The Rejected Times

[Corvus Corax]

It could make occupations so much more secure!

Yeah. People nearly always forget that every new feature that inflict to R/D gameplay in this game has two perspectives for look from. If something is planned and included to the game initially for intended benefits of either side, other side can also benefit from it.

As such things are always in principle universally applicable by all players. That's why desperate cries for change never work well, they only force to adapt new conditions, gamemechanics and circumstances.

Lowest level of gameplay is just here, as when someone start demand changes to how R/D in the multiverse work, you effectively admit you wasn't able to play the game, so you must try transfer your game to a Metagame level.

Defenderists worst inpact to the R/D was that it effectively killed true R/D by annihilating real defenders from it, using ideologically oriented reasons to push through counter-productive changes (influence system, etc) to the game code.

My honest GPer opinion.

[Unibot III]

Regional Officers, would actually give a use for a lot of sleepers and allow for stealth raiding again since Regional Officer coups wouldn't necessarily have to happen at update, nor would it be reported in the activity feed.

I'm stoked.

Interesting...

[The Rejected Times]

Issue XXXV | April 1, 2015

Editor's Notes

As you can see we've gotten rid of that old crap and moved to a new logo - fabulous isn't it? Our test groups felt our new logo needed to better reflect our region's love and appreciation for all things 'unicorn' - our regional animal is a uni, our delegate is a uni, our flag is a uni - naturally we decided: 'NEEDS MOAR UNICORNS' and unicorn'd it we did. Enjoy.

Index

• "April Fools Rush In: Unleash the Shenanigans!" by Unibot.
• "Between Two Sapient Potted Plants: An Interview With Separatist Peoples" by Gruenberg. (Interview)
• "TSP Cabinet Enacts Controversial Executive Policy."
• "Constitution Day in TRR," by Sad-States.
• "Does The WA Need A Portal To The Multiverse?" by Gruenberg.
• "Following ‘The Great Redditous’!" by Starrie.
• "Should He or Shouldn’t He? Justice's Decision to Not Recuse Sparks Heated Debate in TNP," by Unibot.
• "Getting Low Stats in NationStates," by Dr George.

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April Fools Rush In: Unleash the Shenanigans!
COMMENTARY | UNIBOT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Late into the evening, NationStaters were twittering with anticipation – this year’s April Fools event was soon to be launched… or was it? Was the newly announced ‘chain issues’, the April Fools prank (note: that turned out to be an actual feature)? Did Albion really leave the United Imperial Armed Forces? Was there going to be an April Fools prank at all? All questions that were dominating the active discussions online. Surprise, surprise, however, NationStates most certainly did have a ‘little something’ planned for its users this April Fools, a new mini-game in fact: ‘Cards Against NationStates’.


"Necromancy won. Defenders do like reviving those old puppets of theirs..."

The interactive game allows players to create their own matches of a variant of Cards Against Humanity that has been customised by both the site admins and players themselves with NationStates serving as a light, overarching theme to the cards. Regions, for example, have set up their own channels to be able to participate in these shenanigans, so that their residents (and others) can play a match amongst themselves and collectively decide their regional humour hegemony, aka. ‘The Card Czar’.

NationStates wasn’t the only place getting in on the joke, however – The South Pacific is inviting forum members to pursue their recent ‘Administrator Training Programme’ and ascend to their forum administration to fill some immediate vacancies needing filling; some of the recent applicants to the programme include Todd McCloud (of ‘Brave Little Toaster’ fame), Hileville (of ‘I Kicked Everyone Out Of Our Last Forum’ fame), and Railana (‘Citizenship Status: Undetermined’). A sudden death finale might be the only way to decide the eventual winner. Fight! Fight!

Perhaps one of the more amusing pranks of the day came from Jeck and Gregoryisgodistan who pretended as though the April Fools joke was only displaying for some users - prompting a few [s]suckers[/s] players to create dozens of nations to try to access this year's April Fools joke, while others complained loudly about how unfair it was that they didn't get to participate in April Fools. Nonetheless, so far the reaction to NationStates’s Cards Against NationStates appears to be mostly positive, with players praising its creativity and its interactive content as well as the collective nature of the mini-game.

How does this year’s April Fools prank rate with you, dear readers?

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Between Two Sapient Potted Plants: An Interview With Separatist Peoples
INTERVIEW | GRUENBERG, CORRESPONDENT

The Rejected Times was able to get some time on the record with Separatist Peoples, Delegate of Monkey Island, Minister of WA Affairs for The North Pacific, member of UNOG, and one of the more prolific recent WA resolution authors, having passed three GA resolutions in the space of the last few months. He agreed to sit down for a few questions, in exchange for a free round of Ambassador Bell's favourite bourbon at the Strangers' Bar.

Congratulations on becoming TNP's WA Minister.

Thank you!

Over the last few terms TNP has had a number of WA Ministers and Deputy Ministers, none of whom appear to have done very much. Do you have any particular agenda or plans for your term?

My goals for this term resolve around making the TNP voting process more efficient and inclusive and revitalizing WALL. When Tomb first offered the position to me, the goal of improving the use of what should be an effective drafting resource was heavily stressed. It’s a perfect opportunity: We have a potent mix of WA veterans who can draft free of the often frustrating atmosphere of the on-site forum, and a direct line to some of the largest delegate votes in the game. That we aren’t taking advantage of that is just ridiculous.

Additionally, I plan on maintaining the high standards of participation and punctuality for our internal voting system. I’m hoping to draw in more citizens to the discussions to get a wider base of representation with in TNP. As a feeder region, we receive constant infusions of new blood and new views, and I want to focus on taking advantage of that with our internal process.

TNP is the largest region, with the most WA members and highest endorsement count. Yet its WA activity has been fairly low for quite some time. Why do you think this is, and what, if anything, can you or the region do to change this?

Part of my hopes with improving participation in TNP’s voting process is that we can raise some WA awareness in our citizens. Perhaps, if we can convince enough players to join in the at-vote debate, we’ll find a few brave souls interested in playing a larger part in forming that law from the beginning. I certainly make a point of directing inquiring minds to the Festering Snakepit, but it’s hard to predict what will appeal to the mostly transient mass of players that the game sees.

TNP is a member of WALL, an organization has accomplished absolutely nothing and doesn't even appear to have a defined purpose. Do you think this is likely to change or do you think it will continue to be utterly and completely useless?

Well, I certainly hope it won’t stay that way! As I mentioned before, it’s a unique opportunity to focus the collective wisdom of some of the best minds in the GA, independent of the naysayers and dogpiling nastiness that’s been prevalent. I’ve made it a priority to support WALL’s use or, if the current model doesn’t manage to take off the ground, brainstorming some different strategies to improve its use and appeal.

Do you think the WA forum is actually of any real use in drafting proposals?

I absolutely do. The WA forum is, by far, the most accessible venue for players to read and analyze prospective drafts. I’ve always felt that WA laws benefited from exposure to the surprisingly wide demographic of active players we have in the WA. Even the newer players who haven’t grasped the full range of nuance the WA entails can have surprising insights.

When one doesn’t consider the wide net we cast for content experts, the maze of rules and passed resolutions are still very challenging. Coming to the forum, especially as a new player, provides explanations and examples to understand that maze.

You have a background in environmental science. Would you agree that the the WA's environmental regulation is in a poor state? Why do you think there are so few good environmental proposals?

The WA’s Environmental policy is appalling. I mostly blame it on abuse of the free-form nature of WA roleplay. Too many players can look at issues like greenhouse gas emissions or climate change and claim it doesn’t exist in their reality. They’ll claim that their citizens breathe methane and prefer a temperature of a kajillion degrees Q, and any attempt to accommodate that just takes the teeth out of the proposal. This is a problem even in non-controversial topics, like habitat protection.

If you couple that with an attitude of oppositional defiance towards any WA regulation, which is, apparently, the 2014 definition of National Sovereignty, you have a toxic atmosphere for any Environmental proposal. I’m hopeful that the potential Category overhaul will expand Environmental enough to overcome this issue.

You've been involved in the WA for years. Do you think that the moderation of the WA has improved in that time?

In 2011, when I began to seriously play in the GA, moderator participation was altogether more prevalent. The rulings were consistent and followed a fairly predictable, logical course. I took a brief hiatus in 2012 and, when I returned, the mods had all but vanished.

What's one change you would like to see made to the WA?

Realistically, I’d like to see the categories expanded, especially in the Environmental field. One of the biggest challenges to writing certain laws, especially in the Environmental category, is the restrictive category options, and I think much of the stagnating GA activity would be revived with a few more options and a little more flexibility in the existing ones. After all, we keep hearing about all these new statistics the Admins keep adding; why not make good use of them?

The WA recently voted on the Resolution of the Year, with Reproductive Freedoms winning and your own Rules of Surrender coming third. What's your favourite resolution of 2014? And of all time?

As attached as I am to my own projects, I did think that GAR#301 Ban on Leaded Fuel was my favorite. I always like successful Environmental legislation and it took a topic widely taken for granted and proved there was a vested interest in the international community to address. The IC implementation was considered cheap and easy, and I learned more than I expected about the entire process. I've always been a big fan of the work of Bears Armed.

Of all time, then definitely GAR#8 World Assembly Headquarters. The WA takes itself far too seriously these days, and reading over the text always lightens my mood.

You recently ran a "Demographic Survey" of the WA. Did any results stand out to you or surprise you?

What really shocked me when I started to tally the votes was just how many of the active players, and I mean the ones who really weigh in on the legality debates, have no legal background at all. This was a really pleasant surprise for me, as it indicated that we have a much more inclusive community than might appear at first blush.

I also was impressed to see how many old geezers we have, waving their canes around and shouting at new posters to get off their lawns.

Would you rather the WA voted on a proposal about duck-sized horses, or horse-sized ducks?

Duck-sized horses. Talk about a security threat: A pack of them sneak over your border, and then BOOM! Everybody’s shins are sore for weeks. International Security | Mild. XD

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TSP Cabinet Enacts Controversial Executive Policy
Evil Wolf barred from taking office as MoFA
COMMENTARY | TRR STAFF


'El Wolf' rocks The South Pacific Coast; drama ensues...

A newly announced policy from the outgoing cabinet in The South Pacific will bar Evil Wolf from cabinet on a provisional basis, pending the outcome of the outstanding court cases surrounding the legitimacy and validity of his election as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Without this executive policy, Evil Wolf would have taken office as Minister of Foreign Affairs today, April 1st 2015.

Evil Wolf celebrated a surprising victory over Glen-Rhodes last week to claim the new Minister of Foreign Affairs position, the victory itself was a narrow defeat for Glen-Rhodes – in fact, the initial count was a tie between Glen-Rhodes and Evil Wolf, 24-24; however Hileville, the Election Commissioner, deemed one voter to no longer meet the citizenship activity requirements and dismissed their vote, resulting in a contested 24-23 win for Evil Wolf. Initially, Hileville had opened up a legal question on the matter of whether managing citizenships fell within the purview of the Election Commissioner – controversially, however, Hileville withdrew the legal question upon dismissing the contested vote unilaterally – in doing so, Hileville did not wait to hear the court’s results and left some to question his integrity as a public official.

To ‘fill the vacuum’ left behind with the withdrawal of Hileville’s legal question, a number of citizens have requested legal questions regarding the behaviour of the Election Commissioner and the legitimacy of the election of Evil Wolf. Glen-Rhodes has asked a question to the courts with regards to citizenship, he argues that the law clearly suggests that citizenship is terminated after it is observed that a citizen has failed to meet the activity requirements – this would argue that the offending vote should not have been dismissed as though the termination of citizenship had been retroactive. Escade has asked a comprehensive list of questions to the courts, including whether the Election Commissioners had the authority to dictate who has citizenship and who does not, and whether a failure to properly check the activity of citizens in the past could result in election results being voided altogether. Unibot, finally questioned whether or not Evil Wolf’s Conflict of Interests papers had been filed properly; Unibot argued that Evil Wolf failed to properly identify that he had participated in The Empire.

The latter legal question has just been answered by the High Court, Justice Farengeto’s final argument claims that for the purposes of the Conflict of Interests, Evil Wolf could only have been regarded as having participated in ‘The East Pacific Empire’ and not ‘The Empire’ (drawing a legal fiction between the organisation which couped The East Pacific and the illegitimate government it tried to implement), thus claiming membership in ‘The East Pacific’ alone satisfies his need to identify his past history in regions and organisations, despite the fact that readers of the Conflict of Interests paper would not be informed of his past history and participation in The Empire’s imperial state. The High Court did not explain how this distinction was to be determined, nor did it justify the acceptance of ‘de facto’ governments for the purposes of Conflict of Interests. The controversial ruling could also impact past members of the South Pacific Socialist Republic (SPSR) who now would only have to acknowledge their previous membership in ‘The South Pacific’ and not their participation in the coup of The South Pacific – significantly ‘watering down’ the value of Conflict of Interests filings for citizens. An appeal is expected to be requested.

Chief Justice Farengeto hinted that the court’s response to the next open legal question on the matter would be published sometime in the “next few days,” until then, however, some citizens have taken the matter into their own hands – one assembly-goer, Eluvatar, has sought to end this debacle through a new proposed assembly resolution, “A Bill to Resolve A Contested Election for Minister of Foreign Affairs,” which would declare to start of special elections to decide the new Foreign Minister. The resolution, although proving popular, was criticised by the Chief Justice who begged assembly-goers to show patience and “have faith” in the High Court – this tension reflects the ongoing intergovernmental conflict between the executive, legislative and judicial branches, all attempting through one way or another, resolve issues as they arise by claiming constitutional supremacy.

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Constitution Day in TRR
The Rejected Realms Embraces Constitutional Reform
COMMENTARY | SAD-STATES, EDITORIAL ASSISTANT


"The constitution in all its glory...."

The Rejected Realms has celebrated its 'Constitution Day' by not only pursuing constitutional reform, but also a grand and unique project to bring its constitution to life through an old-fashioned, 'aged' version of the region's foundational legal document. Constitution Day is an official regional holiday in the Rejected Realms under the Regional Holidays Act; it celebrates the day its founders drafted and adopted its constitution. The original constitution was ratified on March 17 2011 - out of its original nine signers, a few of them are still around, including Sedgistan, Whamabama, Dyr Nasad and the Rejected Realms' current delegate, Unibot.

In many ways, however, given the constitution's centrality to the region's democracy and equality, Constitution Day is important to rejects because it acknowledges that they are equal within the region regardless if they are a 'defender', 'invader' or even a cactus. Remember, cacti are people too...

Unibot spearheaded the project to create a real-life version of the Rejected Realms' constitution. "A proper constitution should be.. dignified and aged," writes Unibot, "so, naturally, I got to work to realise the Rejected Realm's constitution in real life." It was a week long project that involved designing a medieval version of the legal text (complete with blackletters!), baking and broiling paper, burning and crumpling its edges ... and the final touch? A seal made of red wax, piled onto the faux constitution with a spoon and adorned with a make-shift imprint from a hodgepodge of toys and kitchen utensils. If you're interested in seeing more of the final product or more about how it was made, see here.

While rejects praised Unibot's craftsmanship, reform of the actual constitution was well underway; a number of proposals to reform the constitution were considered throughout the month of March. First, citizens voted to establish term lengths for the traditionally termless members of the Rejected Realms' Citizenship Council, and fixed term lengths for speakers too. These moves are intended to improve the activity of government officials and give them a better understanding of how long their service is expected to continue. The Assembly is currently voting on an amendment to consider whether or not the region shall "shall uphold the principle of self-determination and refrain from the invasion of other regions outside of times of war" - a decision which would constitutionalise the region's longstanding history on peace and the use of force. Meanwhile, a Bill of Rights was also proposed as a constitutional amendment, but it is now expected that it will be rewritten and included as a general law, akin to Victoria's Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities or the UK Human Rights Act.

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Does The WA Need A Portal To The Multiverse?
OPINION | GRUENBERG, CORRESPONDENT

Gruenberg considers whether the World Assembly needs to 'get real'....

You're a new player to the game, or someone who's been around a while but has never tried out the World Assembly. You decide that 20,000 nations can't be wrong and join the organization, or you've already become a member for reasons such as regional security. You have an idea for a new proposal and want to get a few reactions your draft, or you have a strong opinion about the resolution currently being voted on and want to test your rhetorical mettle against the experienced "Ambassadors" of the WA forum. You enter wanting to play what is essentially a Model UN game, albeit conducted on the scale of a World full of over 100,000 nations, to debate categories such as Human Rights and Global Disarmament, or just to have fun.

And yet the replies you're met with are pretty strange. You can't ban incest because there are space aliens whose magical biochemistry means inbreeding poses no risk of genetic mutation. You can't legislate on shoulder mounted missile launchers because some species don't have shoulders. You can't pass healthcare reform because the law of gravity might be different in another dimension. You can't institute a patent law without specifying the patent lifespan in terms of the decay of caesium-133 isotopes. You can't write a proposal on abortion without catering to sapient macropods and monotremes.

Let's end the thought experiment, because rather than being hypotheticals, all of the above are arguments that have actually been made in the WA forum. And not by the new players dipping their toes in WA roleplay for the first time, but by the experienced WA players whose experience is strongly recommended to such newbies by the moderators; in some cases, it has been the moderators themselves making these arguments. One ruling - thankfully rescinded - tried to ban people from legislating on ozone depletion, presumably because some NS nations are roleplayed on planets that don't have ozone layers.

Is it really surprising that the WA is one of the most stagnant areas of the whole NS game, with one of the smallest player bases and highest barriers to newbie participation, when anyone wanting to discuss politics and policy ends up having to either cater to the most bizarre possibilities concocted solely for the purposes of being ornery, or simply abandon vast swathes of promising legislative topics altogether? There is also a more than lingering suspicion that some players use the pretext of fantastical scenarios - that they have little intention of actually exploring through world building or collaborative roleplay - to cover up deficiencies in their debating skills. Why can't the WA regulate organic pollutants, given the success of the Stockholm Convention provides a clear model? Well, there are no talking pot plants in Sweden, but in the WA...

The situation has arisen because of a particular MetaGaming rule, confusingly conceived, confusingly interpreted, and confusingly applied, that dates back to the days of the NSUN. Some 11 years ago a well meaning convention on biodiversity was deleted for mentioning a roleplayed archipelago of islands analogous to the real world Galapagos. Acknowledging roleplay particulars, it was decided, amounted to "forced roleplaying". The ruling was solidified when another proposal, to create an Olympic Games, was deleted for trying to organize an event on the forums. From then on, both moderators and players increasingly came to apply the "multiverse" view of roleplay - in which anyone could roleplay more or less whatever they like - to the NSUN, and later the WA.

The ruling has become completely distorted over time: far from protecting roleplay, it has come to effectively do quite the opposite and all but ban creative roleplay from engaging with the WA. At the same time, drastic limits on what players can legislate on have been put in place: it is barely even possible to use the Human Rights category to talk about humans. The WA has passed very little meaningful environmental law - it is one area it actually lags behind the NSUN despite newbie players often claiming the second iteration of the organization has surpassed its predecessor - and a major contributing factor is that virtually any environmental regulation is met with a claim of species who live entirely on their own single planet, or for whom greenhouse gases or toxic waste sludge are actually delightful fragrances.

Compounding the problem is the disconnect between forumside and gameside. On the forums, players are more amenable to speculative fiction, but the vast majority of WA players never even venture so far as the WA forum. And those players - perhaps taking their cue from the fact that the core NS game elements such as national descriptions and daily issues are clearly written in a modern day, modern tech, semi-realistic universe - routinely reject any proposals venturing into the fantastical. Proposals to acknowledge "sapient rights" have always been crushed, while an organization that has regulated nuclear, biological, chemical and radiological weapons voted down a ban on "weapons of planetary destruction".

Thus we are now at a position where, far from allowing all players to take part in the WA, the MetaGaming rules limit effective participation only to those first willing to acknowledge sapient species, futuristic technologies, multiple worlds, and what more or less amounts to magic when it comes to "compliance gnomes", another gross distortion of a once sensible ruling that has been twisted beyond measure into something quite ridiculous: during the debate on Repeal "International Criminal Court", supporters of the repeal actually claimed that literally no rapes could ever take place in any WA country, because the WA had outlawed rape and the "gnomes" ensured there were never any violations of WA law.

No one is proposing that roleplaying speculative fiction should be restricted, or that anyone's keys to the Death Star be confiscated. But with NS now having a "Portal to the Multiverse" dedicated to permitting such expansive visions separate from the main "Diplomacy" roleplay forums based on the game, one wonders why the WA has to remain so completely hamstrung in a manner that constrains both roleplayers and legislators. Believing in magic should not be a prerequisite for playing a part of the game that is meant to be about creating international law. And unless there is a serious effort to review the MetaGaming rule and see whether the limit on "forced roleplaying" still makes sense, it is difficult to see how the WA player base will ever seriously grow.

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Following ‘The Great Redditous’!
COMMENTARY | STARRIE, SENIOR JOURNALIST

Starrie, keeps us starry-eyed with statistics this week as he follows the pattern of recent national movement to find who were the influx’s biggest winners…

An era has approached – first, The Great War… then The Great Decline… The Great Revival … and, oh, will you look at that, The Great Redditous is upon us! Batten down the hatches, there’s a storm coming!

You’ll have to excuse me for the dramatics. But this truly was an event that could have a lasting effect on NationStates for some time: with NationStates linked to users on reddit, thousands of new users were attracted to visit NationStates over the past week. The new users joined NationStates in droves, setting up accounts, joining the World Assembly and even causing some nasty rule-breaking and enforcement issues while Game-Created Regions, especially, dealt with the unexpected flood of new players.

Nation creation following the initial influx (which featured nearly a thousand nations being created per hour) has still been unusually high as of late, with [violet], site admin, noting that “over the last year, we average 45 new nations per hour, but for the last week or so it's been more like 70,” while [violet] also added that at 136,000 active nations (now 145,000+), NationStates may have set an all-time new record for most nations – not bad for a game turning thirteen this year! Max Barry welcomed the new players who joined during the influx with a news post in-game titled, ‘Welcome, New Leaders!’

One question you may have been wondering was, where did all of these nations go? Excellent question!



Here I’ve depicted the movement of nations created from March 10 to 13 from the period of March 10 to March 23. Not shown above are isolated regions or regions with only a single nation movement. Nation movement was only counted if the nation stayed at least one day in each region. 253 regions and 667 edges are shown here. GCRs, of course, in red.

After the influx, some regions gained more from the Great Redditous as luck (or good recruitment) would have it, and I’ve done my best to tabulate those ‘winners’ here…

1. The Rejected Realms (+91, -39, Net: +52)
2. Europeia (+11, -5, Net: +6)
3. The Beach (+9, -3, Net: +6)
4. NationStates (+8, -2, Net: +6)
5. JCID (+7, -2, Net: +5)
6. Eirmount (+6, -1, Net: +5)
7. The SmorgasLands (+5, -0, Net: +5)
8. The 3rd Street Saints (+5, -0, Net: +5)
9. Twisted FOG (+5, -0, Net: +5)
10. The New Galactic Empire (+9, -5, Net: +4)

Above are the regions with the most net gain due to nation movement recorded during the influx; but since this contains only a small subset of all movements, some of the regions on this ‘Top 10’ might not actually be on the Top 10 had I the entire dataset. Also this list excludes feeders.

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Should He or Shouldn’t He? Justice's Decision to Not Recuse Sparks Heated Debate in TNP
“Judicial Conflict of Interests Act” aims to resolve outstanding issues surrounding case
COMMENTARY | UNIBOT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF


"The jury is still out on Justice Funkadelia..."

Flemingovia has recently posted a court request to consider whether or not Justice Funkadelia should have recused himself from presiding over a recent case. The case in question regarded the proceedings of a judicial election which elected him and two others justices, Kialga and Severisen – while these two justices recused themselves due to conflict of interests, Justice Funkadelia chose to not recuse himself.

The plaintiff, Flemingovia, was one of the candidates in the recent Judicial Elections – losing to Kialga by two votes – he argues, however, that the election should have been re-started when the election commissioners were informed that ‘abstain’ had not been included as an option on the election’s ballot. Flemingovia did indicate, however, that he did not seek to see the election repeated.

Republican Pacific Islands, the deputy speaker, has proposed a constitutional amendment entitled an “Judicial Conflict of Interests Act” to address some issues surrounding the case – the proposed amendments to the constitution and code of laws enables the appointment of citizens to replace recused justices as ‘hearing officers’ and requires justices to recuse themselves if they have a ‘material interest’ in the case. The proposal has not gone without controversy, however; some including Flemingovia has argued the law should not be necessary and that Justice Funkadelia simply failed to act as the law already required him to act, while Eluvatar criticised the new proposal for enabling the Regional Assembly to force a justice to recuse. The amendment needs to attain two-thirds support for passage by tomorrow evening; it is currently failing narrowly at 17-9.

The Court of The North Pacific is now in closed deliberation to decide whether or not Justice Funkadelia ought to have recused himself.

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Getting Low Stats in NationStates
FEATURE | DR GEORGE, GUEST COLUMNIST

Our resident issue guru discusses the secrets of getting low in-game stats...

In the last article I discussed getting high stats, so for this essay, I would like to share my thoughts on getting across-the-board low stats, (L, L, L), a Psychotic Dictatorship (PD).

Overall Philosophy

It seems to me that there are arguably at least three different approaches to lowering freedoms:

• Being Paternalistic;
• Being Brutal; and
• Being Extreme.

Probably most PDs (and other low-freedom governments) are a mixture of the three, but if you were purely to follow each of the three with three different nations, while all would be PDs, they would be quite distinct. The good news is that it is quite easy to demolish your three categories—simply take away the freedom to disagree with you, the government. The bad news is, at least for me, it is quite difficult to get (0, 0, 0). While most of my attention has been on higher freedom nations since I started playing over ten years ago, I have occasionally had low freedom nations and I have never achieved (0, 0, 0), although such can be done. Like with high freedoms, low freedom choices will have the greatest effect on players at the opposite freedom pole and in the center, while if you are already at low or extremely low levels, the effect may be less apparent.

Being Paternalistic

There are any number of RL things that most of us comply with that NS gives you the option to challenge. Most of the time, at least in western, industrialized democracies, such things are simply public policy with common consent and generally only fringe-ish people challenge them. When I was in high school, I was suspended for not having all of my vaccines up to date; while there is a growing movement attempting to link vaccines to autism, there is no scientific evidence for such. I did not go to the government or the press to protest that my rights were being trampled. Rather, I called the office of my family doctor, explained my situation, and was immediately taken in and given the required vaccines, and returned to school that day. Even if there really were an infinitesimal risk of autism, as public health policy, it makes enormous sense to vaccinate against things like polio or rubella to prevent outbreaks of these diseases, which could kill or maim thousands.

In NS, it is a high freedom option to allow people to refuse vaccines and thus a low-freedom option to make them compulsory. You can thus seek low stats by denying your people the option of being what many of us would call ‘stupid’ or ‘anti-social;’ that is, you are being paternalistic, forcing people to make the ‘right’ or conformist choice. There are a goodly number of such options within the issues. In addition to vaccines:

(A) fluoridating water;
(B) teaching evolution;
(C) having speed limits;
(D) requiring children to go to school;
(E) having police patrol rural roadways;
(F) having police arrest drivers with road rage;
(G) having police arrest drag racers;
(H) outlawing or restricting drugs (including alcohol and tobacco), especially illicit ones;
(I) outlawing graffiti;
(J) outlawing cannibalism;
(K) outlawing gambling by minors;
(L) preserving the right to a fair trial;
(M) preserving the judiciary;
(N) allowing people to plea bargain;
(O) banning certain books;
(P) having prisons;
(Q) outlawing blood sports;
(R) remaining a unified country and not breaking up into autonomous regions;
(S) counseling depressed or alcoholic or imprisoned people;
(T) outlawing euthanasia;
(U) outlawing firearms;
(V) outlawing the sale of human organs;
(W) outlawing predatory lending;
(X) outlawing public nudity;
(Y) requiring truth/fact checking in reporting;
(Z) maintain your current age of majority (presumably 18) for purchasing alcohol, getting married, voting, etc.;

...and lots of others. Note the above list concentrates on Civil Rights and Political Freedoms; assuming you want a low Economy, too, you will do things like requiring industries to clean up after themselves, requiring businesses to publish safety guides for use with their products, requiring workplaces to recompense people for damages and pay next of kin for accidental deaths, and requiring businesses to provide safe working conditions. The more regulation, the better. If you stay strictly and only on this path, you will likely score well in the Niceness and Safety rankings and be generally an OK place to live, even if the government is a bit intrusive.

Being Brutal

If you go this route, you will definitely generate a dystopian, totalitarian nightmare of a state (which perhaps is what you want). The emphasis here is overkill, with particular emphasis on ‘kill.’ We might also call it ‘disproportionate response.’ Nations going this route will be highly intolerant, particularly of dissent, but also by less-than-friendly other governments in the region. They will typically have a bloated military and army and respond immediately and decisively to any threat, real or imagined, domestic or international. They will:

(1) suppress, usually kill as treasonous, people asking for not so much dictatorship, please;
(2) manufacture weapons of mass destruction, including the infamous ‘moon cannon;’
(3) militarize space, including having space marines;
(4) grow ever larger military and police forces;
(5) intercept communications;
(6) require universal donation of blood for genetic profiling;
(7) require prisoners to donate blood;
(8) require prisoners to be slave labour;
(9) require prisoners to participate in blood sports for the entertainment of the population;
(10) have capital punishment for a wide variety of offenses, from drug dealing to jay walking;
(11) torture foreign spies;
(12) force potential immigrants to navigate through a highly lethal border on live TV;
(13) have police arrest gypsies and homeless people;
(14) assassinate unfriendly foreign leaders;
(15) go to war very easily;
(16) develop excessively brutal and lethal weaponry;
(17) have public floggings and executions;
(18) implant GPS devices in people;
(19) expand into foreign territories to stop genocide or grab resources just because they can;
(20) have universal conscription;

...and many others. Note such states don’t have to be, and indeed, generally aren’t religious, unless one considers statism a religion.

Being Extreme

Think thuggery here, ranging from “I would never do that IRL” to “OMG, no one has ever done that!” (but actually, historically, they have). These odd, weird, fundamentalist, out of the ordinary choices restrict freedom in favor of some privileged point of view. Perhaps moreso than the other two categories, we see how an unrestrained dictator treats “my little playthings.” Many of these choices will reflect caesaropapism—the blending of government and religion or having the secular ruler also be the head of the religion (and often the judiciary, too). Note they can swing the other direction on religion, too, persecuting it. These governments don’t hesitate:

(I) to ban voting (duh);
(II) to sacrifice people (from the homeless to everyone’s firstborn) on pagan altars;
(III) to force everyone to join the state cult/adopt an official state religion;
(IV) to worship you, the supreme leader;
(V) to write your own holy scriptures;
(VI) to force conformity on people of different backgrounds;
(VII) to encourage uniformity by setting quotas or offering prizes for depictions in movies/TV;
(VIII) to barcode citizens to keep track of their movements and prevent crime;
(IX) to ban cars;
(X) to ban clothing;
(XI) to ban computers or technology;
(XII) to ban supposedly offensive books;
(XIII) to ban meat-eating;
(XIV) to ban immigration;
(XV) to embrace Violetism;
(XVI) to embrace Catholicism, particularly when you choose the head of your religious works;
(XVI) to have the state financially support religion;
(XVIII) to tax churches;
(XIX) to ban all religions;
(XX) to ban all religious displays on public property;
(XXI) to ban the teaching of religion in schools;
(XXII) to ban religious clothing or symbols being worn;
(XXIII) to assume control of the newspapers;
(XXIV) to forbid newspapers from printing unfavourable accounts about the government;
(XXV) to outlaw nude art;
(XXVI) to outlaw offensive material on TV;
(XXVII) to ban or restrict the internet;
(XXVIII) to ban gays in the military;
(XXIX) to ban recognition of gays and gay rights;
(XXX) to declare you as “Supreme Overlord for Life;”

...and quite a few more.

With some 300-odd issues, most of which have one or more low-freedom options, there are countless ways to get down to (Outlawed, Imploded, Outlawed), but keep in mind some low freedom options for one category may actually raise, even if only slightly, freedoms in another or both other categories, hence the difficulty in achieving (0, 0, 0).

---

[Belschaft]

There has never been a "Peoples Republic of The South Pacific" (PRSP). The name of Milograd's brief regime was "The South Pacific Social Republic" (SPSR).

[Kringalia]

If we must be accurate, the name was South Pacific Socialist Republic.

[Solorni]

Communists are so confusing

[The Rejected Times]

If we must be accurate, the name was South Pacific Socialist Republic.

Thanks. Much appreciated.

[Jeckland]

Good to see my lil' trick got a mention, and I only had to threaten death once to ensure it did!

[Valrifell]

I demand at least partial credit for helping in the prank.
Please.

[Jeckland]

I demand at least partial credit for helping in the prank.
Please.

Tbh at first I thought you were taking the piss

[Aurum Rider]

I thoroughly enjoy Nugut being one of the larger circles on that chart.

[Marelius]

Oh look, Ceirien's one of the decent sized circles

That was an exauhsting three hours.

[Unibot III]

That was an exauhsting three hours.

Think how exhausting it must have been for Starrie!

I particularly liked Gruen's articles. I thought his section about climate change in the WA was on point.

[Ambroscus Koth]

This chart is golden

[Sporaltryus]

Lazarus isn't in red.

[Pergamon]

You didn't enclude the Ironmogers. I am dissapointed.

[Evil Wolf]

(Image)
'El Wolf' rocks The South Pacific Coast; drama ensues...

The night is calling, I have to go
The wolf is hungry, he runs the show
He's licking his lips, he's ready to win
On the hunt tonight for love at first sting!

[Starrie]

Lazarus isn't in red.
(Image)

oops.
I did remember to put Osiris in red though. Or was that Balder? puny sinkers

[Nephmir]

Lazarus isn't in red.

That's a first...

[Glen-Rhodes]

Regarding Gruen's article... I always had a policy of ignoring the arguments of players who didn't conform to MT-human standards. I also normally ignored players who acted unrealistically, like saying they'd engage in total warfare over some minor incident. It was my way of building some standards.

I'm of the opinion that there should be standards, and those standards should be MT-human. Sorry Bears Armed and whoever has sapient talking plants. Also I remember some player who had a hive mind nation. You all can feel free to role play to your heart's extent, but the application of the rules should be based solely on MT-human standards. We shouldn't be writing proposals to satisfy your unique snowflakeness, even if you're just trying to have fun,

That always rubbed people the wrong way. But I managed to pass resolutions without them anyways!

[Valrifell]

Regarding Gruen's article... I always had a policy of ignoring the arguments of players who didn't conform to MT-human standards.

Specist.

[Venico]

Regarding Gruen's article... I always had a policy of ignoring the arguments of players who didn't conform to MT-human standards. I also normally ignored players who acted unrealistically, like saying they'd engage in total warfare over some minor incident. It was my way of building some standards.

I'm of the opinion that there should be standards, and those standards should be MT-human. Sorry Bears Armed and whoever has sapient talking plants. Also I remember some player who had a hive mind nation. You all can feel free to role play to your heart's extent, but the application of the rules should be based solely on MT-human standards. We shouldn't be writing proposals to satisfy your unique snowflakeness, even if you're just trying to have fun,

That always rubbed people the wrong way. But I managed to pass resolutions without them anyways!

Glen Rhodes on justifying why he's a bigot in the WA.

"They're just not people!" He claimed the other day. "It just ain't right what this world's come to."

[Jean Pierre Trudeau]

Regarding Gruen's article... I always had a policy of ignoring the arguments of players who didn't conform to MT-human standards. I also normally ignored players who acted unrealistically, like saying they'd engage in total warfare over some minor incident. It was my way of building some standards.

I'm of the opinion that there should be standards, and those standards should be MT-human. Sorry Bears Armed and whoever has sapient talking plants. Also I remember some player who had a hive mind nation. You all can feel free to role play to your heart's extent, but the application of the rules should be based solely on MT-human standards. We shouldn't be writing proposals to satisfy your unique snowflakeness, even if you're just trying to have fun,

That always rubbed people the wrong way. But I managed to pass resolutions without them anyways!

Meh... I'm going to have to partially agree with Glen here. The Bears I can deal with, but the talking plants, and star empires not so much. I'm not trying to be specist, nor an rp killjoy, but lets be realistic here. It is fucking near impossible to get anything done in the WA anymore, because "someone" doesn't recognize that carbon dioxide, or space-time actually exists. Proposals need to be MT-Human, and that should be the standard. You can manipulate your own roleplay in your head as to how you interpret all you want, but it needs to be written MT-Human. Are the mods ever going to implement, let alone enforce a rule such as that? Given the current state of WA moderation, I would say it far more likely Halc will disband the TBR, and join the UDL, but hey anything can happen.....

[Unibot III]

I think it's more just a cultural thing - it needn't be enforced by the mods - some experienced players should just bunker down and start discussing climate change as a serious issue for the WA to tackle with another dimensions to it ... if experienced, 'credible' WA players start tackling it, the next generation will follow suit.

Not only is the WA behind on climate change in comparison to the NSUN, it's behind on climate change in comparison to the RLUN!

[The Dark Star Republic]

ou all can feel free to role play to your heart's extent, but the application of the rules should be based solely on MT-human standards.

Woah, I'm not suggesting for a minute that the people making these arguments are actually interested in roleplaying. It's just a cheap and easy tactic they've picked up to snipe any proposal.

I think it's more just a cultural thing - it needn't be enforced by the mods - some experienced players should just bunker down and start discussing climate change as a serious issue for the WA to tackle with another dimensions to it ... if experienced, 'credible' WA players start tackling it, the next generation will follow suit.

LOL. Sapient pigs will sooner fly.