CUSP: Complete Unified System Project

[Kaiser Letifer I]

" if in future the map was put to a grid, troop positions could be placed at coordinates on the map allowing for battles over territory to be fought."There was a grid developed.. but we got sidetracked in the MCS...and this being a long drawn out document.. I only read through it quickly.... but.. It sounds pointless... Kaiser Letifer Alcadian H'Graa I of ShirerothI feel the blood flow through my veinsThe life force shines on me again Let the ritual begin- you will pay for your sins

[Hesam Jahandar]

To fully understand the potential of micronations individually, and as a whole community we must look at the status of these two distinct issues.1- Micronations, through years of evolution and the staying power of a few, have come to characterise a number of common bonds, the use of a hirarchy for government, with any range of committee, voting or non, to achieve member participation and the building of the nation which it governs.Micronations use various "Ministries, Vizeriets, Commissariates, and other terms to describe the component departments which are the "meat and potatoes" of real life governments. How many of them actually apply? Foreign relations are undertaken by every member of a nation when they visit another board, talk with foreign contemptoraries and interact in other ways (chats, IMs,) so what is the need for an established orthodox department when foreign relations are undertaken by everyone? Defence, which is usually the Bastion of tin and trinkets, labels and titles which have almost no meaning other than they add to an individuals signature, a member of an army, defense department, navy or any other military force, is usually not completing anything, other than the introduction of more Real Life terms to the military, for the most part, Defence oriented individuals will spend most of their time creating ranks, awarding or recieving medals and occasionally taking part in a RecWar or in dubious cercomstances, Spamming. It is usually the national leader that develops these spaming weapons and is the real protector of the nation, as the only relivant warfare is the possibility of foriegn attack through spamming, hacking or other RL defacements.Culture, a department that ensures the preservation of a nations history, by simply taking pre-exsisting histories and arranging them in another form, the movement of raw data in the form of posts into a synopsis which serves no purpose as the only people who benifit are the ones that participated in that very history, Newbies, who rarely research these records, find most of the pertinant information through conversation with the older members of the nation. Culture has also had the role of writting stories, developing languages and even creating educational facilities, all of which are great expressions of that persons creativity, but it almost always goes unnoticed. A member of a Cultural department may work weeks on a story or project and recieve only minor and fleeting acclaim from his/her co-workers. Where as a flea from some Bugnation whos only contribution to the community has been to spam, flame or generally devalue the work all participants may recieve great exposure fame simply because they've destroyed someone elses work.Intellegence: sometimes included as a sub-department of another group, this "bureau" is often the source of minor information, half-baked plans and parinoid discussion, its only true purpose is posturing infront of other foreign counter-parts with the possibility that an agent has compromised the ranks of the other government. Infact, most of the real intellegence is again, taken up by the national leader, and sometimes the "inner circle" of advisors that leader looks to for guidance, almost never (except in some minor cases ) does the intellegence bureau ever achieve its means, it can't defend against spam attack and is usually never apt at its very goal, the defense of the nation against Human intellegence.Justice, again, a situation similar to culture, a group or individual who's dedication (dependant on how active the person is) is almost never rewarded, a justice member could spend years researching, and developing a legal system for a nation and never recieve any sort of recognition for their work.Constitutions are often ignored, legal history is almost irrelivant to the members of the nation, and Court cases are never followed as the defendant usually choses not to participate.These are just the core of commonly used departments and their fall backs, let me state that the issues above are not always the case, but often are as well.Aside from Departmental issues, there are also the troubles of Provinces, Parties and Colonies, often rotten Mn's that have been obsorbed by a stronger nation in exchange for a position in the stronger nations government for the leader of the former rotten nation. these "areas" are simple nestalgia, boards without posts and little relivance to the workings of the nation, it is often "fantasy" that the parent nation now has a small cultural minority in its population due to the colony. but this has no relivance for the parent as it is simply a case of the leader of the colony refusing to let go of a failed project. I believe the best term would be a "trophy nation". Provinces are a similar case, a made up section of a nation that is lead by an individual only to create employment, provinces are often accompanied by a council for provincial leaders which is given more power than it truely deserves.Parties, a simulated division within the nation, which rarely has staying power, is often just another case of a province or Colony, an oppertunity for employment and the feel of some sort of leadership by the head of that party. It is a case of "well I'm not the leader of the nation, but I am the leader of my party". Parties usually fail the same way most micronations fail, Numbers. parties simply cannot find a large enough membership to keep them active, yes the number of parties within a nation is quite high, a case of too many leaders not enough followers.New verses old. These issues presented are often the future promises for prospective new citizens, if tehy stay long enough and in times of citizen reduction newbies are often promised the possibility of achieving the position of department head, and in the short term are encouraged to join or start a party, head a province or join the military, to give the false sense of importance that is the basis for the runing of many micronations. I should note that infact the ONLY successful micronations are the ones where the leaders show genuine importance to newbies, as they are the lifeblood of any nation that wishes to expand. Old members, those who've attained higher positions, often battle with their contemporaries for dominance, often competting for support from newbies or attention from leaders the workhorse of a nation, these people are the attainers of department leadership positions and the occasional leadership of a strong group (party, voting block etc..)this way of runing a nation is so common it is a very good indicator of why nations disappear so fast and why most nations never achieve a population larger than the amount of available leadership positions. everyone is a leader and no one is a follower, a very odd way to run a nation, but it is the status quo of micronations 2- Inter-micronational relations.The World of Micronations can be very isolated, and yet on different plains can be suprisingly united. Where an issue such as who is the rightful owner of a dead nation, it is suprising that the community can come together to agree on such things as the cartography project, or the name of the planet many micronations are situated on. And while their are greater minds than I working on the various types of micronations and thier characteristics, all of them, Reality based or fictionally based, still manage to develope a working relationship with each other, And are generally respectful of fellow nations. But if they generally get along, and if every nation works in the same manner, and with the concept of an "Ideal nation" which is the very basis of what micronations are attempting to achieve, then why is there not ONE Nation on micron? or as some have suggested, the Nation OF Micron?An idea such as this has been tried, months ago, in the power vacuum left by the destruction of many large and important nations, and relatively low levels of new citizenship, the remaining nations (minus a few) attempted to save themselves with a failed marrige called "tymaria" and while the nation failed as an effective micronation, it was THE turing point in the way micronations work. That it is infact not the nation but the relationship between Micronationalists that is what keeps the community going. Friendships must be first and not trivial issues such as names and appointments if the community is going to prosper.So as we see, that the longer micronations is in exsistance, the same faces are still around, and thus instead of static constancy within the culture the community is maturing as we do. so instead of the old style of nation inwhich the leader would name the country after himself (such as Conradia which never exisited but to give you an example) make himself head of the nation and wonder why no one would join, we now have seasoned specialists ensuring that whether the nation they belong to is RL based or fantasy, that the nation is a hub of activity through participation, the downplaying of an almighty leader and a concentration on projects such as this one. Finally the concentration in micronations is quality over quantity, That a nation is not "better" simply because it has a larger population but by the services and ideas it has to offer and that as a bonus to this higher quality, that new members may come along with it. Whether it be through a more authentic atmosphere, cultural projects that are actually active or even a consentration on the debate of ideas, all of these changes are ensuring the staying power of present nations. Where will this lead? without the presence of major intermicronational organizations such as LoM and LoSS, micronations.org or the Apollofireball, What is filling the void and replacing these groups as the gathering point of micron based nations? To begin with, the Skyline has been instated as the universally accepted source of news for micron, however due to the small membership of our community, and its relatively new exsistance, the skyline has not achieved the same popularity of its predecessor the fireball, dispite the fact that its founding idea was that it should include more than just Apollo based news. The Micronational Research Centre could be seen as the new replacement for the various Mn United nations forums, it cuts out the issues of soveriegnty and authority which plagued the LoSS and LoM and gets down to the very core of what those groups had originally intended to do, ensure the longevity and quality of micronations. But instead of discussion through representation, the MRC achieves its goals through case studies, experimentation and research, a resource for micronations to consider with a take it or leave it nature that was missing in forums of a similar goal. Some may say I am compairing apples to oranges, but both groups allow though very different in their approach aim and aimed to achieve the same results.then there is the issue of the Cartography of micronations, many have downplayed this stunning work, and would petition to have their respective nation removed from the map, believing that it puts unessesary contrants on their nation. This could not be more misguided, by nations participating we grow together, and exchange ideas, views and allow for us all to be on common ground literally. it also allows for further developments such as the one that will be outlined here. When the geographics of micronations were established with the development of that map, many new dooors were opened which will allow new ideas to come about And BE REALISED!.The ideas which will follow are dependant on all the concepts I've mentioned here without the map, or without the rennaisance of new ideas at this time, the following concepts would not come to pass, and would loose their relivance.Lastly, to see the current version of the CUSP (Complete Unified System Project) visit Baracao, if adopted in other nations the benifits seen their would include all of micron and grow further with the runing of trade. The first step of the ideas I will be presenting is population.it is key that all participatin nations follow the same key.Micronations have in the past, used the idea of a nations population based on the members it has. so for instance Babkha would have a population of about 15 or 20 people. with this proposal, a nation would also have a simulated population based on the members, or to put it clearly a ratio of 1 000 000 simulated population (sp) to every RL member.With this population comes the benifits of stability and participation, because every real life member now represents a good sized portion of the population, this gives new value to party politics, provincial meaning and colonies, as the members of those groups can reflect their views with the Sp they represent. If there is a party that contains four RL members, it would mean that 4 000 000 people support that party. If someone is the head of a province or colony, you may now say that depending on how many RL people came to the parent country that a good portion of the population is of ethnic desent from that colony.To explain further, When ElDorni suceeded Varjia to Baracao, that meant that 1 000 000 people in Baracao were infact ethnic Varjians. Or As I am the Satrap of North Babkha, and the only RL member of North Babkha, 1 000 000 people in Babkha are from the Province of NorthBabkha. if Malkom took up residence in NorthBabkha the population of Babkha would have 2 000 000 people from NorthBabkha. this is important as it will be explained further.What this does is allows for new members to really make an impact on the nation, as with every new member comes another million people, which means more tax money and mroe consumers for goods and employment.So Babkha with its RL population of 15 (for example) would have a population of 15 million. this population can now be put to use through taxation, employment, conscription, colonization, and other possbilities.With the tax money, the government of a nation can build factories and refineries based on its natural resources taken from the map of micron. These Factories are then employed with the simulated population, and produce goods and services.The Simulated population is also the source of conscription for the military, who receives its budget from the Government, who recieves its budget capital from Taxation.the taxes are gleaned from the simulated population which is working in factories, farms and refineries and other instilations made by the government or independent buisness.If Baracao is rich in oil, it can export it to another nation that has no oil resources. That nation may then decide to sell goods to Baracao which are not available elsewhere.The math used to determine how much goods cost and how much people are paid, how much revinue comes from taxes, is based on the market economy and value of the national currency, In Baracao, Factory workers recieve 250$ a month which is taxed, the rest of that pay goes to food, purchase of goods, housing and other costs of living. these costs are what fuels the buisnesses of the nation, if a company produces 100 trucks a month, at the cost of 1000 dollars, we can see that the population cannot afford to buy these trucks, expensive items are usually bought and sold by governments and are usually of a military nature. Items of nessesity such as food and housing are cheap and are affordable by the population, so a buisness that owns farms has a guarenteed market, but will not receive the same profit as a tank building company, where as the tank building company will have to find a market for its products either domestically or internationally. The flexibility of this system is limited only to the participation of the nation that adopts it. If a nation wants to increase the detail of the demographics of its nation by going into issues such as healthcare, literacy, public transportation it may! but if the nation believes that this much detail is too much work it can choose its own level of involvement. Nations can now be guaged, by their demographics, How much of the budget is spent on defence? how much is spent on Healthcare? Public schools? roadsystems? what nation has the most egalitarian populace? what nation is warlike and full of uneducated peasants? these are New and defining dimensions to a nation, bringing meaning to the positions held by its members.War:One of the key aspects of this system, which will subside with the development of the nature of micronations is war.this community has never found an effective representation of warfare. Now there is an alternative. this system along with the micronational map will allow for colonisation, national expansion and actual troop positions, if in future the map was put to a grid, troop positions could be placed at coordinates on the map allowing for battles over territory to be fought.Nations with a high spending on defence will be watched internationally as other nations become suspicious as to whether they are about to be invaded, military build ups, nuclear threats, cold war, small border skirmishes, closing of borders, blockades all of these are now possible. In time it may even be possible to differentiate what weapons are stronger than another, which tank is a better make, what artillery has a longer range, what troops are better trained, the varying costs of all of these. The CUSP idea brings new importance to military and defense, as well as the new importance of official diplomacy to stop agression.One of the major issues will be the participation of fantasy nations in a simulation geared for RL based micronations. While I have not fully researched this idea, as I am not a 7th world specialist, the possibility of these nation participating is very promising. if for example Treesia which has a high level of magic in its role playing, were to participate, while magic by its nature cannot be quantified, perhaps a scale of abilitiesand who holds those abilities would be well enacted. As we can see in many fantasy tales, magic and brute force does NOT ALWAYS go in favour of magic, what value would a fire spell have against an ak-47? what value would a tank have against a summoned titlewave? I think the point is made that both reality based and fantasy based nations can fully participate in this simulation, and not only on the military aspects.The Values of the CUSP system can be both enlightening and horrible, fantastic and earth shattering, it will bring NEW DIMENSION to the concept of a micronation. This has only been a summary or a sample of the possbilities that are available, the concepts can expand to levels unheard of, if we all agree that this system is valuable to micronations as a whole and as individuals For anyone who wishes to discuss the CUSP plan , its effects or any other issue related to it, I can be contacted at:InnumerableCaravan@yahoo.com, or on ICQ or AIM at Conrad Cromien. Thankyou.

[Hesam Jahandar]

I hope that since our conversation your opinion has changed, and as I said, a nation can decide its own level of involvment.

[Kaiser Letifer I]

I'm liking the idea.... and the chose involvement thing.. I like... Kaiser Letifer Alcadian H'Graa I of ShirerothI feel the blood flow through my veinsThe life force shines on me again Let the ritual begin- you will pay for your sins

[Gryphon Avocatio]

I'm board, so I read all the way to war...The beginning two pieces give an interesting synopsis of MNs, but the CUSP thing....um...for all intensive purpouses...I've thought about this idea myself...of having each person representing a group...and I have conluded that if a person were to leave a micronation, or become inactive, it would be like 1,000,000 people died...so, in a fantasy, not serious environment, this concept makes sense...Also, you point out that many projects are overlooked and not given enough credit.....This one will be too. -With love, Gryphon Avocatio, who has lost his awesome HTML Sig to the ezBoard Pigs

[Kaiser Letifer I]

Then... perhaps we should not overlook it and give it some credit...Those people don't neccessarily have to die.. just say they emmigrated, died... ect all in combination resulting in the loss.... Kaiser Letifer Alcadian H'Graa I of ShirerothI feel the blood flow through my veinsThe life force shines on me again Let the ritual begin- you will pay for your sins

[Hesam Jahandar]

Actually the population never decreases, to avoid the extra work, and to maintain standards, for instance Baracao went static with its population and is now level at 2 million dispite changes in its RL members, this isn't really a problem at all. And thankyou for your comments Your Majesty, I take them Whole-heartedly. Your interest is well appreciated. Edited by: Hesam Jahandar at: 10/31/02 12:38:17 am

[Kufukhaf Iskander Khan]

I like seeing that Shirerothians like Hesam's idea...off to somewher else for me...I always like my visits to Shirekeep.*Walks off with a sign reading "Tourist" on his back.*

[Kaiser Letifer I]

Can't say I've seen you in Shireroth before.... Must have missed it....or forgot..Wait.. so they simple said.. we have 2 million cits?I think I'de like to base our numbers off whatver the cencus was when we set it... proly 1 million per person.. or .5 mill... something like that.... We are an Empire afterall... Kaiser Letifer Alcadian H'Graa I of ShirerothI feel the blood flow through my veinsThe life force shines on me again Let the ritual begin- you will pay for your sins

[Stone Jackabar]

and me!!! im a citizen!!!*points to shireroth flag on trenchcoat shoulder*

[Kaiser Letifer I]

You are indeed.... you count as .5 million people right now...hehe Kaiser Letifer Alcadian H'Graa I of ShirerothI feel the blood flow through my veinsThe life force shines on me again Let the ritual begin- you will pay for your sins

[Stone Jackabar]

"we are STONE......We are many.....We want more r00t b33r!!!!!!!"

[Kufukhaf Iskander Khan]

I came by here a few times before I was completely Babkhanised. I don't remember if I posted ever though.Hesam used 2 million as an example. I remember reading somewhere in the copy that he posted in Babkha that the population would be based on 1 RL citizen=1 million citizens.

[Kaiser Letifer I]

I have it based on .5 million per each RL.. since we have alot of RL...21 to be exact.. but I removed 4 from the count for this... and we ended up with 8.5 million people.. Kaiser Letifer Alcadian H'Graa I of ShirerothI feel the blood flow through my veinsThe life force shines on me again Let the ritual begin- you will pay for your sins

[Gryphon Avocatio]

If we really do do this, yardistan has a 38,423 registered citzens and an unknown number of natives. I guess I represent them, too. -With love, Gryphon Avocatio, who has lost his awesome HTML Sig to the ezBoard Pigs

[Kufukhaf Iskander Khan]

With the 1=1 million thing, Babkha would have 15 million+ citizens which, considering Babkha's land area on MCS, would be a little overpopulated. And that's not including ethnic Slobovians and ethnic Bathlanders. Edited by: Kufukhaf Iskander Khan at: 10/31/02 11:20:17 pm

[Kaiser Letifer I]

That why I did 1=1/2 so... We had a pop the fitted our land claims..we have 8.5 million...Nick... hmm.. maybe we ought to just give you .5 mil.. and move the othe .5 to another duchy.. if you want... since you don't have that many... "registered citizens.." Would this work for you?I'm also gonna make Elwynn a major food producer for the Empire.... And Kildare a large Industry Duchy... Kaiser Letifer Alcadian H'Graa I of ShirerothI feel the blood flow through my veinsThe life force shines on me again Let the ritual begin- you will pay for your sins

[ErosDarkstar]

Ach! Don't make my Yurt-living peasents work in factories! We'll form a union!!! :-P SCREW SIGS! EZCODE SUCKS!

[Kaiser Letifer I]

Well.. than you can have the Farms in your Barony... hehe I assume you refer to KF... Or.. be cattle herders of something..hehe Or military personel... I think there's a job for that.. Kaiser Letifer Alcadian H'Graa I of ShirerothI feel the blood flow through my veinsThe life force shines on me again Let the ritual begin- you will pay for your sins

[Stone Jackabar]

i thought we of thefields were more nomadic than that......how about hearders? its not high-tech but we have a milita

[Kaiser Letifer I]

OK.. the rest of Kildare shall have the industry.. Kaiser Letifer Alcadian H'Graa I of ShirerothI feel the blood flow through my veinsThe life force shines on me again Let the ritual begin- you will pay for your sins

[Stone Jackabar]

damn stright!!i will become a fire bombing rebel if you make my nieghboors work in factories:-P

[Kaiser Letifer I]

fine fine.... Kaiser Letifer Alcadian H'Graa I of ShirerothI feel the blood flow through my veinsThe life force shines on me again Let the ritual begin- you will pay for your sins

[Stone Jackabar]

:-D cool now that thats settled.....*sits down and drinks r00t b33r with the kaiser*

[Ari Rahikkala]

Would CUSP count dolphins (most of them naturals, only a few modified to be more humanlike) as citizens? If not, then I don't want to count towards the total amount of people in Shireroth...

[Ari Rahikkala]

And BTW, I'm philosophically opposed to the maxim behind this idea. The reason why I prefer micronations to RPGs is that there are no rules that everyone follows here, nor any GMs to give orders. It's a game that is more like real life than any other game, and this is what makes it unique. As such, I nowadays tend to be opposed to creating unified systems which attempt to bring all of micronationalism under a single umbrella of rules and inevitably, leadership. Fortunately micronationalists are a strange bunch and unifying all governments on Micron will be no less easy than unifying all governments on Earth, so I can pretty safely like this idea but still be sure that anyone can create a new micronation and decide to follow no written rules. If it's Attera or some other single party that bangs a little respect into their heads, it's just fine; Only if someone claims to represent all of micronations, or even a single sector of them, I will have a problem with it.I used to think differently, BTW...

[Kaiser Letifer I]

i don't think there are any set RULES that all nation MUST follow.. just suggestions.... I didn't know if you wanted dolphins counted or not... so I didn't add them.. but a I have an extra 500,000 that I took from Yardistan that I could put into Straylight... Kaiser Letifer Alcadian H'Graa I of ShirerothI feel the blood flow through my veinsThe life force shines on me again Let the ritual begin- you will pay for your sins

[Ari Rahikkala]

Leave it for the Yardistani. For now. I'm not sure if I've been consistent about the "story" or "culture" of Straylight but at this time I feel most of the dolphins shouldn't count as citizens... Maybe only a few hundred...

[Kaiser Letifer I]

umm.. then... they'll count toward the Yardistan population...since they are close at hand... ok? Kaiser Letifer Alcadian H'Graa I of ShirerothI feel the blood flow through my veinsThe life force shines on me again Let the ritual begin- you will pay for your sins