NationStates Jolt Archive

FW = Fourth Wall

This is an experiment into a new kind of role-play, one that role play’s NationStates in five years, how will the world be? How will players play?

You can role-play as a different nation, or a fabricated one, or yourselves in five years…

You can roleplay as a roleplayer, or even a character being role-played by a roleplayer of 2015.

You can raid, you can defend, you can go to the washroom and “BRB”… this style of role-play is free for your imagination to run with.

__________________________________________________________

NationStates flashed on the monitor of the player named “Unibot” for the ten thousandth time, the site had gone through a dozen changes through the years, including totally animated menus and backgrounds which Unibot just found absolutely annoying but the n00bs seemed to like it. Always please the n00bs, that’s what he had said years ago, and that was the words he was regretting now, as Unibot absolutely hated them…he had zero patience for them. N00bs were a relatively small group of dumb, atrociously bad spellers who dwelled in the Pacific. There was just one feeder now, the other pacifics still existed, but it was getting a little ridiculous to have five regions for one new player who’d pop in every two weeks or so, and it made the game look small with having such an empty feeder so Max obliged and turned off the feeder taps in all the regions but the original pacific.

Unibot still remembered Max’s post on the News page which caused an uproar among the feederites, he had figured that was the sign of the end, and the population numbers confirmed it. Though, he was surprised because the population had sprung up this past week to around 25,000 which was quite impressive, probably so impressive it’d make his blog. People needed good, happy stories in these times… a couple of people had even be banned for “spamming” the forums about their hypothesized “Second Great Decline” or “GDII”, Unibot figured everyone knew in their hearts they were right, but to speak about it was taboo and considered a swear word because of the panic it would cause. The criminals would be sentenced to deletion if they continued to “fearbait” others.

In a second glance at the monitor, Unibot thought he saw the regional happenings displaying some defenders entering into his region, “The Eastern Islands of Dharma”.

Unibot screamed, “Shit... there isn’t anybody to greet them!”

The defenders were what in the old days would be called “raiders”, the shift had taken place a couple years back with a change to the World Assembly. The admins had created the ability to delete WA proposals if there was community support for such a move. In turn, “proposal raiders” were people who went on the WA and deleted proposals, which took a lot of strategy because you needed a lot of delegates to “proposal raid” with meant they had to create what were called “raider farms”, small little regions meant solely for having a delegate to vote against a proposal. But then around two months later, an ingenious raider from a smaller raiding group at the time, decided to raid the “raider farms” which were small and undefended. This left the raider community as the heroes of the WA and subsequently called “proposal defenders” which had been shortened to defenders after a few years of devolution.

Unibot worshiped the defenders as much as everyone else, they were good people, who dealt with those pesky raiders and vanquished those terrible raider farms that had been growing in large crops for a while until the sport died out. Now the defenders were like war veterans, respected and never forgotten.

He quickly posted on the Regional Message Board, happily,

“What may I do for you, fine gentlemen?”

One of the defenders replied in about a minute (you still had to reload through various methods to avoid double posts)

“We need your region, we need it now…”

Unibot gulped and read the line over again; he formed a suitable response in his head and repeat it out loud before posting it (excluding the cumbersome “ums...” of course).

“Fine, anything for a pair of defenders…what do you want me to do?”

“Ban the current delegate, and then leave. Cool?”

Unibot gulped, “cool…”

Within twenty minutes, the Eastern Islands of Dharma was no longer his home, yet he had nurtured and kept it well oiled for over five years. Unibot even felt free for a few minutes, he was allowed to finally trek the rest of NationStates…or what was left of NationStates, that is.

OOC: Quite an interesting concept actually. I planned to explore something similar to this, but in an IC sense with my EvoWar Conference, that died out too quickly. Even in my brief time here on NS, I've seen combat and the NS atmosphere evolve, as would a real, living world. The development of new technology obseleting tactics and strategy, mass nuclear strikes suddenly negated with powerful MT satellite systems. It's all simply amazing, and to think what it;ll be like in 5 years from now!

"GOD D**NIT!" Hirdonia Screamed at the top of his lungs as he read the post GWO made when Razorl decided to take him on. "Well now the Union is Fuc*ed up its own @$$hole because Razorl is a bit to rusty on his *don't f**k with these guys* info." Hirdonia sighed and took a drink of his Diet Mtn Dew and procceeded to check his blood suger (Diabetes Not FTW!). "Well at least we wern't screwed in '12 TAKE THAT CHASE!" Hirdonia screamed before being yelled at by his family. Hirdonia click on his tab on Nationstates.net and checked the issues which he has already have done before. "I should do my Homework.... Ah no I'll just say I did the wrong page, check my BS and go to the nurse like usual" (Not really, but I had to do that today to not have to go to Friday school.... Ima baddddd student)

Sam was lying more than sitting in the deck chair with her bare feet up on the rail and her 'laptop' balanced on her stomach. She had to tilt it just right to see anything against the glare of the sun.

'Two Thousand-Fifteen: A Speculation' was the title of the thread she had stumbled upon on the Wayback Machine, on a long-vanished site called 'Nation States'. The thread originator, 'Unibot' was a name that seemed familiar but she couldn't place it. She couldn't make head or tail of what it was supposed to be about.

Okay, she said to herself, it is two thousand and fifteen. Not much has changed. The people are a bit older and there are a lot more of them. Mickey Chang is still Prime Minister, or rather, Prime Minister again, having been voted out twice and in twice since the thread began. The average car in Fatatatutti is still a 1960 model.

She clicked the 'Back' button. The Internet hadn't changed - even if high-speed was slower than it used to be - still 99% porn.

"Whatcha lookin' at?"

"Porn," Sam replied without looking up. It was Choo-Choo from next door, fourteen now, with Alphonse, the world's oldest duck, under her arm. He set him down on the deck and he waddled over and flew up onto Sam's lap, knocked over the laptop, and began licking her face. She stroked his back. She was the only one allowed to do that, just like always.

"When you comin' over?" Choo-Choo asked. Her father, Bruddah, was having his Friday-night luau, as always.

"Pretty soon." Sam smiled contentedly as the sun began to set.

Dakota A.K.A Hirdonia turned on Fox News and watched as Northern China was bombared by 13 Nuclear Weapons launched by Israel which as of 2014 was taken over by some Backwater lesser known Terrorist Group. The Situation in America went hectic once President Gordon forced Martial law on the land. The A.R.M or American Resistance movement which appeared in 2007 during Bush's Term went from a peaceful group to Rebels. The Governer of Idaho was assinated after a news report a month ago said he was known for talking to Neo-Nazis, and worst off is that the radicals are camping in the hills near his house!

He took a crap in his bathroom and came back to hear that The Rebels were attacking the town closest to him. He watched as US Marines were engaged in active combat with Rebels whom were probably sponsered by The Chinese whom had a 1 year war with US in '13 Pure Anarchy in some regions of Great Britain and well Africa has been screwed by Civil War. The Economy of The US was pwnzered in 13 after the War with China which is now a Democratic Republic. Dakota walked into his bedroom and saw he had 12 PMs from Razorl talking about the Nuke Raid on North China. He got a call from Klakeoistan about it and told him to be quiet as he heard about an official statement of emergency. He turned off his Computer and Tellivision. He started hearing warcrys. Dakota was known as a Survival Nut and he had an huge amount of Military Grade weapons and Ammunation. He went from his room straight to the kitchen and out of the corner of his eye saw the living room ceiling catch fire.

"Damn Molotovs!" Dakota said as he went across the house to his grandparent's room which he turned into an armory after they both died. He grabbed the AK-115 and began to dress himself in Geurilla style clothing and misc objects he would need in combat. He grabbed a gernade, Pulled the gernade's pin, counted to three and threw it out the kitchen window into a crowd of Rebels whom were lighting molotovs. (OOC: I live on 48 acres on land in the woods with a lot of hills in the surrounding area. A main creek and a seperate creek split through the main area. A Concret bridge to the road is about an 10 minute walk to and back. A barn is in the geographic center of the land. It is currently owned by my grandfather)

He dashed out the main door and took cover behind a tree. He began firing on the rebels. "OAHHHHHHH!" screams one of the rebels as he throws a gernade with two plucked gernades slung to it towards Dakota. Dakota made a mad dash across the field and took an round to the hip. He limped towards the creek when he noticed a rebel standing there with a active gernade in his mouth.

"Oh Fuck!" Dakota screamed as he made a leap of faith to the other side of the creek and took cover behind a huge rock. When the dust settled Dakota waited a few minutes before limping to the Barn. He got in there and got more ammo and his "Inventory" (A backpack). He sat down and looked at his hip. "Not too bad an injury... Fuck dealing with it" as he coughed from some Creekwater that got into his mouth.

He heard the screaming again and watched as the whole barn turned into a fireball around him in a few seconds. He ran up the stairs and did a roll past falling debris. He Climbed a ladder down out of a window and limped towards The armored Dune Buggy he had placed just incase the nuts began an assualt. He drove past the bridge just as an rpg hit it.

He drove off towards the old high school not too far from his location....

(OOC: Hey **** can happen during the next few years!)

Unibot visited the South Pacific first on his lonely midnight stroll around NationStates (or at least it was midnight for Unibot – which was early in the night for an NSer).

It had changed quite a bit since the taps to the birthing fountains had been shut off, the South Pacific was as dry as a pond after being attacked by a giant sponge we called “progress”.

Fudgetopia was now celebrating their 3000th day as delegate, which was being celebrated between the twelve current residents of the South Pacific. Unibot was in fact, astonished to find out how empty the feeders were, they were wastelands… all of them but the original Pacific were dead.

He clicked the link,


“Like what you see? Move Unibot to the South Pacific today!"

and sat in the region, alone, isolated, and crying inside…where were the people? Where was the culture?

Five minutes went by, and the region exploded with defenders. Unibot refreshed the page to see…



• 2 minutes ago: The Defender of WA Liberties arrived from Raid Farm V.
• 2 minutes ago: The Blood, Sweat and Tears of Gunshooterfunblaster arrived from Raid R Us.
• 3 minutes ago: The Old Veteran of Piratevandalia arrived from The Chiefs’ Lodge.



….. and so on.

According to one of the defender’s post, a raider group was planning to turn the Pacific into a hideous raid farm, which warranted a take-over of power to secure the region’s safety. Because of this, Unibot said thanks to the defenders as he watched the delegate step down (and ruin the large count that had been accumulated) to give the power over to the defenders.

There were some raiding groups out there; at least Unibot thought there were. One was called, “the DEN”…they were suppose to bad, and another was the “Black Hawks”, but they were no match for the glorious defenders such as “the NED” or the “Bruised Hawks" who kept the world safe from the threat of raiders. Because of that, Unibot was indebted to them and was always polite and courteous, but he was tired of defenders so he left to Warzone Sandbox because warzones were the only place one could go to avoid raiders, or defenders… it was a haven.

The only peace in NationStates resided in the Warzones,
there the love of power had left to conquer other areas...only the power of love remained.

Dakota stopped the buggy on the side of the road when he recieved a phone call...

"Dakota, You have just been able to hold off and escape one of the most powerfullest Rebel units. I would want you to command us. Listen, I know you believe in our cause, but you are afraid of loosing to the US. We can do this and with you in command we can defeat the Oppressive Evils of The US."
Spoke a A.R.M commander.
Dakota laughed... and then said "Get your men to meet me outside the walls of Frankfort and we will attack it" "Fine" spoke the other man.

5 Hours later...

Dakota had arrived and talked with the troops and they were already charging the main steps of The Capital building. "Attack!" Screamed Dakota while he fired on Marines in defensive positions.
Dakota fired a few more round and began charging the stairs, Rebels behind him followed him as he rushed and killed the marines. Dakota took an RPG-29 from a rebel and fired at the capital.

Unibot now tired of the game, decided to visit a place he had not visited in a while. He clicked the “FORUM” button bravely and waited to be transferred to Jolt (in the meantime, watching the loading video sponsored by Pepsi). For a while, a few years back in the Great Revival, the NationStates forum had even gained a server for itself, but that was short-lived because of server crashes and Jolt was readopted… this time with a more stringent adverting policy which had made the forums unpopular with many, in fact it cut the numbers in half.

The screen was bombarded with visually stimulating spam, porn and movie clips that launched and attacked the viewer of the board. Even the background to the forum was an ad, now one had to read by trying to distinguish the words of a thread from Angelina Jolie’s milk stained upperlips with the “Got Milk” campaign which was now as old and stale as Jolie who in five years now had thirteen more children, eleven radical plastic surgeries and three marriages (as if this was the life story of Benjamin Bratt, her husbands kept getting younger). Senior posters typically posted their threads in white or yellow depending on the background ad, and employed strategically placed spaces to post around ads and the animated town criers (small virtual leprechauns that invaded websites, and yelled at you as a marketing gig).

One needed to be quick, because you only had about 5 minutes on a forum page before a spambot would latch onto your browser and upload random “before and after” pictures of grotesquely distorted penises, which was called the “blue screen of Viagra” by certain circles. Unibot looked at the list of forums, all of the role-playing sections or "Sound & Fury" had been replaced with one massive forum entitled “Non-Technical” , and all of the Nuts & Bolts forums had been amalgamated as well to create the "Technical" section, to make way for the newest editions to the NationStates forum including…

- General I (for random talk)
- General II (for marketing spam)
- General III (for random talk without marketing spam)
- General IV (for random talk about marketing spam)
- General V (forbidden talk)
- General VI (help with homework)
- General VIII (marketing feedback)

General V was a hilarious edition in Unibot’s own opinion, there users could talk about anything that could not be said elsewhere; they also called it “Free General”.

However players were occasionally banned for doing things in General V including….

>Fearbaiting (the worst offence)
>Nostalgic posts
>Chuck Norris jokes of any kind
>Flamebaiting
>Arguing or debating anyone or anything
>Mentioning anything taboo that might offend someone

Now that Unibot thought about it, almost every poster on General V had been deleted by the mods; they were considered filth really…just winy, arguing spammers who didn’t like corporations or their marketing strategies.

But that was enough thinking, he only had a minute left before a spambot grapple-hooked him, so he decided on visiting the role-playing forum, it had been a very long time since Eduard Heir, Unibot’s favourite character had been role-played with.

It was a rainy Sunday.... a very, very rainy one. Not a good time for traveling or enjoying life. But there is no rain in the Internet....

"I launch 1000 carbon nanotube missile (http://wikistates.outwardhosting.com/wiki/Fail)s at u. POST LOSSES[" was the message read at the screen of a home office computer by one of millions of anonymous individuals who didn't take the Internet as serious business, because it didn't give as much of a future as working with the Feds. The Feds in this case, far lenient for as long as the schedule was kept, and considering that sometimes there was some necessary waiting for the massive red tapes, there was more than enough time for browsing.

In reply, he simply answered:

"OOC: Do you have the Proper PhDs (http://wikistates.outwardhosting.com/wiki/Proper_PhDs) to claim that your carbon nanotube missiles will be effective? Show them."

And soon it came back:

"OOC: BUT THIS IS NS! (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NationStates) You are a godmodder!"

And thus, logging off and entering in the proxy settings, a new opportunity came. Using a software called Multiproxy he entered in the Nation Creation and made a new puppet, quickly ascending beyond ten posts in the ever present Spam forums. And then, he entered in NSG and wrote in the title for a new thread:

"Why does Bethesda think gamers are retards?"

With mandatory praise of classics, so called real CRPGs like Fallout 1 and 2, Arcanum and Planescape:Torment and bashing of "nex-gen" dumbed down "play by itself" games with completely massacred canons of their originals and incredibly stupid plots and storylines like The Elder Scrolls 9: The Evil Ring of the Dark Lord of DOOM and Coredian Fallout 7: A Post-Nuclear Star Wars Game. The thread flooded with Bethsoft fanboys who shouted how both were 10/10 AMAZING SECOND COMING OF CHRIST games, like predicted, and soon the threads were locked due to the level of LULZ that came from them.

Meanwhile, rage and LULZ ensued elsewhere in the Internets, as the "oldschool CRPG" Age of Decadence 3 would have Bloom and Soil Erosion implemented.

Next idle time... the interplanetary war with AMF would perhaps get beyond pre-war OOC discussions as it was finally accepted the claim that Third Spanish States controlled an entire "Earth" separated from the "NSEarth" because as he argued, the population in the NS Page only made sense for a one-world civilization rather than for a Nation-State. Considering Fall Schwarz ended last year, as one of the longest RPs in NS history because of the laziness of the anon behind it, it was a bit too optimistic to assume that this other RP would happen so soon.

(OOC: I don't really intend to do anything of what I mentioned here, honestly)

Unibot scanned the pages of the "Non-Technical" thread

Delegations of the Thavaaivans [FT, OPEN TO TH. SPEAK]
Orinikwa Stewbale Bits

This thread apparently required everyone to speak in the exact, Thavaaivan dialect which had been constructed by the OP, and was instituted as a 300,000 word Thavaaivan dictionary on a Wiki. - Unibot got in shit for posting "Out Of Language" (OOL).

Terror in Flight (MT, SEMI-OPEN)
Waoblebdiviaka Candlestick

Unibot excitingly went on this RP to have his hope squashed, apparently one needed to understand the advance physics behind airplane trajectories if they were to understand what the fuck the guys were writing which included a page and a half solely dedicated to proving each player's post with calculations and formulas.

Interplanetary War (Attn-AMF, Pre-War OOC Discussion, Closed)
Third Spanish States

Unibot was delighted to see that two "oldies but goodies" were still roleplaying, and wondered if he could somehow sneak into the war seeing as how he wasn't fit to RP in the others on the page.

He even sent a PM to Third Spanish States.

"Could I possibly join that war you're having?"

ooc if we lucky
http://siroccothemod.blogspot.com/2009/04/all-cool-kids-are-backing-up-their.html
ic
after five years have passed Isa still wonder when BC will give up going for oil

"ok came on after all these years you don't have too much oil in stock"

ooc if we lucky
http://siroccothemod.blogspot.com/20...-up-their.html
ic

OOC: In my earlier post, I stated that the official NS forum we moved to had too many server crashes and we moved back to Jolt, agreeing to a more stringent ad campaign.

After a 3 hour raid through the night, The battle had ended with the death of Kentucky's Governor. "Take a rest men. We'll be attacking Cinncinatti next"

OOC: Sure, I'll bite.

Countless puppet nations and years after first joining, Cuborg's creator, Brad Wiese, had become obese. After all, why go outside, exercise, or even walk when one can sit on their ass and use the internet for twelve hours a day? In the year 2015, most fast food restaurants had delivery, motorized scooters were cheap, and porn was in abundance (even more so than 2009). Tonight was a night like any other night: PWNing n00bz, eating take-out, and 'using' porn.

[OOC: Interesting concept.]

I take some time out from pondering where exactly I intend to go after I complete my MA next year to a familiar distraction. NationStates appears to be still around, to my surprise; I only log into my two or three surviving nations once every sixty days or so, and I haven't been paying much attention to news items or server changes or game updates. I check the world page to see who's ranked #1 for "Most Likely To Be DEATed" -- Pythagosaurus again, no surprise there -- and wonder if it's really been 2768 days since my last telegram for Saevitian Archipelago. That sounds like an awfully long time. All the nations in my dossier are still dead except for AMF, again no surprise, and even Automagfreek seems to be only recently back from the dead, having come back after a hiatus of about a year. I check: last activity 27 days ago. I shake my head slowly.

I check the WA page. The latest resolution appears to have passed by 890 votes to 375. A proposal now needs only 24 votes to reach quorum, and 36 for deletion; that's a surprising improvement since the last time I checked, when it was 18 and 27. There's been an influx of newbies though, possibly ported over from some other website that only just now discovered NS after what, thirteen years?

I head over to the forum and check the latest topics. Some discussion about the allied firebombing of Tehran; the usual leftie gibberish about the poor civilians who died and a sidetrack into a discussion of cheese. I wonder where Lunatic Goofballs went; he posts rather infrequently now, although that's partly because there are so few interesting topics. I check a RP, a war between Kvetchnia and Soviet Manchester: both are fairly old RPers, three or four years, with a good deal of experience, but half the posts are a paragraph or less in length and the writing is as bad as ever. There's another RP going on nearby, a rather long and involved one with a diplomatic meeting involving Oceania, Macisikan, and Pacitalia, a terrible trio of political roleplay; it is of course terribly interesting, although I can't recognize half the names anymore. I check a WA debate thread about resolution #210, something to do with hippopotami.

But at length I quit procrastinating and get back to my paper on "Philosophical Ethnoclimatology in the Fourteenth Century: A Statistical Analysis, with Musical Examples". I'm only on page four and I've already gone through my entire outline.

Unibot was using Chrome II’s new tab feature to watch both screens simultaneously, apparently Cuborg, his old buddy (Cuborg+) from International Incidents had just logged on, that could be interesting he reckoned.. and he sent him a PM asking about doing a roleplay.

After accumulating a large basin of chewing gum in his mouth, Unibot returned to the game’s page to wait for a reply.

____________________________________________________________________

Warzone Sandbox

Warzone Sandbox is a Warzone! The WA Delegate may eject nations as it pleases, but bans are temporary. The region cannot be password-protected and has no Founder.

No Fearbaiting! Moderated Continuously.

Regional Power: Low
Warzone Sandbox contains 10 nations. [List all nations]

_____________________________________________________________________

Ten nations, ten nations of freedom, thought Unibot. The Warzone was home to the last nations of love, harmony, and respect. No defender went to a warzone, for it was not going to be raided, there was no political gain to raid a warzone, they were the only regions whose delegacies were unstable and targeted like bull’s-eyes. No, raiders these days needed stability, their raid farms had to be like miniature fortresses to stand up to the defenders, besides there wasn’t enough warzones to become an effective proposal raider organization off of anyways.

There was no WA delegate for the warzone; apparently the WA was out of fashion for the residents of warzones (“zoners”). One radical player even called the WA, the “spawn of brainwashing lunatics and defender-lovers”. Unibot thought that was a little harsh, but decided to post on the RMB and see who would reply.

He typed, “Hi Zoners, some nice defenders are protecting my region, can I stay here for a while?”

Unibot refreshed the page (by clicking the region’s name, of course), but there was no reply.

He waited five minutes, listened to the new Sam Robert’s single, and refreshed the page again, no reply.

Unibot went to the bathroom, had a shower, ate dinner and played guitar for an hour, before returning to face the humming radiation of his computer’s monitor. He clicked “Warzone Sandbox” on his sidebar to refresh the page once again…

Quorumkiller had replied 1 minute ago, “They aren’t protecting your region, idiot. They’ve raided it, and you’ve let them!”

Could it be true? Were the defenders just abusing him? Unibot stared at the words over and over again… no, it couldn’t be,

He replied back, “Defenders don’t do that, they’re good people, we have the game to thank for them”

Unibot imagined a mocking laugh came from Quorumkiller as he read his reply.

“We have the end to thank for them.”

Unibot screamed, Quorumkiller had just fearbaited him. He was a lunatic, a psychotic, a really thoroughbred fearbaiting fucker who was trying to ruin the game for everyone, how DARE he mention anything about an end…the Great Decline was over, Unibot had even helped solve it, it was over he told himself.

He couldn’t reply, he had no reply other than some unintelligible spasm of denial, so he just clicked “Warzone Sandbox” to refresh the page, and was astonished to find the Regional Message Board blanked with the exception of one tiny new post.


“NationStates Moderators” had replied,
“A reminder to all, fearbaiting will result in immediate deletion”.

Unibot took a deep sigh of relief, and stared at the Regional Happenings, Quorumkiller had left for a region called “Forum VII” and both the link for “Forum Seven” and Quorumkiller were dead.

• 10 minutes ago: The Empire of Quorumkiller departed this region for Forum VII, indefinitely.
• 10 minutes ago: The Empire of Quorumkiller was deleted for rules violations.

There was a name for this, Unibot thought for a bit about it and remembered the name…Quorumkiller had just been what they called “DEAT’d” in the old days. The worst punishment that could be placed on a player, the very mention of DEAT would have made a forum poster quiver like jelly a few years back. Unibot didn’t know what was in Forum VII, other than there was a reason it was not accessible from the outside.

One of the neighbour children had come to get Sam to tell her that there was a call for her at the payphone outside the Seven-Eleven. She had heard a rumour that the Prime Minister had his own phone now. Some people even had cellphones but the system wouldn't have been economical without massive injections of government cash. She still resisted getting a phone of her own. Why should she pay money for people to bother her?

She gave the kid a couple of USD for ice cream - it seemed that fewer and fewer people were using the old cocos - and picked up the receiver that was hanging by its cord. "Hello?"

"Hello, Sam."

"George? Long time no see. Still in prison?"

"Life means life," he replied.

"Yeah. Sorry about that."

"Not your fault."

She knew it wasn't her fault. She wasn't even in the country when it happened. But she was the one who had 'lured' him to Fatatatutti in the first place. Of course, it wasn't her fault that he had brought a gun with him and it wasn't her fault that he hadn't taken the hint when she lifted it off him. He had killed his 'enemy' anyway and if there's anything Fatatatutians hate more than foreigners carrying guns, it's foreigners killing people in Fatatatutti. She had been called out of the country on another mission and she wasn't there when they put him on the plane to anywhere. They couldn't have known - and she couldn't have known if she had been there - that he had enemies in 'anywhere' too. She suspected he had enemies everywhere. That's what came from his thuggish approach to intelligence work. On the other hand, Sam's kinder, gentler approach had earned her a place or two on the planet where she was no longer welcome. So, she felt guilty about his life sentence in who-knows-where and she felt guilty about feeling a little relieved that it wasn't her.

"But it isn't so bad," he continued. "We have cable TV and the Internet."

She was tempted to add that he had a phone and she didn't, but no, that didn't seem like a good idea.

"I've been playing this game, Nation States. It helps to pass the time."

"I thought they shut that down years ago," Sam said with tlittle interest.

"No, they just moved it."

"Mm."

"Well, anyway, I just wanted to hear your voice. There are other people waiting to use the phone, so I'd better go."

"Call again, if you like." Sam wasn't sure why she said that.

"Maybe I will," he said with a mixture of sadness and hope in his tone. "I have a character based on you in the game," he added suddenly.

"Still fantasizing about me, eh?"

"Not really. In the game, you're just as hard to get as in real life."

She laughed.

"Bye Sam."

"Bye." Sam hung up the phone and stood there for a moment, leaning on the phone booth. She wondered where she could borrow a computer.

Unibot opened up a new roleplay after thinking about it for a little bit,

It was titled, “An Unfortunate Affair on the High Seas (MT, Open)”

Eduard, the character, waited patiently for the scene to paint itself….

Eduard Heir was for the first time in years, clean shaven and back to “normal”. He walked with a swagger, dated movie stars and supermodels, drank expensive booze in moderation of course, and had completely forgotten about the people from his troubled past, or so he claimed.

Unibot stopped and took another drink of Nestea…thinking about what to write….

Only five years ago had Heir been standing on a bridge in some depressing hellhole, puking his guts out, screaming a girl’s name, and ready to jump off and die a depressing, pathetic death. He had been stopped by an ex-teacher who had had worse troubles than Eduard, and was homeless because of it. That moment stayed with him forever, and it was months before he fully recuperated with a few close calls,

But Eduard Heir was back.

He was on a cruise ship to Cuborg, a lovely conflagration of criminals. His boat was harboring all sorts of strange and blatantly immoral people…but he was going to Cuborg, not Unicornland (not that there’s anything wrong with Unicornland other than it having an absolutely lame name). Eduard watched as eye patched drug lords smooched with his waitresses, he turned around in disgust and put his arms to rest on the side of the ship, looking out at the portside. There was a nation in the distance, and Eduard believed it was Fatatatutti. He determined this from the coast guards who were throwing foreigners’ guns overboard; Fatatatutti had a notoriously strict gun law policy. Heir moved away from the portside, Fatatatutti made him sick with … well, love. But he denied it, and moved away,

Eduard made his way to the staircase; he figured he would play cards with the gentlemen, and the criminals (con men were fun to play with, until they swindled you, Eduard had found out).

Unibot stopped typing, and thought about what he wanted to happen…it had to be exciting… and then he remembered a certain Tommy Lee Jones’ movie.

A boat unexpectedly smacked up against Heir’s cruiseship, which threw Eduard hard onto the ship’s deck. He used the staircase’s railing to lift himself up, (while whispering, “what the fuck?” under his breath of course).

Heir looked at the boat that had hit the cruiseship, its flags were that of international pirates…and some of them had got on board, with armaments.

OOC: Join in if you like!

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Sam, the character in George's game, threw a grappling hook over the rail and swarmed up the side of the cruise ship. She stood on the deck, feet apart, hands on hips, still dressed in her characteristic black T-shirt and black combat pants. But her hair, which had already been retconned from brown to red, was now long and curly too. "Hello. Eduardo."

“Hello. Eduardo”

Eduard screamed at the sight of her, and ducked onto the floor.
Dammit, not her, thought Eduard. He leaned up against a wall, took a deep breath and waved over Sam, while pulling out his PDA to send a distress message.

Apparently they were sea pirates, One haggard pirate walked over to the staircase, and sighted Eduard leaned against it, typing a message.

The pirate pointed his semi-automatic at the President and shouted at him,

“put down the device, Mr. President, and join your guests, downstairs…”

Eduard put his hands up, and tried to formulate a plan in his head,
He had a safe room downstairs, some guns, some explosives, and a helicopter on the top deck.

The helicopter seemed like the way to go.

Ben watched the news with a mild interest. It was always the same these days. The EU's usual propaganda "The money a Coca Cola bottle costs you, costs the whole of the EU. Invest in European products!" and the almost constant rioting in the streets of England and Wales, the rioters demanding the re-formation of the UK and independance from Europe.

Of course no one really listened to their demands. The majority of the population was content as one of the worlds foremost powers. Many even joined the militias that tackled the rioters and protesters.

A news story came on the screen that caught Ben's interest. The woman in the smart suit on the screen spoke "Twenty six rioters were killed yesterday in Mancester after they attacked police. Poice have also said that over fifty people were arrested."

Ben had been in Manchester that day when the so-called rioters had been killed. It was a peaceful protest, until the local militia fired on the crowd. Many though they were using rubber bullets or blanks, until the bodies started dropping to the ground.

But that was just the way things were these days. He remembered the face of one rioters as she was hit with a bullet in the chest. And he smiled, as he put on his blue militia jacket.

"All right, settle down there, Pegleg," Sam said to the haggard pirate. "Who's in charge here, you or me? Eddie here is an old friend of mine. You don't want to make a bad impression, do you?" She turned to Eduard. "Sorry about that. But you should be used to this sort of thing. You used to be quite a raving maniac yourself. There's no need to go around killing everything in sight. Just co-operate and this whole thing will be over before you know it."

Unibot read Fatatatutti's post, and it absolutely puzzled him.

Eduard got up, and walked over to Sam.

"What is this? Is Fatatatutti having a hard time printing money, and instead of taxes, deciding to raid ever boatload of rich, drunk millionaires that happen to flout by?"

Eduard stared at the pirate ship, its flag was authentic.... could Sam be a criminal?

"Time!" the guard called out.

Damn, George muttered to himself as the monitor went black without warning. Don't they know it's hard on the machine to just pull the plug like that? He got up and plodded meekly toward his cell. It didn't do to call attention to yourself in a place like this.

Who knew how much the RP would have changed by tomorrow? His character Sam might have been godmodded to death by then. He sat down on his bunk and hardly heard the door clang shut as he thought about his next post.

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"The library will be closing in five minutes," the soft librarian-like voice said over the intercom.

Sam had found the new NationStates site and had spent most of her reserved hour on the computer reading with amusement the 'role-playing'. Every poster seemed to be about twelve years old. Every thread seemed to start, "A battle group with five Schnimitz-class carriers just happened to be sailing right past...." or "He whipped out his AK-something-or-other...." Nothing had changed in that area.

She did notice that every second role-play seemed to have a character named 'Sam' who bore an uncanny resemblance to her. But maybe she was just being egotistical.

The security guard paused beside her and smiled. "Five minutes, ma'am."

When did I become a ma'am? she asked herself.

Unibot pulled away from the computer, he always had a hard time writing Eduard’s conversations with Sam, it was the only time the character really lost his cool.

Unibot walked downstairs, the news station on the telescreen (a television with computer feed) was covering an outbreak in Western EU, the Londonium Province wanted to separate, and Obama fresh from his re-election wanted to intervene. Brilliant. The story was old, Google had displayed the news a few hours before, in fact troops from the North American Union (NAU) had already landed in Old London.

He bet 10 ameros that the liberation would be a flop, and returned back to his computer, as he always did.

Nothing was new on the role-play. Great. He imitated the sarcastic smiley face of the forums (:rolleyes:) by rolling his eyes,
But the sarcastic smiley face was no more, sarcasm wasn't allowed because it was used as an excuse as to why some fearbaited. Mods didn't like excuses.