The Writers' Block

[Talitoa]

I wan't to make an issue on people leaving the countryside to die and the population moving to the citys.

[SherpDaWerp]

In other news, Altmer Dominion has returned... Not sure if the lack of an editor badge is a product of CTEing and not being "re-registered" or if they've retired from the role.
If it's the latter, I wish them well in future endeavors, and if it's the former, I welcome them to NS after their short hiatus!

[Sedgistan]

He's retired from the team, but may yet return to editing one day.

[Frieden-und Freudenland]

Hello.

So I have a very specific issue idea. In my country, some doctors and other healthcare workers have been resigning due to COVID-19. Our health minister was furious and said that these people will be banned from working in public hospitals in the future. Do you think an issue about doctors leaving work during a pandemic would work?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

It'd be my personal inclination to hold off satirical pandemic-inspired issues for the most part until the pandemic is over. It just seems in poor taste right now, like writing comedies about the Holocaust at the same time as the trains are running to the death camps.

I'm thinking when all this is done there's been enough pandemic-related topics come up to make a kick-ass issue chain, but that's something for the future, when all the death and suffering is done.

This isn't a blanket ban on pandemic-related issues, just a plea to all to remember that this is a real life situation that people are dying of right now, and to be tasteful.

[Pertsjan]

I got some ideas I would like to share before making a draft for them. Please let me know whether they seem interesting or are not too similar to an already existing issue.

1) Phasing out cash money

Issue for countries with a significant IT industry. Issue starts with presenting the leader that the costs of producing cash money is rising and now more than the value of the coins. Treasury minister suggests to phase out cash money and to switch to only using cards and online payment. In one option the elderly resist the change.

2) Artists going to far

Issue for cultured countries with high civil rights. Artists are trying to push the boundary of what is acceptable under the pretense of it being art. With shocking art shows and bizarre performance art, some people are worried it is threatening the decency of the nation and how much they are away from seeing crime being labeled as art.

3) Ideological wall coming down

A foreign country has been split in two for decades with one half being ideologically similar and in the region of @@NAME@@. Now that the wall in that country is coming down, someone in your cabinet is worried that country and others in your region will ideologically drift away from you. Other options call for reform or welcoming the change.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

I got some ideas I would like to share before making a draft for them. Please let me know whether they seem interesting or are not too similar to an already existing issue.

1) Phasing out cash money

Issue for countries with a significant IT industry. Issue starts with presenting the leader that the costs of producing cash money is rising and now more than the value of the coins. Treasury minister suggests to phase out cash money and to switch to only using cards and online payment. In one option the elderly resist the change.

That one has been done. Issues 343, 666 and 1190 allow fully digital money to be established.

We don't have many issues on the consequences of that though, essentially just 437. If you can find an interesting story out of a digital money economy, that'd be worth writing.

2) Artists going to far

Issue for cultured countries with high civil rights. Artists are trying to push the boundary of what is acceptable under the pretense of it being art. With shocking art shows and bizarre performance art, some people are worried it is threatening the decency of the nation and how much they are away from seeing crime being labeled as art.

Art vs. Good Taste been done in many different forms, including shocking clickbait videos (550), using human remains in theatre (728), shocking animated films (801), guerilla knitting (888), pornographic paintings (52), graffiti (114).

However, there are other stories that could still be done if they're pitched in an original and interesting way. Faecal art, for example, or artistic health hazards like a pile of rotting pig carcasses, or something.

3) Ideological wall coming down

A foreign country has been split in two for decades with one half being ideologically similar and in the region of @@NAME@@. Now that the wall in that country is coming down, someone in your cabinet is worried that country and others in your region will ideologically drift away from you. Other options call for reform or welcoming the change.

That sounds original, but could be difficult to do well. Give it a go, though.

[Pertsjan]

That one has been done. Issues 343, 666 and 1190 allow fully digital money to be established.

We don't have many issues on the consequences of that though, essentially just 437. If you can find an interesting story out of a digital money economy, that'd be worth writing.

Thanks for listing the issues that cover the subject. Maybe I will come up with idea for this soon.

Art vs. Good Taste been done in many different forms, including shocking clickbait videos (550), using human remains in theatre (728), shocking animated films (801), guerilla knitting (888), pornographic paintings (52), graffiti (114).

However, there are other stories that could still be done if they're pitched in an original and interesting way. Faecal art, for example, or artistic health hazards like a pile of rotting pig carcasses, or something.

Funny that you mention faecal art actually, I wanted to write an issue about this subject after reading about several unusual works of art including Pietro Manzoni who sold cans containing his own faeces. I will definitely write about something in that direction.

That sounds original, but could be difficult to do well. Give it a go, though.

Sounds like a fun challenge then, will publish a draft soon.

[Kathol Rift]

I’ve got a couple ideas, but I don’t know if there are issues already dealing with them. I have not gotten them over a couple years of playing this game if there are.

1. There have been several hunting-related incidents of people getting shot on accident. Only eligible if a nation has legal firearms. The choices would be to ban hunting, ban firearms, enforce safety courses for hunting, or just leave it alone.

2. The military wants to build a weaponized spaceship. There are members of the public disliking this. Eligible if a nation runs a space program and has WMD’s. Choices would be to build the ship, not build the ship and build a space telescope instead, hand the building of the ship over to a private company, not build the ship and stop spending any money on space, and build a whole fleet of ships to defend against hypothetical aliens.

Do either of these sound good or suspiciously familiar?

[Australian rePublic]

I'm so glad that 1052 acknowledges the existance of the Southern Hemisphere

[Chan Island]

It'd be my personal inclination to hold off satirical pandemic-inspired issues for the most part until the pandemic is over. It just seems in poor taste right now, like writing comedies about the Holocaust at the same time as the trains are running to the death camps.

I'm thinking when all this is done there's been enough pandemic-related topics come up to make a kick-ass issue chain, but that's something for the future, when all the death and suffering is done.

This isn't a blanket ban on pandemic-related issues, just a plea to all to remember that this is a real life situation that people are dying of right now, and to be tasteful.

The big question here though is that we already have a couple of issues that deal with epidemics (all the VODAIDS issues). Are we going to overhaul and reform those, or are we going to dance around them, or just ignore overlap in the creation of this big chain?

[Australian rePublic]

I’ve got a couple ideas, but I don’t know if there are issues already dealing with them. I have not gotten them over a couple years of playing this game if there are.

1. There have been several hunting-related incidents of people getting shot on accident. Only eligible if a nation has legal firearms. The choices would be to ban hunting, ban firearms, enforce safety courses for hunting, or just leave it alone.

2. The military wants to build a weaponized spaceship. There are members of the public disliking this. Eligible if a nation runs a space program and has WMD’s. Choices would be to build the ship, not build the ship and build a space telescope instead, hand the building of the ship over to a private company, not build the ship and stop spending any money on space, and build a whole fleet of ships to defend against hypothetical aliens.

Do either of these sound good or suspiciously familiar?

Not sure about number 1, but number 2 is covered by 147
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=88#147

[Trotterdam]

The big question here though is that we already have a couple of issues that deal with epidemics (all the VODAIS issues). Are we going to overhaul and reform those, or are we going to dance around them, or just ignore overlap in the creation of this big chain?

We've had issues about terrorism before [The Enemy Within], issues options that let you invade other countries before [An International Incident], etc. Some care would need to be exercised to avoid blatant overlap, but there's potential for a more in-depth exploration of topics already touched on. The question is just how many new questions there are left to ask: are there enough of those for a chain? (Though the fact that some measures, such as closing borders, are already completely covered by existing issues can be a problem, since that would be one of the first questions that gets raised in a situation like this. Maybe assume the disease has already gotten into @@NAME@@?)

The biggest problem I foresee is that the actual "how do we find a cure?" type questions are a problem for doctors, not politicians.

Speaking of which:

#950 is the pertinent overlap here. It's not specifically about this epidemic, but the questions about what to do about an epidemic are largely the same regardless of what the latest scare is. Another epidemic being in the news lately is not sufficient grounds for needing a new issue.

I have to revise this statement now. Whether or not I agree that this pandemic is worth taking so much more seriously than all the other disease scares we've had over the past couple decades, it's become clear that people are taking it seriously enough to resorting to measures unprecedented in both real life (the past few centuries of it, anyway) and the NationStates issues.

Many nations - even ones without a history of human rights abuses - have implemented or are seriously considering implementing a total lockdown, where citizens are outright forbidden from leaving their homes without being able to prove a valid reason (which sounds an awful lot like "guilty until proven innocent" to me). I'm pretty sure nothing like that currently exists in NationStates. (It would also be good material for a chain, since the effect would be necessarily short-term - no nation can realistically stay in such a condition as a long-term policy - but it would still have consequences.) Especially in democratic countries, it raises questions of how much power the government should have to suspend normal rights due to a state of emergency without the people having voted for it.

Even without government enforcement, though, there's still sweeping effects, as lots of people are staying home regardless, and lots of businesses are closing down or operating at vastly-reduced efficiency, with long waiting times for getting anything done. That includes hospitals, which are starting to turn away people with not-urgent-enough medical conditions to avoid contagion. Those all have plenty of consequences of their own.

One thing I'm curious about - though it's too early to say how this will turn out in real life, much less make a NationStates issue about - is what the long-term effects will be. We've been seeing drastic changes in people's lifestyles, including to long-held cultural values and traditions, such as shaking hands. How much of this will snap back to normal once the pandemic is over, and how much will leave a permanent mark on our culture?

[Kathol Rift]

I’ve got a couple ideas, but I don’t know if there are issues already dealing with them. I have not gotten them over a couple years of playing this game if there are.

1. There have been several hunting-related incidents of people getting shot on accident. Only eligible if a nation has legal firearms. The choices would be to ban hunting, ban firearms, enforce safety courses for hunting, or just leave it alone.

2. The military wants to build a weaponized spaceship. There are members of the public disliking this. Eligible if a nation runs a space program and has WMD’s. Choices would be to build the ship, not build the ship and build a space telescope instead, hand the building of the ship over to a private company, not build the ship and stop spending any money on space, and build a whole fleet of ships to defend against hypothetical aliens.

Do either of these sound good or suspiciously familiar?

Not sure about number 1, but number 2 is covered by 147
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=88#147

Thanks. I’ll keep working on number 1 then, I might have a draft sometime soon.

[Chan Island]

I've been wracking my brain for a good way to get an issue based on this sort of situation- but to go all the way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Oq-gR1gzoc

Basically, in the 1960s an Israeli agent managed to get very high influential in the Syrian government, so much so that he was being considered as the next prime minister until they discovered he was a spy. Problem is that there is a plethora of ways to go about it. The best ones yet have been:
1) Somebody from @@LEADER@@'s childhood is now president of another country.

2) Your best spy has been promoted to minister in another country, and could be just an assassination away from that top spot.

3) The spy has actually become leader of another nation, but now is torn over what their loyalties are.

4) Spy chief steps forward to you with a crazy scheme of arranging for this to happen.

One constraint of course is the fact that we already have an issue about a @@DENONYM@@ national taking over another nation (they're a rogue general who uses mercenaries to take over some nameless place if memory serves), which somewhat limits the places this can go.

Thoughts?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

There's totally enough questions and dilemmas for a chain on covid-19 already: questions of border control, forcing people to stay indoors, school closures, employment support for people kept out of work, ventilator shortages, hoarding of toilet rolls, and so much more.

What we don't know yet is how this thing is going to pan out, and how many people are going to die overall.

I suggest we hold off on issues relating to the current crisis and the issues it raises for now. Once life (and work) calms down, rest assured that I have been taking notes for future NS awesomeness, and have some ideas for clever mechanics that will help make this an entirely new approach to issue chains.

Right now, of course, I'm not starting it yet, and there's a question of giving these things a tactful amount of time and distance before launching into fictionalisation of the event. The Enemy Within was put together some time after 9/11, and I hope you agree that it hasn't lost any impact from not being contemporaneous with the events.

The Unseen Killer chain (working title) is definitely something I'm considering, but I think we need real life to have a chance to play out its dramas first. For now, I'm grateful if the community could leave this design space open.

[Jutsa]

*writes a dozen half-baked attempts at covering niche issues about pandemics*

[Kathol Rift]

I've been wracking my brain for a good way to get an issue based on this sort of situation- but to go all the way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Oq-gR1gzoc

Basically, in the 1960s an Israeli agent managed to get very high influential in the Syrian government, so much so that he was being considered as the next prime minister until they discovered he was a spy. Problem is that there is a plethora of ways to go about it. The best ones yet have been:
1) Somebody from @@LEADER@@'s childhood is now president of another country.

2) Your best spy has been promoted to minister in another country, and could be just an assassination away from that top spot.

3) The spy has actually become leader of another nation, but now is torn over what their loyalties are.

4) Spy chief steps forward to you with a crazy scheme of arranging for this to happen.

One constraint of course is the fact that we already have an issue about a @@DENONYM@@ national taking over another nation (they're a rogue general who uses mercenaries to take over some nameless place if memory serves), which somewhat limits the places this can go.

Thoughts?

The issue that involves a rogue general taking over another country was something where you didn’t want him to do that, he did it on his own and now you have to deal with it. I would recommend going with your second idea, because in that case, he is doing his job, which could lead to very different opinions on the matter to make solutions out of.

[Carravere]

Is there already some sort of pet issue, either about exotic pets, or how people treat pets?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Is there already some sort of pet issue, either about exotic pets, or how people treat pets?

Yeah, there's a handful of issues about pets.

86, 133, 431, 612, 1007, 1112, 1156, 1191.

The last two are most directly about pet welfare.

As far as I can recall there's no specific issues about importing exotic pets, or about mistreatment of pets by their owners.

[Trotterdam]

As far as I can recall there's no specific issues about importing exotic pets,

There's a submitted draft, though.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Good attention to detail. Nice one.

[Sedgistan]

Gnejs has returned to the Editing team

[Candensia]

Gnejs has returned to the Editing team

Welcome back, Gnejs!

[Australian rePublic]

No issues about diseases. What about issues about panic buying? Are they okay?