SDNW5 Map Discussion Thread

[Panzersharkcat]

I assume United Nations of Sol is where Earth is supposed to be. If so, then Earth could be the reason for the clash between the Neithian habit of uplifting species and the Grays. It's in the middle of the three of us.

[Simon_Jester]

Yes. The UNS is where Earth is supposed to be.

Any complaints should be taken up with the Deputy Elephant of the United Nations.

(Seriously, I'm okay with moving them a bit)

[Crossroads Inc.]

Yeah you are correct. I hate to say it but I may have to wait to see where more people are placed before picking a spot.
Really I wanted to be 'somewhat" out of the way from everyone else, not really in the middle of things. I did want to be next to Either Darkevilme, Skywalker or cadbrowser... But that may have to wait or take a back seat to what would be a good spot for me.

[Akhlut]

I know you want your nation to be relatively new on the scene, so you don't want too many close neighbors, but that's what makes the Grays great for being your neighbors! We'd never try to uplift you or even interact with your nation in a manner that doesn't paralyze you with self-doubt! Such as the crippling doubts about how many of your citizens in the past thousands of years were abducted and had grisly experiments performed by your betters! The horrible confusion if all those ancient, low quality video tapes of UFOs were just swamp gas and video artifacts or if they were, in fact, evidence of visitation by beings from beyond your systems! The questioning if the abduction reports that were startlingly accurate about the Grays' physical descriptions were just coincidences or true representations because they were drawn from the memories of the poor bastards who were abducted.

So, yes, perfect neighbors if you want to be right next door to us!

[Darkevilme]

The Grey Kritarchy, screwing with people and dicking them over for Millenia without ever taking an ounce of responsibility for the results.

Also, move the Hierarchy one sector right of Esquire's proposed position and that's a position i'm perfectly fine with.

[Panzersharkcat]

So the cause of the Cold War is a conflict between people who want to uplift humanity and people who want to probe humanity up the butt?

[Akhlut]

Wars have been started over similarly foolish things before. A lot of the animus between Spain and England after the Reformation happened just because Henry VIII wanted a divorce, essentially.

Also, I can just imagine the diplomatic talks that happened to start this cold war.

Additionally: do you want our nations to be really close, or with a space of about 3-10 sectors between us?

[Imperial528]

Hm, with the map as it is now, I'm not exactly sure where I want to be. Any suggestions? (Basically, who wants to live next to "Those People from Far Away That Never Get Old")

[Panzersharkcat]

Give them a few sectors, I think. Catch Earth in a triangle.
EDIT: Well, it forms a triangle regardless. I mean a bigger triangle.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah you are correct. I hate to say it but I may have to wait to see where more people are placed before picking a spot.

Really I wanted to be 'somewhat" out of the way from everyone else, not really in the middle of things. I did want to be next to Either Darkevilme, Skywalker or cadbrowser... But that may have to wait or take a back seat to what would be a good spot for me.

It's more likely that you will find several good spots, and have to choose between them.

I know you want your nation to be relatively new on the scene, so you don't want too many close neighbors, but that's what makes the Grays great for being your neighbors! We'd never try to uplift you or even interact with your nation in a manner that doesn't paralyze you with self-doubt!

The Umerians would probably try to hold the Greys responsible... if the Greys existed.

So the cause of the Cold War is a conflict between people who want to uplift humanity and people who want to probe humanity up the butt?

Ahem.

Remember, a while back, I said this:

This time, I think craziness will be allowed from the beginning- with the exception that no one person is allowed to write their backstory as being uniquely important and privileged.

For example, let's take some examples from what was allowed in SDNW4...

If Dark Hellion wants the multiverse to be dominated by the uncaring XylyX, that is not okay- there can be XylyX, who are incredibly powerful and whatnot, but they cannot explicitly be said to really, in truth dominate the multiverse. Because that would be prejudicial to anyone who wants to write a story in which the multiverse has properties A, B, C, ... including "is not in fact dominated by the XylyX." The XylyX might be very powerful, but not as powerful as DH's emissaries believe, because they can't be all-powerful. Because by definition there can be only one omnipotent force and DH doesn't have a special right to say what it is.

Ditto for the creators of the Chamarrans, or the warring parties in the ancient conflict the Lost participated in, or the "evil gods" the Refuge is running from- any of them might have been real and extremely powerful, but there's no reason to suppose that they were almighty.

Do you have any objections to that? Again, the basic idea is that I'm fine with people saying "there are always bigger fish in the sea, and my nation is in some way related to a really big fish." But I don't want people saying "my fish is the BIGGEST EVER!"

Pursuant to that, I don't want any one nation making it canon that Earth was uplifted by some other intelligent species. Because in that case, you're giving one nation a backstory ("we uplifted Earth!") that interferes with several other people's backstories (including mine), at least implicitly. It alters the shape of the universe in a way that imposes constraints on everyone, not just you.

Now, I'm cool with the Greys and their backstory of probing Earth, because all those cattle mutilations don't actually change the effective history of Earth as far as any Earth-descended culture is concerned. Unless they want to go after the Greys with great revengeance, of course. But removing from Earth the agency of having invented their own means of interstellar travel...

[modhat off]

I don't like this, how do the rest of you feel about that? I'd be happier avoiding it.

[Panzersharkcat]

The Bastians never got around to doing it, as the Greys interfered with their efforts. Some remnants do remain in ancient myths and things like the "UFO battle" over Nuremberg in 1561 and the Tunguska event. If not for the Greys, humanity could have been cruising the galaxy thousands of years earlier. Instead, they developed on their own, and probably for the better.

[Crossroads Inc.]

The Bastians never got around to doing it, as the Greys interfered with their efforts. Some remnants do remain in ancient myths and things like the "UFO battle" over Nuremberg in 1561 and the Tunguska event. If not for the Greys, humanity could have been cruising the galaxy thousands of years earlier. Instead, they developed on their own, and probably for the better.

If there was something like that, my ""Puppet Masters" could be in on it as well.
2000 years ago their ship would have been a hell of a powerblock. At that time they were finding a suitable location for their own experiments, as well as mapping out potential "rivals" and threats that could interfere with their experiments.
It would be really hard to imagine them NOT Butting heads at some point with the Greys or the Bastians and perhaps coming to a:
"Don't Fck with our own experiments on primitive races and we won't Fck with yours" sort of thing.

[TimothyC]

Hey Simon, if everyone else is good with it, can the story of Bal Gand be canon?

Bal Gand is an ancestor of Lar Gand, and thus the entire Gand family. A pilot-constable in the spacefaring age of Krypton, she was given the task of finding new planets and establish peaceful relationships with Krypton. After traveling to several inhabited planets in the universe, she landed in Central America, during the years of the Maya civilization. While the Maya believed that the Krytponian visitors were the gods of their legends (thus starting their renowned practice of human sacrifices in their honor), Bal Gand fell in love with a Mayan soldier, bearing his son. Having broken her role of impartial observer, out of fear of the disruptions a human-born Krytponian could have brought in the nascent Maya society, she decided to return to Krypton.

[Simon_Jester]

If ancient Greys can probe humans, ancient Kryptonians can consent to be, um... probed by humans. Not my problem either way.



Oh. One more thing. Skywalker, are you sure you don't want to move Arcadia so it's not in a corner of the map? I thought you wanted to be closer to certain other nations...

Without any prejudice to your nation, I'm leaving you out of the next draft map for the moment, pending an answer to that question.

[Panzersharkcat]

And in that instance, what Bastians that did land landed in Egypt?

[Simon_Jester]

I neither know, nor much care. Giant cat-aliens landing on the plains of North America, or the sunken continent of Atlantis, or Japan where they leave bizarre permanent scars in the collective racial consciousness that later get expressed in cartoons, or whatever, is fine by me. You are totally free to make up your own mind.

But on behalf of the people playing human nations (depending on how you define "human," I think there are at least half a dozen if not more), I ask, I request, that you make sure what you do doesn't remove the sense of... moral agency in the story of the evolving human species. Because if you did that, you'd undermine the "backstory" that belongs to other countries. How would it affect humanity, to not just suspect but know that we were the product of alien tampering and did never or could never have succeeded on our own.

...

Anyhow, second map draft:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/73239306/SDNW5_Map_Draft_2.png

[OmegaChief]

Alright, got down my first proposed location for the Authority that (Assuming the Chams are only moving right/down by one sector away from the Hellens) puts me next to/near to everyone I wanted.

Totally happy to talk about moving reshaping if anyone has any problems with it for some reason.

http://i873.photobucket.com/albums/ab29 ... raft_2.png

[Karmic Knight]

Simon, would I be able to be placed in a 3 block across cross centered on point Q14?

[Darkevilme]

Drawn myself back in.
http://i440.photobucket.com/albums/qq12 ... raft_2.png

[Skywalker_T-65]

Simon: Yeah, we can move Arcadia closer to the rest of the nations. I just put it way out in the middle of nowhere so I could get a shape worked out without trampling on other people. I want to keep said shape though...so maybe H12 as the center (center being the equivalent to H7 in the old one). The other choice would be Q13 as the H7 equivalent. That keeps me close to both Sol and the Holy Empire.

And of course the first one doesn't get me sandwiched between other nations (which gives Crossroads space to still be next to the Space Swedes...if of course Crossroads still wants to be next to me). Of course though, the later one doesn't work quite as well in that regard, unless Crossroadia (or whatever the dual-sectors are named) would have to be 'above' me. Relatively speaking.

[Crossroads Inc.]

And of course the first one doesn't get me sandwiched between other nations (which gives Crossroads space to still be next to the Space Swedes...if of course Crossroads still wants to be next to me). Of course though, the later one doesn't work quite as well in that regard, unless Crossroadia (or whatever the dual-sectors are named) would have to be 'above' me. Relatively speaking.

Ok, one, I guess I should be "offical" about this, since this STGOD is about the only time I am NOT using "Crossroadia"
It's "UISC or Union of Inter-Steller Civilizations ((yes intersteller is one word, chalk it up to translation error between races ))

Also Looking at the map "As is" I was looking at being in the current empty space in front of Darkevilme, but that would put me in the direct middle of Her, Shinn, and THE BEES. Which hey, might be fun.
Of course I am also looking out being behind her, though that would put me really far out on the edge of things.

You know I wonder if this may end up looking like the very first SD-World map, where all the huge players were clustered in the center, since they "wnet first" and all the smaller players ended up all being around the edged :/

[Panzersharkcat]

Thinking about it, the timeline for that doesn't quite work out. Assuming 3000 AD or so is when we're starting off, the incorporation of the Bastians 3400 to 3600 years ago would be too far ahead for them to influence Egyptian mythology too much. I suppose they could just be assumed to be emissaries of Bastet rather than the source of Bastet worship itself. Doesn't quite hit the recursive naming of the species but close enough.

[Simon_Jester]

I might do a third draft of the map later today. Regardless, I really shouldn't take time to do one on Monday through Wednesday; that is the busiest part of my week by far.

Simon, would I be able to be placed in a 3 block across cross centered on point Q14?

By this you mean Q14, Q13, Q15, R14, and P14?

I have no particular objection, and it places you more or less on a direct line between Earth and "the Hub," which is probably part of what you wanted.

(the Hub is the one of Rabid's three sectors that is farthest to antispinward, closest to Earth, right?)

Simon: Yeah, we can move Arcadia closer to the rest of the nations. I just put it way out in the middle of nowhere so I could get a shape worked out without trampling on other people. I want to keep said shape though...so maybe H12 as the center (center being the equivalent to H7 in the old one). The other choice would be Q13 as the H7 equivalent. That keeps me close to both Sol and the Holy Empire.

Ah, H12. Such golden memories... OK, noted.

Ok, one, I guess I should be "offical" about this, since this STGOD is about the only time I am NOT using "Crossroadia"
It's "UISC or Union of Inter-Steller Civilizations ((yes intersteller is one word, chalk it up to translation error between races ))

Touché. But damned if I'll type out "UISC" every time I want to refer to your guys, so we need another name for them that isn't totally generic, and takes less then four syllables to say (as "UISC" takes four).

You know I wonder if this may end up looking like the very first SD-World map, where all the huge players were clustered in the center, since they "wnet first" and all the smaller players ended up all being around the edged :/

That's a valid concern. If the 'final' placement of the major nations doesn't leave enough room to go around in the center of things, I'm not above sliding some of the major nations around a little to open up a bit more room.

Thinking about it, the timeline for that doesn't quite work out. Assuming 3000 AD or so is when we're starting off, the incorporation of the Bastians 3400 to 3600 years ago would be too far ahead for them to influence Egyptian mythology too much. I suppose they could just be assumed to be emissaries of Bastet rather than the source of Bastet worship itself. Doesn't quite hit the recursive naming of the species but close enough.

It wouldn't have worked in the present, either, Panzer. Bastet-worship has been documented as far back as 3000 BC. For your 3600 year old empire to have been the origins of that Egyptian goddess, we'd have to place game start shortly after the fall of Rome.

Why not just stretch your own timeline farther back into history? I'm sure the Greys won't complain.

[Rabid]

(the Hub is the one of Rabid's three sectors that is farthest to antispinward, closest to Earth, right?)

Yes.

Left : The Hub
Middle : Ascension / "Where He Became One With The Flame"
Right : Terminus / "Journey's End"

[White Haven]

Point of order, Simon? 'Crossroadia' is also four syllables.