NationStates Jolt Archive

This guide is somewhat a response to Euroslavia's guide on genocide (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=431658) and partly of my own research. Except this guide to be updated as soon as I collect more data.

Basically, people will be roleplaying genocide. Might as well ensure that their roleplay be a bit better, I suppose.
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What is Genocide?

Using the UN definition of Genocide, from the Eon Convention:

§1. Genocide is defined as the systematic and deliberate extermination of a society, or part of a society, based on arbitrary criteria (such as skin colour, genetic conditions or religion). Those covered by this resolution are those protected by The UBR.
§2. Extermination includes, but is not limited to:- murder, torture, enslavement, rape, forced pregnancy and familial separation.
§3. Genocide is committed or instigated by the state, or by groups acting on behalf of the state. Should there be a claim for a private group being responsible for genocide, this can also be brought before TPP (to be described later) to confirm the validity of the claim.
§4. Genocide has no statute of limitations.
§5. If Genocide is used in self-defence, it is still considered genocide, and will be brought to TPP to confirm the validity of the action.

Yeah, only 1/3rds of all nationstates belong in the UN, and only 5% of the UN members actually read their resolutions. Still, here it is.

Why Do Genocide Happen?

This is the main failing of the previous guide I cited. Instead of talking about the reasons for genocide, it merely described how a genocide happen. For RP purposes, assume we got a ethnic group known as Maxipotans. Now...why would you want to kill off those fools? (Big Note: Just because I list those reasons doesn't mean I want to start a debate. I want to provide inspirations for why your dictator pull off the infamous deed.)

1) Everyone, or At Least A Sizable Vocal Majority, hate Maxipotans.

People do in fact hate each other (sorry liberals). Racism is still alive, as well as ethnocentrisim. Remember that in many genocides, the majority usually are the ones who kill off the minority. Why would they hate Maxipotans? Maybe the Maxipotans are uber-rich, and the poor hate that. Maybe they act all smug and deserving of that hate. Maybe, the Maxipotans once ran the rest of the country, but then got overthrow and left with a smaller role, but of course, the rest of the country still does not forgive the Maxipotans. Maybe it is all about ideology as well, the Maxipotans believe in something that the rest of the country does not believe, and this tension lead up to war. Anyway, the Maxipotans are great scapegoats, and therefore, prone to being genocided.

Note that even this may apply to an authoritian country. After all, troops are humans too. While it may be true that they may be compelled to go kill, maybe it's also true that they like the killing. Besides, genocide is done by the state, and it can be said that if a person doesn't oppose the state, he is in support of the state and all it does.

2) "The Maxipotans are Standing In the Way of Progres!"
i.e, they are in control of some mighty oil fields and I want to seize them.

For the most part, this is good for the inner circle to believe, and after all, if you tie that with #1, if everyone hates Maxipotans, then that will be okay. If however, you want their natural resources and the population doesn't exactly hate Maxipotans, the government has to go and inspire hatred, possibly using an ethnic group as a scapegoat, and eventually causing genocide.

3) Maxipotans are Revolting!

Indepedence movements, that want to break your nation apart (or give it sizable autonomy), lead to nationalist sentiment. While the nation's leaders would claim that they don't HATE Maxipotans, they merely hate those who join in the resistance, if a huge chunck of Maxipotans are in that resistance front, maybe it's time that you have to do genocide in order to perseve your country.

Sometimes, however, indepedence movements are motivated by a preceived hatred by the rest of the countryfolk, in other words, #1 is already there. But now with the resistance front, the countryfolk finally has an excuse to act on that hatred and show their genocidical side. And if the territories the Maxipotans is very valuable (#2), there is an incentive to not let that ethnic group take your national resources away.

The more liberal-minded may think: "HEY! Let just let Maxipotans get their own country. What's the problem?" The problem is that you give into terrorism and violence, allowing any old fool to create their own nationstate, and at the same time, you dismemebr the original nation. If anyone can lead rebellions against the government, then the government is sure to descend into anarchy, and not the peaceful kind either. It would cause far more violence, especially since there is the main problem of deciding borders (Is City A part of Maxipotans or part of the main nation? Want to start global thermonuclear war?) Basically, if you intervene and help secessionism, the original nation may very well be destroyed, at least according to nationalists. And if those hard-line nationalists believe the nation is threatened, they'll begin playing around with the tool of genocide more and more to try and save it.

There is also a huge possiblity that, by having the international community intervene and letting Maxipotans get their own nation, other resistance groups around the world may think: "Wow, the Maxipotans are smart. Start a resistance front, and get their own people genocided! When that happens, the international community will intervene, and fight on the side of the resistance front. Plus, if the government attack civilians that belong to the ethnic group, the ethnic group will be compelled to support the resistance group anyway, supporting recruitment efforts. We should start doing that, let the evil Empire attack our own defenseless population and human shields, and we shall prevail!" Hence, by intervening on Maxipota, you may be paving the way for future genocides and interventions. I see this tactic as far more cynical than the actual genocide, and maybe there should be more done to try and stop such manlipuation of public opinon.

4) The Maxipotans Started It!
Always a great fail-safe.

How Do You Do Genocide?
Well, first, you don't call it genocide. THEY, the Maxipotans, call it genocide. It's up to the international communtiy to believe them or not. Likely they will, however, it depends on the severity of the crime and how convicing the evidence is. Imprisoning members of the Resistance and trying them for terrorism...is that "really" genocide?

Anyway, for our purposes, let call it "ensuring national security by getting rid of enemies of the State".

There are two ways: Either have your national army do it, or outsource the dirty work out to private militas who would be more than happy to kill.

If you outsource the work to private militas, you got plausible deniablity, which you can then use to avoid charges of genocide. "The private miltias are not under our control, are organized by people who wanted to defend themselves, and they were organized illegally and without our premission." People may, *chortle*, actually believe you, especially if the violence is terrible and the Resistance Group DID attack civilians and cause massive damage. Even then, all that would happen is that the international community will just target those private militas instead of just attacking your own plainsclothes men. Maybe they might recommend intergrating the miltias into your army, so that you can control those militas and make sure they don't commit war crimes.

If you do the dirty work yourself, then you got no such plausible deniablity, and if it is found to violate the international law, may there be mercy on you.

One more thing, during the act of 'ensuring national security', play up any charges that the rival ethnic group is doing genocide and war crimes on your population. You might gain some sympathy, especially if you claim that you aren't really genociding, you are trying to defend your nation against a band of terrorists dedicated to getting rid of your nation. Even if not, at least the international community, by UN law, may be obligated to attack both you and the Maxipotans, which may be fair enough.

(*Next up: "Dogpiles", and How To Avoid Them)

"Dogpiles"

Short answer: Your worst nightmare.

Long answer: An allaince of at least 3 nationstates who combine their forces together with the sole purpose of overthrowing your nation.

No matter how powerful you are, having lots of nations pile on you is sure to make you suffer badly. If they work indepedently, you have to fight on many fronts. If they work together, they'll steamroll you.

Why do nations dogpile? Some see it as their moral duty to go and ensure that human rights are protected. Others see it as a way to test their 'leet' weapon systems, or see it as an excuse to overthrow your nation and create a puppet state. Still others do it just for fun. Regardless of their reasons, dogpiles are dangerous, but if a nation who is part of a dogpile doesn't have much real respect for human rights either, then you can expect lots of damage to be done to your infrastructre.

A Dogpile is far more dangerous in NS than it is in the real world. In the real world, war can easily harm your nation forever. But in NS World, your nation's growth is based on domesitic policies/issues as well as how long you play the game...therefore any effects of contionous warfare and intervention is, well, ignored. With no consquences to fighting as many wars as possible, nationstates are more inclined to intervene, thereby making dogpiles more lethal.

Dealing with Them, Art of Compromise
The common way of defending against a dogpile is to have an army that is ready to defend your nation to the death. But the dogpile has the advantage of numbers and will win the way on attrition. And, to be fair, you are going to need to wait a LONG TIME to actually aquire a big enough economy to defend yourself.

The best thing to do instead is to use diplomacy. Actually talk to the nations and try to convince them not to intervene. Some saner nations may in fact don't want to intervene either, and just want to stop the genocide.

Here you are in a delimma. If you don't comply, you'll get dogpiled and enter a war you are sure to lose. But if you do comply with the international community's demands, then what was the whole point of plotting the genocide to begin with? You'll become the embarssment of the Evil Dicator Club, for crying out loud.

Instead, just compromise (or 'stonewall', see below). Talk to one nation who sympathize with you and try to come up with a way that will sastify both parties and avoid intervention. If the dogpile wants indepedence for Maxipotans, promise them instead self-rule and a reveune sharing program. If a dogpile wants to bring your Leader to face trial, ask if just giving up your "criminal" generals as scapegoats would be acceptable. If the dogpile wants to get you to stop attacking villages randomly, state that you are open to having military advisors be sent to train your troops to respect human rights and prevent this sort of collertal damage from happening.

A compromise helps both parties. The dogpile nations are happy they stop genocide. You are happy because you completed your goals of genocide anyway, and you haven't gotten killed in the process.

Don't be afraid to lie. Dogpile nations want to think that they are doing something effective. Obivously, you don't want to lie if the dogpile can easily verify what you are doing (and don't make promises you don't intend to keep), but if you are winning the properganda war and convicing civilization that you are heroes fighting against terrorism, all can be fine.

Even if you fail to convince some nationstates to side with you, you may be able to convince some other nationstates to defend you. With two dogpiles blowing each other up, you should be able to stay alive and be able to finish your deed of genocide. Then sit into your defense positions and just hope your dogpile prevails.

Why you want to compromise now? Because if the dogpile defeats you, you would lose full control over your nation, or at least be forced to sign a treaty that would stop you from committing genocide for a very long time. If you don't compromise and you'll lose, then you will be forced into a situation you'll hate.

Stonewalling
Suppose however that you are unwilling to compromise. Suppose you want to do whatever you want and not bow to the will of the Dogpile. You can do that, altough pulling that off will be harder.

To do this, express a "willingness" to compromise, but don't comment on anything firm. Instead, call for a diplomatic meeting where you and the Dogpile Nations meet up in a secure place where they can hold talks and hash out a good agreement.

Even declare a 'cease-fire' in which you will not attack the other side. Of course, the cease-fire is a lie, and it is slated to be temporary anyway, but the international community doesn't need to know that, and it will help make your demands for a peace conference more acceptable.

Now one may be wondering why hold talks when you can just type out what you want and end it at that. That's because you are wanting to waste time. Your main goal is to drag out negogations, quibble over little points, make grandstanding speeches, whine about how oppressive colonial powers made your nationstate have a bad economy and caues huge income disparites, and overall make the other delegates roll their eyes at this utter excuse for a 'peace conference'.

Think North Korea.

All the while, your genocide still continues and your economy grow at a pace to make your military better.

Prehaps those who attended the talks will go 'inactive', as in, they are busy worrying on more important issues like bombing the next country violating human rights, instead of heading into peace talks and dealing with the boring issues. If so, you won. You can safely assume the diplomats are busy quibbling as you finish ethnically cleasning a population.

If, however, the delegates do stay active, do care about the peace conference, they'll catch onto your ruse and will decide to just reform the Dogpile again and attack. Then, you must decide if you want to sincercly compromise or prepare for war.

Effects of Genocide

The domestic effects of genocide is detailed in Euroslavia's guide on genocide (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=431658). However, the international effects of genocide is being detailed here.

You will be seen as an international pariah. People will hate you. People will refuse to trade with you. Sure, you could dismiss all the embargos as dumb posturing, but the embargos mean that you lose out on prospective trading partners and made some nationstates who are unwilling to deal with you no matter what. Even if you avoid the dogpile threat, you still got some bad blood, and this bad blood will be rememberd.

That being said, only a few nationstates would actually read the newspapers, and therefore, would know what is going on. Therefore, you can still have a working relationship with other people, and therefore continue to have a good economy. But if you continue to become 'infamous' for doing more genocides, more people will soon know of your reputation, and will be unlikely to deal with you ever. Not to mention, of course, the fact that with everyone hating you, it will only be a matter of time before diplomacy fails and you're going to have to deal with the dogpile.

Therefore, only do genocide if you have to, and if it serves a purpose. If you would want some protection from your nation from genocide, join up with a region or an alliance of like-minded people who would protect you and form a counter-dogpile. Even then, use genocide sparsingly, and always ensure you brush up on your diplomacy skills to cover it up effectively.
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Comments? Questions? Concerns?

Excellent post. You might also add the potential for negotiating some sort of safe passage for the genocidees out of the genocider's country. That way, the "international community" can feel like they've done somthing, while the genocider gets rid of the genocidees.

In some RP's, I use a top secret quasi-marine SF force called Les Enfants Perdus (The Lost Children), made up of leet mofos.

I often use them to stir up trouble, and make the case for my wars. For instance, in an expansion thread, they blew up a plane carrying my diplomat, assassinated the chief of police, gave drugs to a police officer (opium laced weed) and then forced him to fire on protestors, robbed banks, hijacked armoured cars, and set up a resistance movement.

Then I railed against the injustices, and used it as a pretense for invading. Although the same tactic could be used to give me a reason to kill off an ethnic group in my nation.

In some RP's, I use a top secret quasi-marine SF force called Les Enfants Perdus (The Lost Children), made up of leet mofos.

I often use them to stir up trouble, and make the case for my wars. For instance, in an expansion thread, they blew up a plane carrying my diplomat, assassinated the chief of police, gave drugs to a police officer (opium laced weed) and then forced him to fire on protestors, robbed banks, hijacked armoured cars, and set up a resistance movement.

Then I railed against the injustices, and used it as a pretense for invading. Although the same tactic could be used to give me a reason to kill off an ethnic group in my nation.

False flag operations. Nice. Are these guys for hire?

False flag operations. Nice. Are these guys for hire?

Hmm, that could definitely be arranged. Especially since they "don't" exist. I swear, my nation is so messed up. Socialist on the outside, looking out for the people more often than not (except not lately) but the government is ICly full of spies, disappearances, and secret organizations.

Anyways, send a secret IC to my embassy center, so we don't hijack the thread

Congrats, consider having earned yourself consideration for a spot on the updated updated NS II sticky, coming to a message board near you...eventually.

It is very well written and informative, and should be read and considered by all small, newer nations. However there is one major point which must be considered.

It is not all about what you do. It is about who you are.

You will see many of the larger nations on this board do things that any one of us will deem horrible, disgusting, genocidal hands down. And then you will see blank space. You will see no reaction, well, no serious reaction anyways. Of course there will be a few random guys that butt in and 'Condemn this action', but they will do nothing. Why? Because of who did it. If a respected veteran with a nation of six or seven billion initiates a genocide, it's left alone as a great RP. If a smaller, new nation tries it, 'Somone pwnz that n00b'. I would like to site Automagfreeks genocide against British Londinium. Although this genocide was conducted via nuclear bombardment, it was conducted none the less. Now AMF, respected and feared by most, was given a pass... not because anyone approved of it... but because everyone was afraid of calling him on it. Now if some 200 Million nation did that... they would have been wiped off the map by twenty different people.

Now this is not a guaranteed statement, but in those cases in which you actually see a war start over it, you better be sure that the entire thing was pre-arranged. There is no one guy saying, 'Genocide', and another guy sees it and yells 'War'. What happens is these two guys say... "Hey, lets make a good RP... ok... how bout' I kill off the Maxtopians, and you invade me for it." And that is how it works.

Now if a small nation tries this... they will be jumped by ten nations within the hour.

For example, here I killed 250,000 of my own, mutated people. Should any 07' nation have tried this, they would not have gotten any half-assed opposition, they would have been annihalated. (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=536371)

Side Note. It may be a nice addition to compile a list of global genocides. I would not mind helping you dig some up if you want.

Agreed, But I am amazed AMF and the rest of the big evil nations havent formed the Imperium of Man yet. They fit the agenda perfectly.

Well, this thread brings up a number of questions and as such has a number of problems. First off, most of the established and well respected members of International Incidents will argue with you that there is no United Nations. ow is not the time and place for that argument, but you have to realize that many of them will just laugh you off if you quote this "convention" and you claim that they commited genocide. Also, this is an OOC article, not an IC article. As it is, you might as well use OOC sources for your definitions. Try the dictionary.

Then, although you give a few reasons for genocide, you ahrdly tell how to get out of it. Tell a nation coming down on you for a human rights offense that that group "started it". It's not going to stop them, due to a combination of a) they know your bullshiting, and b) they could care less because they are probably megaimperialists.

Then, you begin talking about dogpiles, which should go in it's own thread.

It is not all about what you do. It is about who you are.

Quite true.

AMF and the rest of the big evil nations havent formed the Imperium of Man yet.

It's called gholgoth.

And, erm, never ignore dogpiling. Then you're almost as bad as hataria.

Agreed, But I am amazed AMF and the rest of the big evil nations havent formed the Imperium of Man yet. They fit the agenda perfectly.

Because there are plenty of morally neutral big nations to oppose them. It's bad for business, you see.

I'm going to make a thread that has to do ALOT with genocide and basiaclly an alliance wants to commit genocide on South Lizasaurians while South Lizasaurians want to commit genocide on them. While both are trying to systematically wipe each other out how would the NS world respond?

I'm going to make a thread that has to do ALOT with genocide and basiaclly an alliance wants to commit genocide on South Lizasaurians while South Lizasaurians want to commit genocide on them. While both are trying to systematically wipe each other out how would the NS world respond?

My guess is it depends on the person who is reading the thread. Some, like myself, won't really give a rat's ass, but others might jump in for whatever reason (OOC/IC score to settle, or just bored), so if you want it to stay closed, make sure you state that it's closed.