NationStates Jolt Archive

[COULD THIS PLEASE BE STICKED?]

*Biotopia’s brief guide to the Nation States space-time continuum*

I am NOT a star physics student, in fact I failed the subject and that was two years ago. But I just thought it would interesting to finally [attempt] to establish the ground rules for space-time relations in Nation States.

A generally accepted rule for most physicists is that time and space go hand in hand. Which is probably one of the first rules to run fleeing in terror when you enter NS.

SPACE in General:
Each nation in NS starts off and ends in a region. However a region is commonly used as an association with ideological peers, rather then attempting to create physical boarders. So each nation we must presume exists as a separate space accessible from all directions by any other player unless specifically placed on or referred to as belonging to a map.

Think of each nation as existing in a box, that box is the national boundary from which other players enter and leave your nation. What you place inside this box can be any and all the terrains you like. When one nation physically sends something to another it’s like placing two boxes next to each other and removing the connecting wall.

So two nations that may exist in separate region at polar ends of the NS universe are able to physically interact because of the warped perception of space in NS.

MAPS:
However several nations may decide to physically agglomerate and form an official map. An excellent example of this is the map of Aperin (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=88155&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=200), [fourth post down] used by some of the CACE nations. Although many nations have individual maps, agglomerating to form a substantial land mass/ ocean territory/ space domain, allows a terrific degree of complexity; it raises all sorts of issues such as…

Pollution, Natural Disasters & Weather: acid rain, international habitat preserves, global warming, oil spills, deforestation, extinctions, floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, plagues. This also means that you can go so far as to create climatic, vegetation and population density maps as well as charting the ocean currents and winds

Defence, Trade & Administration: Tree trade zones, military alliances with joint bases and ports, regional capital cities, transnational military command centres and the ability to connect transport links, power, water and minerals/energy. They also allow for more realistic trade development to occur.

Such levels of complexity are limited when you play as a single, isolated nation. Although that can free up your trade because the space dimension allow multiple nations to exist in the same place, at the same time, across the NS universe. So for example you could have a water pipe going to Y exiting the same spot that gas is being pumped in from Z while a bus from W drives along them.

Using a map also means you can introduce ‘local’ time differences. Please, no more nations/maps claiming to exist under 100% daytime, despite being four times the size of Australia. Of cause this is really up to the boffins and mad scientists to think about and work out. If you’re really desperate most people refer to the NS Earth as being the size of Jupiter, so you could use that planets day/night rotation as a starting point.

TIME in General:
It is an often-cited rule of thumb that one RL/RT [Real life/ Real Time] day is equivalent to one NS year. This is highly amusing to many a long time player and frustration of millions of NS physicist. The best way for you strapping young real time players to get your head around it is to think of it like this.

If the smaller an object is, the greater it’s drag in water or air. So the smaller events, the less complex an RP [Role Play] event is, the infrequency of a nation singing in. Anything that has a low interaction level can be regarded as travelling at a slower speed in NS time. You will notice however that the more intense a situation becomes, the more nations that join in, time seems to speed up, until it reaches RT [Real time]. That being the NS version of light speed, at which it is impossible to travel faster then.

Of cause under the non-RP, non-IC [In Character] events the time difference is irrelevant and not needed to be worried about.

The issue of time travel then raises another issue. One fortunately left alone by all but the n00biest of n00bs and those who dare to defy the wrath of an angry GodMod. It is bad enough to godmod and dictate another nations actions, so under no circumstances NEVER attempt time travelling in another nation‘s space-time box.

A good reason not to attempt time travel, from an aesthetic point of view is to imagine those to boxes fitting together like Lego, once you play with the combination your going to permanently stuff up the combination to interact with other nations.

Also it’s just seen as a cheap and cheesy way to godmod and jump from
Agrarian-peasantry-land to uber-tech nation in a quick flick of a switch. Your nation display will not let you fiddle with the laws of Barry, so don’t try it.

Note:
Do not confuse the Space-Time Gradient [as I demand all refer to the NS space-time continuum (modesty may now leave the building)] which having different technology levels. I would love to explain this in detail in a later entry but I will summarise the right for these difference to exists by a] all nations have individual interpretations of what technology level they exists in. Even if two nations claim to exists in the say ‘Modern Tech’ one may mean all technology up to 2001 while another may mean technology they perceive to exist around 2010. Others of cause stretch from technology into the uber-space age to the medieval/ fantasy pre-Earth times.

Isolationist Time Zones [ITZ]:
There are some nations that place themselves in a future time realm [for example The People’s Anthill] and there may be others who have time starting from a past point of origin. As mentioned with the Lego analogy it is almost impossible for nations set in different time frames to interact. As this thread (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=73762&highlight=) involving the TPA and various ‘present time’ nations reveals. It is best to avoid attempting to bend the laws of Barry, as they often snap and result in very frayed and odd RP.

Next up in the series: NS PCMS [Nation States: Population; Critical Mass & Society]

Could be better, but definately a good effort. I would second the sticky motion.

Could be better, but definately a good effort. I would second the sticky motion.

Thanks!

If the mods think there are some major errors or confusion points i am more then happy to resubmit this with corrections.

*sanitised in the interest of not making myself look like too much of a fool.

Could be better, but definately a good effort. I would second the sticky motion.

Thanks!

If the mods think there are some major errors or confusion points i am more then happy to resubmit this with corrections.

*sanitised in the interest of not making myself look like too much of a fool.Oh come on, its a very good rough draft! You can't expect to have something to cry in joy over on the first attempt ;)

Whoa, the only people who would respond to this would be the ones who actually understood the first and last sentence. So, in other words, not the people to whom this article would most apply. However, it is definitely a good read, and you obiously put much effort into it. Here's a cookie receipe:
http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/ATA/23323Y.jpg

Argggg! Raysia. don't embaress me! Edit your post, five seconds later and i'm already embaressed. hideithideithideithideithideit. I'm very passionate overmy drafts

Um, thanks for the recipie, although we don't have cookies hear.

After some discussion, we (the moderators) have decided against stickying this thread.

It's simply because we're not keen to endorse rules on roleplay that not everyone will want to adhere to.

S'a good thing this, maby some more flesh to it could'nt hurt

silly rabbit, trying to make sense of the world.

and of course it wasn't stickied, it was written by an anti-capitalist who isn't a member of the cabal. duh.

After some discussion, we (the moderators) have decided against stickying this thread.

It's simply because we're not keen to endorse rules on roleplay that not everyone will want to adhere to.*nods* *agrees*

This is a good idea. And as for stickying it, I doubt it needs it - the debate on it should keep it close to page one for a while at least.

After some discussion, we (the moderators) have decided against stickying this thread.

It's simply because we're not keen to endorse rules on roleplay that not everyone will want to adhere to.


Well Sirocco I have talked to you before and you have come across as quite reasonable and benevolent. So what I’m saying probably is whine, but I’m trying very hard to make it more important then that.

The article was written more as an informal guide to some of the more complex playing issues associated with the game, rather then a strict rulebook on role play. I have been under the presumption that all posts that are sticked are more to used as a guide or a platform rather then actual rules on how to play the game. The exception is to the actual rules that prohibit flame baiting and any other activity that will get you in trouble, such as spamming.

However nobody is going to ask you be deleted simply because you organise your military or conduct your diplomacy differently to the guides provided, as long as you can RP/ reason how you achieve this. So if you can reasonably argue that black is white, or at least convince enough people I don’t see why you can play your nation as such. IE Nobody has to accept what I’ve written if they can prove otherwise or come to an agreement in their RP to negate any of the points raised.

So I am going to rewrite the post and clearly label it as being an informal guide only [Hence why I was using “General” and “I’m not a star physics student”] and remove the NEVERs and the DON’Ts etc.

whoops! Under the wrong nation. My apologies.

[COULD THIS PLEASE BE STICKED?]

*Biotopia’s brief and informal guide to the Nation States space-time continuum*

I am NOT a star physics student, in fact I failed the subject and that was two years ago. But I just thought it would interesting to finally [attempt] to establish a general guide about the space-time relations in Nation States.

A generally accepted rule for most physicists is that time and space go hand in hand. Which is probably one of the first rules to run fleeing in terror when you enter NS.

SPACE in General:
Each nation in NS starts off and ends in a region. However a region is commonly used as an association for ideological peers, rather then attempting to create physical boarders. Image each nation as being inside a box, where the cardboard is the national boundary of each nation and inside is the land/ ocean/ space.

What you place inside this box can be any and all the terrains you like. When one nation physically sends something to another it’s like placing two boxes next to each other and removing the connecting wall. So two nations that may exist in separate regions, at polar ends of the NS universe are able to physically interact due to such a situation.

The brilliant thing about the cyberverse is that numerous boxes can be connected to the same side, at the same time. For example you could have a water pipe going to Y exiting the same spot that gas is being pumped in from Z while a bus from W drives along them. However once you stick a bunch of these boxes together on a map, things can get to much more interesting.


MAPS:
several nations may decide to physically agglomerate and form an official map. An excellent example of this is the map of Aperin (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=88155&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=200), [fourth post down] used by some of the CACE nations. Although many nations have individual maps [ie: what’s inside the box], agglomerating to form a substantial land mass/ ocean territory/ space domain, allows a terrific degree of complexity; it can raise all sorts of issues such as…

Pollution, Natural Disasters & Weather: acid rain, international habitat preserves, global warming, oil spills, deforestation, extinctions, floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, plagues. This also means that you can go so far as to create climatic, vegetation and population density maps as well as charting the ocean currents and winds

Defence, Trade & Administration: Tree trade zones, military alliances with joint bases and ports, regional capital cities, transnational military command centres and the ability to connect transport links, power, water and minerals/energy. They also allow for more realistic trade development to occur.


TIME in General:
It is an often-cited rule of thumb that one RL/RT [Real life/ Real Time] day is equivalent to one NS year. This is highly amusing to many a long time player and frustration of millions of NS physicists. The best way for you strapping young real time players to get your head around it is to think of NS time being something like this:

If the smaller an object is, the greater it’s drag in water or air. So the smaller events, the less complex an RP [Role Play] event is, the infrequency of a nation singing in. Anything that has a low interaction level could be regarded as travelling at a slower speed in NS time. You will notice however that the more intense a situation becomes, the more nations that join in, time seems to speed up, until it reaches RT [Real time]. That being the NS version of light speed, at which it is impossible to travel faster then.

Of cause this is just a general guide and it best advised to discuss and agree on how time will operate within a particular Role Play situation. In a very intense role play many nations will actually spread on NS day over two or three RT days to take into account that players are joining in from all over the world and living in different Real Time Zones.

Time travel is an event not recorded as happening much in NS. Most because the sting of “Godmoding” burns on the back of players’ retinas and blinds them so they can’t find the control panel. A good reason not to attempt time travel, from an aesthetic point of view is to imagine those boxes fitting together like Lego, time travel is rather like melting either end and then trying to stick the piece together. It is highly suggested not to play with the laws of Barry and attempt time travel.


Note:
Do not confuse the Space-Time Gradient with having different technology levels. Some nations have chosen to be fantasy, medieval, modern of future tech. But the laws of time [as strange as they are in NS] still apply, so don’t assume that all low tech nations are in the past or all future tech nations are in the future. To get your head around that: imagine how different to RL Earth would be in the Roman Empire had ended or lasted another thousand year. It would still be [insert current year] but we could all be living with in space, or tilling the soil as dirty peasants.

Excusive Time Zones [ITZ]:
There are some nations that place themselves in a future time [for example The People’s Anthill] and there may be others who have time starting from a past point of origin. As mentioned with the Lego analogy it is almost impossible for nations set in different time frames to interact. As this thread (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=73762&highlight=) involving the TPA and various ‘present time’ nations reveals. It is best to avoid attempting to bend the laws of Barry, as they often snap and result in very frayed and odd RP.

I would have at least appreciated some feed back from the mods by now, even if it was just:

"We didn't like your stinking proposal the first time, stop bugging us about it or we'll smyte you!"

Anyone else feel like giving me feed back on the original or edited version? I might as well hear what The People thought, even if the gods have abandoned the project.

Yes, as an informal guideline or suggestion, I definately think it should be stickied.

silly rabbit, trying to make sense of the world.

and of course it wasn't stickied, it was written by an anti-capitalist who isn't a member of the cabal. duh.

Yes. The Capitalist conspiracy will NEVER allow THIS ANTICAPITALIST PROPAGANDA to be STICKIED! NS has to stay COMMIE- FREE!

~ Ministry for ooc insults and international mockery, DA

(On a side note, i am still advocating a (nearly) no- sticky policy, as they are IMHO useless... well, 90% of them.)

I would have at least appreciated some feed back from the mods by now, even if it was just:

"We didn't like your stinking proposal the first time, stop bugging us about it or we'll smyte you!"

Anyone else feel like giving me feed back on the original or edited version? I might as well hear what The People thought, even if the gods have abandoned the project.

Um, Sirocco already replied that it WASNT going to be stickied because:

It's simply because we're not keen to endorse rules on roleplay that not everyone will want to adhere to.

I think that nations should have the right to choose the time passage within their own nations as they see fit. There really isn't a need to endorse one way or another.

silly rabbit, trying to make sense of the world.

and of course it wasn't stickied, it was written by an anti-capitalist who isn't a member of the cabal. duh.

Yes. The Capitalist conspiracy will NEVER allow THIS ANTICAPITALIST PROPAGANDA to be STICKIED! NS has to stay COMMIE- FREE!

~ Ministry for ooc insults and international mockery, DA

(On a side note, i am still advocating a (nearly) no- sticky policy, as they are IMHO useless... well, 90% of them.)

Awww, this is almost cute, i feel like the girl next door that all the boys argue over, hey Der Angst, make me an offer so i can refuse!

Then again it makes Biotopia feel like a cheap pawn being used by two international mights [bullies?] as an exscuse to slander each other, rather then focusing on the issue.

what does IMHO mean? Anyway, i would still like to have an official moderator review to consider having this very obviously GENERAL GUIDE on some of the NS obscurities in playing the game well, to be stickied. [Please]

It is an often-cited rule of thumb that one RL/RT [Real life/ Real Time] day is equivalent to one NS year.

NOOOOOOOOOO!

<Slaps Bio with a baseball bat for a while>

Oh, and is there any difference between the first copy of the post and the second one further down, Bio? It could be added to Nananaanananaananaman's sticky, I guess...

I think that nations should have the right to choose the time passage within their own nations as they see fit. There really isn't a need to endorse one way or another.

whoops i just found this... anyway.
Yes i agree with you without reservation. Every nation has the right to choose how time [and if they really want, space] should move within their own little 'box'. I'm not advocating anything other then a crash course in understanding the conceptions of time and space in greater NationStates game play.

I did make the point of only refering to the interaction between nations, not inside them. I never said that two naitons engagin with each other even had to be running at the same taime gradient [ie one think a RL day is a NS Year, the other a month, or some such. All i would like to see is that it is confirmed peple understand that what i have written is a rough guide, not the noveau testiment to game play.

THEN if poeple still think it is awful and they don't want it stickied, i will be more then happy to accept. But not when what i have written has been misinterpreted and judged on the misinterpretation.

Anyway, i would still like to have an official moderator review to consider having this very obviously GENERAL GUIDE on some of the NS obscurities in playing the game well, to be stickied.

Sirocco has already said that it will not be stickied.

I think it is a nice, detailed way of explaining time passage within/inbetween nations, however, I dont think it should necessarily be one that is endorsed by the mods.

Frankly, I dont even mention time passage (if at all possible). Makes things much easier. For instance, on one of my threads two days have passed, even though IRL months have gone by and my nation has expanded by millions. While I suppose a complex formula could be developed to explain time passage, is it really necessary?

It is an often-cited rule of thumb that one RL/RT [Real life/ Real Time] day is equivalent to one NS year.

NOOOOOOOOOO!

<Slaps Bio with a baseball bat for a while>

OK, in a very Clear and Calm way could you please tell me what is wrong with that? Obviously i have failed to pick up on a major point.

And....

Yes the first entry was +1000 words and the second is only +900. I have changed the language from DO and DONT to things like "Can" and "SUGGESTED" and emphasised throughout that what i have written is only an unofficial understnading on how time and space operate in NS and doesn't advocate antyhing other then a platform for new users to use to get a graps of the game.

It is an often-cited rule of thumb that one RL/RT [Real life/ Real Time] day is equivalent to one NS year.

NOOOOOOOOOO!

<Slaps Bio with a baseball bat for a while>

OK, in a very Clear and Calm way could you please tell me what is wrong with that? Obviously i have failed to pick up on a major point.



Not everyone has endorsed that. In fact, very few people have. It is mentioned a lot but I dont think that a lot of nations hold fast to it. It can hold true, I guess, for the issues/region/actual "game" portion of Nationstates, but isn't really feasible for the RP portion of it.

While I suppose a complex formula could be developed to explain time passage, is it really necessary?

Ahh, but this is not aiming at creating anysort of formal structure. It is mearly a guide and an insight into how things work. It also advocates better RPing becuase it suggests players consider the joys of using maps, warns of the difficulties of interacting between differnt time lines and attempts to give a brief explination as to how the wierd and wonderful things that happen in NS are possible.

Isn't RP about squeezing the living juices out of your creativity lemon and trying to develop interactive and insightful development in character and nation development? I thought that this is what i was attempting. Nobody has to agree that i am right, or endorse my opinion as being the right one. That's not what happens with the military posts.

I would simply like it to be recognised that there may be points useful to players if they wish to develop these ideas further or have any questions about them. Nobody said this would be or is a hot topic for new players, i just though it would be "intresting" to try and write down. Perhaps the Mod should put a "enter at your own risk" or "we do not take responcibility for the content" message on it, or some such.

Well StarGate is on so i must go fopr a bit.

I don't care if this doesn't get stickied, but i would like it to be for teh right reasons, not because of confusion over what is being presented.

The audacity!

It is an often-cited rule of thumb that one RL/RT [Real life/ Real Time] day is equivalent to one NS year.

NOOOOOOOOOO!

<Slaps Bio with a baseball bat for a while>

OK, in a very Clear and Calm way could you please tell me what is wrong with that? Obviously i have failed to pick up on a major point.



Not everyone has endorsed that. In fact, very few people have. It is mentioned a lot but I dont think that a lot of nations hold fast to it. It can hold true, I guess, for the issues/region/actual "game" portion of Nationstates, but isn't really feasible for the RP portion of it.

then i'll have it changed to "some players use one RT day to eqaute to one NS year." But i do mention elsewhere that players should organise what time frame they are using so as to avoid confusion.

Ok i am going... for real!

It's a good thing Bio, it suggests and explains some. Giving the reader a chance to take what you have written and run his/hers/it's own way with it.

I still think NS Earth is a Dyson sphere with severe ripples, tears, folds and other tomfoolery in the fabric of spacetime.

It's a good thing Bio, it suggests and explains some. Giving the reader a chance to take what you have written and run his/hers/it's own way with it.

Thank you SO MUCH, not because you gave me a compiment, but because you appear to have understood or grapsed the concept of what i was writting, you've made me feel a little less crazy.

Anyway this is only the break until the next episode. Then i'll be gone for another hour!

bump.