Modern World STGOD Concept

[Siege]

If we don't have a clear reason for that northern bit of the continent to be there we might as well trim it. There's already quite a lot of continent to fill as it is.

Namechange for the two archipelagos owned by San Dorado: North-ish is Angel Archipelago where (some of) the airfields used as refueling stops during Thanas' Eighty Years War are located. These airfields are now mostly abandoned, although you might get air pirates operating out of some of them. Because nothing makes captains surrender their cargo ships faster than being strafed by '50s fighters.

To the south-ish is Umbra Tyche Agathe, home to private islands, corporate space launch facilities and dinosaur cloning.

[Simon_Jester]

I have a few questions:

1) Siege, remind me again whether San Dorado has a nominal government or not? I know it has no governing body willing or capable of controlling the megacorps, but does one exist?

2) Does anyone else get the feeling that we might profitably split this thread into a map construction thread, a nation description thread, and a concepts/rules thread?

3) I am very unclear on what kind of moderator arrangement we have. DO we have moderators? If so, who? If I want to know something that I would need a moderator ruling on,

4) The reason I asked (3) is that I am unclear about the situation with respect to nuclear weapons. I see several possibilities:
-Nuclear weapons could be literally impossible to acquire.
-Nuclear weapons could be insanely difficult to acquire, such that no one has them at game start and it would require vastly disproportionate effort to create them.
-Nuclear weapons could be merely very difficult to acquire, such that the largest and most powerful nations have small arsenals at game start and it would be at least credible for major nations to acquire them over a 5-10 year timespan.
________________________

Basically, I'm trying to figure out whether the prohibition on nuclear weapons is "hard" (they will never ever exist in this game) or "soft" (they could exist, but they're expensive to make sure we don't go nuts or blow up the world). The world looks pretty different depending on which of those two situations you live in.

[Thanas]

I don't want nukes to exist.

I also want Steve and Siege as mods.

[Siege]

That's very kind and flattering of you.

Siege, remind me again whether San Dorado has a nominal government or not?

No. San Dorado does not have, and has never had, a government. On a handful of occasions in the past a merchant became so powerful he or she acted as de facto doge of the city, but it was never official, and it never lasted. The entrenched interests of San Dorado abhor stable centralized authority, and array themselves against anyone considered too influential.

Does anyone else get the feeling that we might profitably split this thread into a map construction thread, a nation description thread, and a concepts/rules thread?

Splitting nation descriptions into their own thread would make it easier to get a feel for how many nations we have so far. But I'm in favor of keeping map and rules discussions in the main thread, because that's where the traffic is and thus where the eyeballs are.

I'm not decided on the other two questions yet.

[madd0ct0r]

exams done, I'm looking at writing up the recent history of Champa in more detail. Seige - any rules/ guidelines for interaction with Omnia? I'm assuming there's not been any major war, but a couple of border skirmishes seem likely, as well as tensions over water rights and the usual beggar thy neighbour policies.

[Siege]

No rules beyond a rule of thumb, that being that San Dorado typically supported Omnia monetarily (loans) and militarily (mercenaries). I figure the consequence is that the Omnian Emperor has historically been a more dangerous opponent than he had any real right to be, because his armies could fight even when his coffers were empty and at any time a squadron of San Doradan privateers could show up to wreak havoc on your coast.

In no way would this have made Omnia invincible though, and there may have been times San Dorado was much less enthusiastic about supporting the emperor. So, y'know, go wild.

[Simon_Jester]

Thanas, do you mean you want it to be impossible for nuclear weapons to exist, or do you mean that you want there to be none at game start with some possibility of the technology developing if the game runs for a decade or so? I'm guessing the former.
__________________

I strongly favor the Steve/Siege mod combination; they're both respected people who differ enough that they won't automatically say the same things. Having two is good because it lets them talk to each other as equals and think things over before making a ruling, adds extra weight to any joint decisions they make, and allows us to have one of them recuse themselves in matters directly affecting them.

We might want a third person, specifically chosen to act as 'tiebreaker' in case of an irreconciliable disagreement, or someone who can moderate in case of a direct dispute between the two. But then again, we might not, because a third person would then be effectively a third moderator and I feel like three is too many.

[I'd be just as happy with one moderator. But Steve outlined to me in private a number of reasons why he disagrees with that opinion. Since he has more and more successful experience modding STGODs than me, I bow to his judgment in the matter]
__________________

As to San Dorado having literally no government... this is going to result in the Technocracy of Umeria doing strange and amusing things. For one, because Umeria is willing to engage in wacky hijinks to communicate with a country that has no fixed address.

They're also big believers in holding actual decisionmakers personally accountable for bad policy decisions. The real decisionmakers. This is a matter of pride for them, having fought a revolution still barely in living memory in which they shelled their own capital city to rubble and then gassed the rubble until the cockroaches stopped twitching, because they held the warlords personally accountable for all the shit they'd pulled.

On the one hand, the Technocrats don't have a problem conceptually with making agreements with the individual San Doradan megacorps. On the other, they also don't have a problem with declaring war on the individual San Doradan megacorps, whether that even makes sense under international law or not, and by definition said megacorps do not fall under the heading of most international treaties.

Granted, as I am quite quite aware, the megacorps can no doubt shoot back more effectively than most small countries.

This could get entertainingly asymmetric.

[Beowulf]

If nuclear weapons are impossible, I'm pretty sure nuclear power is too. There's no effective physics based way to keep someone from reprocessing out U-233 from a reactor, and turning that into a bomb. It'd be more difficult than Pu-239 to work with, but not insurmountable. Expensive enough that no one wants to put the cash into making them, sure, I can buy that. But lacking nuclear power entirely would be required to keep nuclear bombs from being possible.

Beyond that, there'd probably be other world affecting corollarys of lack of nuclear power. Example would be lack of tectonic action, as the core lacks the radionucleides to keep it hot. Ditto magnetosphere.

[TimothyC]

If nuclear weapons are impossible, I'm pretty sure nuclear power is too.

This.

The original outline for nuclear power (which was developed for an earlier game) was that thorium cycle reactors breeding U-233 were the power plants and that nuclear weapons would simply be exceptionally difficult to produce (it was also for a 1950 tech level game).

At the very least no nuclear weapons means no ship-based power supplies.

I think we need a poll: No nuclear weapons or power plants at all; Nuclear weapons very hard to get but with hard nuclear reactors; Nuclear weapons and power @ reduced levels.

[Steve]

I suspect getting that far into the nitty-gritty will just irritate the people who have already said things like "No nuclear weapons are possible but I want nuclear propulsion for ships".

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Look. Let's just all say a treaty was signed whereby no nukes are allowed and be done with it.

There, the Gordian knot has been sliced. What other knots need to be sliced?

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

We've already established that it's prohibitively expensive and just plain difficult as all hell to get sufficient quantities of weapons-grade fissile material from a thorium-based fuel cycle. Despite the aforementioned expense and difficulty, one would think that the major powers like Cascadia and Rheinland would acknowledge on some level that it would still be possible for a sufficiently determined state to acquire nuclear weapons. I'm with Fin here; let's just put in our equivalent of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and call it a day so we can move on to other things.

[Beowulf]

I'm perfectly fine with "Nuclear power, but nuclear weapons are a combination of prohibitively expensive and barred by treaty"

[Simon_Jester]

If nuclear weapons are impossible, I'm pretty sure nuclear power is too. There's no effective physics based way to keep someone from reprocessing out U-233 from a reactor, and turning that into a bomb...

And if the mods decide to not care about that, and say "on MY planet, nuclear weapons are impossible even in theory, but nuclear reactors can exist," then by God I'm going to listen to them.

I don't want to raise an argument here, I really don't; I just want an answer to the question. Up, down, sideways, yes or no, however you like.

I suspect getting that far into the nitty-gritty will just irritate the people who have already said things like "No nuclear weapons are possible but I want nuclear propulsion for ships".

I am in full 100% agreement with this observation.

My opinions on "you can't do that" haven't changed in quite some time.

In the context of this game, I'd deeply appreciate it if the "you can't do it-"eers would resist their impulses. Because a lot of us are going to want to do strange things, things that in real life did not happen, and did not happen for very logical reasons. As long as those strange things don't interfere with the game, that is a good thing, not a bad thing.

Totally removing nuclear explosives from the table, while keeping nuclear reactors on the table, may seem improbable. It may even contradict the Standard Model. But I would be a lot happier if we could just not care about that, rather than having to put up with pedantic nonsense about it... and I say this as one of the board's leading distributors of pedantic nonsense.

Look. Let's just all say a treaty was signed whereby no nukes are allowed and be done with it.

There, the Gordian knot has been sliced. What other knots need to be sliced?

We've already established that it's prohibitively expensive and just plain difficult as all hell to get sufficient quantities of weapons-grade fissile material from a thorium-based fuel cycle. Despite the aforementioned expense and difficulty, one would think that the major powers like Cascadia and Rheinland would acknowledge on some level that it would still be possible for a sufficiently determined state to acquire nuclear weapons. I'm with Fin here; let's just put in our equivalent of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and call it a day so we can move on to other things.

This is quite plausible, if the expense would be as insane as might be explained by a thorium-cycle world, especially in the wake of a massive international war like the tail end of the Eighty Years' War.

Still waiting on mod rulings.

[The equivalent of the Nonproliferation Treaty should have a cooler name, IMO, and it would probably have been signed some time after but not long after the Eighty Years' War.]

[Jub]

I'm fine with the proposed moderators and a lack of nuclear weapons. Are we also banning other WMDs of equal destructive capacity?

[Thanas]

I wouldn't mind if nuclear weapons were possible in theory if I were not afraid that somebody is going to secretly develop them anyway.

[Steve]

How about this? Nuclear weapons can't be made reliably due to... quantum, but nuclear power, including nuclear propulsion for naval ships, is feasible and sufficiently economic (as in equal to real world stuff). I believe that would be satisfactory.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

We can always write that a nuclear war did happen somewhere out there and everyone was so terrified of it that it was banned outright.

Either that, or a Grand Convention or whatever. Honestly, it doesn't matter. Just give a good enough in-game reason, and out-game any damn fool who has the temerity to write up on nukes gets booted from the game.

[Simon_Jester]

I wouldn't mind if nuclear weapons were possible in theory if I were not afraid that somebody is going to secretly develop them anyway.

If the moderators can't stop anyone from launching a unilateral nuclear attack in an otherwise nuclear-free world, then we need different moderators. I don't think we need different moderators.
___________________________

Honestly, the solutions that are most firmly in my comfort zone are:

1) Nuclear weapons are possible to develop, and people are probably going to do so, but not any time soon because the things are damnably hard to make in a thorium-cycle world. So stories about the nuclear programs and how we respond to them can develop, but the world isn't going to turn into a Cold War-style San Doradan Standoff any time soon.

2) Nuclear weapons are possible to develop, but barred by international treaty. Mods make things unpleasant for anyone who tries to violate the treaty by enriching bomb-grade fissiles, and impose realistic constraints on fissile production, so that there's no possibility of being surprised by an enemy who suddenly has dozens of H-bombs and goes all Dropshot on your case.

3) Nuclear weapons are physically impossible to develop "because of quantum." Everything else in the universe works as normal, or whatever.

I am happiest with (1), happy with (2), and willing to tolerate (3) though I like (1) and (2) better.

Either that, or a Grand Convention or whatever. Honestly, it doesn't matter. Just give a good enough in-game reason, and out-game any damn fool who has the temerity to write up on nukes gets booted from the game.

Could you clarify what you mean by "to write up on nukes?"

I mean, I'm trying to think about realistic, non-nuke-troll, non-Shep responses for my country here. Which is basically the whole reason I even asked about this.

In case (1), Umeria would probably have a nuclear weapons program, but it would be proceeding very slowly because Umeria only got to the point where they had the technical capability to simulate nuclear explosions and handle U-233 fissiles fairly recently, and they damn sure don't have enough high-grade fissiles or production capacity for same to start doing large-scale atomic testing. So even in the technological equivalent of 2015 they still wouldn't have a bomb, and probably would keep trying to perfect the design in simulation for a looooong time unless it looks like a world war is about to break out.

In case (2), Umeria would probably have a much weaker and very secret simulations project dedicated to actually having a design for a viable nuclear weapon on file, in case the treaty goes kaput and nuclear armament starts. Said design would probably not work well IRL.

In neither case would I be trying to troll the world, threaten the world, or destabilize the game. I am not now, nor have I ever been, Shep. We've even been seen in the same place at the same time, so you know I'm not an alter ego.

In case (3) Umeria would probably still have a simulations project dedicated to figuring out how to make a runaway chain reaction work, or possibly to figuring out whatever physical weirdness prevents them from working so that it can be creatively used to design flying cars FOR SCIENCE! or something.

Does any of this mean I should be booted from the game just for saying these things? See, I missed the SDNW-game that ended in global nuclear holocaust, so I don't have quite the same reflexive terror of the idea. But at the same time I want to be sensitive to people who do feel that way, or who just hate the idea of anyone acquiring a nuclear deterrent.

...

So, the too long didn't read version:

I really just want to know what kind of world I'm playing in. My preference is for a world where nuclear weapons are possible-but-hard, with a side order of barred-by-treaty, because that's an idea with lots of story potential. Tweaking physical laws makes me a bit uncomfortable but I can work with it, and who knows, there may even be story potential in that.

A world in which nuclear weapons can (or do!) exist is fully within my comfort zone, but I recognize that it's outside the comfort zone of many other players, and am prepared to adjust accordingly.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I wouldn't mind if nuclear weapons were possible in theory if I were not afraid that somebody is going to secretly develop them anyway.

If the moderators can't stop anyone from launching a unilateral nuclear attack in an otherwise nuclear-free world, then we need different moderators. I don't think we need different moderators.
___________________________

Honestly, the solutions that are most firmly in my comfort zone are:

1) Nuclear weapons are possible to develop, and people are probably going to do so, but not any time soon because the things are damnably hard to make in a thorium-cycle world. So stories about the nuclear programs and how we respond to them can develop, but the world isn't going to turn into a Cold War-style San Doradan Standoff any time soon.

2) Nuclear weapons are possible to develop, but barred by international treaty. Mods make things unpleasant for anyone who tries to violate the treaty by enriching bomb-grade fissiles, and impose realistic constraints on fissile production, so that there's no possibility of being surprised by an enemy who suddenly has dozens of H-bombs and goes all Dropshot on your case.

3) Nuclear weapons are physically impossible to develop "because of quantum." Everything else in the universe works as normal, or whatever.

I am happiest with (1), happy with (2), and willing to tolerate (3) though I like (1) and (2) better.

Either that, or a Grand Convention or whatever. Honestly, it doesn't matter. Just give a good enough in-game reason, and out-game any damn fool who has the temerity to write up on nukes gets booted from the game.

Could you clarify what you mean by "to write up on nukes?"

I mean, I'm trying to think about realistic, non-nuke-troll, non-Shep responses for my country here. Which is basically the whole reason I even asked about this.

In case (1), Umeria would probably have a nuclear weapons program, but it would be proceeding very slowly because Umeria only got to the point where they had the technical capability to simulate nuclear explosions and handle U-233 fissiles fairly recently, and they damn sure don't have enough high-grade fissiles or production capacity for same to start doing large-scale atomic testing. So even in the technological equivalent of 2015 they still wouldn't have a bomb, and probably would keep trying to perfect the design in simulation for a looooong time unless it looks like a world war is about to break out.

In case (2), Umeria would probably have a much weaker and very secret simulations project dedicated to actually having a design for a viable nuclear weapon on file, in case the treaty goes kaput and nuclear armament starts. Said design would probably not work well IRL.

In neither case would I be trying to troll the world, threaten the world, or destabilize the game. I am not now, nor have I ever been, Shep. We've even been seen in the same place at the same time, so you know I'm not an alter ego.

In case (3) Umeria would probably still have a simulations project dedicated to figuring out how to make a runaway chain reaction work, or possibly to figuring out whatever physical weirdness prevents them from working so that it can be creatively used to design flying cars FOR SCIENCE! or something.

Does any of this mean I should be booted from the game just for saying these things? See, I missed the SDNW-game that ended in global nuclear holocaust, so I don't have quite the same reflexive terror of the idea. But at the same time I want to be sensitive to people who do feel that way, or who just hate the idea of anyone acquiring a nuclear deterrent.

...

So, the too long didn't read version:

I really just want to know what kind of world I'm playing in. My preference is for a world where nuclear weapons are possible-but-hard, with a side order of barred-by-treaty, because that's an idea with lots of story potential. Tweaking physical laws makes me a bit uncomfortable but I can work with it, and who knows, there may even be story potential in that.

A world in which nuclear weapons can (or do!) exist is fully within my comfort zone, but I recognize that it's outside the comfort zone of many other players, and am prepared to adjust accordingly.

Look, let's reshape this question altogether because in the eventuality we actually want to nuke each other, the game will be as good as "ended".

In all technicality, whether the game has nukes or not matters nothing because of the above reason: The moment we feel like nuking each other, the game is ended.

The two things that nukes do to a game is one, contribute to the bizarre military one-upmanship that leads to plenty of pointless antagonism which pretty much was the reason why the 2nd SDNW game ended at all. And two, there are bound to people who decide a "nuke first ask questions later" policy is actually favorable. That actually does wonders to the mechanics to the game because it allows that fucker to go dick around and then promptly nuke the rest when it comes to it. (That was pretty much the Shep way)

So is there a point to having nukes at all? I leave it to a vote.

[Siege]

My personal preference would be: no nukes, no possibility of nukes, no research of the possibility of nukes, not even 'golly gee this nuke thing should work how odd hyuk hyuk' posting. Be more creative. Think of something else.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Personally, I'm fine no matter what route we go. I had no real intentions for nukes regardless, beyond powerplants (on land and on the sea). Namely since they would be a very destabilizing influence in a nation built like Arcadia.

[RogueIce]

I'll just say (or reiterate, I don't remember if I posted it or just thought about this) that I'd be happy if we just power our nuclear reactors with Handwavium-235, an amazing element that works for nuclear power generation (roughly like RL with expense and so on so nobody goes too munchkin with nuclear-powered tanks in the year 2000) but is absolutely useless for weaponization because reasons.

[Simon_Jester]

Look, let's reshape this question altogether because in the eventuality we actually want to nuke each other, the game will be as good as "ended".

In all technicality, whether the game has nukes or not matters nothing because of the above reason: The moment we feel like nuking each other, the game is ended.

Fair enough.

The two things that nukes do to a game is one, contribute to the bizarre military one-upmanship that leads to plenty of pointless antagonism which pretty much was the reason why the 2nd SDNW game ended at all.

That is also fair; military one-upsmanship is problematic. Personally I'm just as glad to be playing a nation based on a real country (China) whose weapons really aren't that awesome or impressive, and which doesn't have militarism or martial dickery as its main focus.

That actually does wonders to the mechanics to the game because it allows that fucker to go dick around and then promptly nuke the rest when it comes to it. (That was pretty much the Shep way)

I don't think "does wonders" is the phrase you're looking for, as that would imply a great improvement, but yes.

I may not personally feel like the existence/possibility of nuclear weapons would cause me to act in a game-busting way, or feel a personal fear of them, but I can in fact respect others' feelings that way and I recognize the destabilizing potential.

My personal preference would be: no nukes, no possibility of nukes, no research of the possibility of nukes, not even 'golly gee this nuke thing should work how odd hyuk hyuk' posting. Be more creative. Think of something else.

I feel vaguely put-down by that last bit.

One problem I have with the choice of a modern setting is that I like writing stories about scientists and engineers and things, and science and technology are something my mind focuses on very naturally. But the modern setting constrains me in that it doesn't leave a lot of room for weird-wild-mad science (the way SDNW4 did), and arguably my own nation concept constrains me too. So I'm trying to think of actual storylines for my Umeria concept, and ideas and things that would be worth writing a short over, and... sort of spinning my wheels.

Which I guess means I'm on an uncreative streak lately. Especially when one of the things I was thinking about and decided to ask for a mod ruling on is not just contentious, which I expected. It's not only contentious, it's uncreative to want to think about how one's nation would interact with the question, so much so that it would even be uncreative to think "gee, would anyone try to investigate the fact that nuclear fission doesn't behave as expected under certain conditions?"

[RogueIce]

See, that's why I like my idea, because instead we'd have handwavium fission, and its working exactly as intended.

PS: I know "nuclear fission" is more than just uranium and stuff, but this isn't science class.