not practical for infantry that is often running all over the place, jumping over things and otherwise. Think of it as trying to run with an oil lamp.

Hope that answers all your questions!"

-OOC

/skip

[Surrealist Patagonia]

Dear Las Palmeras,

What gave you the genius idea of populating a comfy wholesome nation with tomboy catgirls?

Guy who made Persagonian Republic speaking, got a couple of questions to dish out:

1. As a foreigner, what do you think of Iranian culture?
2. What's your view of the current Iranian regime and what do you think that Iran could've done better in any point of history?
3. What's your recipe to making your fascinating strangereal world that's portrayed to be balanced?
4. What do you think is the best system that Iran could adopt?
5. What attracted you to Middle Eastern culture and geopolitics?

[Baizou]

Guy who made Persagonian Republic speaking, got a couple of questions to dish out:

1. As a foreigner, what do you think of Iranian culture?
2. What's your view of the current Iranian regime and what do you think that Iran could've done better in any point of history?
3. What's your recipe to making your fascinating strangereal world that's portrayed to be balanced?
4. What do you think is the best system that Iran could adopt?
5. What attracted you to Middle Eastern culture and geopolitics?

Is there a "correct" order to reading the Patagonia factbooks? I'm kinda confused about when and where some things are. There's a factbook called "Death of the Patron" that mentions he died when he tried to drop a nuclear bomb, yet you've also said in forum posts that the Patron is not to be considered dead, and Galeazzo's factbook makes it sound like he's ruling an increasingly fascistic Patagonia, yet you've also said in forum posts that the Death of the Patron map portrays Patagonia after Galeazzo has left—so now I'm a little lost. ^^;

I want to be able to give good responses in forums, because Patagonia is very cool; it's just not totally clear to me what to take into context and what not to, what exists at which time, etc.

Also, any particular reason for making the Bushes the American "protagonists?" A commentary on their presidencies? Just convenient ages with a father-son story?

Is the Metal Gear stuff supposed to mean this is the Metal Gear universe, or is it because names like FOXHOUND are wicked cool?

[Atheris]

What made you choose videocassettepunk, besides that it's freaking awesome?

No AA questions, please.

---

BN:
It was mine, so totally. I had some knowledge beforehand from the Cloud v. Link Death Battle a few years ago and Sephiroth's reveal trailer for Smash, as well as the unavoidable spoiler (which doesn't happen in this game! yay!). There are a few references to the other games and Advent Children like I said, but I only caught a few and probably missed a lot more. I plan on watching AC over the weekend, so I'll probably catch more before then.

nice.

[Kiu Ghesik]

Being aware that your review of FF7's remake ended on a glowing note, do you think that it would be a good intro to the series for someone with absolutely no nostalgia or knowledge of the originals at all beyond a couple of memes?

it wasn't an aa question, nice

[Wink Wonk We Like Stonks]

When do you expect to reach apotheosis? - brettenwald

since the recent and unfortunate demise of the anti-anti-socialism thread, i haven't been seeing a lot of people saying that socialism is when the government does stuff. my goal of apotheosis to eldritch godhood seems to be far off, and for now, i remain a simple demon feeding on my own suffering when i see people say dumb stuff on internet.i do intend to formally announce my candidacy for Eldritch Horror in 2024, and my platform is as follows:
~distribute my mind-altering drugs to the populace through the water supply
~ban political parties
~abolish government
~unite the world under my rule
~protect the world from devastation
~unite all peoples from every nation
~denounce the evils of truth and love
~extend my reach to the stars above

i am currently looking for a running mate to file my paperwork, the position is open to any who wish to apply.

/skipmypoorunfortunatesoul

[Baizou]

What made you choose videocassettepunk, besides that it's freaking awesome?

No AA questions, please.

Three reasons: first, I grew up watching movies on VHS, and it's kinda nostalgic for me. As a kid, I remember having Disney movies in plastic cases, and my dad had a Special Edition (or New Edition or whatever it was called) set of the Star Wars trilogy on VHS as well. Videocassettepunk is my nod to those memories of rewinding tapes, big bulky VCRs, and my naive childhood expectation that everything had to come out first on VHS and then on DVD.

Second reason, it felt both cool and humorous, and that's something I was really striving for when I made Baizou. I saw lots of very serious nations on NationStates, and there's nothing strictly wrong with that. But I really wanted to do something that felt lighthearted and fun-oriented. Running all tech on cassettes is both a cool look and a kind of humorous, playful notion. (Baizou does sometimes veer into seriousness, because I like thinking about how it'd intersect with history which I also love, but I'm glad to have that foundation of fun to fall back on.)

Third reason, and this is one that I'd forgotten until you asked now, around the time I made Baizou I had recently seen a trailer for Quadrilateral Cowboy. It's not quite cassettepunk itself, but it is a cyberpunk where your character has a "top-of-the-line hacking deck outfitted with a 56.6k modem and a staggering 256k RAM." It got me thinking about how I could treat seemingly-archaic technology as the latest-and-coolest.

/skipme; still Kiu Ghesik.

[Las Palmeras]

Dear Las Palmeras,

What gave you the genius idea of populating a comfy wholesome nation with tomboy catgirls?

Hello Ihsalihna,
Latent classism, xenophobia and an influential Conservative Party whose dusty echo chamber is convinced the Age of Empires isn't over despite De-Colonization is hardly wholesome, but aight. Jokes aside, the issue with female gender roles in the Palmeran Isle/Tohorin is plainly that (from a human perspective) a bunch of hammers were around when screwdrivers were required to drill bolts; you can eventually use a hammer for the job successfully but it may be seen as awkward. That is, the stratified patriarchal island society made due with what was available, and that was a massive surplus of women who had to take on roles that are traditionally male elsewhere, even after the turn of the Industrial Revolution, this includes many blue-collar jobs and military/police work. Considering this story takes place at the turn of the Sexual Revolution and Second Wave Feminism, the binary "girly-tomboy" trope is still very much held onto in-universe and even the socially conservative working class doesn't question this as long as they have football, fish-and-veggie pies and healthcare.

This idea was also hatched when Jordan Peterson and evo-psych bros were popular in the internet and when I was more hot-headed, as a joke meant to piss on those folk. And potentially also radfems if the whole "Is organic violence* Girl Power? Is it even grassroots?" theme is presented as I don't shy away from portraying Tohorinese women as every bit as cruel and sadistic as the Conquistadors they followed around. If one is more to-the-point, I guess a nature vs. nurture debate over the violent tendencies in catgirls can spring up and I intentionally leave it vague.

Oh and Harem anime and fantasy gender ratios too. Wanted to make something sexy very depressing. Yay.

*snip*

I don't wanna break the PG-13 rule but this counts as culture and history, right?!
1) Do the Ghes keep their dead enemies' body parts as trophies? If so what parts and for what purposes? Musical instruments? Drums? Ash-trays?
2) Is there a type of death/soul trapping that the Ghesites would fear the most or are their spirits guaranteed to be carried by the winds where they're needed to go to?

BN/The Untied State:
Uh, I dunno man. Like how regular people around the world treat cats and dogs? Like pets and companions and domesticated work animals. Dogs used to be eaten on an industrial scale but that became less popular over the centuries. BTW, "Catgirl" is a bit of a misnomer, they're genetically spliced humans, in all that it entails.

[The Untied State]

questions for las palmeras:
how do the catgirls feel about cats and dogs?

Have El*n M*sk and J*ff B*zos been sent to the capitalist gulags yet?

bn: they have, but they are in management positions where they abuse their power even worse but don't get as rich anymore

[Brettenwald]

Have El*n M*sk and J*ff B*zos been sent to the capitalist gulags yet?

[Kiu Ghesik]

I don't wanna break the PG-13 rule but this counts as culture and history, right?!
1) Do the Ghes keep their dead enemies' body parts as trophies? If so what parts and for what purposes? Musical instruments? Drums? Ash-trays?
2) Is there a type of death/soul trapping that the Ghesites would fear the most or are their spirits guaranteed to be carried by the winds where they're needed to go to?

1) Not as trophies. They do Teutoburg-style mass effigies to scare off invaders from attacking them again. I don't really feel like I could go into it further without breaking pg-13 but that's one of the things I mean when I say they use "terror tactics".
2) Yes, being buried alive would prevent entirely the reincarnation of one's spirit as it would prevent the flaying/flensing wind from getting at the body, in addition to the obvious horror of the death to begin with. They don't like burying bodies until they absolutely have to and much prefer burning them in the case that perhaps some latent soulstuff was left in a corpse. It's their opinion that cremating someone is also a much greater honor; hence why Ari refraining from cremating the dead at Khevisarash and after her first battle were seen as such provocative acts among Ghesites.

/skip

[Feyrisshire]

ngl I do have a tendency to suddenly forget about this thread after days

AN: Hello Feyrisshire. Looks like imma gonna question you again.
1)In your Soviet Catgirl puppet you mention that Lysenko's genetic engineering as the thing that fabricates the catgirls. Was this idea your own doing or did you receive any external influences? I recall some whack documentary about Stalin wanting to create ape-men a while back.

Short answer: no. Blame Surrealist Patagonia/Herzosag

Long answer: No. Again blame Surrealist Patagonia/Herszosag as they came up with "Lysenko's insanity", something I just elaborated. Lysenko wasn't really supposed to come early in the picture, he was just supposed to be a part of a Soviet Cultural Revolution, but Reza's comment made me want to explore Lysenko and catgirls.

As far as external influences go, it's not really from USSR, or anime, but a meme about "Communist Catgirls" being popular among the Internet leftist community for some reason, so I guessed catgirls have to come in the USSR. However the general atmosphere of scientific innovation in IRL USSR also fits the mood perfectly.

For the Soviet apeman, generally I'm distrustful of narrative that depicts everything in 1920s USSR as Stalin's doing like "Stalin's Apeman!" (spoiler: he wasn't), but it does make sense in the time period, and the innovation spurred by the Bolshevik Revolution. I think here's something that talks about it from an objective perspective, though lol I never really heard about it now but it does fit my conceptions that such kind of things are something the Soviets would like to do, makes me suspect they'd want catgirls IRL more. Plus I wouldn't put it on the narrative, I'm going for Soviet Nekopara or Soviet Madoka Magica, not Soviet Planet of the Apes. That's for CHALICE.

2)What is, in your opinion, the most aestetically-pleasing Soviet-made invention? Civil or military.

you might be surprised if my first answer is a teddy bear. more cute than "aesthetic", but Misha the Bear was perhaps one of the cutest things that came from the extant USSR, and perhaps the first instance of a cute animal mascot complete with anime and merchandise.

Okay, real serious answer for "civil" is for The Palace of the Soviets. It would have been a wondrous marvel had it been built and you might be surprised to know that I like more traditional architecture such as Gothic and Art Noveau, than Brutalist so it fits my tastes. Sadly Corny Boy never got to built after the war.

now I don't generally ogle or look at military hardware as "aesthetic", but a simple answer would be Sukhoi Su-30. I don't think that Soviet military hardware of previous eras aren't really good-looking, sorry Pravda Girls High School for not lusting on Soviet tanks

---

To Brettenwald: Why are there Seven Gods? Are there really just seven of them or they are simply the most prominent?

[Atheris]

So... how the hell does having royalty in a Communist nation actually work?

---

BN:

Where to I begin?

I don't feel like effortposting, so I'll just give you the small version;

Great characterization, amazing music, fantastic emotional beats, a nice fandom, great settings, and good dialogue.

[Brettenwald]

ngl I do have a tendency to suddenly forget about this thread after days

AN: Hello Feyrisshire. Looks like imma gonna question you again.
1)In your Soviet Catgirl puppet you mention that Lysenko's genetic engineering as the thing that fabricates the catgirls. Was this idea your own doing or did you receive any external influences? I recall some whack documentary about Stalin wanting to create ape-men a while back.

Short answer: no. Blame Surrealist Patagonia/Herzosag

Long answer: No. Again blame Surrealist Patagonia/Herszosag as they came up with "Lysenko's insanity", something I just elaborated. Lysenko wasn't really supposed to come early in the picture, he was just supposed to be a part of a Soviet Cultural Revolution, but Reza's comment made me want to explore Lysenko and catgirls.

As far as external influences go, it's not really from USSR, or anime, but a meme about "Communist Catgirls" being popular among the Internet leftist community for some reason, so I guessed catgirls have to come in the USSR. However the general atmosphere of scientific innovation in IRL USSR also fits the mood perfectly.

For the Soviet apeman, generally I'm distrustful of narrative that depicts everything in 1920s USSR as Stalin's doing like "Stalin's Apeman!" (spoiler: he wasn't), but it does make sense in the time period, and the innovation spurred by the Bolshevik Revolution. I think here's something that talks about it from an objective perspective, though lol I never really heard about it now but it does fit my conceptions that such kind of things are something the Soviets would like to do, makes me suspect they'd want catgirls IRL more. Plus I wouldn't put it on the narrative, I'm going for Soviet Nekopara or Soviet Madoka Magica, not Soviet Planet of the Apes. That's for CHALICE.

2)What is, in your opinion, the most aestetically-pleasing Soviet-made invention? Civil or military.

you might be surprised if my first answer is a teddy bear. more cute than "aesthetic", but Misha the Bear was perhaps one of the cutest things that came from the extant USSR, and perhaps the first instance of a cute animal mascot complete with anime and merchandise.

Okay, real serious answer for "civil" is for The Palace of the Soviets. It would have been a wondrous marvel had it been built and you might be surprised to know that I like more traditional architecture such as Gothic and Art Noveau, than Brutalist so it fits my tastes. Sadly Corny Boy never got to built after the war.

now I don't generally ogle or look at military hardware as "aesthetic", but a simple answer would be Sukhoi Su-30. I don't think that Soviet military hardware of previous eras aren't really good-looking, sorry Pravda Girls High School for not lusting on Soviet tanks

---

To Brettenwald: Why are there Seven Gods? Are there really just seven of them or they are simply the most prominent?

You know, I thought I deleted that factbook over the summer. Anyway, the short answer is no, there are more, the long answer is that I'm going to completely redo my religion stuff but I've never gotten around to it. It was originally a ripoff of the gods from Game of Thrones anyway, I hardly put any work into it.

Atheris! Why do you like Ace Attorney so much?

[Hamatu]

since I've been wanting to ask you some questions anyway, and whatnot

1. So, in regards to Mesoamerican mythology, is there a specific feature of it that you would say is often misinterpreted or overlooked?
2. I'm not sure if you've mentioned anything about this before, but what do you think would've happened if, somehow, the Americas' had had previous contact with Eurasian diseases prior to Columbus and Europe in general?
3. Sorry if this isn't a particularly good one, but if there were a movie set in Las Palmeras, what do you think it'd be called, and what do you think it'd be about?

[Ihsalihna]

Hello Ihsalihna

I... didn't properly read your factbooks sorry I saw catgirls and your national motto and assumed it must be wholesome that is
fantastically in-depth

Guy who made Persagonian Republic speaking, got a couple of questions to dish out:

1. As a foreigner, what do you think of Iranian culture?
2. What's your view of the current Iranian regime and what do you think that Iran could've done better in any point of history?
3. What's your recipe to making your fascinating strangereal world that's portrayed to be balanced?
4. What do you think is the best system that Iran could adopt?
5. What attracted you to Middle Eastern culture and geopolitics?

Ah! I remember Persagonian, hello Surrealist Patagonia! I'm half asleep but I'll do my best to answer:

1. Iranian culture is fantastically beautiful and it's underrepresented and underappreciated for how massively influential it's been on the world. For centuries "Persian" was a byword for the cutting edge of culture. There's a reason Alexander went East. Maybe it's because I'm a Canadian of mixed backgrounds, but the call of Iranian culture has always been how it touches and has been touched by practically the whole of Asia and beyond. It's got a bit of everything; nomadic tribes, opulent palaces, science, literature, revolution, religion, intrigue, war, philosophy, tragedy and triumph.

2. To put it mildly... not a fan of the Islamic Republic. Any regime that crushes freedoms, disappears people, tortures and murders its own people will always be something I oppose. The main things I believe could've changed for the better would be if Iran's monarchs and populace hadn't be afraid of reform or had more stridently resisted imperialism. The blame for the modern dictatorship will lie most heavily on foreign powers for me, namely Britain and the United States. But there's always the dream of what may have been if Mirza Taghi Khan Farahani, the famous Amir Kabir, had not be executed by Naser al-Din Shah Qajar - or if having survived his subsequent assassination, he had fully lived up to his last words - "I will rule you differently if I survive!" My distaste for monarchy aside, an Imperial Iran based on meritocracy over nepotism would be better than the Pahlavi dynasty or the Ayatollah's regime. I've been rooting for the Green Movement and Iranian democracy activists for awhile now.

3. I don't know how balanced it is but basically it's a massive patchwork of alternate history scenarios I have in the back of my mind, real life nations that I feel should have had their time in the sun, and cool flags I found online that I wrote little scenarios for. Sometimes it's "what if the Native Americans managed to stay independent", sometimes it's "if so-and-so ruler hadn't been deposed maybe this country would be doing much better", sometimes it's just "hey what if Australia was French, what if there were Muslims in Scandinavia, what if England and the Netherlands had united?" I could probably make an entire new Nationstates nation out of any of them and find something to write factbooks about, but for now I struggle to transfer the worldbuilding I've done for Ihsalihna in my head into actual writing so for now I'm trying to be realistic.

4. I don't know if it's quite my place to say, to be honest. I'm not a professional historian and I'm not an Iranian. Ultimately only Iranians can choose for themselves. I have my own biases and my own worldview, I'm heavily left-libertarian leaning. If I had to answer the question? Something that combined the democratic confederalism we're seeing in Rojava with a progressive Islam. I'm a firm believer that human rights and Islam can be compatible, despite the current mainstream trend we see in power. That's part of why I made Ihsalihna. An Iran that does away with tryanny, strikes a balance between its traditional religions and secularism, and works to undo years of pain caused by foreign imperialism and domestic authoritarianism has the best chance of succeeding, in my mind.

5. Unfortunately we hear a lot about the Middle East on the news. Even more unfortunately, it's rarely good news, and it's often harmful views with political intentions. I'm a firm believer that there is good in everyone and I refused to believe Islam or the greater Middle East was fundamentally backwards, could not be fixed, was a place of nothing but war and corruption. What I found was that the many cultures and peoples that live there have given the human race an endless supply of beautiful poetry, literature, culture, and innovation - not just during the Golden Age of Islam or the Zoroastrian empires or the Mesopotamian period but in the modern age as well. I feel it's criminal that our history books so often ignore this and our politicians and media focus only on the worst. For me I guess the Middle East is the middle of the world in more ways than one. It's all the best and the worst that we can be, countless cultures intermingling. I think its going to play a big part in the future of humanity.

/skipme, sorry!

[Surrealist Patagonia]

Guy who made Persagonian Republic speaking, got a couple of questions to dish out:

1. As a foreigner, what do you think of Iranian culture?
2. What's your view of the current Iranian regime and what do you think that Iran could've done better in any point of history?
3. What's your recipe to making your fascinating strangereal world that's portrayed to be balanced?
4. What do you think is the best system that Iran could adopt?
5. What attracted you to Middle Eastern culture and geopolitics?

Is there a "correct" order to reading the Patagonia factbooks? I'm kinda confused about when and where some things are. There's a factbook called "Death of the Patron" that mentions he died when he tried to drop a nuclear bomb, yet you've also said in forum posts that the Patron is not to be considered dead, and Galeazzo's factbook makes it sound like he's ruling an increasingly fascistic Patagonia, yet you've also said in forum posts that the Death of the Patron map portrays Patagonia after Galeazzo has left—so now I'm a little lost. ^^;

I want to be able to give good responses in forums, because Patagonia is very cool; it's just not totally clear to me what to take into context and what not to, what exists at which time, etc.

Also, any particular reason for making the Bushes the American "protagonists?" A commentary on their presidencies? Just convenient ages with a father-son story?

Is the Metal Gear stuff supposed to mean this is the Metal Gear universe, or is it because names like FOXHOUND are wicked cool?

I'm glad you care enough to ask!

So here's the basic timeline to understand what's going on in Patagonia: Le Patron goes to the old Patagonian Republic in the 1950s and seizes power in 1967 after the May Revolution. What we're at right now is the Red Terror where Le Patron is purging liberals and conservatives in order to consolidate his power in 1968. At the same time there are people like Galeazzo and Vladko who are two people trying to influence Futurism and trying to expand their powers at the side by currying Le Patron's favor. Le Patron is maintaining a delicate balance between fascistic and communist tendencies of Futurism. Galeazzo isn't really ruling the entire Patagonia with his ideals as he only implements fascistic ideals to his fiefdom in Bariloche but he has ambitions of enacting it on the entire nation. Corporatist Argentina is what it would look like as an AU. There's supposed to be a power struggle between Vladko and Galeazzo but judging by the collapse factbook; the struggle remains inconclusive. The reason why I made the factbook in the first place is to depict Patagonia as a heavily polarized nation between left and right. 1976 is when Le Patron dies after trying to launch a nuke on Leningrad from his Metal Gear and his absence leaves a power vaccuum for more communists and fascists more radical than Galeazzo and Vladko to take power without Le Patron's moderating influence. So 1967 is the Revolution, 1968 is where we are right now with left-right power struggle, and 1976 is when all of those is thrown into the gutter and Patagonia collapses after losing Le Patron. Think of the Divide factbook as the prequel to the Collapse factbook.

It's a bit of both as to why I made the Bushes the protag of SP America. Bush Jr. is often considered as the man who ushered a disastrous post-War on Terror world where groups like ISIS have sprung up and Al-Qaeda are making even more trouble. People would say that he's one of the worse American presidents as an incompetent president. Then I had the idea of having him be the savior of the world after beating Le Patron in a Metal Gear fight and attempting to overthrow a segregationist president to show that people could change easily in this universe with the right circumstances. There's also the father-son dynamic between the two as Bush Jr. became a revolutionary and joined FOXHOUND the resistance movement in the first place because his father left him and he found out that he's doing the CIA's dirty work in L. America. Shattering his view of America and pitting son and father to become reluctant enemies.

Also, this nation just appropriates Metal Gear tech and groups. I thought FOXHOUND was a cool name and then changed it to something else in SP-verse which is an American resistance group fighting against segregationists and the CIA/FBI establishment. I have other media influences but Metal Gear is the more prominent in SP-verse. It's implied that there are secret societies like the Patriots and Deus Irae lodge trying to nudge events in their favor. And the Metal Gear mechs is actually a creation of the Military - Industrial complex after the Cuban Missile Crisis threatened America's security which has become a staple of the American defense industry and is at risks of being stolen by terrorist groups. I admit it's too bit on the nose to use Metal Gear without changing the names as well as having a French Big Boss character but I just like the espionage storytelling of Metal Gear and the political intricacies that comes with it. Which goes to show that there's more than meets the eye behind every political act and that backhanded deals is what drives the world of SP forward.

/skip

[Las Palmeras]

since I've been wanting to ask you some questions anyway, and whatnot

1. So, in regards to Mesoamerican mythology, is there a specific feature of it that you would say is often misinterpreted or overlooked?
2. I'm not sure if you've mentioned anything about this before, but what do you think would've happened if, somehow, the Americas' had had previous contact with Eurasian diseases prior to Columbus and Europe in general?
3. Sorry if this isn't a particularly good one, but if there were a movie set in Las Palmeras, what do you think it'd be called, and what do you think it'd be about?

Hi Hamatu

1) Yes; I'd say an overlooked tidbit but people looking in to read the Chilam Balam are in for a big disappointment. Not because of the content lacks value but specifically because the content is...uh...kabbalistic, so to say. It's basically a magic book with kooky coded instructions over how to prepare rituals and prophesize things, it isn't meant to be read as prose. No literature teacher should think it's a good entry into Maya culture because of it's purposely cryptic nature. It would be like reading a grimoire and DIY Zodiac chart to learn about English culture.

2) A very difficult question. To be very general, demographics would be vastly different in the denser-populated parts of the Americas; I'm skeptical if mixed-race people could've even been a majority like IRL in several parts of Latin America. IIRC, it's still debatable what was worse for the natives; war and forced labor + weakening virulent diseases or just diseases alone. But if the 90% number that is mentioned frequently is held, I find it easy to imagine that the Spanish would've found it harder to permanently exploit differences among the cultures in the Mexican Central Highlands and the guerrilla wars in the Mayan regions would've been multiplied in scale...just imagining what's Mexico alone. All in all, European capacity to organize violence isn't something to be taken lightly...but I'm convinced that settler colonialism would've taken more time. How much, honestly I don't know.

3) Actually I find it to be a very nice question. I'm bad at thinking about titles though. I'd imagine a period piece drama involving house-maids, like Victorian Romance Emma or Under the Rose.

/SKIP ME, DO BRETTENWALD

[Drongonia]

Atheris! Why do you like Ace Attorney so much?

You say that you're a centre-left(ish) griller, so what made you end up developing Brettenwald to be different to your own personal politics?

[Baizou]

Le Patron's moderating influence

Now those are words I never thought I'd read.

Thanks for the explanation!

You say that you're a centre-left(ish) griller, so what made you end up developing Brettenwald to be different to your own personal politics?

Howdy! At risk of being a repeat question, how do you calculate the results of your indices? Is there a real-world benchmark you try to compare to?

Also, do you imagine the NGOs that work with Drongonia as being anything in particular? Like, who they are, what they do? Or is all that just kinda vague in the background (which is fine; I do that all the time with my own canon! Baizou has like, two-dozen party leaders, but heck if I know who they are).

Finally, Drongonia's score on the Development Index is "unused," but it's apparently 95.5. Given that Drongonia is involved with administering the Index, and also doesn't have a public score on the Corruption Index, would you say that Drongonia's Development score is trustworthy or untrustworthy?

[Kiu Ghesik]

Hey, Baizou! I have returned with yet more questions!

1) How do the conservatives in Baizou feel about the fact that the majority of the nation's representatives are centre or centre-left? I mean, I feel like the Lotus Conservatives are pretty chill overall but it must irk them that the Premier is a social democrat and the ambassador is a Marxist.

2) From the perspective of plot, what's the most interesting thing you've seen a nation do here? I saw you compliment NUN on how they did the Chairwoman's factbook and the big reveal at the end, do you have any other nations you feel like do that sort of thing well?

3) If you ever run out of sprites for characters, do you plan to use portraits like those you used for the Company, or a similar sort of style?

4) I've heard that you've had some interest in graphical design and making covers and stuff like that, do you have any interest in making media commenting on Baizou's VHS boom like we saw in the West discussing Japan in the 80s? I recall Hatsunia making a cover of a book about Japanese economics edited for their nation, would you think about making a similar design?

Sorry for all the questions, by the way, had a lot to ask

[Brettenwald]

Atheris! Why do you like Ace Attorney so much?

You say that you're a centre-left(ish) griller, so what made you end up developing Brettenwald to be different to your own personal politics?

I just wanted to make it more interesting. I feel like a monarchy offers better roleplay opportunities both for other people and myself, and it's a lot more fun to write for than a generic lib-left democracy would have been.

I can't think of anything to ask Kiu right now (sorry, dude), but I'll be happy to answer BN's question/questions.