Internal Affairs Office

[Method]

aw crap, i was hoping nobody would notice

[Cedayon]

I didn't look closely... TKG, I think you should know better

Sorry everyone, it hadn't occured to me to poll it, I thought it was pretty cut-and-dried that they're atrocities and shouldn't be allowed.

Now's too late for even a 2-day poll before the turnchat, so how about you folks discuss it here for a couple days and I'll poll it after that? ... or I can start the poll ASAP if that's what you want.

[Method]

in the meantime, i'll remove them. guess we'll have to wait for traditional mineral-enhancing facilities

[Cedayon]

Originally posted by TKG
in the meantime, i'll remove them. guess we'll have to wait for traditional mineral-enhancing facilities

I'm sorry, as you've done a wonderful job with Aurillion's industry, and I know Gennies would do wonders for it... but I'd be remiss if I permitted their construction without polling them first.

[Method]

right. now all we have to do is bribe convince War of Art to let us beeline to industrial nanorobotics

[Cedayon]

But I want mag tubes first! ... or are those on the way?

[Drogue]

Originally posted by TKG
aw crap, i was hoping nobody would notice

Gennies

I mean, they're so evil, even an Evil-Finn couldn't come up with them. I'd sooner see Lemmy as DPO than have gennies built in our great nation. You really want us to genetically enhance workers so they only care about their job? It's eugenics gone way too far. Besides, putting them in build queues without polling

TKG, I'm surprised at you

[GeneralTacticus]

There's no constitutional stipulation that genejacks must be polled, so the only thing preventing him from doing so is Cedayon's veto (which has now been issued), and if you see something wrong with creating genetically engineered workers, do you also object to the creation of presentient algorithms to automate things, or to breeding farm animals that have been engineered to be more useful?

[Maniac]

GT, humanism, the ethics of our faction, says nothing about presentient algorithms or farm amimals.
From a nihilist point of view, there is nothing wrong with using malgenetics on workers. From a humanist point of view however there is.

[GeneralTacticus]

Why not? I asked why the particular position was held, and your response was to repeat that same position. Why are humans different from sentient AIs?

[Maniac]

*shrugs* Fundamentally there is no difference between them. Humans have more value simply because humanist ethics say they have more value. Remember I believe ethics and morals are relative. There probably are no absolute truths or values according to me.

[Cedayon]

Originally posted by Maniac
There probably are no absolute truths or values according to me.

*sigh* and you're such a reasonable guy most of the time... ah well, a different battle for a different place...

I'll start the Gennie poll later today, with something like:

- Allow construction of Genejacks.
- Allow construction of Genejacks, but each and every one must be polled first.
- Do not allow construction of Genejacks.
- Write-in
- Xenobanana

Sound good?

[Maniac]

GeneralTacticus:

Just an observation. You have been talking about three different things in your last posts. First about genejack factories, then about presentient algorithms and breeded farm animals, and last about sentient AIs. In a humanist system I guess it would be logical to attach equal value to humans and sentient self-conscious AIs, but I think it would be going a bit far to give the same value to presentient algorithms. That would be seeing your computer programs as equal beings.

Cedayon:

*sigh* and you're such a reasonable guy most of the time...

But now not? Just a question, do you regard everyone disagreeing with you on some point as thinking unreasonable on that point?

ah well, a different battle for a different place...

The debate room?

Sound good?

While you're at it, perhaps you could also ask the same questions about the cloning vats. Then that issue is dealt with as well. Or of course we could wait until some governor actually offers to construct the cloning vats in his region.

[Cedayon]

Originally posted by Maniac
But now not?

Perhaps "reasonable" wasn't the word I was looking for, as your position isn't really irrational, given the information you have.

Just a question, do you regard everyone disagreeing with you on some point as thinking unreasonable on that point?

Oh goodness no, I don't use *my* position as the standard, that would be sheer arrogance... which I suppose I'm capable of, but it's not the case here.

The debate room?

Debate? That? Me? ... nay, from such withdraw.

While you're at it, perhaps you could also ask the same questions about the cloning vats. Then that issue is dealt with as well. Or of course we could wait until some governor actually offers to construct the cloning vats in his region.

Hmm, I wanted to wait until it wasn't quite so far away on the horizon, as the people's opinion can change... but since that's somewhat unlikely, I'll probably do it soon. Later, though, to avoid making it a multiple choice poll (misvote-caused-repolls are not my idea of fun).

[Maniac]

Perhaps "reasonable" wasn't the word I was looking for, as your position isn't really irrational, given the information you have.

Quite right. Given the little information we have about the nature of the universe we cannot make decent statements about the subject. Thus every debate between open-minded people about this issue should end in "We don't know." At most we can speak in probabilities such as "There probably aren't absolute truths or values" or "Using Okham razor, the opinion of that geologist has a (much) higher probability of approaching the 'truth' than the opinion of that young earth creationist has".

[Voltaire]

Request to All Governors.

The administration of the Twin Sea region would like to request that its fellow regions allow the Twin Sea supply crawlers permission to enter their regions and convoy minerals back to the Twin Sea. In exchange for your generous cooperation, the less developed regions would in return receive formers from the Twin Sea regions. I ask all governors to consider this request and get back to me with their input ASAP.

[Cedayon]

Well, JV is quite a ways from Twin Sea, but I'm fine with you crawling unused JV squares if they don't conflict with my orders. This sort of thing will be far easier once we have a mag tube network, so we don't lose valuable crawling turns to inter-region transit time.

[Method]

voltaire: sure, Aurillion has quite a few unused forest tiles. you can crawl all you want, just as long as it's oustide base radii

Originally posted by Drogue
TKG, I'm surprised at you

but they're soooo useful

[GeneralTacticus]

Request to All Governors.

The administration of the Twin Sea region would like to request that its fellow regions allow the Twin Sea supply crawlers permission to enter their regions and convoy minerals back to the Twin Sea. In exchange for your generous cooperation, the less developed regions would in return receive formers from the Twin Sea regions. I ask all governors to consider this request and get back to me with their input ASAP.

If you can find squares outside base radii which are not in use, go ahead, but otherwise, no.

[GeneralTacticus]

Just an observation. You have been talking about three different things in your last posts. First about genejack factories, then about presentient algorithms and breeded farm animals, and last about sentient AIs. In a humanist system I guess it would be logical to attach equal value to humans and sentient self-conscious AIs, but I think it would be going a bit far to give the same value to presentient algorithms. That would be seeing your computer programs as equal beings.

No, it wouldn't; their sentience may be somewhat primitive, but it's still there.

[Cedayon]

K, two things have come up:

1) We liberated the Sea Collective from Yang during the turnchat, and now we need to decide who governs it. An image is attached to show SC's general location, though suffice it to say that it's nearest to Twin Sea.

Possibilities on this:
-Just have me (as DIA) give orders for it, since it's not easily incorporated into a region.
-Attach it to Twin Sea, and have Voltaire give orders for it.
-Form a new region out of our sea bases and have the governor of that region be responsible for it. I have doubts about this option due to the lack of nearby sea bases and the lack of general interest in governor positions.

2) We're 2 turns from having monopole magnets and thus the ability to build mag tubes ( :drool: ) ... as you all know, I'm really big on the idea of having a mag tube network between our bases, and I wish to hear from you all how you'd like this accomplished. I suggest having the minimal number of mag tube'd tiles, for security reasons (should enemies gain access to the network), and having (whereever possible) the bases be the "nodes" of the network such that one has to pass through a base to get to the next one so that invaders can't access all our bases from one square without having to fight for it.

I'll put up an image of what I mean for the mag tubes in a bit.

Anyway, the image of the Sea collective's location:

[Cedayon]

Here's an example of what I'm thinking of for the mag tube network... my preliminary plan for the JV (and partly Solaris) section, the white boxes are base locations and the blue lines are where I would put the tubes (sticking to established roads and away from the coast where feasible... I intend to revise this, but I wanted to give you all an idea), with the blue & white arrows indicating that the network continues in that direction.

(the image should be attached)

[Maniac]

I would suggest to let the bases of UNAXB, UNSG, SC and CQ become an independent sea region. Geographically it sucks, but whatever. The most important is because now Solaris already has to govern six bases, and when that Crystalian colony pod (*) arrives in Solaris, a seventh will be added. This is too much, so the sea bases will have to go some time anyway.

* I guess you didn't know that yet Cedayon, but to our surprise a colony pod was finished in Twin Sea the most recent turnchat. Because we didn't have any polled land base locations, we just sent it to the north, where the only unclaimed land on our continent is left. On the attached picture, the white squares are possible base locations I'd like to propose. My base name proposal for a base between the Ruins was "We Sit Together", derived from the Li Po poem. If we would build around that fungal lake, my base name proposal was "Fungal Lake City".

In green I indicated the location of an energy park I'd like to propose. IIRC the most beneficial plan was:
ESESE
ESESE
ESESE
...
(E = Echelon Mirror; S = Solar Collector)

Sorry for the bad handwriting in blue, but writing readable with the mouse, ànd with an axial tilt of 45 degrees is quite hard. Also sorry for the crappy picture quality. The combination of fog of war and a conversion from bitmap to jpeg didn't do it much good apparently.

[Cedayon]

New sea region consisting of UNAXB, UNSG, SC and CQ ...

colony pod from Twin Sea... in the future I'd like to be notified, explicitly, when a colony pod without an already-polled destination is being ordered... but to putting it smack in the middle of the ruins, since it'll have access to 4 special resource squares in addition to 8 monoliths... should secure our territorial claim to the northern reaches, as well. I would like to build a road (and mag tube) line up to that location as our formers get up there

Oh, and while I really like "We Sit Together" as a name for that base, I'm thinking Entrenank would be most appropriate if the base is to be part of the Solaris region. Ask Kass if you need to know why

energy park...

I'm thinking of sending the majority of JV's formers (since JV's almost completely formed) up north, some to help out Solaris, but most to build this energy park (and the road north to the ruins site). I'm also thinking of building lots of crawlers so Concordia can get a lot out of the energy park.

About the energy park, actually... who will have jurisdiction? I would think it falls to me (as DIA), and I will of course do my best to be fair in allocating the squares (Concordia is likely the best use of much of it, but I'll be understanding of other requests).

... and one more thing...

*goes up to podium, taps mic, clears throat*

My fellow governors, with mag tube technology our ability to work together will rise to unprecedented levels, and I ask your cooperation in making the most of this. Specifically I would very much appreciate that, upon our discovery of monopole magnets, your formers immediately begin construction of a mag tube network to link both between your bases and to the other regions. Also, once everything is linked up, I would (as DIA) greatly appreciate any formers you could donate for use in the northern reaches where we will be constructing a large energy park for the betterment of the faction.

Oh, and Mr.DPO, what are your thoughts on security for the former and crawler teams that will be building/working the energy park? I was considering (as JVgov) constructing a number of empath rover units to patrol the area and keep the non-combat units safe.

OK, I think I've said everything for now, so I'll stop rambling and let you all get back to work

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Cedayon
but to putting it smack in the middle of the ruins, since it'll have access to 4 special resource squares in addition to 8 monoliths... should secure our territorial claim to the northern reaches, as well.

Well it isn't sent yet to the Ruins. Currently it's camping somewhere outside Concordia. So the new base location can still be polled, should that be necessary of course.

[Cedayon]

Originally posted by Maniac
So the new base location can still be polled, should that be necessary of course.

Drat! Now I can't exercise absolute power ...

I'll poll it, if you all want, but I'm leaning towards just planting it in the middle of the ruins if I can get a halfway decent escort together for it.

[Maniac]

"Drat! Now I can't exercise absolute power"

I suppose everyone will vote for the Ruins anyway, so a vote isn't mandatory I guess. *shrugs*

[Cedayon]

Btw, a just arrived from north over the sea, carrying a short message from TKG and an image of what mag tube layout he'd like in/around his region:

[Cedayon]

Shortly after the last message, a arrived with the following additional information:

noticed your post about my mag tubes. perhaps the didn't relay the message right: blue are tubes that should be done immediately, red are ones i can do after that if there's time, and green are ones i'd be available to help about. i don't want other governors thinking i'm meddling in their business by telling them where to build tubes

[Cedayon]

Just a reminder to the governors: We now have Thinker specialists, which produce 3 lab points and 1 psych point (both modified by facilities). I will be making extensive use of them in Jedinica Vrijstaat, though I'm still considering how to balance Thinkers and Engineer so as to not unduly reduce our cash flow... just seeing if I can cut the tech rate down to 2 turns

edit- upon further investigation even switching all of our specialists to thinker (in bases that can support them) would not reduce the turn/tech rate to 2. Soon, though, soon