SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread VI

[Shroom Man 777]

It doesn't matter if you subtracted just 0.1% of his GDP, or if you subtracted William Howard Taft away from his GDP. You wrote his ships suddenly exploding and his people killing each other and his Empra doing shits.

How would it go if someone wrote the Technarchs doing something to their something-somethings with something-something-something without whatevering?

Cause if that happened to me, as a player and as a whatever, I'd be pretty whatever over this something-something-something and stuff.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

WAs Pollux even give a chance to explain himself?

[Simon_Jester]

Re: Fin

In my personal opinion, his post made it clear that he was well aware of the rule he was ignoring; the post itself would have been a logical place for him to give any compelling reasons he had in mind for ignoring it.

HOWEVER, see the material I wrote below, before you made your post.


Re: Shroomy

OK, that's a fair point, one that frankly boils down to something we never really addressed in this game:

How is mod power supposed to work in this game, anyway? How do mods enforce a decision? Is "moderator" a defined office with meaningful abilities? Does this ability extend to being able to cause internal events within a PC nation?

Would it be better if I'd written some pirates attacking one of his shipyards and blowing up some of the ships under construction, even if that had no logical connection to what the "adverse consequences" are supposed to reflect? I mean, this way, the problems are caused, indirectly, by the fact that he's overclocking his economy to expand his military too fast. If it was an external threat, or a random Act of Q, that logical connection would be missing and it wouldn't make any sense.

But should I do it that way anyway, because mod powers don't extend to causing internal storyline events, even ones that don't affect any named character?

But if I can't do internal storyline events so that the 'bad consequences' of an action that I need to penalize in my judgment as a mod actually follow logically from the nature of the action... then why would it make more sense for me to impose random natural disasters on people by Act of Q as a way of penalizing them?

In general, what, exactly, am I supposed to do in a situation involving this? Are people willing to accept that I have any actual ability to do things like this? If not, how is a mod supposed to go about enforcing a decision without dropping a huge anvil on a whole nation?




Oh. By the way:

I repeat, I am totally, totally willing to retcon away the events in my post if Pollux wishes, and if he proposes a palatable alternative such as simply scaling back the construction program.

I can totally see how declaring this like that was viewed as excessive, and for the sake of argument I'm willing to hold the outcome of that post "in suspension" until I get a chance to talk to Pollux. I'll edit it accordingly after I post this.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Could we next time have a OOC warning or a PM before we go blowing up stuff? What's the point of jumping the gun when the guy hasn't been given a chance to back down?

[Shroom Man 777]

Mods should have the right to do stuff to the internal/domestic scene of other dudes, but only if those other dudes are being utter shits after repeated negotiation attempts. I mean, that IS a part of Mod powers, yes.

Doing it right off the bat, without any attempt asking the guy "hey would you mind correcting that?", should be avoideds.

I'm just saying we didn't give Pollux a chance.

He could spin what you already posted in an interesting way, for sure.

[Simon_Jester]

Could we next time have a OOC warning or a PM before we go blowing up stuff? What's the point of jumping the gun when the guy hasn't been given a chance to back down?

You're right.

What happened to me, honestly, is that I got caught up in writing the post, in telling the story, to the expense of a carefully reasoned mod response. For this reason, I have already edited the post to reflect that it is non-canon pending negotiations.

I still think it's reasonably good, and in keeping with the nature of the Pfhor Empire that such things would happen in that country. I don't think the gameplay effects are disproportionate, either. But I am not, no longer at any rate, insisting on it. At least, not until I've had a chance to talk it out.

[Pollux]

Woah, woah, woah, woah.

Woah.

First off, I'm perfectly fine with the punishments meted out by Simon_Jester; I fully expected such "punishment" to occur, and I tried to indicate I did in my post (through the executions of the ministers, which, I admit, was not really the clearest way of indicating this).

One of the core "themes" or "plots" I have for the Pfhor is that, due to endemic xenophobia and general militarism (as well as their not-undeserved status as galactic pariahs) they feel a tremendous need to expand their military as rapidly as possible. I feel that, due to the nature of Pfhor society, a year or two of abnormally high military expenditures like these would not cause too many problems on this scale; but in-game, the Emperor and War Ministry have been pushing this hard for several years and the economy is suffering for it. (Again, something I should have made more clear!)

When I set the military budget at 12.5%, I did so not only knowing that Bad Stuff would happen to the Pfhor, but welcoming it. I apologize for not making that clear right off the bat.

Would I have liked some OOC consultation? Yes, probably, even if only so I could have a better idea of what the consequences would be. Still, I found Simon's story post to be extremely entertaining, and a rather spot-on representation of Pfhor Wackiness to boot.



In short, I accept all the consequences of the budget as they originally stand.

[Shroom Man 777]

God, your guys are awesome. I think they'll get along fine with the Brags.

We'll have to have a competition for obtusely longwindedly named things!

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Well that was an interesting spectacle, even by Imperium standards.

[Shroom Man 777]

*just finished reading*

What the hell happened to the guy!

Man, the Pfhor are nuts. Even by Brag standards.

[Pollux]

Crap, forgot the "to be concluded" bit at the end!

[Shroom Man 777]

BTW, mang, how do Pfhor ships look? I used Wraith ships from SGA for my post.

[KlavoHunter]

If they wanted to take him down for the crime of being vaguely related to some factory manager, he'd take a lot of them with him.

“As the High Minister of the Inquisition, Hflerd, and having considered all the facts of the case, I do hereby pronounce Fleet Admiral Rlsfan, Supreme Commander of Battle Group II and Count of Grimland, guilty of the crime of High Treason. Furthermore, I decree that the following punishments be given out: that the guilty be stripped of all his lands, titles, ranks, and decorations, and these surrendered to the Empire where appropriate; that the guilty’s family to the sixth degree be imprisoned to the thirtieth generation; that Battle Group II be disbanded, with all its officers having attained the rank of Captain or greater executed; that the families of those so executed to the third degree be imprisoned to the fifteenth generation; that Battle Group II be disbanded, its assets to be reassigned to other posts within the Empire at a later date; and, finally…”

How is it that Battle Group II does not mutiny en masse at this time?

[Shroom Man 777]

I think Fleet Admiral Rlsfan's trial was the last in a series of trials that included everyone else in Battle Group II.

[Pollux]

If they wanted to take him down for the crime of being vaguely related to some factory manager, he'd take a lot of them with him.

“As the High Minister of the Inquisition, Hflerd, and having considered all the facts of the case, I do hereby pronounce Fleet Admiral Rlsfan, Supreme Commander of Battle Group II and Count of Grimland, guilty of the crime of High Treason. Furthermore, I decree that the following punishments be given out: that the guilty be stripped of all his lands, titles, ranks, and decorations, and these surrendered to the Empire where appropriate; that the guilty’s family to the sixth degree be imprisoned to the thirtieth generation; that Battle Group II be disbanded, with all its officers having attained the rank of Captain or greater executed; that the families of those so executed to the third degree be imprisoned to the fifteenth generation; that Battle Group II be disbanded, its assets to be reassigned to other posts within the Empire at a later date; and, finally…”

How is it that Battle Group II does not mutiny en masse at this time?

Silly answer: all important Pfhor perpetually have an armed Inquisitor standing right behind them.

Serious answer: the punishments had already been decided in advance, with those to be punish already detained. The "trials" are for show.

[Siege]

The matter has apparently been resolved already but I'll state for the record that I support Simon's way of handling things. We're on page 40 of comment thread VI, the rules have been hashed out and hashed out again and the 10% thing should have been utterly obvious to everyone even before there was much ado about the preposterously wanky 20% of GDP expansion of the Xylyx. Screw this 'chance to back down' shit, if you're still in this game you have no excuse not to be aware of something as utterly basic as this, so you deserve to be hit with a clue bat or, rather, mod hammer if you so flagrantly exceed agreed-upon boundaries.

And all of that is, in my opinion, particularly true for people who've posted nothing in ages only to suddenly re-emerge to post a huge military expenditure. I'm sorry, but I think I'm by this point well known for my hatred of all things spreadsheet, and it really gets my goose when players' participation consists solely of points accounting. Without sugar-coating it: this "in hindsight I shoulda made this clear" stuff is all very well and good but if the 'making clear' bit is apparently of secondary importance to spreadsheeting your military expansion, then that to me betrays a mindset that I am fundamentally hostile to.

[Simon_Jester]

Glad to see this resolved amicably, Pollux, though do be advised that if you keep pushing your economy like this, the consequences will get progressively worse until the Pfhor would've been better off not bothering in the first place.

How is it that Battle Group II does not mutiny en masse at this time?

Well, it strikes me as sheer black-comedic folly, but... basically, none of the other captains were as cunning as that poor Nar bastard? I don't know how he managed to give his inquisitor the slip and/or blow his brains out, mind you.

That said, Pollux, I want to point out something. Executing people's relatives out to the umpteenth generation only makes sense within certain limits even for a bunch of maniacal bloody-handed tyrants.

Once you get past at most the third or fourth generation, the deterrent value of the punishment is effectively zero- no one is made more intimidated by the threat to kill their eighth cousin. The Pfhor and Nar may not have quite the same monkeysphere thing going on as humans, but there has to be a limit on the number of people they can view as family. Moreover, for all practical purposes you're killing an enormous number of people who have absolutely nothing to do with the guilty- even in terms of "stands to inherit" or "might seek revenge." The inquisitors might as well stick a submachine gun out the window and start firing at random, though for all I know, they do that too, to keep people on their toes.

Besides, anyone who claims for certain who they're descended from five generations ago is accepting a bet at poor odds, when you consider the odds of some sneaky bastard showing up in the family tree.

Here, the Emperor's motive in ordering the punishment of the responsible Nar by execution out to the eighth generation was ulterior- to break the Nar industrial consortium responsible for this. He was trying to wipe out a significant fraction of the Nar species' equivalent of the owners of the zaibatsu, having concluded that they'd grown too powerful and too arrogant. Since the industrial consortium in question was so large, killing off all its senior leadership required a pretty broad execution beyond "kill those responsible for the mess we're in now." Of course, killing off all its senior leadership (and the bright young heir-apparents related to them) also threw the sector economy into chaos, but as the Emperor said "I'd rather have loyal beings working at two thirds capacity than traitors doing their utmost."

As a rule, though, any execution or harsh punishment of the distant relatives of the accused only makes sense when there's an ulterior motive, or as punishment for a crime so terrible as to be practically unheard of within the state.

The matter has apparently been resolved already but I'll state for the record that I support Simon's way of handling things. We're on page 40 of comment thread VI, the rules have been hashed out and hashed out again and the 10% thing should have been utterly obvious to everyone even before there was much ado about the preposterously wanky 20% of GDP expansion of the Xylyx. Screw this 'chance to back down' shit, if you're still in this game you have no excuse not to be aware of something as utterly basic as this, so you deserve to be hit with a clue bat or, rather, mod hammer if you so flagrantly exceed agreed-upon boundaries.

And all of that is, in my opinion, particularly true for people who've posted nothing in ages only to suddenly re-emerge to post a huge military expenditure. I'm sorry, but I think I'm by this point well known for my hatred of all things spreadsheet, and it really gets my goose when players' participation consists solely of points accounting. Without sugar-coating it: this "in hindsight I shoulda made this clear" stuff is all very well and good but if the 'making clear' bit is apparently of secondary importance to spreadsheeting your military expansion, then that to me betrays a mindset that I am fundamentally hostile to.

Yeah, Siege. I tried to be fairly restrained about this, since Pollux didn't step all that far out of line in the grand scheme of things, but that was more or less what was on my mind.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

If by anything, he wants to gut a population. Killing that many people up to that degree will easily result in a hundred dead per crewman. A few thousand of them leads a hundred thousand etc. etc. A few ten thousand crewmen, and we are looking at a million dead...

Talk about an impressive head count, just by killing off an entire battlegroup.

It's just like that joke where "You don't just kill him. You kill his entire family, his dog, his cat, his rat..."

[Simon_Jester]

Actually, direct punishment is limited to just killing off the captains, flag officers, and probably some of the senior staff. Everyone else is simply being reassigned. The families are merely imprisoned for ridiculous spans of time.

[KlavoHunter]

Fin, what are the actions of the Byzantines in the Xena system during the conquest of the planets? Wanton atrocity orbital bombardment at all planets where you're not directly under the guns of the Chamarran Juggernaut? Or will you show mercy and restraint?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Fin, what are the actions of the Byzantines in the Xena system during the conquest of the planets? Wanton atrocity orbital bombardment at all planets where you're not directly under the guns of the Chamarran Juggernaut? Or will you show mercy and restraint?

THere's no time for an occupation.

So even if there's any bombardment, it's to allow us to steal tech.

And that jugganaut? There are 4 Byzantine Battleships and Battle Barges. Nothing they can't handle.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, there's also half the Bragulan and probably more than half the Chamarran navy in the system. If you want to swarm the Juggernaut with your ultraheavies, you have to deal with your ultraheavies being swarmed by the other guy's superheavies.

I mean, I don't know how sure Rus is about that pact with the Bragulans, but I can't believe Aurelian's not thinking very hard about the fact that the Bragulans will never get a better chance to cut off, isolate, and destroy a large fraction of the Byzantine military on favorable terms to themselves.

If it turns into a Byzantine-Chamarran fight... you just gave them the excuse.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Well, there's also half the Bragulan and probably more than half the Chamarran navy in the system. If you want to swarm the Juggernaut with your ultraheavies, you have to deal with your ultraheavies being swarmed by the other guy's superheavies.

I mean, I don't know how sure Rus is about that pact with the Bragulans, but I can't believe Aurelian's not thinking very hard about the fact that the Bragulans will never get a better chance to cut off, isolate, and destroy a large fraction of the Byzantine military on favorable terms to themselves.

If it turns into a Byzantine-Chamarran fight... you just gave them the excuse.

The Brags don't believe the rest of their coalition have the stomach for a proper war.

[Siege]

Killing half your navy because the opportunity arose wouldn't be a war. It'd be a slaughter.

This particular possibility hadn't actually occurred to me before but thinking about it, it's one more mark for the whole OOC-ness of it all. From that perspective I get abandoning the human coalition in favor of the aliens because you're impatient with them, but in context it's just about the most insane thing since game start.

[Shroom Man 777]

"Na, ato na i-pa aso ang kaning mga baboy." Come on, let's smoke some pigs.