NationStates Jolt Archive

I've noticed a heavy slant toward war RP when it comes to nations. Alliances, storefronts, and embassies are almost sub-war threads in that the majority of discussion I've seen is preparing for war, arming for war, or getting allies for war.

Almost everything else is character based RPs.

Does anyone have suggestions on some non-war RP that could include nations?

How about a Sports RP?
if u make one i'll join

international cross border infrastructure would be my thought, first love, and suggestion. rail, monorail, alternative energy, nearfuture alternative (i.e. the oil is GONE) tec!

nonmilitary trade aggreements are more or less the obvious thing. unless like me, you're not to up on nor interested the mechanations of capitol.

i am rather fond of charicter level though. nonconflict, at least nonviolent conflict, gardens, houses, little trains, again alternative energy, environmental harmony.

there are challanges to achieving environmental harmony without loosing social balance. things like that. getting along with little furry creatures with big sharp teeth. becoming little furry creatures with big sharp teeth.

alternative nonmonetary economic institutions. something like yv88 only with tecnology we have now and near future that we didn't have when swan wrote it. but again less capitol oriented then he envisioned.

the oil has run out but all is far from lost. governments are downsizing their militaristic and enforcement aspects. basicly the're starving, the governments that is, people, other then those in cities who have never had to know where there next lunch comes from are perhapse getting a bit hungry. the oil ran out a bit sooner and quicker then anyone thought it would. gas stations have gone out of bussiness because no one but car hobbiests buys gas anymore, it's gotten so expensive, or drives cars, so governments are no longer squandering their resources to maintain roads. well it's no longer THEIR resources, it's whatever you find where you live or know how to make what with. little groups of people are building little people sized railways on very narrow gauge tracks here and there, but mostly people are still having to walk. mathom houses, like cashless thrift stores, are springing up in every village and neighborhood, as are craftufacturing centers, something like a public library but for work spaces and the loan of the kind of expensive tools only industry, under monetary economies, could previously afford, as well as more common ones.

then there are the community barns and gardens. people are organizing themselves, but on very different, less hierarchal, more indiginous like, lines.

creating beauty is honored and aggressiveness is ostracized. so much has culture shifted, in the aftermath of the dislocations fallowing the day the power first went off and no one could any longer afford gas or other petrolium products.

methane from biomass has become the predominant fuel for home heating and cooking, but combustion is almost never used any more for anything else.

the manufacture of anything requiring large amounts of energy now takes place mostly up in the mountains near dams that produce energy. and people , those who have survived the famins, are moving back to the land, or to new 'college' towns, also up in the hills. most coastal cities are at least partialy under water now thanks to raising sea levels due to global warming. the causes of which are no longer subsidised, but the effects will still take a few more decades to subside entirely.

and a realatively benign pandemic has reduced overall human firtility to the point that total human population is decreasing, not so drasticly as to be any real threat to the species, but enough to give everyone more elbow room then they've known for several centuries.

ok so maybe it sounds too good to be true, but there are still plenty of opportunities in that context for stories/roll playing.

and of course, with incresed localization there is increased diversity between how different places do things, even places not all that far appart.

so transportation infrastructure between them for example, would face challanges in reaching aggreement on standards to make them possible.

and of course people WANT some infrastructure, but realize they have to get togather and make/maintain whatever they want for to exist and so it's no longer ignored the tradeoff between mutual effort to do so in order to have a given degree of comfort zone, and how much comfort zone the're willing to live without to avoid doing so.

governments might not be able to enforce environmental regulations, any more then they any longer can borders or building codes, but your downstream neighbors can! and will! with pitchforks and blunt objects if neccessary.

=^^=
.../\...

That's such a terrific scenario, Cameroi, all I can ask is: where's the sign-up thread?

I think you've just singlehandedly given us an entire new category: NFAT, Near Future Alternative Tech.

Still, an RP's hard to keep going without some kind of tension. No doubt you'll have some in mind, but I don't want to hijack Kesshite's thread by developing them for this single instance.

So, in general, what sort of tensions between nations can people see that could be developed? And how are they resolved without war?

Cameroi's got several of the biggies for tensions: border questions, resource use/ownership/control, differing technologies. Then there's good old religion, especially if it's a missionary faith. A quick trawl through the UN forum should provide some more.

Solutions? Time (the sharpness of an issue wears away; the next generation doesn't think it's important). Diplomacy. Imposed solutions (UN, neighbouring villages, benign power). Scientific discoveries. Intermarriage/assimilation. New resources found. Education. Trade. Shared experiences/undertakings. A common goal (space exploration?). Propaganda/information campaigns. A single event (building a bridge?), a single person (great actor's performance forces review of past heroes).

I dunno, when you think about it there's so much, it's amazing we spend so many words on wars.