P2TM Community Discussion Thread: I

[Nova Catania]

I want to do something with an SCP Foundation, SHIELD, Men in Black kinda thing. I already have a lot of the lore done.
In case you want to see it, here it is, so I can get it off my chest.

The United Nations Covert Organization for Research and Defense, or UN-CORD is a top-secret, intergovernmental agency that protects humanity from bizarre threats, and investigates unexplained occurrences. They report only to a UN panel. Formed after the Roswell crash, UN-CORD has covered up all kinds of events since then. A few include an alien attack on Apollo 13, the assassination of JFK by disgruntled former UN-CORD operatives, a blackout in NYC in 1977 caused by an alien power source, and a UFO accidentally caught on camera in 2017. In 2007, a whistleblower released evidence of UN-CORD's existence. As part of the cover-up, that evidence was altered to make it look like a fictional story, which spurred an online collaborative writing project.

UN-CORD has yet to capture, interact with, or even see a live alien being, the prevailing theory being that Earth's atmosphere is poison to most extraterrestrials. Of the tech they have captured, it is advanced, yet still understandable to 21st century minds. At least 4 different species of aliens have attempted to land here, all of which have crashed, either due to accidents, or UN-CORD shooting them down. But UN-CORD deals with other threats, although aliens are the Holy Grail of their work. Undiscovered species, mutated viruses, humans with extraordinary abilities, and ancient relics with odd properties are among the other things they investigate.

Their HQ is a base hidden in the Himalayas, covered by an EM shield. Other bases include the Argus, a submarine/aircraft carrier. Area 51, which is used as a public decoy, and the Eagle, a supersonic aircraft with the speed of the Concorde and the facilities of Air Force One.

The director, John-Michael Price, is tired of sucking up to world leaders, the leaders of the UK and US in particular. He is a man with a scientific, analytical mind. A fervent skeptic, he is constantly proposing reasonable, science-based explanations for phenomena observed by UN-CORD.
His second-in-command, and friend, is Katherine White. She is more open to believing the more fantastical explanations for things. She and Price have feelings for each other, but they never show, nor do they know that the other reciprocates those feelings, resulting in romantic tension you could cut with a knife.
Dr. Arthur Largo is the head science officer of UN-CORD, he butts heads with Price over application of technology found, and free research opportunities not limited to weapons and reverse engineering. He also believes that the existence of phenomena encountered by UN-CORD should be made public. He is a father figure to Katherine White, and often mediates differences between her and Price.

Unbeknownst to them, Silicon Valley billionaire Leon Besk, is opening PACL, Palo Alto CARET (Commercial Application of Recovered Extraterrestrial Technology) Labs. This will drive the main plot arc, with the episodic occurrences of phenomena taking place often, resolved quickly.

Any input, ideas, suggestions, or questions? I also might need some to help with art, since this would require some pictures. Anyone with experience in life-like sci-fi drawing would definitely be of assistance.

[Northern Socialist Council Republics]

The Lost Generation
A Joint Production by Theyra, Kenobot, and Northern Socialist Council Republics

---

Image Credits: Russian Emergencies Ministry Handout/EPA via the Guardian

<<the date is 06th September, 2091>>

ONE HUNDRED YEARS have passed since the downfall of revolutionary communism as a world ideology, and yet the 'end to history' promised by triumphant liberals at the end of the 20th Century is still nowhere in sight. Rather, civilisation seems stuck crawling through the murky depths, with a series of existential challenges the likes of which had never been seen before in human history slowly closing in on its neck like a hangman's noose. These are interesting times, and as the apocryphal saying goes to live in interesting times is a curse.

And yet, and yet. Human beings are not known for their tendency to die quietly and go off into that good night. It is in exactly these darkest hours, with the gravest of threats shaking the world to its very core, that the light of heroes shine the brightest. As states and individuals contemplate actions and ideas that would have been unthinkable a hundred, fifty, or even twenty years ago, as firebrands in every field of human endeavour seek to build a new world, on the ashes of the old if necessary, the doomed runaway train of human history may yet be diverted to a different course.

We struggle, for what else can we do?

---

Introduction

Greetings, NationStaters! This is a geopolitical, country-based RP set in the late 21st Century; a semi-dystopian, pessimistic vision of the late 21st Century. Each player will represent a country, trying to work together to overcome the civilisational challenges of the late 21st Century but also working against each other to impose their own vision of the future on the world.

---

Setting: History

You are almost completely free in designing your country's history! If you want, you can start from your country as it exists IRL in 2022 and simply write the changes of the next seven decades, start from pre-historic times with a country concept that didn't exist at all in real history, or anything in between. The only requirements are that your history does not contradict the histories of applications that were accepted before yours, that your history take into account the following list of common events, and that your 21st Century history reflect the Challenges listed in the next section.

The mandatory common events are as follows:

Colonisation of the New World, 1492-1808: the colonisation of technologically primitive societies in the Americas, the southern tip of Africa, and Oceania by the more advanced and developed societies of Europe, Asia, and (northern) Africa. Some peoples native to the New World were destroyed to pave the way for settlers, while others were conquered and subjugated.
The Hemoclysm, 1911-1953: four decades of militaristic bloodlust, filled with wars and atrocities both big and small in the general backdrop of economic and social upheaval. This period saw both the rise of fascist nationalism as a world ideology and its destruction and was, by all accounts, a generally unpleasant period in history to live through.
The Cold War, 1953-1991: an ideological struggle between capitalism and communism, under the constant threat of nuclear escalation, characterised by insurgencies and proxy wars in less developed regions of the world. The Cold War ended with the collapse of revolutionary communism as a world ideology and paved the way for capitalist domination of the world.

---

Setting: Challenges

The Nuclear Challenge

The oldest and simplest of the civilisational challenges facing humanity, and yet no less deadly for it, the nuclear spectacle continues to hang over human civilisation like the proverbial sword of Damocles. The nuclear challenge includes not only its namesake - strategic nuclear weapons that can destroy entire cities in single strikes - but also other weapons of mass destruction capable of causing immense human suffering and destruction at very affordable prices, most notably biological weapons. While the weapons with which the countries of the world can defend themselves from the nuclear challenge - anti-ballistic defences, forwards detection systems, et cetera - have grown in potency since the nuclear standoff of the Cold War, so has the nuclear challenge itself, with the development of even more effective ways to penetrate even the staunchest defences.

The situation is not helped by increasing economic prosperity and technological diffusion. The price tag for a full-fledged nuclear program - a few billion dollars - is very affordable to even relatively small, weak, and impoverished countries, and as some of these nuclear-armed countries fall into political instability or even outright civil wars, the terrifying possibility of insurgents or even terrorists getting their hands on one grows every year - because what anti-ballistic defence can stop a quiet, unassuming man carrying a deadly suitcase?

And, of course, these days all you really need to build a custom-designed drug-resistant plague to infect your enemies with is a decently-stocked undergraduate-level biochemistry lab...

The Environmental Challenge

While the wide adoption of 4th generation nuclear power and innovative renewable energy systems have finally put an end to mass carbon emissions, it was far too little, far too late. As the world enters the closing decade of the 21st Century, the global climate is at the verge of total meltdown.

By far the most immediate and most pressing consequence of climate change has been desertification, with the entire tropical belt of rainforests - from the Amazon across the Congo to Southeast Asia - drying out into arid savannahs. Not only has this collapsed agricultural production across some of the most densely populated regions of the world, throwing billions of people into permanent food insecurity barely kept alive by a trickle of foreign aid, it has poured oil on the fires of political instability across the world with millions of desperate people eager for any chance at a better life. Sometimes that means joining a warlord's guerrilla army and sometimes it means massing the borders of more stable states as refugees.

Not that things are looking particularly bright for those more stable states, either. While some regions of the world have too little water, some suffer from too much of it. A relatively modest 1.5 metre rise in sea levels have not redrawn the world map as some early doomsayers have feared, but it have nonetheless dealt an almost crippling blow to the survivability of coastal cities. Not only has keeping their sewer systems and other underground infrastructure useable become a daily struggle, they have also become much more vulnerable to storm surges and, without the reliability of that underground infrastructure, much more difficult to dry out when they do flood.

Of course, while some find tragedy in disaster, some find opportunity. The receding glaciers have opened up new resource deposits in the Antarctic and new maritime trade routes in the Arctic, generating billions of dollars in revenue for new ambitious start-ups but also generating new flashpoints at the ends of the world for ambitious rising powers to struggle over...

The Technological Challenge

Saving the biggest for last: the changing technologies of the information age has completely upended nearly every aspect of how humanity does politics in the 21st Century.

While rifts between rich and poor, between ruler and ruled, has existed since time immemorial, for all of history poor people were still people, the same kind of human beings as the rich and powerful were. Now, with the advent of life extension therapies and genetic engineering, that is increasingly no longer the case. Now, people can confer to their children whatever traits they desire - if you want a healthy, genius daughter who also happens to be attractive and strong, all it takes is a visit to a gene clinic - and achieve that elusive dream of eternal youth, holding off old age indefinitely. That is, they can if they have the money for it. The costs of these new gene therapies are such that even in the richest of technological societies, enjoying the full suite of benefits that 21st Century genetic science has to offer can cost several times the average income.

Democracy relies on the assumption that everyone is equal, that people are all human and thus deserving of the same human rights. But when humanity threatens to splinter into biologically different and even biologically incompatible species, when some "people" really are just better than other people on any metric that one cares to measure, what happens to that ideal of equality?

This problem is only compounded by the rapid advance of information technology, which is increasingly pushing more and more ordinary people out of the economic, cultural, and intellectual lives of their communities. While the early 21st Century saw Moore's Law finally be broken, with computing capabilities peaking around the late 2030s, even that was sufficient to herald vast, and deeply unwelcome for many, change. In a marketplace where any work, save for those that demand social skills or creativity, is vulnerable to automation, the number of available jobs there are is lower than ever and the qualification needed to obtain them is higher than ever. Thus, in an ironic twist, most societies in the world - all societies except the poorest, in fact - face a dual challenge. On one hand, they face a horde of permanently unemployed and permanently unemployable people whose jobs have been taken over by automation and who simply don't have what it takes to compete in the marketplace of the late 21st Century. But on the other hand, because what few jobs there are left are so demanding on rare cognitive skills, most societies also face a strong labour shortage, with corporations and nations jockeying over the skilled workers they need to run their extremely high-tech industries.

This is a terrible time to be an 'ordinary person', and that's the situation in rich countries. In poorer countries, that often have little to offer to the world market other than the cheap labour of their people, the situation could be even more desperate.

Of course, one could simply try and hold back the tide of change, preserve what little is left of the stable post-Cold War zeitgeist by wrapping up all of these technologies with tight regulations and government oversight, but if one does so, then how will one's country compete on the battlefield, in the stock market, and on the silver screen against those countries who fully embrace the potential of these new technologies and are eager to take advantage of them?

Amidst the halls of power in technocratic - and increasingly, even liberal - countries, some even whisper that maybe society would be better off if they just got rid of all these useless ordinary people...

---

Application

The application format is below. It is deliberately kept a little open-ended, because I don't believe in torturing my players by forcing them to calculate troop counts and GDP figures if they don't really want to and because I do want you to worldbuild unique and interesting societies!

Your application should be written in clear and readable English, with an in-character, formal voice; something like an editorial article or an encyclopaedia entry. It should include at least enough information to get a general overview of what your country is like and you should clearly mention how your country is being affected by the civilisational challenges mentioned above and how your country is adapting to them. Delete all information in parentheses.

You must choose your Social Alignment from one of these three options: Liberal countries are broadly committed to the basic idea of liberal capitalism. They vary in ideology from libertarian capitalists prizing the free market across conservative states with firm traditional cultures to social democracies with robust welfare states, but they are all generally committed to the idea of an elected government accountable to the public and a privatised open market economy. Romanticist countries are an eclectic collection of nationalistic irredentists, religious fundamentalists, revolutionary communists, and just plain old military juntas. The only real commonality that bind these countries together is their common opposition to the 21st Century liberal-capitalist world order. Technocratic countries are committed to new social models enabled by the advent of information technology. Ranging from corporate-dominated cyberpunkish visions to totalitarian nightmares of ubiquitous surveillance and artificial intelligence, the central tenet of all technocratic ideologies is the desire not to let traditional political ideals hold human 'progress', however that progress is defined, back.

You must choose your Development Level from one of these three options: Technological Societies are wealthy countries that have industrialised before the middle income trap choked off global development and have stayed wealthy throughout the tribulations and instability of the 21st Century. To be a Technological Society your country should cover territory that is, in real life, upper-middle-income or high-income countries by World Bank standards. Industrial Societies are countries at a middling level of development that have been caught in the vicious cycle of not being able to develop high-tech industries because they do not have capital, and not having capital because they do not have high-tech industries. Underdeveloped Societies are impoverished countries not fully connected to the globalised market. Some of these countries were held back by corruption or instability problems throughout the 21st Century, or they were former rentier economies that crashed when their natural resources ran out.

Code: Select all

[box][size=150][b](insert short name here)[/b][/size]
[i](insert formal name here)[/i]

[hr][/hr]
[b]Basic Information[/b]

[b]Territory:[/b] (self-explanatory; if your country de-facto administers territories it does not consider a part of its legal territory, or if it claims territories beyond what it de-facto controls, then such discrepancies should be noted)

[b]Population:[/b] (the number of people in your country)

[b]Social Alignment:[/b] (see notes, above)

[b]Development Level:[/b] (see notes, above)

[hr][/hr]
[b]Government and Politics[/b]

(tell us a little bit about how your state and government structure themselves; if the nominal and real forms of your government differ, mention that too)

[hr][/hr]
[b]Society and Culture[/b]

(tell us a little bit about what ordinary life is like in your country and highlight any unusual aspects of your country's demography)

[hr][/hr]
[b]Economy[/b]

(tell us a little bit about your economy: any industries or resources you are particularly competitive in, and the challenges that it is facing)

[hr][/hr]
[b]Defence[/b]

(tell us a little bit about how your country defends itself from security threats both internal and external)

[hr][/hr]
[b]History[/b]

(tell us a little about your country's history, you must cover at least 100 years of history, starting in 1991, but if you want to go back further then you may)[/box]

The reservation form is as below. Reservations are valid for 3 days, which may be extended by another 4 days once you post a work-in-progress application.

Code: Select all

== RESERVATION ==
[b]Name:[/b] (the short name of your country here)
[b]Territory:[/b] (the territory under your country's de-facto control)

---

Accepted Players

I'm gauging interest and looking for feedback, so if anyone here has suggestions we'd love to hear them.

[Asardia]

Would anyone be interested in an Attack on Titan RP set during the Great Titan War?

[G-Tech Corporation]

The Lost Generation
A Joint Production by Theyra, Kenobot, and Northern Socialist Council Republics

---

(Image)
Image Credits: Russian Emergencies Ministry Handout/EPA via the Guardian

<<the date is 06th September, 2091>>

ONE HUNDRED YEARS have passed since the downfall of revolutionary communism as a world ideology, and yet the 'end to history' promised by triumphant liberals at the end of the 20th Century is still nowhere in sight. Rather, civilisation seems stuck crawling through the murky depths, with a series of existential challenges the likes of which had never been seen before in human history slowly closing in on its neck like a hangman's noose. These are interesting times, and as the apocryphal saying goes to live in interesting times is a curse.

And yet, and yet. Human beings are not known for their tendency to die quietly and go off into that good night. It is in exactly these darkest hours, with the gravest of threats shaking the world to its very core, that the light of heroes shine the brightest. As states and individuals contemplate actions and ideas that would have been unthinkable a hundred, fifty, or even twenty years ago, as firebrands in every field of human endeavour seek to build a new world, on the ashes of the old if necessary, the doomed runaway train of human history may yet be diverted to a different course.

We struggle, for what else can we do?

---

Introduction

Greetings, NationStaters! This is a geopolitical, country-based RP set in the late 21st Century; a semi-dystopian, pessimistic vision of the late 21st Century. Each player will represent a country, trying to work together to overcome the civilisational challenges of the late 21st Century but also working against each other to impose their own vision of the future on the world.

---

Setting: History

You are almost completely free in designing your country's history! If you want, you can start from your country as it exists IRL in 2022 and simply write the changes of the next seven decades, start from pre-historic times with a country concept that didn't exist at all in real history, or anything in between. The only requirements are that your history does not contradict the histories of applications that were accepted before yours, that your history take into account the following list of common events, and that your 21st Century history reflect the Challenges listed in the next section.

The mandatory common events are as follows:

Colonisation of the New World, 1492-1808: the colonisation of technologically primitive societies in the Americas, the southern tip of Africa, and Oceania by the more advanced and developed societies of Europe, Asia, and (northern) Africa. Some peoples native to the New World were destroyed to pave the way for settlers, while others were conquered and subjugated.
The Hemoclysm, 1911-1953: four decades of militaristic bloodlust, filled with wars and atrocities both big and small in the general backdrop of economic and social upheaval. This period saw both the rise of fascist nationalism as a world ideology and its destruction and was, by all accounts, a generally unpleasant period in history to live through.
The Cold War, 1953-1991: an ideological struggle between capitalism and communism, under the constant threat of nuclear escalation, characterised by insurgencies and proxy wars in less developed regions of the world. The Cold War ended with the collapse of revolutionary communism as a world ideology and paved the way for capitalist domination of the world.

---

Setting: Challenges

The Nuclear Challenge

The oldest and simplest of the civilisational challenges facing humanity, and yet no less deadly for it, the nuclear spectacle continues to hang over human civilisation like the proverbial sword of Damocles. The nuclear challenge includes not only its namesake - strategic nuclear weapons that can destroy entire cities in single strikes - but also other weapons of mass destruction capable of causing immense human suffering and destruction at very affordable prices, most notably biological weapons. While the weapons with which the countries of the world can defend themselves from the nuclear challenge - anti-ballistic defences, forwards detection systems, et cetera - have grown in potency since the nuclear standoff of the Cold War, so has the nuclear challenge itself, with the development of even more effective ways to penetrate even the staunchest defences.

The situation is not helped by increasing economic prosperity and technological diffusion. The price tag for a full-fledged nuclear program - a few billion dollars - is very affordable to even relatively small, weak, and impoverished countries, and as some of these nuclear-armed countries fall into political instability or even outright civil wars, the terrifying possibility of insurgents or even terrorists getting their hands on one grows every year - because what anti-ballistic defence can stop a quiet, unassuming man carrying a deadly suitcase?

And, of course, these days all you really need to build a custom-designed drug-resistant plague to infect your enemies with is a decently-stocked undergraduate-level biochemistry lab...

The Environmental Challenge

While the wide adoption of 4th generation nuclear power and innovative renewable energy systems have finally put an end to mass carbon emissions, it was far too little, far too late. As the world enters the closing decade of the 21st Century, the global climate is at the verge of total meltdown.

By far the most immediate and most pressing consequence of climate change has been desertification, with the entire tropical belt of rainforests - from the Amazon across the Congo to Southeast Asia - drying out into arid savannahs. Not only has this collapsed agricultural production across some of the most densely populated regions of the world, throwing billions of people into permanent food insecurity barely kept alive by a trickle of foreign aid, it has poured oil on the fires of political instability across the world with millions of desperate people eager for any chance at a better life. Sometimes that means joining a warlord's guerrilla army and sometimes it means massing the borders of more stable states as refugees.

Not that things are looking particularly bright for those more stable states, either. While some regions of the world have too little water, some suffer from too much of it. A relatively modest 1.5 metre rise in sea levels have not redrawn the world map as some early doomsayers have feared, but it have nonetheless dealt an almost crippling blow to the survivability of coastal cities. Not only has keeping their sewer systems and other underground infrastructure useable become a daily struggle, they have also become much more vulnerable to storm surges and, without the reliability of that underground infrastructure, much more difficult to dry out when they do flood.

Of course, while some find tragedy in disaster, some find opportunity. The receding glaciers have opened up new resource deposits in the Antarctic and new maritime trade routes in the Arctic, generating billions of dollars in revenue for new ambitious start-ups but also generating new flashpoints at the ends of the world for ambitious rising powers to struggle over...

The Technological Challenge

Saving the biggest for last: the changing technologies of the information age has completely upended nearly every aspect of how humanity does politics in the 21st Century.

While rifts between rich and poor, between ruler and ruled, has existed since time immemorial, for all of history poor people were still people, the same kind of human beings as the rich and powerful were. Now, with the advent of life extension therapies and genetic engineering, that is increasingly no longer the case. Now, people can confer to their children whatever traits they desire - if you want a healthy, genius daughter who also happens to be attractive and strong, all it takes is a visit to a gene clinic - and achieve that elusive dream of eternal youth, holding off old age indefinitely. That is, they can if they have the money for it. The costs of these new gene therapies are such that even in the richest of technological societies, enjoying the full suite of benefits that 21st Century genetic science has to offer can cost several times the average income.

Democracy relies on the assumption that everyone is equal, that people are all human and thus deserving of the same human rights. But when humanity threatens to splinter into biologically different and even biologically incompatible species, when some "people" really are just better than other people on any metric that one cares to measure, what happens to that ideal of equality?

This problem is only compounded by the rapid advance of information technology, which is increasingly pushing more and more ordinary people out of the economic, cultural, and intellectual lives of their communities. While the early 21st Century saw Moore's Law finally be broken, with computing capabilities peaking around the late 2030s, even that was sufficient to herald vast, and deeply unwelcome for many, change. In a marketplace where any work, save for those that demand social skills or creativity, is vulnerable to automation, the number of available jobs there are is lower than ever and the qualification needed to obtain them is higher than ever. Thus, in an ironic twist, most societies in the world - all societies except the poorest, in fact - face a dual challenge. On one hand, they face a horde of permanently unemployed and permanently unemployable people whose jobs have been taken over by automation and who simply don't have what it takes to compete in the marketplace of the late 21st Century. But on the other hand, because what few jobs there are left are so demanding on rare cognitive skills, most societies also face a strong labour shortage, with corporations and nations jockeying over the skilled workers they need to run their extremely high-tech industries.

This is a terrible time to be an 'ordinary person', and that's the situation in rich countries. In poorer countries, that often have little to offer to the world market other than the cheap labour of their people, the situation could be even more desperate.

Of course, one could simply try and hold back the tide of change, preserve what little is left of the stable post-Cold War zeitgeist by wrapping up all of these technologies with tight regulations and government oversight, but if one does so, then how will one's country compete on the battlefield, in the stock market, and on the silver screen against those countries who fully embrace the potential of these new technologies and are eager to take advantage of them?

Amidst the halls of power in technocratic - and increasingly, even liberal - countries, some even whisper that maybe society would be better off if they just got rid of all these useless ordinary people...

---

Application

The application format is below. It is deliberately kept a little open-ended, because I don't believe in torturing my players by forcing them to calculate troop counts and GDP figures if they don't really want to and because I do want you to worldbuild unique and interesting societies!

Your application should be written in clear and readable English, with an in-character, formal voice; something like an editorial article or an encyclopaedia entry. It should include at least enough information to get a general overview of what your country is like and you should clearly mention how your country is being affected by the civilisational challenges mentioned above and how your country is adapting to them. Delete all information in parentheses.

You must choose your Social Alignment from one of these three options: Liberal countries are broadly committed to the basic idea of liberal capitalism. They vary in ideology from libertarian capitalists prizing the free market across conservative states with firm traditional cultures to social democracies with robust welfare states, but they are all generally committed to the idea of an elected government accountable to the public and a privatised open market economy. Romanticist countries are an eclectic collection of nationalistic irredentists, religious fundamentalists, revolutionary communists, and just plain old military juntas. The only real commonality that bind these countries together is their common opposition to the 21st Century liberal-capitalist world order. Technocratic countries are committed to new social models enabled by the advent of information technology. Ranging from corporate-dominated cyberpunkish visions to totalitarian nightmares of ubiquitous surveillance and artificial intelligence, the central tenet of all technocratic ideologies is the desire not to let traditional political ideals hold human 'progress', however that progress is defined, back.

You must choose your Development Level from one of these three options: Technological Societies are wealthy countries that have industrialised before the middle income trap choked off global development and have stayed wealthy throughout the tribulations and instability of the 21st Century. To be a Technological Society your country should cover territory that is, in real life, upper-middle-income or high-income countries by World Bank standards. Industrial Societies are countries at a middling level of development that have been caught in the vicious cycle of not being able to develop high-tech industries because they do not have capital, and not having capital because they do not have high-tech industries. Underdeveloped Societies are impoverished countries not fully connected to the globalised market. Some of these countries were held back by corruption or instability problems throughout the 21st Century, or they were former rentier economies that crashed when their natural resources ran out.

Code: Select all

[box][size=150][b](insert short name here)[/b][/size]
[i](insert formal name here)[/i]

[hr][/hr]
[b]Basic Information[/b]

[b]Territory:[/b] (self-explanatory; if your country de-facto administers territories it does not consider a part of its legal territory, or if it claims territories beyond what it de-facto controls, then such discrepancies should be noted)

[b]Population:[/b] (the number of people in your country)

[b]Social Alignment:[/b] (see notes, above)

[b]Development Level:[/b] (see notes, above)

[hr][/hr]
[b]Government and Politics[/b]

(tell us a little bit about how your state and government structure themselves; if the nominal and real forms of your government differ, mention that too)

[hr][/hr]
[b]Society and Culture[/b]

(tell us a little bit about what ordinary life is like in your country and highlight any unusual aspects of your country's demography)

[hr][/hr]
[b]Economy[/b]

(tell us a little bit about your economy: any industries or resources you are particularly competitive in, and the challenges that it is facing)

[hr][/hr]
[b]Defence[/b]

(tell us a little bit about how your country defends itself from security threats both internal and external)

[hr][/hr]
[b]History[/b]

(tell us a little about your country's history, you must cover at least 100 years of history, starting in 1991, but if you want to go back further then you may)[/box]

The reservation form is as below. Reservations are valid for 3 days, which may be extended by another 4 days once you post a work-in-progress application.

Code: Select all

== RESERVATION ==
[b]Name:[/b] (the short name of your country here)
[b]Territory:[/b] (the territory under your country's de-facto control)

---

Accepted Players

I'm gauging interest and looking for feedback, so if anyone here has suggestions we'd love to hear them.

Frankly this entire concept makes me want to go back to working on the TBS I was crunching in a similar setting in 2012. But it sounds fun; the only thing I can say is that I can see the complicated nature of posts discouraging writers.

[Northern Socialist Council Republics]

Frankly this entire concept makes me want to go back to working on the TBS I was crunching in a similar setting in 2012. But it sounds fun; the only thing I can say is that I can see the complicated nature of posts discouraging writers.

Would you believe me if I said that what you’re looking at is the result of me cutting down on a lot of more tangential details? :p

Arvenia’s near-future RPs are often good light fun, but one thing that consistently frustrates me in those RPs is that the players of such RPs doesn’t seem to have a very interesting vision of the future to offer - at best we see a “20th Century but with shinier technology”.

So I figured, if I want an interesting setting, then I’m going to have to be the one providing them, and I’ll just have to cross my fingers and hope that the walls of text don’t alienate too many players.

[G-Tech Corporation]

Frankly this entire concept makes me want to go back to working on the TBS I was crunching in a similar setting in 2012. But it sounds fun; the only thing I can say is that I can see the complicated nature of posts discouraging writers.

Would you believe me if I said that what you’re looking at is the result of me cutting down on a lot of more tangential details?

Arvenia’s near-future RPs are often good light fun, but one thing that consistently frustrates me in those RPs is that the players of such RPs doesn’t seem to have a very interesting vision of the future to offer - at best we see a “20th Century but with shinier technology”.

So I figured, if I want an interesting setting, then I’m going to have to be the one providing them, and I’ll just have to cross my fingers and hope that the walls of text don’t alienate too many players.

I 150% believe that this concept has been culled immensely, knowing you

A very fair point. Forcing people to be innovative and clever with their concepts is one of the hardest parts of being an OP in a freeform RP, because most folks just write what they know..

[Northern Socialist Council Republics]

A very fair point. Forcing people to be innovative and clever with their concepts is one of the hardest parts of being an OP in a freeform RP, because most folks just write what they know..

To be honest I’d be pretty fine with most folks just writing what they know, as long as I get a least a couple unique ideas. How your generic unremarkable western democratic country adapts to the new reality of the late 21st Century is arguably going to be an even more important part of this RP than that new technocratic movement I have set up there.

I just insist on there being an interesting stage for all those unremarkable countries to play in, because otherwise what would be the point?

---

Okay so I did a quick survey of the mood in P2TM, and apparently there’s a fairly popular alt-his 2020 RP that’s just starting up.

Since my idea is probably never going to get off the ground with that kind of competition, I’ll hold on to this original post for a while and launch when the mood is looking more favourable.

[Rudaslavia]

Would anyone be interested in an RP set in the Stone Age with supernatural elements? I was thinking of a setting in Central Europe (or, at least, what would become Central Europe), perhaps in a geographically isolated/sheltered valley, around 10,000 BCE. It would focus on a fictional tribe of Cro-Magnons attempting to settle the region, facing resistance from the indigenous Neanderthals -- the last vestiges of their species who survived thanks to the geographic insulation of the valley -- and encountering supernatural elements of the late Palaeolithic era along the way. It would walk the thin line separating the survival and horror genres, and would place heavy emphasis on the hardships and terrors of pre-modern life.

[Theyra]

So would anyone be interested in a rp about people being from an Atlantis like civilization narrowing escaping from their home island after a cataclysm destroyed it. The survivors or at least the group that the players are a part of, land on a recently discovered continent that except for a minor outpost on the coast is entirely unexplored and the rp would be about this group of survivors trying to survive in this unexplored land and maybe try to rebuild their civilization. Which magic will be a thing and there will be supernatural elements. So you could play as a mage though mages are rare so there would be a limit to it. Also, there might be survival and building mechanics but still thinking about that.

[G-Tech Corporation]

So would anyone be interested in a rp about people being from an Atlantis like civilization narrowing escaping from their home island after a cataclysm destroyed it. The survivors or at least the group that the players are a part of, land on a recently discovered continent that except for a minor outpost on the coast is entirely unexplored and the rp would be about this group of survivors trying to survive in this unexplored land and maybe try to rebuild their civilization. Which magic will be a thing and there will be supernatural elements. So you could play as a mage though mages are rare so there would be a limit to it. Also, there might be survival and building mechanics but still thinking about that.

Sounds like a laugh to me; how are you going to handle RPing characters while simultaneously dealing with the scale of rebuilding civilization?

[Theyra]

So would anyone be interested in a rp about people being from an Atlantis like civilization narrowing escaping from their home island after a cataclysm destroyed it. The survivors or at least the group that the players are a part of, land on a recently discovered continent that except for a minor outpost on the coast is entirely unexplored and the rp would be about this group of survivors trying to survive in this unexplored land and maybe try to rebuild their civilization. Which magic will be a thing and there will be supernatural elements. So you could play as a mage though mages are rare so there would be a limit to it. Also, there might be survival and building mechanics but still thinking about that.

Sounds like a laugh to me; how are you going to handle RPing characters while simultaneously dealing with the scale of rebuilding civilization?

Okay, maybe not rebuilding civilization. But at least building a settlement at least I suppose. And since you are the master of mechanics and interested. Mind helping me with the mechanics?

[G-Tech Corporation]

Sounds like a laugh to me; how are you going to handle RPing characters while simultaneously dealing with the scale of rebuilding civilization?

Okay, maybe not rebuilding civilization. But at least building a settlement at least I suppose. And since you are the master of mechanics and interested. Mind helping me with the mechanics?

Sure, hit me up - I think I still have a few more volts to wring out of my aged brain.

[Midlight Nox]

Does a space-based RP that possesses the following already exist?

A: At LEAST a Space Sector-scale setting (Anything bigger IS welcome)
B: A friendly atmosphere between players
C: An allowance for both custom AND canon content
D: Is a hybrid of Character-Driven and Faction-Driven (meaning you could run an Empire, a Character, or both)
E: Allows a mixture of Sci-Fi AND Fantasy in it
F: Some standards in regards to content and writing (namely, no tolerance for metagaming and the like)

[Theyra]

Just had a random thought that might be interesting to do for a rp.

So the idea is that there was a group of heroes that try to stop a villain from taking over the world. While said villain has control over most of the world at this point and there was one last step to ensure his rule and at the crucial moment when it would be decided who would save or control the world. Another villain ends up saving the day but, not because he had a change of heart or agreed with the heroes. But, because the main villain's plans would have messed up his own evil plan. And while he killed the main villain, he failed to secure his amulet that gave him power. Promoting a search of it and in the power vacuum left by the main villain. Other villains rise up to take control, and soon there is a war between each other for control of the dead villain's realm. Meanwhile, the new main villain is at war with a former ally and his plans are unknown to all.

Due to the fall of the dead villain, there are a few bastions of good since he's dead, and while the villains openly war with each other. There exists a band of heroes that seek to restore the world to what it once was and remove the villains that have taken control of it. There is a chance despite the odds that they can do this but, the question remains if they can do this.

So that is the idea, a world where villians control most of the world and a band of heroes try to save the world from their control. Anyone interested in this?

[Hanovereich]

To all the Brits out there- any chance of a British political RP?

[Hinzland]

Does a space-based RP that possesses the following already exist?

A: At LEAST a Space Sector-scale setting (Anything bigger IS welcome)
B: A friendly atmosphere between players
C: An allowance for both custom AND canon content
D: Is a hybrid of Character-Driven and Faction-Driven (meaning you could run an Empire, a Character, or both)
E: Allows a mixture of Sci-Fi AND Fantasy in it
F: Some standards in regards to content and writing (namely, no tolerance for metagaming and the like)

I’ve been working on a mechanics-lite version the past month and a half: Part rogue trader, part firefly, part Star Trek, part Star Wars.

[Midlight Nox]

Does a space-based RP that possesses the following already exist?

A: At LEAST a Space Sector-scale setting (Anything bigger IS welcome)
B: A friendly atmosphere between players
C: An allowance for both custom AND canon content
D: Is a hybrid of Character-Driven and Faction-Driven (meaning you could run an Empire, a Character, or both)
E: Allows a mixture of Sci-Fi AND Fantasy in it
F: Some standards in regards to content and writing (namely, no tolerance for metagaming and the like)

I’ve been working on a mechanics-lite version the past month and a half: Part rogue trader, part firefly, part Star Trek, part Star Wars.

Is it already posted on the forum, or is it just in the unposted planning stages, right now? If it is posted, what is it?

Also, is it something that one person could run a faction, and another run a single (or party of) character(s)? Or is it just character only? If it is the former, I may be interested.

[Hinzland]

I’ve been working on a mechanics-lite version the past month and a half: Part rogue trader, part firefly, part Star Trek, part Star Wars.

Is it already posted on the forum, or is it just in the unposted planning stages, right now? If it is posted, what is it?

Also, is it something that one person could run a faction, and another run a single (or party of) character(s)? Or is it just character only? If it is the former, I may be interested.

Unposted planning stages.

There’d be three playable entities
-Interstellar State
-Non-state Faction (ie Corporation, Religious Order, Pirates)
-Characters (and their Entourages)

The Factions and States are more like background, with them driving forward the story of the characters. There’s a lot going into it (I’m mostly stuck on the battle mechanics) and I don’t know whether or not to have pre set playable races that originated on the same planet and mass migrated over to this sector of “known space” thousands of years ago, or allowing people to create their own races with pre set perks that they can choose to affect their State/Faction.

Tbh i haven’t worked on it in a while as I’ve been busy with RL.
-

[Kenobot]

So I was recently reminded of the Turtledove book The Two Georges and the idea of a loyalist United States and came up with the idea for an RP where the British prevent the US War of Independence by giving representation and self-governance, the French win a Pyrrhic victory in the War of Spanish Succession, British Win Seven Years’ War outside of Europe in a separate peace and Austrians win in continental Europe. There's a lot of other details to work out, but this is the roster in the RP starting in 1960 so far (with a lot of work to come, but a basic framework there). Would this garner any interest from people in say a month?

UK of Great Britain
Dominion of Ireland
North American Union (Canada+US)
Dominion of Australia (Australia+NZ+PNG+Fiji)
Chinese Protectorate (IRL Southern China + Coastal China South of Qingdao with Shanghai as Capital)
Union of South Africa (IRL South Africa, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique)
West Indies Federation
Malaysian Federation (Indonesia + Malaysia + Brunei)
Dominion of East Africa (IRL Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Southern Somalia)
Dominion of Nigeria (IRL Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Northern Cameroon)
United Arab Emirates (IRL UAE + Oman, Qatar and Bahrain)
Japanese Empire (British-Friendly Japan)

Within the German Confederation -
Archduchy of Austria, Kingdom of Bavaria, Kingdom of Wurttemberg, Kingdom of Westphalia, Kingdom of Prussia, Kingdom of Saxony, Duchy of Switzerland

External to the German Confederation in Personal Union with the Archduchy of Austria- Kingdom of Bohemia, Kingdom of Hungary, Kingdom of Croatia.

Colonial Empire: German Congo (Southern Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Central African Republic) and German Madagascar

Tsardom of Russia (IRL Russian Empire - Russia, Belarus,non-German Poland, Ukraine, Finland, Baltic States, Kazakhstan)
Ming Empire - Xinjiang/Western China/ Xi’An as Capital
Korean Empire (Russian-Friendly Korea)

Franco-Spain: Spain + France + Mediterranean North Africa West of Libya.
Ptolemaic Egypt (Christianized+Latinised Egypt): Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan.
Kingdom of Ethiopia: Ethiopia, Eritrea, Northern Somalia
Qing Empire (Northern China + Manchuria with Beijing as Capital)
Princely Federation of India (Franco-Spanish puppet India)
Kingdom of Philippines (junior branch of Bourbons rule here)
Indochinese Protectorate (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma)
Italian Federation (Italian States in an unpopular puppet regime)

[Hanovereich]

So I was recently reminded of the Turtledove book The Two Georges and the idea of a loyalist United States and came up with the idea for an RP where the British prevent the US War of Independence by giving representation and self-governance, the French win a Pyrrhic victory in the War of Spanish Succession, British Win Seven Years’ War outside of Europe in a separate peace and Austrians win in continental Europe. There's a lot of other details to work out, but this is the roster in the RP starting in 1960 so far (with a lot of work to come, but a basic framework there). Would this garner any interest from people in say a month?

UK of Great Britain
Dominion of Ireland
North American Union (Canada+US)
Dominion of Australia (Australia+NZ+PNG+Fiji)
Chinese Protectorate (IRL Southern China + Coastal China South of Qingdao with Shanghai as Capital)
Union of South Africa (IRL South Africa, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique)
West Indies Federation
Malaysian Federation (Indonesia + Malaysia + Brunei)
Dominion of East Africa (IRL Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Southern Somalia)
Dominion of Nigeria (IRL Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Northern Cameroon)
United Arab Emirates (IRL UAE + Oman, Qatar and Bahrain)
Japanese Empire (British-Friendly Japan)

Within the German Confederation -
Archduchy of Austria, Kingdom of Bavaria, Kingdom of Wurttemberg, Kingdom of Westphalia, Kingdom of Prussia, Kingdom of Saxony, Duchy of Switzerland

External to the German Confederation in Personal Union with the Archduchy of Austria- Kingdom of Bohemia, Kingdom of Hungary, Kingdom of Croatia.

Colonial Empire: German Congo (Southern Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Central African Republic) and German Madagascar

Tsardom of Russia (IRL Russian Empire - Russia, Belarus,non-German Poland, Ukraine, Finland, Baltic States, Kazakhstan)
Ming Empire - Xinjiang/Western China/ Xi’An as Capital
Korean Empire (Russian-Friendly Korea)

Franco-Spain: Spain + France + Mediterranean North Africa West of Libya.
Ptolemaic Egypt (Christianized+Latinised Egypt): Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan.
Kingdom of Ethiopia: Ethiopia, Eritrea, Northern Somalia
Qing Empire (Northern China + Manchuria with Beijing as Capital)
Princely Federation of India (Franco-Spanish puppet India)
Kingdom of Philippines (junior branch of Bourbons rule here)
Indochinese Protectorate (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma)
Italian Federation (Italian States in an unpopular puppet regime)

Definitely would from me.

[Hanovereich]

Going to start work on a UK political roleplay, because I'm bored and also because I like British politics.

[Kenobot]

So I was recently reminded of the Turtledove book The Two Georges and the idea of a loyalist United States and came up with the idea for an RP where the British prevent the US War of Independence by giving representation and self-governance, the French win a Pyrrhic victory in the War of Spanish Succession, British Win Seven Years’ War outside of Europe in a separate peace and Austrians win in continental Europe. There's a lot of other details to work out, but this is the roster in the RP starting in 1960 so far (with a lot of work to come, but a basic framework there). Would this garner any interest from people in say a month?

UK of Great Britain
Dominion of Ireland
North American Union (Canada+US)
Dominion of Australia (Australia+NZ+PNG+Fiji)
Chinese Protectorate (IRL Southern China + Coastal China South of Qingdao with Shanghai as Capital)
Union of South Africa (IRL South Africa, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique)
West Indies Federation
Malaysian Federation (Indonesia + Malaysia + Brunei)
Dominion of East Africa (IRL Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Southern Somalia)
Dominion of Nigeria (IRL Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Northern Cameroon)
United Arab Emirates (IRL UAE + Oman, Qatar and Bahrain)
Japanese Empire (British-Friendly Japan)

Within the German Confederation -
Archduchy of Austria, Kingdom of Bavaria, Kingdom of Wurttemberg, Kingdom of Westphalia, Kingdom of Prussia, Kingdom of Saxony, Duchy of Switzerland

External to the German Confederation in Personal Union with the Archduchy of Austria- Kingdom of Bohemia, Kingdom of Hungary, Kingdom of Croatia.

Colonial Empire: German Congo (Southern Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Central African Republic) and German Madagascar

Tsardom of Russia (IRL Russian Empire - Russia, Belarus,non-German Poland, Ukraine, Finland, Baltic States, Kazakhstan)
Ming Empire - Xinjiang/Western China/ Xi’An as Capital
Korean Empire (Russian-Friendly Korea)

Franco-Spain: Spain + France + Mediterranean North Africa West of Libya.
Ptolemaic Egypt (Christianized+Latinised Egypt): Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan.
Kingdom of Ethiopia: Ethiopia, Eritrea, Northern Somalia
Qing Empire (Northern China + Manchuria with Beijing as Capital)
Princely Federation of India (Franco-Spanish puppet India)
Kingdom of Philippines (junior branch of Bourbons rule here)
Indochinese Protectorate (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma)
Italian Federation (Italian States in an unpopular puppet regime)

Definitely would from me.

Thank you! Might be up within the fortnight if it garners some more interest

Going to start work on a UK political roleplay, because I'm bored and also because I like British politics.

Tory Reform Group time; that or Zombie Harold Macmillan

[Romanum et Britannia Minor]

Would anybody be interested in an RP involving noble families in a medieval kingdom?

The RP takes place in the Kingdom of Dalmatia and begins in the year 1200. It is to do with the various noble families such as the Aurel, Bronca, Shibenskog, and Dipisino, who are vying for power in Dalmatia.

[Rostavykhan]

-boop-

In my usual fashion, I notice this way too late. Sad. I kind of like this idea.

Need more based hermit regimes a la North Korea and Turkmenistan

[Northern Socialist Council Republics]

In my usual fashion, I notice this way too late. Sad. I kind of like this idea.

Need more based hermit regimes a la North Korea and Turkmenistan

Well, then, you are in luck, because we are launching... now.

Life has been hectic for me the past few weeks so it took me until now to actually get this posted. xD