NationStates Modern Tech Advice and Assistance Thread

[Nevada Communes]

What is the consensus on nuclear weapons proliferation? I'm thinking of maybe having an RP based on international tensions with a Sierran Nuclear Test.

Also, as I am now trying to build a custom nation, I have no idea what population I want. I'm thinking around 200 million but I'm not sure if that's unreasonable for a "realistic" nation.

Frankly it depends a lot on your geography and socio-cultural-political factors if I am to be frank. The issue is how many people can your land provide for.

200 million is a fully realistic number, being akin to population of the entire USSR at it's peak.

For the sake of simplicity I chose to be an island ( I even tried to draw a map! ) roughly the size of Australia. Though culturally I want to be modeled of the American West (with some injection of Aussie and Hispanic influences) built off the history of British colonialism.

I'm thinking the first whites might have been Catholic missionaries establishing several missions along the coast. These missions will become the locations of future settlements. This would be around the 17th century during the peak of Spanish colonialism. Then the British would take over and then a wave of various peoples from Europe and Asia would slowly amass over the span of centuries. Socialist revolution would have come in the 60s or 70s.

Given all the information I provided, does 200 million still seem reasonable? Or would you advise a smaller number? And is a GDP per capita of, say, 22,000 reasonable?

Thank you in advance!

What is the consensus on nuclear weapons proliferation? I'm thinking of maybe having an RP based on international tensions with a Sierran Nuclear Test.

Also, as I am now trying to build a custom nation, I have no idea what population I want. I'm thinking around 200 million but I'm not sure if that's unreasonable for a "realistic" nation.

I'm not claiming to be the most experienced person in II, but from what I know, most players in II don't like nukes. You can have them, but there's many RPs that have rules against all WMDs. Mainly because they can kill stories very easily. Not much interesting conflict if the thread dissolves into shooting missiles at each other from across continents, or just dropping a bomb. There's also the fact that, while good players will take losses, most of them don't want to lose their entire nations because someone used WMDs on all of their major cities. Most regions also have rules either banning nuclear weapons, banning their use, or requiring approval from the other nation and/or regional officials before using them. In other regions, like the one that I'm in, players will just ignore nuclear war if it doesn't seem realistic.

As my question implied, I'm not interested in wielding them against other people. I want to know generally if it's okay to have them.

[The Akasha Colony]

As my question implied, I'm not interested in wielding them against other people. I want to know generally if it's okay to have them.

It's fine to have them. No one actually cares if you have them. There is no community-wide NPT.

[Nevada Communes]

As my question implied, I'm not interested in wielding them against other people. I want to know generally if it's okay to have them.

It's fine to have them. No one actually cares if you have them. There is no community-wide NPT.

What treaties / pacts are there community-wide? Are World Assembly resolutions considered binding in role-play if I am a World-Assembly member?

[The Akasha Colony]

What treaties / pacts are there community-wide?

There aren't any.

Are World Assembly resolutions considered binding in role-play if I am a World-Assembly member?

They're only binding if you consider them to be binding.

[The Macabees]

There are, however, treaties that can transcend the regional compartmentalization of NS; i.e. you can join them regardless of what region you are in and it belongs to a supra-regional RP community. SACTO is an excellent example.

[Nevada Communes]

There are, however, treaties that can transcend the regional compartmentalization of NS; i.e. you can join them regardless of what region you are in and it belongs to a supra-regional RP community. SACTO is an excellent example.

Are there any socialist/communist treaties by any chance?

[New Aeyariss]

There are, however, treaties that can transcend the regional compartmentalization of NS; i.e. you can join them regardless of what region you are in and it belongs to a supra-regional RP community. SACTO is an excellent example.

Are there any socialist/communist treaties by any chance?

There were, for a time. We (SACTO) either destroyed all of them or they fell apart .

As my question implied, I'm not interested in wielding them against other people. I want to know generally if it's okay to have them.

It's fully okay to have them and I seen RPs where they were used. Honestly much of my RPing of military aspects is related to them being present; and as such if Nifon fights another state actor, it does so under the limited war theory. In such case both sides restrict geographic and military scope of the war. I do it because it prevents me from destroying other nations, which people put work into - and at the same time manages to create a compelling storyline.

[Nevada Communes]

There were, for a time. We (SACTO) either destroyed all of them or they fell apart .

Interesting. I guess we'll probably have to clash at some point then.

It's fully okay to have them and I seen RPs where they were used. Honestly much of my RPing of military aspects is related to them being present; and as such if Nifon fights another state actor, it does so under the limited war theory. In such case both sides restrict geographic and military scope of the war. I do it because it prevents me from destroying other nations, which people put work into - and at the same time manages to create a compelling storyline.

I'm definitely going to take this into account then. I've been interested in the idea of using "volunteer Sierrans,"mercenary, and gang forces to expand my influence internationally (my socialist government has delved heavily into opiates and guns racketeering).

Also, could I get a verdict on my above post about the realism of my population? Anybody?

[Yohannes]

Your 200 million population is totally okay, Nevada Communes. I don't see why anyone would object to that. So long as you won't use that 200 million population to (somehow) advertise your nation as "the [insert number here]th largest economy in the world", or use that 200 million population as a way for your nation to justify invading someone who RP having smaller population, i.e., there's a guy who loves RPing with 13 million population and then you try to IC wise threaten him. Then there should be no problem

You can generally get away with quite some things so long as you are being considerate and nice with others (at an OOC/out of character level). But, again, I see nothing wrong with 200 million population. Don't worry about it dude!

[The State of Monavia]

What is the consensus on nuclear weapons proliferation? I'm thinking of maybe having an RP based on international tensions with a Sierran Nuclear Test.

Also, as I am now trying to build a custom nation, I have no idea what population I want. I'm thinking around 200 million but I'm not sure if that's unreasonable for a "realistic" nation.

There really is no community-wide in-character consensus on nuclear weapons proliferation outside of WA resolutions (technically they are only binding on WA members, some of whom disregard them anyway). Some RPers will either have their countries roleplay the act of ratifying (or withdrawing from) international treaties and accords on this subject; a few will even agree with region mates to have a historical agreement going on as part of a shared background canon. This whole matter is up to you.

Nuclear test RPs are an uncertain proposition. While a nuclear test (or any WMD test for that matter) is a perfectly sound subject for an IC thread, such threads tend to be written by newbies who are bad at writing and end up becoming “Country X Involved in Activity Other Countries Dislike” where other newbies post a couple dozen atrociously-written condemnations full of embargoes, war threats, and the like. One way to make your thread work out well is to mark it semi-closed and telegram invitations to people whose countries are likely to have an IC interest in the matter (especially if they are good writers who want to help build upon your story). Alternatively, you can pre-plan the thread with a few friends.

What is the consensus on nuclear weapons proliferation? I'm thinking of maybe having an RP based on international tensions with a Sierran Nuclear Test.

Also, as I am now trying to build a custom nation, I have no idea what population I want. I'm thinking around 200 million but I'm not sure if that's unreasonable for a "realistic" nation.

I'm not claiming to be the most experienced person in II, but from what I know, most players in II don't like nukes. You can have them, but there's many RPs that have rules against all WMDs. Mainly because they can kill stories very easily. Not much interesting conflict if the thread dissolves into shooting missiles at each other from across continents, or just dropping a bomb. There's also the fact that, while good players will take losses, most of them don't want to lose their entire nations because someone used WMDs on all of their major cities. Most regions also have rules either banning nuclear weapons, banning their use, or requiring approval from the other nation and/or regional officials before using them. In other regions, like the one that I'm in, players will just ignore nuclear war if it doesn't seem realistic.

Forest State is correct, especially in regard to the part I emboldened. Most RPers dislike nukes because noobs and powergamers (see this glossary) use them to make a mess of things. My advice is to set up an OOC thread to go with any IC thread that involves an IC conflict and use that OOC thread to negotiate parameters for nuclear weapon use with other participants.

What is the consensus on nuclear weapons proliferation? I'm thinking of maybe having an RP based on international tensions with a Sierran Nuclear Test.

Also, as I am now trying to build a custom nation, I have no idea what population I want. I'm thinking around 200 million but I'm not sure if that's unreasonable for a "realistic" nation.

Frankly it depends a lot on your geography and socio-cultural-political factors if I am to be frank. The issue is how many people can your land provide for.

200 million is a fully realistic number, being akin to population of the entire USSR at it's peak.

Your 200 million population is totally okay, Nevada Communes. I don't see why anyone would object to that. So long as you won't use that 200 million population to (somehow) advertise your nation as "the [insert number here]th largest economy in the world", or use that 200 million population as a way for your nation to justify invading someone who RP having smaller population, i.e., there's a guy who loves RPing with 13 million population and then you try to IC wise threaten him. Then there should be no problem

You can generally get away with quite some things so long as you are being considerate and nice with others (at an OOC/out of character level). But, again, I see nothing wrong with 200 million population. Don't worry about it dude!

I concur with New Aeyariss and Yohannes. You are in the clear.

For the sake of simplicity I chose to be an island ( I even tried to draw a map! ) roughly the size of Australia. Though culturally I want to be modeled of the American West (with some injection of Aussie and Hispanic influences) built off the history of British colonialism.

I'm thinking the first whites might have been Catholic missionaries establishing several missions along the coast. These missions will become the locations of future settlements. This would be around the 17th century during the peak of Spanish colonialism. Then the British would take over and then a wave of various peoples from Europe and Asia would slowly amass over the span of centuries. Socialist revolution would have come in the 60s or 70s.

Kudos to you on making a map! You might want to increase the size of it before adding in additional details as it is very easy for a small map to get crowded with labels once you try to cram in a bunch of RP-relevant features. You will also want to add a scale (this makes adding your country to a regional map easier as the regional mapmaker will know what amount of reduction or expansion to perform to make it the same scale as the others). Also, take a close look at your coastline and try to eliminate any features that look unnaturally angular or straight. If you really want to look like an expert, make sure that your lakes, rivers, and the ocean are three different shades of blue.

Given all the information I provided, does 200 million still seem reasonable? Or would you advise a smaller number? And is a GDP per capita of, say, 22,000 reasonable?

How much is your monetary unit worth? If you are using British pounds, 22,000 units is pretty rich (at least in 2017). If you are using Zimbabwe dollars, 22,000 units is hardly anything.

[Nevada Communes]

Oh sorry! I meant $22000 USD! Does that make things better?

Also thank for map tips! I'll try to post an updated + better map tomorrow for further critiques!

[Nevada Communes]

I have a question about this term on the glossary you linked above:

"Ignore: Players cannot be forced to roleplay with any other player. Ignore (or the "IGNORE Cannon") is invoked when a player refuses to roleplay with another player; this may be simply in a single thread, or wholesale. In the case of the latter, typically means the player ceases to recognize another player's country as existing."

I'm afraid I don't fully understand the logic here. Why should I be allowed to refuse to acknowledge another person's country existing? Wouldn't that create all sorts of strange situations/complications? For example, if I was allies with somebody, and we had a third friend who ignored me but recognized him....wouldn't that create some consistency issues?

Also wouldn't it make it so that I can choose to ignore somebody when I'm losing a war or am on the verge of having anything even remotely bad happen to me? If nobody wants to lose, wouldn't this just make RP kind of impossible?

[Western Pacific Territories]

I have a question about this term on the glossary you linked above:

"Ignore: Players cannot be forced to roleplay with any other player. Ignore (or the "IGNORE Cannon") is invoked when a player refuses to roleplay with another player; this may be simply in a single thread, or wholesale. In the case of the latter, typically means the player ceases to recognize another player's country as existing."

I'm afraid I don't fully understand the logic here. Why should I be allowed to refuse to acknowledge another person's country existing? Wouldn't that create all sorts of strange situations/complications? For example, if I was allies with somebody, and we had a third friend who ignored me but recognized him....wouldn't that create some consistency issues?

Excellent question. Some people don't follow this particular unofficial/official rule but the reasoning is simple. If you're in a RP and someone decides to say, nuke your government and refuses to acknowledge any other chain of events, you have the right to ignore that person and continue RPing. If it becomes a common thing or if someone just isn't the type that you want to RP with you can ignore them. A good example would be to look at some of New Aeyariss' posts in the last page. Usually this doesn't create very many issues.

As for the third question, also good question. I've never encountered this problem but honestly, if you have a third friend you RP with that acknowledges a person you ignore as being canonically present, I would recommend talking with your friend to see if you can perform altercations to your canon to accommodate the situation. This isn't something I can give a very good specific answer on.

Also wouldn't it make it so that I can choose to ignore somebody when I'm losing a war or am on the verge of having anything even remotely bad happen to me? If nobody wants to lose, wouldn't this just make RP kind of impossible?

You could but people who like to do this tend to be ostracized from RPing with most people, so it's a rather good idea to just follow the established custom.

[The Akasha Colony]

I have a question about this term on the glossary you linked above:

"Ignore: Players cannot be forced to roleplay with any other player. Ignore (or the "IGNORE Cannon") is invoked when a player refuses to roleplay with another player; this may be simply in a single thread, or wholesale. In the case of the latter, typically means the player ceases to recognize another player's country as existing."

I'm afraid I don't fully understand the logic here. Why should I be allowed to refuse to acknowledge another person's country existing? Wouldn't that create all sorts of strange situations/complications? For example, if I was allies with somebody, and we had a third friend who ignored me but recognized him....wouldn't that create some consistency issues?

It means you have to talk it out and if you can't resolve the problem, then there's nothing to be done. You can't force someone to participate, or to recognize anything in particular. There's no mechanism for enforcing such a thing. So you just have to deal with those complications if you can't get those two parties talking to each other again.

Also wouldn't it make it so that I can choose to ignore somebody when I'm losing a war or am on the verge of having anything even remotely bad happen to me?

Yes.

It also means you can ignore potentially disruptive players who decide to do things like nuke your entire country on a whim. Most players would not be terribly interested in seeing some n00b roll into a thread and claim to have nuked their nation into oblivion and enslaved all the survivors. I certainly haven't spent years creating mine just to see someone try to destroy it in one post.

If nobody wants to lose, wouldn't this just make RP kind of impossible?

No, because it only matters if you can't accept losing. There are a lot of players who don't prefer it but will accept it if that's where things are going. And there are players who can't accept it and quit. But that's true in any game, even board games and video games. It's not supposed to be a competitive game anyway.

The point is that no one can force anyone to do something they don't want to do. This is an internet forum, no one here can go into your posts or your factbooks and forcibly change what you wrote or the status of your nation. Except the mods, but they don't enforce RP rules, just forum rules (like no flaming etc.).

Which means that all RPs have to be done through mutual consent, and this includes getting the loser's consent to, well, lose. There's at least some pressure to accept obvious outcomes, as players who bail at the first sign of trouble may wind up developing a poor reputation and find it harder to join threads in the future. But no one can force a player to accept anything, because there's no way to do so. There are sore losers in every kind of game, and there's no way to stop them from quitting and leaving early the moment they sense they might lose, either.

Sometimes players try to do so by chasing them across threads, but generally other players are not particularly interested in seeing drama from another thread being dragged into their own story, so I would consider it bad form.

[Inyourfaceistan]

I have a question about this term on the glossary you linked above:

"Ignore: Players cannot be forced to roleplay with any other player. Ignore (or the "IGNORE Cannon") is invoked when a player refuses to roleplay with another player; this may be simply in a single thread, or wholesale. In the case of the latter, typically means the player ceases to recognize another player's country as existing."

I'm afraid I don't fully understand the logic here. Why should I be allowed to refuse to acknowledge another person's country existing? Wouldn't that create all sorts of strange situations/complications? For example, if I was allies with somebody, and we had a third friend who ignored me but recognized him....wouldn't that create some consistency issues?

It doesn't happen nearly as often as you might expect. Generally players ignore other players for one of two reasons:

1) In-Character; this may be because the person being ignored intentionally plays with a tech level far above their peers or uses nukes & bioweapons nonchalantly, etc. Basically creating a situation where they cannot be fairly or enjoyably RP'ed with.

2) Out-of-Character; this is typically because the person has a bad attitude, always starts drama, always has to get their way, has a big ego or inflated self-image and acts condescending to others, low-key trolls, and generally can't be cooperated with; it could also be because of mutual understanding that their writing styles are entirely different and a productive story can't be generated with such differences.

Typically all of your allies, trade partners, and even common enemies you find yourself roleplaying with after a while will share most of your same philosophies on how to play; so this issue rarely comes up outside of extremes.

Also wouldn't it make it so that I can choose to ignore somebody when I'm losing a war or am on the verge of having anything even remotely bad happen to me? If nobody wants to lose, wouldn't this just make RP kind of impossible?

Yeah, that would typically be in bad taste though. And if every time your nation "loses", you just ignore and retcon, people won't want to play with you.

Also, it's more likely people are going to get distracted and "busy" and stop posting on the war or embargo thread and instead start posting on General, Forum 7 and even IC social network threads rather than openly admit they are no longer recognizing the actions...

[Libraria and Ausitoria]

I have a question about this term on the glossary you linked above:

"Ignore: Players cannot be forced to roleplay with any other player. Ignore (or the "IGNORE Cannon") is invoked when a player refuses to roleplay with another player; this may be simply in a single thread, or wholesale. In the case of the latter, typically means the player ceases to recognize another player's country as existing."

I'm afraid I don't fully understand the logic here. Why should I be allowed to refuse to acknowledge another person's country existing? Wouldn't that create all sorts of strange situations/complications? For example, if I was allies with somebody, and we had a third friend who ignored me but recognized him....wouldn't that create some consistency issues?

Also wouldn't it make it so that I can choose to ignore somebody when I'm losing a war or am on the verge of having anything even remotely bad happen to me? If nobody wants to lose, wouldn't this just make RP kind of impossible?

You're quite right, and I do wish people would stop using it so often. There are plenty of fixes available to the imaginative RPer: e.g., if you don't interact with someone, they could be a long distance away, in a cold war; you can mostly replace them in your canon, by creating a new nation or using someone else's; or, if they are not particularly important, you can use a flexible interpretation of RP time and defer RPing with them until such a time as nobody can remember what the argument was about.

Of course, life gets particularly interesting in the case of canons of joint organizations, and other closely-integrated histories. I'm afraid such divisions are unavoidably messy for all participants. Really the important thing is to try to RP with everybody's consent. And, for that matter, to try not to destroy joint history without the consent of those who RPed it. But life is unfortunately usually a messy business and nationstates is no exception, and here on NS we are all guardians of our own fictitious reality. Naturally many of them are incompatible with many others.

If you have enough time (alas, I haven't had enough for ages), try to be flexible and aim to accomodate more than two-thirds of other RPers, then you'll manage to be a bridge between factions. For at least a while. Although beware, the time may come when you'll find yourself in the midst of some tedious diplomatic crisis and RL will hit and everyone here will be suspicious, aggressive, and you'll be torn apart by centripetal forces.

(Edit: I'm aware I'm not selling this very well).

[Ghant]

Hello all,

I want to thank everyone who participated in the previous topic. We had some great discussion that covered a wide range of areas! I wanted to continue one aspect of the conversation that was touched on during the discussion. The new weekly discussion topic is...

Multiple Canons

Multiple Canons refers to having more than one nation or world in which you write and develop lore. It can be any of a number of things, including having multiple nations in the same roleplaying community, nations in different roleplaying communities, different versions of the same nation in different communities (or as I like to call it, mirror canon) and in more complex situations, multiple nations spread out between dimensions and periods of time.

This sounds complicated, and in my experience, it is. Speaking personally, such scenarios were not my first choice, but often the result of complicated regional splits and closed-world roleplaying communities. Another function is time constraints (more on that later). As others have already stated in this thread, while having multiple canons is complex, it allows for a greater degree of interactions with other writers that might not otherwise be possible. It's all a function of one's ability to juggle it all.

The most common form of "multi-canon" that we see on NS is in having alternate and puppet nations (which are in fact two different things). A "puppet nation" is a nation that is either controlled, heavily influenced by or is considered an accessory to a "main nation." An "alternate nation" or an Alt is different in that it does not have that same relationship with the main nation, and often is either not tied into it at all, or is or has been adversarial in nature. It's not uncommon for one community to feature numerous "pups" or "alts" depending on the needs and temperaments of the community.

It's also common to have alts in different roleplaying communities (and puppets too, though this is often frowned upon due to fears of wanking). Typically these are closed world, but not always the case, and is often the case with pups and alts, require more work to develop them the more one has. Each successive alt can quickly become time-consuming as each nation requires attention, be it writing or worldbuilding. Caution is advised when creating numerous alts, as writers very often become irritated and annoyed with writers that create do-nothing nations.

The previous examples can often seem quite pedestrian next to the complexities of "fractal canon," as one writer described it in this thread. I see the term "fractal canon" as referring to any canonical situation that goes beyond the mere having of alts and pups. Here a few situations where fractal canon can arise. I was in a roleplaying community where I had a great deal of canon built up with most people in that community. Unfortunately the community split into two different ones due to irreconcilable personality conflicts and creative differences, and I was put into a difficult situation of having to determine what I would do. Since I don't like retconning my work, extensive as it happened to be in this community and with these divergent camps, I created a "mirror" version of the nation in the new region, so I could keep my canon with both groups. Minor alterations had to be made between the two versions (such as military alliances and economic deals) but functionally they were the same nation with the same characters and for the most part, similar histories. This resulted in me being able to keep the vast majority of my canon with all parties involved and required little additional work on my behalf.

Another scenario is the one that plays out in Gholgoth and Greater Dienstad. Although they are separate roleplaying regions, they exist within the same world, and as it happens, I have a nation in both. Neither of these are "mirror nations" as in the previous example, but distinct nations that are tied together by being in the same empire. Again, the idea is to be able to create opportunities to roleplay with my colleagues in a substantive way without creating additional work for me, so these nations have a great deal in common in terms of background, but are in fact distinct nations that each fit within their respective regions.

There are some writers in PMT and FT that go even further and have canon that addresses multiple timelines and dimensions. My work in Gholgoth and Greater Dienstad takes place in the late 2020s, which is distinct from my work in MT which takes place closer to the present day. I view my PMT work as being in the same canonical timeline as my MT work, but set in the future. So in effect, what happens in my MT work is canon to my PMT work, as the former has transpired in the latter's past. Other writers go a step further, and have multiple timelines and dimensions exist within the same canon (such as Naacal).

I would feel remiss if I didn't share at least one multi-canon horror story. Without naming anyone (though those familiar with the situation will know exactly who I am referring to), there is one writer that I know that is in multiple MT and PMT nations with the exact same nation. It's always the same size, the same shape, the same canon, the same characters, the same population, the same tech and the same designs (there may be some variations of this but whatever the are I am unaware). Rather than create a nation that fits the region, he, as my grandfather used to say, "tries to jam a square peg into a round hole" by bringing his nation in and then expecting (sometimes even demanding) that the community accommodates it. This has earned this writer the resentment of most of his regionmates in the regions he is in, and yet he stubbornly presses on in defiance. As a result, few are willing to write with him or even acknowledge his existence. If I can give you some advice, it would be don't do that, because once your reputation in the roleplaying community is damaged because of antics such as this, it can be very hard and take a long time to recover (if you ever do).

Ultimately, I think the point of any multi-canon situation is to create opportunities to write and worldbuild with different communities and writers that would otherwise be difficult to achieve without utilizing other nations, in whatever form they might take. Sure there are some that do it for reasons other than that, but the desire to interact in meaningful ways with others is what writing on NS is all about. What about the rest of you...do you have multiple canons? If so then why and how did they arise? Do you have any horror stories of multi-canon gone wrong, or where it went right? Please share!

[Layarteb]

Keeping different canons is without a doubt a situation where you get out what you put in and by that I mean you could keep just nation names and fit a square peg into a round hole as you brought up or go fully detailed so that your "secondary" nation is no different in detail thank your main nation. This requires extensive notes, more so if you have vast differences between canons. Once you start adding layers like different tech levels, different closed worlds, different cultures, et cetera you just compound the variables. If you can maintain creativity across all canons then bless your heart because that is no easy endeavor. Detailed notes would be the key I would offer. I have very detailed notes of my mine and less-than-detailed notes of my secondary and it shows with the latter suffering more. I would not suggest multiple canons to newbies or part-time players only because it requires that much more work involved. If you want to throw a lot out there and see what sticks to then hone in on one that might be fine - though to the detriment of those players working with the "loser canons."

[Ghant]

Hello all,

Keeping in line with what's been discussed at great length in the past month, I wanted to shift to a topic that is a related, but distinct issue that is often the subject of intense debate within the greater MT community. The new topic of the week is...

Alternate and Puppet Nations

I briefly touched on the nature of alternate and puppet nations, and how they are distinct. To explain more in detail, Alternate Nations, or “Alts,” are nations that are separate and distinct from one’s “main” nation, or the primary nation that a writer focuses on NS. Of course, there are some writers that split their time evenly between multiple nations, in which case each of their nations would be an “alt” (since there wouldn’t be a main). It's not unheard of for a writer to have more than one alternate nation in any given roleplaying community, or an alternate in another, though the number of "active" alts tends to be quite low (one or two in my experience).

I want to emphasize the difference between a “puppet” nation and an alt. While an Alt may or may not exist within the same continuity as a main, puppets most often do, and are usually in some way attached to the main in a way that benefits the main, often at the expense of the puppet. As a result, a puppet is very much tied to another nation. Alts can have puppets too, usually fulfilling the same purpose, to strengthen the position of the other nation within any given roleplaying community. It's worth pointing out too that alts can become puppets and vise-a-versa, depending upon the whims of the writer and how they decide to define the relationships between their nations.

Here are some examples. Bill has a main nation, called “Billand” (Nation A). He also has an alternate nation in the same region called “Jonesia” (Nation B). In another region, he has a nation called “Bobtopia,” (Nation C) and in that same region, there’s a puppet of Bobtopia called “Juniorville” (Nation D). Nation A is the main, while Nations B and C are Alts. Nation D is a puppet due to its relationship with Nation C.

Some advice I would give you is that you should never overextend yourself when it comes to alternate and puppet nations. Don't make more nations than you can be reasonably active with (unless those who would be interacting with the alt make it clear in advance that they don't mind). Making alts and pups, and not doing anything with them when the expectation is that you should, will generally reflect very poorly on you. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and as such it's better to be confident you can support additional nations before proceeding.

What are some of your experiences with alts and puppets? Do you have any, or had any in the past? Did you have alternates, puppets or both? What about any horror stories? Please share!

[Layarteb]

Hello all,

Keeping in line with what's been discussed at great length in the past month, I wanted to shift to a topic that is a related, but distinct issue that is often the subject of intense debate within the greater MT community. The new topic of the week is...

Alternate and Puppet Nations

I briefly touched on the nature of alternate and puppet nations, and how they are distinct. To explain more in detail, Alternate Nations, or “Alts,” are nations that are separate and distinct from one’s “main” nation, or the primary nation that a writer focuses on NS. Of course, there are some writers that split their time evenly between multiple nations, in which case each of their nations would be an “alt” (since there wouldn’t be a main). It's not unheard of for a writer to have more than one alternate nation in any given roleplaying community, or an alternate in another, though the number of "active" alts tends to be quite low (one or two in my experience).

I want to emphasize the difference between a “puppet” nation and an alt. While an Alt may or may not exist within the same continuity as a main, puppets most often do, and are usually in some way attached to the main in a way that benefits the main, often at the expense of the puppet. As a result, a puppet is very much tied to another nation. Alts can have puppets too, usually fulfilling the same purpose, to strengthen the position of the other nation within any given roleplaying community. It's worth pointing out too that alts can become puppets and vise-a-versa, depending upon the whims of the writer and how they decide to define the relationships between their nations.

Here are some examples. Bill has a main nation, called “Billand” (Nation A). He also has an alternate nation in the same region called “Jonesia” (Nation B). In another region, he has a nation called “Bobtopia,” (Nation C) and in that same region, there’s a puppet of Bobtopia called “Juniorville” (Nation D). Nation A is the main, while Nations B and C are Alts. Nation D is a puppet due to its relationship with Nation C.

Some advice I would give you is that you should never overextend yourself when it comes to alternate and puppet nations. Don't make more nations than you can be reasonably active with (unless those who would be interacting with the alt make it clear in advance that they don't mind). Making alts and pups, and not doing anything with them when the expectation is that you should, will generally reflect very poorly on you. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and as such it's better to be confident you can support additional nations before proceeding.

What are some of your experiences with alts and puppets? Do you have any, or had any in the past? Did you have alternates, puppets or both? What about any horror stories? Please share!

This is the most crucial piece of advice in this post. If you can give 100% to two or more nations then go for it and all the better. If you can only give 50% each to two nations or even less to more then please do not. The people who RP with you are the ones who will ultimately suffer. It's ill-advised for many players - new or old.

[The Macabees]

I agree, properly RPd puppets are very difficult (and I 100% agree with Layarteb) and kudos to those who can pull it off.

[Nevada Communes]

What if a puppet is regarded as a political extension of the dominant country? That is, whatever happens in the puppet state is more or less an extension of the mother country's policies? i.e. having a ring of satellites around your country. I reckon these could require less effort than you're suggesting. I am new to this site so obviously I have never attempted this in practice - and I'm sure somebody has before - but it seems as though an imperialistic arrangement would create a logical way for puppets to be RPed

Also, just for the sake of knowing - where can I find a rough In-Character history timeline of major events in the nationstates canon? I would like to model my nation's foreign and domestic policy around this. Which Spanish nation would most likely colonize me? Who would be some of the major powers? I already have a rough understanding that SACTO dominates the global scene - so therefore some form of neo-liberal/fascistic triumph - I see that Allanea seems to be some kind of USA-style superpower etc but otherwise it seems kinda vague and I haven't been able to find any kind of coherent history.

[Forest State]

What if a puppet is regarded as a political extension of the dominant country? That is, whatever happens in the puppet state is more or less an extension of the mother country's policies? i.e. having a ring of satellites around your country. I reckon these could require less effort than you're suggesting. I am new to this site so obviously I have never attempted this in practice - and I'm sure somebody has before - but it seems as though an imperialistic arrangement would create a logical way for puppets to be RPed

Also, just for the sake of knowing - where can I find a rough In-Character history timeline of major events in the nationstates canon? I would like to model my nation's foreign and domestic policy around this. Which Spanish nation would most likely colonize me? Who would be some of the major powers? I already have a rough understanding that SACTO dominates the global scene - so therefore some form of neo-liberal/fascistic triumph - I see that Allanea seems to be some kind of USA-style superpower etc but otherwise it seems kinda vague and I haven't been able to find any kind of coherent history.

Well, someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but there isn't really such thing as a canon for NS as a whole. If you want to get into learning the history of II, I can only recommend going to regions and seeing what they have listed(if anything, you can also contact them and ask about this), as well as reading Factbooks and IIwiki pages for nations that have those. But still, there's no singular canon or history.

Aside from the problems of keeping track of everything going back since the forum started, there would be too many contradictory things. Many regions claim that no other regions exist in their canon, some nations only recognize other types of nations(for example, only acknowledging realistic nations and not knock-off IRL ones or ones taken from franchises), some people choose to ignore superpower nations that are vastly larger than their own, etc.

If you want to model your nation on history, you can start by deciding where you want to RP. For example, you could join a region such as Greater Dienstad, Ausozera, etc, and ask their members for the main events in their regional canon. You could look for a group, such as SACTO or DEUN, or the Imperion Coalition, and ask about the history of RPs they've been involved in. If you pick open II, which is basically RP that isn't tied to a specific group, it's a lot harder to do that because there's so many things going on at once and not everyone recognizes everyone else's RP or keeps track of it.

I don't know if my point was lost over the post, but open II doesn't really have a canon. Rather, every player in open II has their own canon and they decide what they want to recognize. If you want a coherent history, you can check out regions, which typically have detailed and in depth canons and consistent history.

[Erythrean Thebes]

What if a puppet is regarded as a political extension of the dominant country? That is, whatever happens in the puppet state is more or less an extension of the mother country's policies? i.e. having a ring of satellites around your country. I reckon these could require less effort than you're suggesting. I am new to this site so obviously I have never attempted this in practice - and I'm sure somebody has before - but it seems as though an imperialistic arrangement would create a logical way for puppets to be RPed

Also, just for the sake of knowing - where can I find a rough In-Character history timeline of major events in the nationstates canon? I would like to model my nation's foreign and domestic policy around this. Which Spanish nation would most likely colonize me? Who would be some of the major powers? I already have a rough understanding that SACTO dominates the global scene - so therefore some form of neo-liberal/fascistic triumph - I see that Allanea seems to be some kind of USA-style superpower etc but otherwise it seems kinda vague and I haven't been able to find any kind of coherent history.

Not sure if you've seen Inyourfaceistan...his national history also includes colonialism by a Spanish power of some kind, perhaps you could agree to share the same colonial ancestor

[The Macabees]

What if a puppet is regarded as a political extension of the dominant country? That is, whatever happens in the puppet state is more or less an extension of the mother country's policies? i.e. having a ring of satellites around your country. I reckon these could require less effort than you're suggesting. I am new to this site so obviously I have never attempted this in practice - and I'm sure somebody has before - but it seems as though an imperialistic arrangement would create a logical way for puppets to be RPed.

In theory.

In practice, the system gets abused by people who create accounts to add to their in-game population or puppet-wank.

And even then, what I find in many cases is that people will neglect it only when it's easy to include them, like having them fight as allies in wars (which can be done legitimately, but this is where it gets easy to flirt with puppet-wank). And so their overall canon is pretty poor, largely because it's hard to split attention between two accounts, depending on the community you're RPing in.

In an active community, like GD or Earth II, there's a lot going on geopolitically and your canon is constantly evolving. Then you can do historic RPs and political RPs, etc, and even one country can have multiple 'nations,' and you can get pretty deep and it can get involved. In those situations, we might already have satellites that we've established in-character through RPing with our main account; a simple, low-intensity (with regards to amount of time one has to put into the canon) puppet -- opening an all new account for that with its own population -- doesn't make sense in that context.

Where it is attractive to open an alternative account, or puppet account, is when you want to work in a different world. I love to read science fiction books and I would love to RP in a future tech setting with an alternative account; I've tried, and I couldn't keep it up. Which is not to say that it's impossible, I know people who have done it (although most often by abandoning the old canon and moving to the new [with the possibility of coming back to old canon later]).

I think that's what Layarteb is referring to, anyway.