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Ohhhhh
December 23, 1917̃, Gallup, New Mexico.
Jay wandered through the stinging rain, nearly blinded on all sides by the darkness. The stormy seas of the clouds blocked the stars, the rain all but blocked the last drips of dark blue left behind by the sun. He headed eastwards along the road, guided by lights few and faint, and growing more so. East, away from the few oases that were even slightly familiar. Shivering, he walked on autopilot - his mind was too far plunged into turmoil to give too much thought towards navigation. Had his world ended? Jay asked himself that question with an unreasonably straight face, one which suggested only mild concern. Granted, Perle’s letter been brutal and bullish as a mercy, and granted, this Alphy Pettigrew was probably the most qualified person in the nation. But a letter was no medium for matters so grave, and Jay, reasonably, had some doubts. What if they were wrong? Perle had mentioned that her source was in a bad way mentally, so perhaps claims of the apocalypse couldn’t be taken at face value. What if these “tears in reality” had simply squirreled every living being away to several parallel universes, as they rapidly began to cover the globe? The mere existence of these portals meant that reality was pretty much open to interpretation by now. But what if they were wrong? Nobody understood the mechanics behind this, and the possibly insane scientist had probably only had a short glance at very limited data. After all, these “gateways” had opened before with no apocalyptic aftereffects. Yes, that was it. Everything was fine! While a few confused souls thrown into this timeline grieved about the loss of everything they knew, they were really just a few weeks away from rescue.
…No it wasn’t. Jay saw where this was going. Even if many of his points were sound, he saw himself spiraling into a cycle of denial, stretching logic more and more to preserve his sanity. He was a realist, swearing off comforting lies like they were drugs. It was why he had been a high councilor in the first place. Part of him knew that something very bad had happened, wanted to accept the disaster which had been described to him like fact. Already, he had partially accepted it. And that led to why he was out here, almost numbed by the freezing rain. He had been told with absolute certainty that the entire universe he was from had ceased to be. That universe which contained billions of humans, and the extraterrestrial life which could easily exist in far greater numbers, all gone. Most dead - no, wiped from whatever constituted existence, with no physical record of the lives they had lived. The human intuition could hardly picture a unicycling donkey computing pi on a mountain. Even comprehending the smallest detail of a disaster which was likely far worse than just the end of the world, that was harder than him doing that donkey’s job for a day. And yet if many did not have the random fortune of being teleported away to a world unknown, if those who did have that fortune did not know them, then everything those people had done in life was cruelly, worthlessly gone. What if the same thing happened to himself tomorrow? It was likely Harry had been thinking along very similar lines. What a horrible fate. But Jay’s current thinking involved, in a way, honouring the dead. If his universe had been erased, the smallest thing he could do was to cry about it. Contrary to his behaviour, Jay thought he felt fine. He wasn’t broken, sobbing, or raging inside, even if he forced his body to act those out.
He reckoned part of it was a matter of scale. When one person is lost, it’s quite possible to grieve for them, to note who they were. When a disaster ruins the lives of a multitude of people far away, we often say no more than “Oh well, that’s quite horrible” unless it is made personal. But Jay was quite certain that he had lost people important to him, so his lack of feeling must have been due to the uncertainty. There was no body, no crime scene, quite possibly no crime at all. In war, many parents lose their children, but he reckoned the sons and daughters who were listed as missing took another toll. How can a family grieve if the soldier in question “might be” dead? He had the distinct feeling of one who opens his mouth, only to find no words to say. What would he do, what would he feel? Just go home like everything was normal? As a thought rose to say “Well, you can’t stay out here” he snapped at it. “Why not?” He snarled at himself. “I can’t just go home and sleep it off! I…I have to atone for being here!” “By doing what?” the smart part of him said. “Dying in the cold? How could that fix anything?” A few tears came down, certainly gentler than the rain that battered him. Jay took note of his surroundings, as there were none. He turned back around, following the feel of his waterlogged shoes kicking at the side of the road. One part of him tried to say that he didn’t even have the courage to die. The other part was proud, proud that he always knew he had a responsibility in his heart. There were people thrown across universes, many far more isolated than him. The alternate timeline he was in had connections to the old one, and the same was probably true for where everyone else had ended up. To discover the mechanics, develop the technology, bring everyone together, that would be his raison d’etre. If no rescue was forthcoming, Jay Walker would create a rescue, no matter how long it took or how close to impossible it was. Then, the silhouette of a person formed just ahead. And that silhouette threw a raincoat at his face.
Cascadia and columbia and Columbianas
Darn it, NF, you make me want to come back so bad. :D
BTW, excellent writing like this is why I lurk yet here.
Tessen and Nearly Finland
Aw... thanks, that's really reassuring to hear. The biggest obstacle to writing is just thinking that it's not good enough to post, that it's not interesting, that it's not genuine enough, or might be full of enough grammatical errors to look like the end product of google translate. I hope that's not just me.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! :)
Nearly Finland and Cascadia and columbia
Happy belated Thanksgiving, to you as well (I was traveling during the holiday, and unable to wish everyone a blessed Thanksgiving ON Thanksgiving). ;)
Nearly Finland, Cascadia and columbia, and Sandinista nicaragua
December 23/24, 1917̃, Gallup, New Mexico.
Roger and Jay trodded along silently, only their small rainy patch of road illuminated by a tiny flashlight. Jay shivered - his new, oversized raincoat didn’t exactly help with the fact that he had already been soaked about as much as if he had been swimming across the english channel. Jay stared up at the invisible, all-absorbing sky, blinking rapidly as the raindrops fell like particularly unimpressive artillery shells. It occurred to him that aside from their dull, moving patch of road, absolutely nothing was visible. His biology knowledge was impressively unimpressive, but he was relatively sure that there were creatures that spent their entire lives underwater, too deep to even see a glimmer of the surface. Did they perceive a world beyond them, or, since it was not visible, was their layer of ocean the only thing that occupied any of their thoughts? Or… or perhaps deep-sea animals weren’t too big on philosophy. Then what about those fish that live near enough to the surface to glimpse it? That is, a particular fish that need never worry of fishermen. If the surface had no bearing on their life, did the fish ever notice it, or did they simply go about their instinctual life? Again, it was probably the latter, since these are fish. But what about people? We explore, yes, we think about things that have no bearing on our life, plenty. But, Jay thought, did we, did he, ever get too distracted with our tasks to look up every once in a while? Probably, him more than most. The opportunity to force this loose thought into meaning something was lost when his escort cleared his throat, with the frustrated loudness of a sentient lorry which has been started up via moose ramming.
While Jay didn’t mind dreaming up sentient fish to escape the downpour, Roger felt more like he was in a classroom during a major test, where nobody dares talk, but most are bored out of their minds. A classroom with no roof during a storm. Certainly, a conversation was a fine way to escape the fact that both of them were in varying states of miserable, though at least the lights of the town could navigate him. “So, friend…” Roger began, giving Jay the ‘are you insane, man?’ look, “I take it you’ve received some ill news. Would you be willing to talk about why it drove you out here?” Jay pondered it, wondering what the best response was. It wasn’t at if he was clear on the issue himself, but it seemed that Roger was in the mood to receive an explanation. Jay wasn’t about to make himself look more loony. “Lost someone. Don’t really know what to do.” When he ran those words through his mind, he didn’t react at all, but Jay couldn’t say them without having to suppress a tear. He wondered whether he still felt things, or if it was just his crude imitation of the correct reaction. Roger’s expression, which held both sympathy and curiosity, intensified. “Family? I’m sorry, you must have been close.” Jay nodded, but finally felt the need to express himself a little. “Yes, I’ve just… never been through this before. I’m not quite sure how to react.” Roger puzzled over this, trying to find something worth saying. “Well, you seem to be grieving quite naturally. There’s not really a set process, but I know how you feel.” A few house lights walked by. They were back in civilisation. “Clearly you don’t want to go into detail, and that’s quite fine. But personally, I find that a full discussion of events is healthy.” Roger said. Jay knew the mailman long enough to know his hobby wasn’t hearing about other people’s problems. Roger was genuinely trying to help - but the two of them were different people, and even if Jay didn’t have the details of his plausible insanity to hide, spelling out every specific was just not something he felt like doing. Conveniently, there was his bungalow - the same sort of light as the others, but it was home, and that made the lightbulb shine a little bit brighter. He stood in the doorway, only realizing the full extent of the cold now that he was out of it. “Thank you kindly for the advice, and the use of your spare raincoat, sir.” Jay said as he handed it back, ready to shut the door that was allowing all of the warm air to escape. Roger looked from side to side. “Actually,”, he said “I’ve got to go return this before someone realises that it has been borrowed. Have a wonderful, well, morning by this point, I suppose.” Once he had gone, Jay got right to work lighting the fireplace, then refilling his just-unpacked suitcase. Sleep? After the shock the letter gave him, he was about as liable to try that as a sentry. No, he was staying awake, whether by choice or not, and that required doing something. For example, preparing to go on a trip to Stanford.
Hey Tessen, got any free time coming up? I mean, we're so close to functional.
December 24, 1917̃, Gallup, New Mexico
As the air caught the first rays of the early-morning sun, Jay stood in the front yard of his boss’s house. It was downtown, but such a concept didn’t really exist here, where the horizon still felt open and mostly unobstructed. The unimposing house’s wall was made of a kind of smooth, rounded material, the tan surface of which nearly blended into the ground. He recognised it as an adobe-style house, made of thick mud walls to keep out the heat. His boss, a seasoned, bulldog-faced man with the last name of Robles, poked his head out grumpily. “Señor Walker? How can I help?” he half-muttered, his tone implying the “And why are you bothering me at this actually quite reasonable hour” question. Jay tugged at the little bag he was carrying, hoping his expression adequately implied that he knew not what the word sleep meant. “I’m sorry, boss, but I’m not going to be here for a little while. I have to go to North California, but, ah, I can’t really afford to not get paid leave. I know I have today and tomorrow off, but I may need a little longer than that.” Mr. Robles tilted his head a little in curiosity. “You started work not too long ago, and you want paid leave for an undetermined amount of time?” Jay searched for a reason, and, again, could only come up with the truth. “I’m sorry, boss. It’s a personal crisis, I have to visit a friend who’s in the hospital. I should be back by next week.” It was difficult to notice, but Mr. Robles’ hard expression softened slightly at this. He wasn’t completely cold. “Take all the time you need, and Merry Christmas to you.” he said with uncharacteristic conviction, then he disappeared back inside.
December 25, 1917̃, Palo Alto, North California
Here, the blue air was surrounded by a ring of the evening’s orange and yellow. These rings hovered atop hills or mountains, which themselves were shrouded by the haze of distance. Jay shuddered from a breeze, and the grass covering the nearby gently-sloping hills shared his reaction. He (and a few students who seemed to be philosophizing) overlooked a few buildings that mainly comprised of the Stanford University campus. Few and both clustered and scattered, the structures represented islands in the otherwise-unbroken sea of trees. With the events of the previous day fresh in his mind, and the uncomfortable ride of the train, he had barely gotten enough sleep to keep his record of never going a night completely without it. He had visited the campus a little earlier, and, thanks to his sleep deprivation, was initially surprised at how the buildings all looked, well, not quite modern. Stanford mostly looked more like an old hotel complex than the mecca of science and technology he was familiar with it being. A couple of small buildings were reduced to nothing but skeletal wooden remains, monuments to some past fire. But it was close enough to that mecca to be able to produce the medication Perle needed, though she had probably explained it to them in great detail. Perle had requested this meeting spot instead of a hospital visit, not wanting any friends to see her in the state of a hospital patient. Someone traveling up the path waved. He adjusted his ill-fitting new glasses, confirming it to be Perle. She looked rather gaunt from being confined to the hospital bed most of the time, walking uphill with great effort, maintaining a weak smile with great effort. They both sat at a picnic table at the top of the hill, presumably the official meeting-place of the survivors of their timeline. Given the crummy situation as of late, they both sat in silence for a minute, not finding the right words to start a conversation. It didn’t help that one of the students was reading a few metres away, which meant they probably shouldn’t talk too much about alternate-future-related subjects. Both of them started the standard greeting protocol at the same time, interrupting each other. “Hi, how are you doing?” The student assumed, like most of us do, that we are the protagonist in this story, and looked up at them. “Pretty well… Do I know you two?”
Cascadia and columbia, Sandinista nicaragua, and Columbianas
OOC: Unfortunately, I don't have enough time to write a new chapter for this week.
All good man. All good.
Alright guys, it's been busy in my corner of the world. This has limited my region set-up work (although, I'll be available to do more of that this week).
We have a few dilemmas and challenges, though, that might affect how we pursue the stats of our reset.
First of all, some of our nations are scheduled (according to forthcoming game updates/fixes) to see major changes in the integral Scientific Advancement stat. Right now, Nearly Finland would be starting the 1920 reset with a SCI level equivalent to 1975. Tessen would be starting with a tech level equal to 1957, and The Greys would be restarting with a tech level equivalent to 1955.
However, according to a mod fix, currently in beta (soon to be updated on the site), Nearly Finland would be updated to SCI tech level equivalent to 2010, and both Tessen and The Greys would be updated to a tech level equal to 1983. This SEVERELY pushes the envelope of our 1920 setting. It can easily be explained by the influence of future time-travelers, however, if this extreme advancement in 1920 is to enter our story (when the game fix is released), then we need to tighten other stat options to offset this highly advanced tech level in 1920.
I am leaning towards this offset being in the from of trade and resources, and I'm leaning toward this for two reasons....
One, I think removing the many varied resources available in each land claim, and going back to the Victoria I resource system (where each game province had only one major resource that can be used or traded on the open market) brings about this balance. This means that instead of so many resources (as I have been adding to the land claims this far), we would only have the 20 core resources in our world, and those resources define the economies of our nations.
These resources would be:
Cattle, Coal, Coffee, Cotton, Dye, Fish, Grain, Iron, Oil, Opium, Fruit, Precious Metals, Rubber, Wool, Silk, Sulfur, Tea, Timber, Tobacco, Tropical Wood.
Players can certainly roleplay other story resources, like strawberries, bauxite, etc, but they would only have value within storytelling. They wouldn't be needed to build anything, and they would be relatively useless in the overall economies.
With us returning to these limited VIC resources, the highly advanced 1920 tech levels would be balanced, because it would be a lot harder to obtain all of the resources needed.
My second reason for leaning towards an offset is because it's just so time-consuming to research the full collection of all natural resources available in each and every land claim. It's realistic, but I haven't even touched the nations in the rest of the world. If we abandon the real-world resource collections, and use the simplified VIC format again, I could knock out the land claims in a much shorter amount of time.
Of course, there's also the issue of us having lost Grand Enclave/Columbianas and all of his nations -- this leaves a gaping hole in our story telling.... which might be ripe for a full historical replay (with players being able to have greater control over starting borders -- since these could be manipulated into the game during a new replay).
I did say that we wouldn't have anymore all-world replays, but it might be worth considering given the player/nation loses our regions have experienced, and that fact that these NS game fixes are coming down the pike -- all while we are still in pre-reset limbo.
Thoughts?
Firstly, let me just say that I'm really glad that you're back. On the suggestions that you brought forward, I'm totally fine with using a more simplified resource system. It might be nice for incoming players to have something a bit more easy to understand. Also, on the absence of the Enclave, I know I can't fill all his roles, like Russia, or Spain, but I have submitted my application to take up France and her colonies, which should sure up some of the losses. That and some new players that is. On the science chart though, I absolutely love that we're starting in the 1920s, and get to play through the era of Great Wars, the height of espionage, and the birth of modern politics and technology. If we are going to restart, I think it's kind of silly to give nations technology that's almost a century more advanced then our start date, simplified resource system or not. therefore, on that one, I say we just compensate. Make advancement equal the new numbers like it did before, or maybe a bit more actually. Another idea might be to reconsider the role of the Scientific Advancement stat. Perhaps, we could keep technology down to just what that area would have at that time period, and have the scientific advancement chart represent the likeliness of that nation making some grand new discovery that year. I don't know, just brainstorming. Also, as to some manipulation of our nations before restart, I'm cool with that. All I'd really want is to be able to keep most of my domestic history with Cascadia, basically the same thing I asked for last reset, and I'd also kinda like to add Mormons to Utah in the Louisiana claim. I just think that they're a really interesting people group.
Tessen, Nearly Finland, and Medinan
I've got a few. I'm eager for this pre-reset limbo to end as soon as possible, so I'm all for whatever works to that effect. The core resource system? Sure, go ahead. I'm not sure why we won't have bauxite anymore, but I don't particularly care. Regarding the incoming new scientific advancement thingy - I'd go with Cascadia's first proposal for that, just adjust the numbers so nobody's tech year is any higher than it was before. I wouldn't mind mine being lowered. Yes, few people will actually have their tech year in the 1920s, but that's how it already is, and I suppose the plan is to compensate for that using the culture point system. By the way, do you think the espionage/information technology level idea might fit in somewhere?
Tessen and Cascadia and columbia
If I might ghost a suggestion here... :D
What if scientific advancement went to a full-on purchase system, like a simplified version of the one you were trying to build, Tessen?
That is, rather than your SCA score determining what year you were scientifically, it determines how many points you have every year to purchase scientific advancements. But, rather than purchasing specific advancements, you're purchasing a year - or rather, the scientific advancements up to that certain year, with each year farther along from the game date being more expensive.
Exempli Gratia: The year is currently 1920. Nearly Finland has a SCA score of 750 currently, so let's say that equals to 7 points. If each year of scientific advancement were 1 point more expensive than the last, then he could afford this year to buy 3 extra years of scientific advancement, putting his technology capabilities in 1923.
I hope I put that across clearly, anyway.
This would be a great way to clean up some of the runaway technological advancement that we experience under the current system and keep technology in the current era, so to speak. Unless you amass a score of like 2000 SCA, you're eventually only gonna be able to purchase up to 5 years ahead of time because it would get prohibitively expensive after that.
Tessen, Nearly Finland, and Cascadia and columbia
I like this idea. It keeps us much more in the period so to speak.
Tessen and Nearly Finland
Nice, let's do that.
It sounds like there's support for the simplified core resource idea. I think we'll go with that. It will be a heck of a lot easier to implement, and could lead to some interesting political roleplay as player nations scramble to control those much more valuable core resources. And you're right, looking back one what was being set up, the simplified resources are a lot easier to understand for new players unfamiliar with our regional structure.
Your application to take on France and her colonies is likely to be approved. I'm not entirely sure what all those colonial borders will be, but I don't see why you couldn't be the player behind that empire. You'll have to keep reminding me of this French interest, though.... just to make sure I haven't forgotten. There's a lot going on right now. ;)
I'm not sure how we would handle the Mormon issue, though. They are clearly an American religious sect at the time, and in the real world, they made their exodus to Utah, because that was the frontier of the USA. They figured that, on the American frontier, they would be able to to set up their community, and the US government wouldn't harass them that far out.
The problem with that in our story is that the USA ends at the Mississippi River. Realistically, maybe they do sneak into the relatively unsettled French Louisiana, and maybe France doesn't care, so long as they don't try to claim it for the USA. I honestly don't know how France would react. If the Mormons do manage to flee to French territory, I would image that their new home would probably be somewhere in the area of St. Louis, instead of Utah. They would have absolutely no reason to cross French Louisiana in search of isolation and safety. They would likely find it, instead, just across the border into Louisiana -- which would be Missouri.
I suppose, though, with an updated simulation, that altered fate of the Mormons would depend upon what happens with French-controlled Missouri in later years.
As much as Bauxite is a valuable resource, I think it could easily be one of those secondary resources. Players can make it part of their roleplay if they wanted, it just wouldn't be one of the 20 core Victoria resources that define the simplified economic system. The more I look at what was being set up, the more I sigh at the nearly 200 economic resources that were being researched. That just got out of hand. Realistic, yes.... a pain to keep track of, incredibly so.
You'll have to refresh my memory on what the "espionage/information technology level idea" is/was.
I like this idea. It sounds intriguing, and brilliantly simple at the same time. Let me think on it a bit more, but kudos on a creative and elegant suggestion!
Here's another idea:
On the current Culture Chart, culture points determine a variety of strategic cultural options that can be chosen. One of those choices is the use of 3 culture points to purchase items off of the Tech Chart pages. What if we remove that Tech Chart culture point cost, and have it be determined by the Scientific Advancement stat instead -- thereby changing that element to "Tech Points" (instead of Culture Points).
In this way, Culture Points determine purchasable cultural elements, while Tech Points purchase technological advancements.
The concept of Scientific Advancement controlling the tech year would be done away with entirely, and purchased tech would drive a nation's technological capabilities, not a year equivalent. This would essentially balance everyone within the roleplay year, rather than tech year.
And the most valuable roleplay stat would shift to a cultural year (the Culture rating, instead of the Scientific Advancement tech-equivalent year), which actually better reflects the ease of bringing cultural knowledge into the past with the time travelers, rather than focusing on the scientists that bring technological understanding. We can't control the NS stat updates being beta tested right now (which explode the stats we had been using), but can alter their value, and, essentially, shift our core roleplay structure to compensate.
Thoughts?
I like that idea! And also, with the Mormons, It makes sense for them to still end up in Utah for the same reason that they ended up in Utah in real life. The Mormons wanted to settle in Missouri, believing the original Garden of Eden to be Jackson county, but they were repelled by local protestant settlers who had already arrived. The Mormons experienced this several times actually, declaring somewhere to be the Holy Land, and then being violently repulsed by the current occupants, mostly because of their odd custom of polygamy and their blind devotion to their leaders, first Joseph Smith, and then Brigham Young. They settled in Utah because the land was yet unclaimed. Also, I think it makes sense for them to carry through with this plan regardless of French or American control. The French might actually be less hostile to them, considering every American settler they came across either angrily repelled them from their land, or got murdered by them as retribution. At one point, the American government was days away from declaring war on the mormons, and had marched a sizeable amount of soldiers out to Utah. It is the following negotiations that finally led to the establishment of Utah as a state. I believe the French government on the other hand would be a lot more lax with the issue, seeing as number one, the French didn't do much managing of their Louisiana Colony, and number two, that land was the over-seas territory of a massive nation with many other problems on its plate, especially in the 1800s. Sending men deep into the Louisiana Frontier to round up a band of religious fanatics would not be first on their to-do list. (Source: I am a nerd who's fascinated by Mormon History)
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