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NationStates)
Max Barry set up Jennifer Government: NationStates, a game on the World Wide Web based on, and promoting, his novel Jennifer Government.
In the game, a player has charge of a nation, deciding government policies on automatically presented issues from a list of options. These decisions affect the character of the nation, especially its general status in the areas of Civil Rights, Economy, and Political Freedoms. Based on these criteria, nations range from categories like Scandinavian Liberal Paradise and New York Times Democracy to Compulsory Consumerist State and Psychotic Dictatorship. Issues can also be dismissed, which has no effect.
A player may also join the so-called United Nations, making his nation automatically affected by the decisions of the body, although various players roleplay disobedience. Discussions on proposed resolutions take place on the forums, often home to all manner of political debate. A dedicated team of volunteers moderates the forums; most of them also moderate the game to keep it free from vandalism.
Groups of nations form regions. Each player begins in one of five Pacific regions and may move his nation into any other region at any time, or set up a new region. Many regions have an elected leader and some participate in complex regional governments, though some contain only a handful of nations. Players commonly attempt to collectively "invade" another region, by entering it and seizing control. Some regions have password-protection to stave off such attacks. Invaders must follow certain rules: nations that don't follow these rules are often deleted.
There are many multi-regional organisations set up either to organise invasions (known as raider-play by its adherents) or to organise those who defend against raider play (which defenders, as well as Max Barry, generally refer to as 'region crashing'). The longest-lasting and largest defender-group has the name the Alliance Defense Network or ADN. Other organisations include the Red Liberty Alliance (RLA, socialist defenders), the Allied Liberation League (ALL), the Ten Thousand Islands Treaty Organization (TITO), the Emergency Auxiliary Army (EAA), the Rejected Realms Army (RRA),the Global Liberation Army (GLA), the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO), and The Reborn Imperial Stronghold Empire Coalition (TRISEC).
Invading, or "region crashing," first became prominent with a group of players calling themselves the Farkers, who all arrived due to links between the game and the website Fark.com. Later, groups such as the Atlantic Alliance and the World Pudding Alliance took up the hobby.
The growth of defender organizations such as the ADN has lead to rivalries between them and other groups such as the New Pacific Order, or NPO, The NPO has recently reconstituted its government into the People's Republic of the Pacific. Other groups mostly comprise alliances of invaders. Some invaders include DEN II (formerly DEN), the SAOP, the Rebel States of Heleth, and the region "Invaders" (Invaders' Website).
Some invader organizations don't exist for region-crashing but rather for expanding territory and for the destruction of regional groups dedicated to opposing ideologies. The organizations become fewer over time as region crashing becomes more popular among newer players who have fewer ideological affiliations. Common fights occur between regions supporting Fascism and regions supporting Socialism. A prominent organization for defense and invasion is known as the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, or RKKA.
Given the relatively simple simulation, it has given rise to more in-depth and freeform role-playing, with players using their nations' statistics to play how their nations would fare in international trade, diplomacy, and war. Some players have even developed complex statistical calculators such as NSEconomy (though some controversy exists over the taking of most of the code from The Meritocracy). Part of the appeal of NationStates lies in the ability to create an unrealistic utopia (or dystopia) as the subject of conversation and political philosophising, without needing to worry about practical matters, like national defense, that might become factors in a more comprehensive simulation.
One of the fascinating facets of the role-playing section of the game is the way in which it has been unofficially divided to allow for a person to role-play not just what their nation is doing, but also what their nation is and when it is. The forums have evolved into several time frames (Past, Modern, Post-Modern, Near-Future, Future, and Fantasy) where a player may pretend to be any of an unlimited number of fantasy or alien races as well as use technology that has long become obsolete, or even non-existent, in the present. Some regard the divisions between the times as barriers so that players chosing to play in a more primitive time, say in Ancient Greece, would not be forced to contend with players utilizing space ships and laser weaponry, such as what you find in certain types of science fiction, if they don't want to. Gradually, players often learn to have such interactions in a fair and balanced manner so that there is no player who is completely off-limits if you truly wish to interact with them. On the other hand, some players desire to role-play only with nations in the same time-frame for realism.
Originally, the role-play section of the forums was solely Modern-tech (Meaning that nations used only technology either currently available or which will be available within an undeclared length of time) but began to expand into Past, Future, and Fantasy times as more and more nations were created. Unfortunately, people playing the game haven't actually experienced anything outside of Modern-tech and for quite some time the other Times were un-organized and regarded as something the more childish players would occassionally indulge in. Over time the nations playing in the past or the future began to form alliances and organizations similar to those existing in the real world and in Modern-NS, and the more fantastic areas of game play began to become more orderly and taken more seriously. The Galactic Alliance, created on August 6, 2003 by Klonor and Jimathon , is usually where people regard "Space Tech" to have truly come into its own. It was the first time that any Non-Modern nations had grouped together in serious numbers and it organised a majority of the nations role-playing in the Future. After the Galactic Alliance there was a veritable mudslide of other alliance and groupings, and the Future scene was able to be taken as seriously as Modern.
Another interesting dynamic of the game is the ability to use one's imagination. While a vast majority of NationStates regions follow the simple founder/delegate scheme of the regional governments, some are more complex, such as the Peoples Revolutionary Party (A prominent Socialist regional organization which organizes itself along "Party" lines), and assign Ministers with such portfolios as War, Recruitment, and Propaganda. Other completely revolutionize the system and employ even less traditional governments.
A second version of the game, currently in development and called "NationStates 2", may include complex functions for war, trade, diplomacy, and customization.
Due to the unreliability of the NationStates server, which led to the forums being slow or inaccessible being a common occurance, it was announced in January 2004 that the British gaming company Jolt would take over hosting of the site as well as development of NationStates-2. On June 28, 2004, after several delays, the game was transferred to the new servers; however, continued programming issues compounded by the death of Max Barry's father caused the forums to remain down until July 13. Flag size was increased to 10k from 6k approximately around August 15th.
As of December 7, 2004 over 1,000,000 individual nations have been created since NationStates premiered in late 2002. At any time fewer than 150,000 remain in existence as a result of nations being deleted due to various rule infractions and inactivity. Though the specific time has varied greatly over the two years on-line, the current inactivity limit is 28 days (or 60 days if the nation is placed in "Vacation Mode"), after which a nation is automatically deleted. However, nations deleted for inactivity, not rule violations, can be resurrected by the Moderators upon the request of the nation's original owner.
See also
External links
Last updated: 05-16-2005 20:59:23
