NationStates Jolt Archive

Introduction

This is the first of three related threads, part of a story line called “The ‘Other’ Final Frontier”. The rules I’d like to apply to these threads are as follows:

This thread is intended to discuss basic concepts, “rules” of role-play, etc. I expect some discussion of underlying technology, but let’s not get bogged down. Instead, we should try to stay fairly high level, working out the broad (forest-level) issues before getting bound up too heavily in (tree-level) details.


The next thread will be called “The ‘Other’ Final Frontier (Semi-Open OOC Thread)”, and will exist for the purpose of permitted extensive OOC give-and-take w/re to the story line. That way, we can reference the OOC thread (“See my comment here [not a real link] on thus-and such…” or similar) without breaking up the IC thread.


The last thread will be called “The ‘Other’ Final Frontier (Semi-Open IC Thread)”, and will cover the actual RP within the intended story line.

So now that I’ve explained what the threads are for, let’s proceed with the OOC discussion.

Note to Mods: If you think this belongs in Gameplay, take it there – but the intimate relationship with the other threads might mean it should stay here for clarity.

Who I Am (And a Confession of Sorts)

I’m posting this thread as the United States of Allemande, but Allemande is a puppet. Well, maybe a quasi-puppet. I’m not opposed to puppeteering as long as you don’t wank your puppets. My “other” identity is Ayaddha, founder of the Ayadi News Network (ANN). There is interplay between the Allemanders and the Ayadi, but I’m trying hard to keep it fair.

Allemande is a modern Western democracy, intended to resemble the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Belgium, or whomever I feel like this week ( ;) ). I’ll be starting a thread on the coming Allemander Presidential elections (based on an offline game of President Forever (http://www.80soft.com/pforever/info/); those familiar with the Malgerian War thread have already “met” President Michael Blum and Senator Robert Donne, the two candidates).

If you’re worried about it, the relationship between Ayad (the larger land, of which Ayaddha is just a part [OMG, more puppets…<s>] and Allemande is mainly for RP purposes. Allamande is a convenient place for Ayadis to get an education and exposure to “the West” (meaning the non-Islamic world); it’s better than saying “Paris”, “London”, or “New York” when no one knows if these places even exist in NS, let alone in the condition those places imply in our RL world. Ayadis can buy DVD’s, computers, satellite dishes, Armani suits, Johnny Walker Red, and Benson & Hedges cigarettes from Allemande without having to RP such things. In literary terms, Allemande is a “plot device.”

And, from the standpoint of Allemande, Ayad is the same thing. Immigrants from Ayad provoke nativist feeling, exotic plants and animals can come from Ayad, people can make movies there, etc. Ayad is a nice stand-in for the “Third World”.

As far as this thread is concerned, Ayad is not a factor. This is not to say that Ayadis won’t show up – like any good plot device, they’re there if I need them…

The Concept

President Michael Blum is a visionary. He’s one of the youngest men to be elected President of the United States of Allemande, and because Allemande has no term limits (they’re unconstitutional), he could be re-elected again and again, serving a very long time.

So he’s ambitious, but in a good way. He wants to make necessary changes to Allemander society. He fought hard to get Allemande into the U.N.; he wants Allemande to be environmentally responsible, yet prosperous. And he wants Allemande to expand, but not through war.

To that end, he’s been funding research into building underwater habitats. Allemande is in the West Pacific, so he’s looking around at all this water and thinking, “Why can’t we settle the ocean floor?” That’s the idea here: the establishment of an ocean bottom colony by Allemande.

Since the initial size of a NationState is 5 million people, I need to wait until Allemande is generating an annual rate of population growth at least double that (10 million per year). My guess is that this will happen when Allemande crosses 100 million population. That way, the effect on the NS “balance of power” is miniscule:
Allemande...........Colony...............Total
100 million...........5 million.............105 million
110 million...........6 million.............116 million
121 million...........7 million.............128 million
133 million...........8 million.............141 million
147 million...........9 million.............156 million
162 million...........10 million............172 million
179 million...........12 million............191 million
197 million...........14 million............211 million
217 million...........16 million............233 million
239 million...........18 million............257 million
263 million...........20 million............283 million
290 million…
If you look at the totals, the effect of adding a colony to Allemande is effectively the same as giving Allemande an extra turn's worth of population growth (well, actually, it’s less – by my estimates, based on 10% population growth per annum [rounded up]). So it’s not like I’m really jumping out ahead of everyone by doing this … once.

To time the arrival of this new colony properly, I’ll assume that it gets established 5 days before I create it in NationStates (which means 5 days before I reach 100 million population). If my estimates are correct, that makes March 12, 2005, the target date for the beginning of the next two threads [which would initiate RP] and March 17, 2005 as the date when the new colony is “officially” created.

So now, to begin the discussion, let me ask a few opinions:

Do people generally believe that undersea colonies are FT or MT? I think they are NFT (near future tech) at most; assuming that we stick to the continental shelves at first, the technology, while formidable, isn’t (or shouldn’t be, from a literary POV). We can build geothermal power plans, undersea “windmills” (“currentmills”?), and maybe even deploy floating solar farms. Agriculture can involve algae farming (yum!!!), maintaining fish pens, etc. Mining (the real payoff) can involve extraction from the ocean bed. Other observations on technical/economic obstacles?


The popular concept of a “bubble domed” city is cool, but probably impractical (without force fields, anyway). Most likely the settlement would be underground, and probably some distance underground, in order to make the engineering easier. Some structures would be built on the bottom, but not too many (service structures and the like). Tectonic stability is a requirement. Are the continental shelves of the world suitable, given these needs?


There will have to be a surface “port” (ocean platforms) to make commercial access viable. Maybe a lot of them (and what about fixed wing access?). Thoughts?


A city beyond 300 feet (is that the right depth?) is probably inaccessible to scuba divers, which means that activity beyond the shelters would require submarines and bathyscaphes. I’ll have to research the depth of deep sea diving gear. Any other access issues?


Very few small arms can function underwater (maybe gyrojet weapons, but do those even exist?). I don’t believe energy weapons (aside from lasers) would work, and lasers would even suffer quick attenuation. Electrostatic weapons (rail guns, needle rifles) might work, but would these be practical for underwater use. Anything else (personal torpedoes [ :rolleyes: ])?

With that, I’ll open this up to discussion

P.S. If this has been discussed before, can we have links to threads?

Bump

Since the initial size of a NationState is 5 million people, I need to wait until Allemande is generating an annual rate of population growth at least double that (10 million per year). My guess is that this will happen when Allemande crosses 100 million population. That way, the effect on the NS “balance of power” is miniscule:Incorrect. After a while, population growth with stay the same, no matter the size, at roughly 5- 6 mio/ day (With randomised exceptions ging up to 10 mio. But they're rare). The long term average is roughly 5.65mio/ day (I think. Ages since I checked). As such, the relative size difference will be constantly reduced.

Furthermore, instead of claiming puppet populations (Generally, though not always, frowned upon), you could use it a nothing but a fluff puppet, with parts of the main nation's population being considered to be 'The Colony'. Which is what pretty much everyone (I.e. me) is doing.

Oh, and of course, this has nothing to do with *other* puppets. I have dozens flying around, they're just not politically affiliated with each other, as a colony would be.

Do people generally believe that undersea colonies are FT or MT? I think they are NFT (near future tech) at most; assuming that we stick to the continental shelves at first, the technology, while formidable, isn’t (or shouldn’t be, from a literary POV). We can build geothermal power plans, undersea “windmills” (“currentmills”?), and maybe even deploy floating solar farms. Agriculture can involve algae farming (yum!!!), maintaining fish pens, etc. Mining (the real payoff) can involve extraction from the ocean bed. Other observations on technical/economic obstacles?Who cares? You are what you want to be, and strict lines between MT/ FT/ MFT/ PMT, PMS, DDT, CFC, FCC etc. are somewhat silly, at least in non- combatant RP.

The popular concept of a “bubble domed” city is cool, but probably impractical (without force fields, anyway). Most likely the settlement would be underground, and probably some distance underground, in order to make the engineering easier. Some structures would be built on the bottom, but not too many (service structures and the like). Tectonic stability is a requirement. Are the continental shelves of the world suitable, given these needs?Given that we *have* submarines reaching the bottom of the mariana trench (Admittedly, it isn't exactly a cheap solution), it shouldn't exactly be... impossible. Or, for less excessive depths, hard. I might note that several nations have this kind of construct, I.e. me or Tsaraine. There has also been an Underwater Bubble housing entire nations (Plot Device), so...

There will have to be a surface “port” (ocean platforms) to make commercial access viable. Maybe a lot of them (and what about fixed wing access?). Thoughts?I do it with underground maglevs going through, well, tunnels, from the main island/ continent to the Underwater Bubble... So, personally, I find an Eurotunnelesque concept most suitable.

Very few small arms can function underwater (maybe gyrojet weapons, but do those even exist?). I don’t believe energy weapons (aside from lasers) would work, and lasers would even suffer quick attenuation. Electrostatic weapons (rail guns, needle rifles) might work, but would these be practical for underwater use. Anything else (personal torpedoesHarpoons? (And no, lasers would be a horrible choice. Note the roughly hundred meters it takes the water to swallow *all* light.). Oh, and I don't think this is relevant for the colony dome, is it?

Good comments, thanks.

One thought on "why a 2nd nation": an underwater (or space) colony might have different laws from the parent due to legitimate differences in living conditions. An open-air nation, after all, can ignore the environmental impact of many (if not most) decisions, since a lot of the damage they do is borne by the planet as the whole (Tragedy of the Commons, and all that).

An undersea (or space) colony, OTOH, that decides not to pay attention to its environment will quickly suffer, if not die.

There are probably other examples of where a government ruling an open-air nation would make one set of decisions, while a closed colony would likely make another.

For these and other reasons, I would suspect that the colony would be better handled as a unique entity. The fact that population growth tops at 5-8 million (as others have observed) may make me put off its establishment for a week or so (5-7 game years). I may also have to consider it an autonomous (or semi-autonomous) region, kind of like California. :cool: )

(That's a joke, son: J-O-A-K, joke ;) )

The "puppet wanking" problem can be handled with good RP. I can always come up with good reasons why they might not be able to cooperate, or arbitrarily limit the "cooperation" to whatever the nations could have achieve individually, and RP some reason why the sum of their effect is no greater than what either of them would have been able to achieve on their own. "Wanking" is not only unfair, it's also bad RP, after all.

In the end, it's my call, of course, and I assume responsibility for the choice I make. What i comes down to is whether I want the "color" the game can provide when I make a different set of social/political/economic choices due to different living conditions.

(With Ayad, there are different reasons for puppeteering, which I'd rather not get into in this thread.)

The tech matters only because the parent nation is basically MT and I'd like it to interact primarily with MT states. It's not impossible, I grant you, for MT and FT nations to interact - but the interaction could get weird. So maybe I could rephrase the question this way: could an undersea colony be considered MT? Or would it have to be considered FT, and therefore (basically) be restricted in its interactions to the "ghetto" of FT nations?

I was already thinking of maglevs or pneumatic transport between the colony and the mainland, but it would probably be a good thing for the colony to have its own facilities, especially if I want to make it semi-autonomus or autonomous.

Again, thanks for the feedback.

Harpoons? (And no, lasers would be a horrible choice. Note the roughly hundred meters it takes the water to swallow *all* light.). Oh, and I don't think this is relevant for the colony dome, is it?

No, but it's relevant to warfare. And that brings us to the other reason a big, overarching dome might be a bad idea: depth charges/torpedoes ( :eek: ).

Bump

Regarding underwater warfare...try supercavitating torpedoes. Nuclear tipped supercavitating torpedoes. Look for "Shkvall" on Wikipedia.

Regarding underwater warfare...try supercavitating torpedoes. Nuclear tipped supercavitating torpedoes. Look for "Shkvall" on Wikipedia.

Actually, I was thinking of infantry actions. Submarines are - of course - the main undersea weapon, and attacks on undersea colonies would involve submarines, but if you want to overrun and occupy such a facility (rather than simply destroy it), what do you do? Elite scuba divers armed with harpoons seems rather ... primitive.

Bump

Bump

Bump. If no further comments, I'll let this die. Just wanted to see if there were any other remarks.

And again, Der Angst, my thanks for your observations. I'm playing with a spreadsheet and growth projections to make sure that the proposed colony is "right-sized" w/re to the mother country. I still think I'll make it a puppet, declare it sem-autonomous (my mother country will probably choose local autonomy as an issue option when it comes up), and then just be careful to restrict any cooperation to what is necessary and reduce the amount to something that is "fair" (IOW, what either partner would have been able to contribute by itself if the other existed).

I've another motive in assuming that the colony is a "region" in the USA (United States of Allemande): it could make some of my internal political threads (like the election I have planned for this summer or fall) more interesting.

To me, a lot of the fun in this game (for me) is playing with the issues and seeing what happens. :)

Once more, thanks!