The Nuclear Question (and Worldbuilding Scenario Reconstruction in general)

[Józefania]

Alright... so, after we said some things on here earlier, we went on Discord and seem to be in a somewhat better place overall, more primed to get back to what we wanted to do initially: world build and create a stable, interesting, fun scenario. The tripolar world we've begun developing between the communists of @UCWR, the authoritarian atheists of @Averin, and the constitutional monarchs including yours truly definitely had a lot of potential for intrigue, tension, etc., and the general vibe is that this is worth exploring in more depth.

It is of course inevitable in any Cold War-inspired scenario that nukes come up, and we've had a very heated discussion recently on here that made it clear there wasn't yet a valid reason for nuclear weapons to exist in any significant quantity. But now, after discussion on the Discord, there is a very interesting proposal that could not only provide this reason, but also introduce a conspiracy of sorts that makes the scenario even more interesting.

Credit to @Cantignia for being a source for this idea: What if Cantignia, in their religious zealotry motivated by fear of the rise of militantly atheistic states such as the CCCR followed by the Directorate, decided that not only was their mission to evangelize the earth not worth it, but in fact it was a better idea to, in typical doomsday cult fashion, hasten the apocalypse and bring about the second coming so they would all be saved while the nonbelievers perish in atomic fire? This would manifest itself in Cannie missionaries, covertly, guiding the powers that have the most potential to develop nuclear weapons and weapons systems capable of delivering them.

This can also involve other powers such as @Kougi, who for reasons of their own could provide nuclear material to other powers that don't have access to their own uranium supplies, and thereby allow for the development of secondary nuclear powers (though this would need to be seriously discussed and agreed upon here in the community of who would be included etc.)

Additional motivation ICly could be if, for whatever reason, the nationalist state immediately prior to the rise of the CCCR nukes its own capital city of Skokie in a desperate attempt to crush the communist insurgents. Seeing the destructive power of the nuclear weapon could be motivation for some states to begin developing weapons. Then the Averinish invasion of Montelimar from 1979 to 1982 would provide even more reason for other powers to develop these weapons.

All of this is extremely first draft, but I think this is something worth seriously discussing. Timing needs to be worked out, as well as who has weapons, how many, and why. I encourage the community to discuss, all with a genuine desire to collaborate and cooperate on creating a rich history that'll motivate us to come onto these forums and take time out of our day to interact and write stories.

~Jose

 

[Elfríki]

The only reason I'd want nukes is for deterrence. We are mostly peaceful merchants who happen to export weapons, PMCs, and fuel rods.

I'm not really one who fully grasps the scenario, but anything that blocks the flow of goods is a no-no for my guys, and they would probably want to have some really good insurance to keep the spice flowing.

 

[Bourgardie]

I like the idea of restricting the IC-Nuclear Powers at the beginning and weaving that into a common narrative. In fact, I think a lot of the troubles on the forum of the last 11 months seem to—in retrospect—be tied to the lack of a common narrative. As much as we wanted to «free flow» our RP, and decided to refrain from the annoyance of Great War threads, those threads help build and bind the community together. They give us common stories and room as well as reason to collaborate. Without these threads we actually just have a bunch of players just randomly posting and things are incoherent, random, and most importantly lack direction. This causes problems where players feel inconsequential to the flow of things, and changes that feel without consequence, but destroy what little there is.

As such, I advocate this nuclear talk, but also urge the creation of a Great War scenario and thread; which can then have consequences that lead to @Averin and their invasion of Montelimar. Stories that connect to a greater narrative that should give better purpose to our posts, and common storylines that make our community actually feel like one.

 

[Azilia]

Any type of a great war scenario, I don't think Azilia in particular would have played much of a role (if any) into such a thing. Much like spain and portugal in those eras, we were more apt to mind our own business. We had forged our great empire early in the centuries, and then lost much of it in the preceding century and only had came back somewhat recently at the turn of the century. The Azilian Empire as it would have been leading up to the 50's would have been nothing more than a shadow of itself, a ghost, a shell. Its why the turn of the 50's saw the Empire fall and the birth of the Republic.....followed shortly after by the 2nd Republic (god I sound french now) but doesn't claim the existence of the first Republic as it was so short and chaotic it wasn't truly a government at all.

This all led to the military taking charge and pretty much extinguishing the left which it saw as a problem, and instituting the rule of 1 man who would guide the country on its path to salvation. Difference being we don't believe in monarchism in the slightest as they are viewed as part of the problem, and the military is the ultimate steward of the nation safeguarding it from the times of tribulation. While it views Averins take on religion as a problem, it also believes they have taken the correct path in the rule of 1, and we have our own religious oppression going on in a way so. It also views the CCCR and its council communism as a disgusting perversion that is chaotic and problematic.



As far as Nukes. If some sort of big shebang is figured out on forming a reason for their being stockpiles of them (I'm still one in favor of the concept of being something to be roleplayed out for development, with the idea and concept there, just nobody has made the leap due to costs), then I digress and don't see a problem in them. I don't think people truly know the costs of maintaining them (I don't have the numbers on hand, I once upon a time did, but the US spends iirc around $75Billion/yr on maintenance of roughly 5,000 warheads. One nice thing is budgetary stuff is very open in the US.), so there should be something of decision a player must make on having them. That way we dont have some massive dick swinging of a nation with $200-400B defense budget having a full fledged fleet, airforce and army that can stomp his neighbors at a whim and 1,000 nuclear weapons to use as a deterrent to keep himself safe but also having all the bells and whistles elsewhere.

As face it, we are all largely $1T+ economies, in reality we could all field a deterrent force of 100-200 warheads at that point and small professional armies. Some sort of hard limit would have to be finding its way, and the uranium resource having to be owned could be one, but at that token saying "I import from X" would become the loop around. A solution? I don't really have one tbh.

 

[Nanuka]

I'd like to provide for some quick thoughts here to reiterate what I said on discord last night:

On World Building...

I agree whole heartedly that the last scenario suffered from a lack of cohesive narrative and I'd like that to be fixed in our reboot. In my opinion, I think there should be a handful of canon, world affecting events that have occurred in history that players need to articulate how their nation played a role - or didn't. For example, Azilia being neutral in the Great War and then, presumably, not really be affected by it in the present day is a totally legitimate and fair answer to this prompt. I also don't think that our Great War needs to follow the WWII prompt of an obvi baddie doing baddie things and the losers being partitioned between the great powers/winners. It can be anything we want, just the winners won and the losers lost. Xen also brought up an interesting idea of tying events to map spots in order to preserve continuity. I'd be interested in exploring it.

As a starting point, I'd imagine these "canon" events can look like:
1950s: Great War?
1950s - 1970s: Everyone is licking their wounds
1970s - 1980s: Invasion of Montelimar (I include this because a lot of folks have been mentioning this as an inflection point in RP)
1980s - today: ???

On Nukes...

I recognize from the discord discussion that my opinion may be biased given that I was floated as one of the few nations to have nuclear weapons. While acknowledging that, I do -strongly- believe that there should be a very small, select group of nations that have nuclear weapons and of that small group, none have an arsenal the size of the US or USSR.

I've said that I am supportive of nukes if they exist for a purpose and are woven into the collaborative narrative of RP. I dislike the idea of "I have nukes because my economy is strong and everyone else does." If every player has nukes, it has the same impact as if none of us had nukes. I understand that in real life, nations make the decision to have - or not have - nukes for a variety of reasons, many of which I think our players could justify (under the pretext that nations already have nukes). This, imo, is where real life and our world need to diverge because historically nukes have always ruined a scenario.

Nukes should be limited and highly regulated by the community and if necessary, appointing a nuclear mod to ensure they aren't abused. In addition, I think nukes should be a tool used after OOC agreement. In any war thread, there is a mod to keep things civil. I think the same rule should apply with nukes. This way, you can't just decide one day to unleash nuclear hellfire (unless that is, in fact, the agreed upon RP) as well as using OOC disapproval to prevent an invading or defending power from using nukes.

On discord, we discussed Averin, Jozefania, and the CCCR has the world's three nuclear powers. I'd like to bring that discussion here, openly, to the forums for people to debate.

As far as the CCCR is concerned in this, I had toyed with the idea of Skokie (the capital) getting destroyed by a nuclear weapon. I abandoned the idea but now I want to bring it back up. My proposal is that during the Great War (1950s?), the CCCR descended into a civil war between remnant Oneidan Nationalists and the council republics. Given how ideologically pure and stupidly organized the council republics are, this war quickly turned bloody and drawn out. Eventually, the tide turns and the nationalists - in a last ditch attempt - nuked Skokie to break the communists. This did not work and the move was seen as so horrific that opinion turned on the nationalists and they ultimately lost the war. I plan to use the Destruction of Skokie has the reason that when the CCL came back to figure out how to organize the country post-war, a lot of agreements were made to fix the problems of the previous government and as such, the modern CCCR emerged.

In a flare of Classic NSEurope craziness, I would be obsessed with the idea of the nuke being foreign made and delivered to the Nationalists. I'm open to said nation making it public knowledge that they provided the nuke or we can keep it secret. It would be embarrassing to the CCCR, but haunting globally that a nuclear weapon was used on a civilian target and no one quite knows who is responsible. That would be the impetus for the CCCR developing its own nuclear program and I, personally, think opens the stage for nukes in other countries. For some reason, I do think it is important in our world that a nuke has been used and I am volunteering to be the victim of that.

This is just an idea though. I am open to all kinds of feedback.

 

[Józefania]

Regarding Worldbuilding in General: I am enthusiastically supportive of us having a MUCH more coherent community timeline and being more devoted to maintaining it going forward, and agree with both Coro and Jurzy that the lack of such a historical timeline is a significant reason behind what really brought the last scenario down. I'm also supportive of the idea of keeping track of map spots in significant timeline events to ensure maximum continuity.

Regarding the Canon Events:

• 1950s Great War: @Elfríki and I had originally slated a Great War of sorts to occur from 1915 to 1920 and have that essentially be the last of centuries of historical conflict between our nations, but I'd be more than willing to move that up to the 50s, let's say 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 totally not Korean War dates nope no sir tentatively. I'd also want to include @Zagora's Ebria in that conflict as well, as part of our Millennial War, an intermittent conflict between our two nations that lasts from the early 1000s-ish to the 1980s.
• 1979 to 1982 Invasion of Montelimar: I can see Józefania initially providing aid to the Montelimarian Kingdom at the outbreak of the conflict, but then in 1980, Ebria, then under a fascist-lite junta (think Greek Junta during the Cold War) would attack Józefania, probably with an invasion of Aresura, and that takes all of Józefania's attention away from Montelimar, which contributes partly to their defeat and annexation into the Directorate. The result of the conflict between Józefania and Ebria, meanwhile, is that the Junta is overthrown and a more liberal constitutional monarchy is restored, and because of the existential threat of the Averinish Directorate, which has proven itself to be viciously anti-monarchist and atheist, the Millennial Peace is signed between Józefania and Ebria, bringing an end to that war and the beginning of a very, very, very awkward rapprochement and peace (similar to Britain and France in the early 20th century rise and France and Germany following the Second World War).
• 1980s: This could also be where the constitutional monarchies of the world realize the truly existential threat of the Directorate and to a related extent the Confederated Commonwealth of the Council Republics (CCCR), and therefore that's what brings about a military alliance (notNATO) that potentially includes Józefania, Ebria, @Eiffelland, and @Petits-Pays as a sort of Core Four.

Naturally I'd love to start bringing up more canon events as we go, but for the time being this is a good start.

Regarding Nuclear Weapons: I am 100% in agreement with everything said above by Jurzy, especially in regards to the rules and also severely limiting their initial proliferation to three nations, should the community decide this is acceptable: The Directorate, the CCCR, and Józefania. Part of the reason for this is access to a steady supply of uranium, but also because these three nations are, essentially, heads of the three factions that have slowly come into existence.

I do agree with @Azilia that we must be very mindful of how cripplingly expensive nuclear weapons are, and therefore I would be happy to have an admittedly arbitrary cap placed on how many weapons actually presently exist so we don't get unbelievably insane with the numbers etc. I think with nuclear weapons, I don't see them as actual tools that will be actively used, but rather a sort of passive enhancement to RP that forces us to be more creative regarding conflict, knowing where the line is in regards to aggression towards one another, engaging moreso in proxy wars and indirect, asymmetric conflict and competition, which would I think do a better job perpetuating RP.

I for one see Józefania's possession of nuclear weapons as a very reactionary, reluctant, pragmatic decision, in response to existential threats from the Directorate and CCCR, and responsibility to protect fellow powers in notNATO from these threats under a nuclear umbrella of sorts. So while nuclear weapons would be present in, say, Eiffelland or Ebria, they would be primarily under Józefanie control, similar to the Americans and their own nuclear umbrella over most of Europe. I do think it should also be theoretically possible for secondary powers to acquire their own nuclear weapons, but a LOT of hoops need to be jumped through to make this happen, and it would be a very challenging prospect all the same.

Lastly, and this is very important to note: IF for whatever reason enough of the community is simply not satisfied with the existence or distribution of nuclear weapons, that's not a red line for me. I'm more than willing to continue a sort of "nuclear power exists but nuclear weapons don't" agreement amongst all, because what's most important to me is the collaboration and world building we're otherwise doing here.

~Jose

 

[Lucania]

I am for working out a canonical history of at least the 20th century, and I'd also want to have that millennia long rivalry between Ebria and @Józefania , being mostly fought for influence within the Catholic Church and the Italianate Peninsula, with outright open warfare from time to time between the two.

As for the Great War, I imagine Ebria might have participated. We should find a way to create a winner and loser camp. I would go a bit of a complex rouse of despite being in the winner camp, I imagine that the nation showed itself so weak and corrupt, that popular approval and faith in its institutions and political class all but collapsed, leading to a military coup d'etat and two very distinct military regimes. The first one, led by Pablo Gutierrez I imagine it to be based off Peron and Ataturk, being modernist, populist and statist, going as far as abolishing the monarchy. Even so, despite his populism and love the people had for him, the military and oligarchic elites organise a coup, switching the regime to what was called The 2nd Phase of the Revolutionary Armed Forces Regime, led by General Campo Navarro, who brought back the monarchy and went for a right wing populist and conservative outlook. When after some years he brought only continued economical misery, he tried his luck with a quick military adventure, leading to one last skirmish against Jozefania. But at the same time, the king was already moving from being a puppet to being highly critical of him, the military adventure was a disaster and the public opinion was radicalised against fascism by the invasion of Montelimar, leading to the collapse of the regime and a return of democracy and the constitutional monarchy.

This would be Ebria between 1950 to 1980 or so.

As for Nukes, to be fair, I am fully behind @Azilia here, as I can't really say I care if people have them or not, for the last time they were used was in 2009 and since then, the majority of the years since then we had them more than we banned them. But yes, I'll fully support it if people would understand how complicated it was to have a program developing them and how much money actually goes into building and maintaining them. Again, I am fine if they exist or they don't.​

 

[Kamigakari]

I'll share my opinion, even though I've not been particularly active recently in posting, as I'm more observing what's happening on the forum with the not-a-reset, even though it doesn't change much for Kamigakari itself.

While I partly agree that a common background can help create space and flow for roleplay, I feel it’s unfair to place too much blame on its absence. I think it’s worth pointing out that the more interconnected the nations are from the start, the more it might limit how new players can integrate into the game world. Likewise, the abandonment or inactivity of one of the main actors could undermine the whole thing.
This is a perfectly acceptable choice, and I’m sure these details are already well-known, but I still think it’s worth reiterating, especially since common backgrounds were in the past as well.

With that in mind: if a global scenario involving nuclear weapons can keep the factions’ narratives active and stimulate new developments, then that could work well. As long as it leads to constructive roleplay and opens up narratives and dynamics that wouldn’t otherwise be possible, I think it’s a great approach.​

 

[Eiffelland]

I won't take a stance in this. I will follow with whatever you all agree on.

1980s: This could also be where the constitutional monarchies of the world realize the truly existential threat of the Directorate and to a related extent the Confederated Commonwealth of the Council Republics (CCCR), and therefore that's what brings about a military alliance (notNATO) that potentially includes Józefania, Ebria, @Eiffelland, and @Petits-Pays as a sort of Core Four.

And for this, you can count me in.

 

[Nanuka]

I reread Jose's note about Montelimar being the reason for Not-NATO being formed among the monarchists when they recognized the Directorate and the CCCR as threats and thought to myself "wtf did I do?" and then I remembered I've been musing about the CCCR having a Not-Panama and came up with an idea.

Maybe during the invasion of Montelimar, the CCCR watched as the libtards didn't put up a meaningful defense of the country and thought that was an interesting development. As such, the CCCR began heavily funneling resources into syndicalists insurgents in Cayabocan, incited a revolt, and then swooped in to assist the revolutionaries and ultimately integrate Cayabocan into the CCCR as the 15th Council Republic. This serves to embolden the CCCR and allows for both me and Averin to done a bad guy move which further prompts the Libtards into action. This successful work of the Global Labor Confederation in actually securing a revolution also solidifies its usefulness to the CCCR as a whole.

Obviously the CCCR claims it helped like-minded revolutionaries free themselves and this is, in part, true. But everyone is well aware of what happened. The CCCR also didn't engage in any ethnic cleansing of the area, simply reeducation into revolutionary values and anyone who fled we didn't try and stop. Today, however, Cayabocan is seen as a fully integrated Council Republic and therefore....not a colony nor an example of imperialism . (Again, the CCCR is very ideological in its approach).

The usefulness of Cayabocan to the CCCR, sans the obvious strategic location as our not-Panama, is presumably to have a strangle on a massive international trade route. However, instead of closing it off, the CCCR would actively maintain robust infrastructure to accommodate shipping through these lanes with the ultimate goal of charging foreign governments and thereby securing a steady stream of revenue that the country desperately needs to promote the limited trade it does engage in. Sure, I imagine the history of it all leads to a decline in revenue generation, but once the two week news cycle passes, I suspect that you dirty capitalists will once again let money speak and recognize the ease of using the Cayabocan Straits for global trade.

Also, Cayabocan is a fun call back to my first attempt at a Syndicalist nation

 

[Elfríki]

Yeah, the measures all sound good. The nuclear club starts with the leaders of the various poles. And, only with enough wrangling and tons of proper RP effort, would others be getting it. Meanwhile, I'm quite enjoying how the world story is shaping up.

 

[YUANGUO]

Usage of nukes must be ooc agreed to between those it concerns. Other than that, I have no qualms.

 

[Averin]

Usage of nukes must be ooc agreed to between those it concerns. Other than that, I have no qualms.

I believe that was discussed and it is intended to be part of the system being developed. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

 

[YUANGUO]

I believe that was discussed and it is intended to be part of the system being developed. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

Pointing out the crux of what I'm agreeing with. Usage must be mutually agreed to, that'll solve any potential grievance.

 

[Averin]

Pointing out the crux of what I'm agreeing with. Usage must be mutually agreed to, that'll solve any potential grievance.

Apologies, I thought you were suggesting that. My mistake.

 

[Józefania]

I'll share my opinion, even though I've not been particularly active recently in posting, as I'm more observing what's happening on the forum with the not-a-reset, even though it doesn't change much for Kamigakari itself.

While I partly agree that a common background can help create space and flow for roleplay, I feel it’s unfair to place too much blame on its absence. I think it’s worth pointing out that the more interconnected the nations are from the start, the more it might limit how new players can integrate into the game world. Likewise, the abandonment or inactivity of one of the main actors could undermine the whole thing.
This is a perfectly acceptable choice, and I’m sure these details are already well-known, but I still think it’s worth reiterating, especially since common backgrounds were in the past as well.

With that in mind: if a global scenario involving nuclear weapons can keep the factions’ narratives active and stimulate new developments, then that could work well. As long as it leads to constructive roleplay and opens up narratives and dynamics that wouldn’t otherwise be possible, I think it’s a great approach.​

Ultimately, it is true that the lack of a common background is not the only reason for what happened last scenario, and in fact you correctly point out that the abandonment or inactivity of main actors undermined a lot of what was created, especially Justosia, which was handled as well as it could be but still presented a lot of challenges for the community to deal with.

It can be debated for an eternity exactly how much blame can be attributed to whatever factors exist, but I think it can be reasonably assessed that last scenario, we had little to no common background, and that was a flaw. The ideal is a balance, as you imply, between that common background and a freedom of movement, and that has to be navigated by the community as a whole rather than arbitrarily decided.

In fact, I think that the biggest problem we've had in recent memory is arbitrary decisions, or at the very least the perception of them, which had damaged our desire to collaborate and cooperate, and the minimization of arbitrary decisions going forward is something I personally want to promote. I want this to be an opportunity for a revival of true community input and collaboration on all aspects, ranging from how much to how little worldbuilding we want to canonize, how to deal with challenges that pop up, etc.

So far, for instance, it appears as though the community has expressed its support for a very tightly regulated presence of nuclear weapons, and that's good. There's also more genuine interest in larger collaborative projects that provide excellent context for all of our nations existing and their relations with one another.

I think the next step is to better articulate those regulations on nukes.

• First, is everyone comfortable with, for now, the presence of only three established nuclear powers as previously outlined?
• Second, what should the limitations be on said nuclear arsenals?
• Third, what is the process someone should follow if they wished to acquire their own nuclear arsenal
  

Any other questions I haven't thought of should go here and onwards.

 

[Azilia]

• First, is everyone comfortable with, for now, the presence of only three established nuclear powers as previously outlined?
• Second, what should the limitations be on said nuclear arsenals?
• Third, what is the process someone should follow if they wished to acquire their own nuclear arsenal

My opinion would be the upper limit on the number being 750 (which in theory is around $20 billion average if going off the western worlds standard) which at that point puts you in the category of China-esqe warhead total which isn't exactly a slouch of a number. Maybe thats even being a bit generous on a higher number, but if someone wants to blow that kinda change on something, that's their prerogative.

Process, hmmm. I think it should be something that should take a good chunk of time, like obviously we aren't nuclear engineers so details don't have to be to that degree. But it should definitely be something that your going to have to source the materials, source the science, build necessary facilities, have some roleplay of going thru the steps, and perhaps letting the dice decide if they have had a successful test once they have reached this point (maybe with mod approval to carry out the test)

 

[YUANGUO]

First, is everyone comfortable with, for now, the presence of only three established nuclear powers as previously outlined?

There should be allocation for secondary nuclear powers as well, not just established ones. It would be more comforting to know that this isnt some ooc attempt at nuclear weapons monopoly. Not saying it is, not saying it isnt, but it would be more comforting to have this allocation set in stone.

Second, what should the limitations be on said nuclear arsenals?

Complete ban on ICBMs or other vehicles designed to carry nukes to their target, with the exception of aircraft.

Third, what is the process someone should follow if they wished to acquire their own nuclear arsenal

Before we specify process, it is important to define what "Own" means here. What happens if one has a turkey/cuba-esque arrangement with another, would that mean the other own the arsenal? Sounds like a loophole to me.

 

[Kougi]

Similarly, going against the grain here and coming from the perspective of someone who isn’t an active roleplayer and let’s face it will at best ever be semi active, so feel free to ignore what I write, the idea of a SA style acquisition of weapons was always floating in my mind as a possibility as part of my head cannon, hence the deal with Lars was back then to put the uranium inside Kougi. Not even talking about the AS, were it to exist.

Historically the ownership issue for nukes caused drama, and we usually left it unresolved to not cause it, which also made them a RP non-issue because no one wanted to touch the hot potato. Regarding the nuclear share scenario raised I would argue it would be in bad faith to violate the spirit of any decision, and we shouldn’t have to write any decision in a lawyer-proof way.

 

[Averin]

I mentioned in the Discord that I believe the upper limit should be somewhere around 25-50 nukes per nation, but could be convinced for at least 100. None of us are ever going to reach US or Russia status in number of warheads. The expense of creating them could be the reason for their limited availability.

As for others having it outside of the three first proposed. I am not against it.