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Faction: 4th Elysian Empire / USO
FM Approved Yet? Yes
Faction requires art? Yes
For Reviewers:
Contains Unapproved Sub-Articles? No
Contains New art? Yes
Previously Submitted? No
Notes:
One of the NPC groups that has shown up in the western starmap area during the course of the 188604 plot. I'm just now getting around to putting together what I have on them into wiki articles.
@raz I don't know exactly what you'd do, bit if I made a faction of around half a billion Kudhacari, that behaved pretty much as an anti-thesis of how the race is. And then if you questioned me about where they came from, how they got such huge numbers, and gave me advice on how to make the article more homogeneous with the site, (As in making it so their growth and location and such, not making them more like the 'good guys') wouldn't you think as the FM you at least could expect some changes?
That's a bad comparison since Zack did ask the then-FM, whomst was Wes, and got approval. Entirely dissimilar situation than your hypothetical creation of a Kudhacari offshoot that I could flat-out deny. But anyway.
Zack saying he doesn't care about Frost's input doesn't invalidate Wes' statement that Frost should give the okay. So the submission will obviously sit until that happens. But Frost should probably also not make obstructive demands that'd drastically change the character of something given the go-ahead last year. People gotta be reasonable and work to find something that makes sense within canon above all else.
That's a bad comparison since Zack did ask the then-FM, whomst was Wes, and got approval. Entirely dissimilar situation than your hypothetical creation of a Kudhacari offshoot that I could flat-out deny. But anyway.
Zack saying he doesn't care about Frost's input doesn't invalidate Wes' statement that Frost should give the okay. So the submission will obviously sit until that happens. But Frost should probably also not make obstructive demands that'd drastically change the character of something given the go-ahead last year. People gotta be reasonable and work to find something that makes sense within canon above all else.
With the exception of suggesting that maybe they should move a bit further out, most of what Frost has asked for is "Can you give me some actual detail on the stuff that will effect my population." Some of it is a bit more nit picky yes, but they're also things that would be asked of most factions, even NPC. Being insight into what kind of tech they have, their military power, who's leading them, and about the status of Caesolians and Plebeians, is pretty important to Elysia because this like I said is historic for Elysia, and rank and status of the varying citizens is very important to them, and has been a point of contention.
Also the situation is slightly different from my example, but because it wasn't actually approved then and just given a "Yeah you can do that" it still becomes a problem for Frost now, because it could mess up any plans he had. As they weren't actually implemented until now, and leadership has changed hands it should've at least been made known to Frost that this was going to be a thing.
In the end of the day, Wes has spoken, and you will have to work with Frost unless you do not wish to proceed with your plot Zack. I know you do not like it, but that's simply the situation as it is.
The arguments that frost brought up don't really pass my basic sniff test for me needing to respond. Namely 'Is this argument applied to everyone?' and 'Is this argument arbitrary?'
Elysians aren't far enough out
Right off the bat, double fail of the sniff test. 'not far enough out?' there are dozens of factions popping up around Yamatai all the time and this Elysian empire is further out than all of them so clearly this argument is just being made up just for me. Is this argument arbitrary? This should be an obvious yes since how are you going to determine how far out is too far out for Yamatai to find? It took Yamatai years to find Elysia during the last war and it was relatively close by.
Please refrain from claiming to know the rationale behind my "arguments," @Zack; neither you - nor anyone else here, as far as I'm aware - possesses the capability to read the thoughts of others in real life.
That aside, I concede that your second point is quite valid; such distances are indeed arbitrary, and I'm not going to bother getting involved over something that, quite frankly, is undefinable (except by @Wes, who has already given his approval). My rejection regarding that is withdrawn, and I apologize for bringing it up in the first place.
Needs more detail on Specifics
Not buying this one either. Wes gave specific points that he wanted clarified and ok those are things that are easy to change and very specific where Frost is basically asking for me to do a Yamatai scale writeup on a faction that just started. New factions aren't held to that standard right off the bat so this doesn't pass my 'is this argument applied to everyone' test. I also have a hard time saying this argument isn't arbitrary because 'how much is enough?' Frost can easily just hold up approval by constantly asking for more and more stuff. There are already ships, a bit of society, and a bit of their military detailed in RP and those are next up for being made into Wiki articles.
How is asking for concrete information somehow translate into "do[ing] a Yamatai scale writeup?" I'm not asking you to produce the equivalent of over a decade's worth of knowledge and lore - rather, I'm asking that you give myself and (most likely, though I obviously can't know for sure due to not being psychic) the rest of us something, hell, anything, to go off of. As @Navian so eloquently stated:
Saying 'your input doesn't matter' doesn't make the article any less incomplete. It's kind of like telling someone 'fortunately, your input doesn't matter' when they point out that your chair has only two legs before you sit on it.
Now, in order to ward off any further claims of myself being "bias" or "unfair" in this matter, the following is an exact list of what I'd like to see approved by the NTSE before I approve of this submission, which admittedly is something I should've done in my earlier post.
Articles for all starships utilized by the 4th Elysian Celestial Empire in the roleplay up until the date and time this post was created, in addition to all of the subsystems, weapons, and such utilized by the aforementioned starships.
An article detailing the star system of Purgatory.
An article detailing the "new Elysian homeworld" mentioned in the same section.
Articles for all technology utilized by the 4th Elysian Celestial Empire in the roleplay up until the date and time this post was created, barring equipment that has a specific previously-existing article.
An article listing all of the military assets utilized by the 4th Elysian Celestial Empire in the roleplay up until the date and time this post was created.
Note that I've switched around the order of these last few quotes, due to the first and third being related to each other.
Legal status of Plebeians and Caelisolans?
There aren't Plebians and Caelisolans. As heavily implied in the article.
500 million is too many
Again, passes the first sniff test, fails the second. How many is too many? How many is exactly enough? Totally arbitrary, nor am I really wanting to get into the game of determining exactly how many people left Elysia, what the population growth rate is, and how many artificial people were made during this time. 500 million? That's 1/14th of earth's population? Elysia had a few populated words so we're talking about maybe 1/28? 1/42nd of the elysian population? Lets say 1 out of every 50 people ended up leaving during a refugee crisis, certainly the history seems to line up well there.
The fact that there aren't any Plebeians or Caelisolans - a fact that needs to be explicitly stated in the article to avoid any future confusion - only further reinforces the concerns @Syaoran and @Navian have raised:
Even a population of 5 million would be enough for all the purposes they're intended to be used for, as far as I can tell. And that'd work even if only 15,000 of them were Elysian patricians. Big numbers get thrown around a lot for populations in this setting, but relatively low populations are capable of many things when they're using post-singularity computing and robotics technologies. (The amount of building that can be done in a few years with those is a separate question.)
[...]
A side note, I don't think we have demographic breakdowns of the Elysian population, but I highly doubt that Patricians made up a large portion of the Elysian population to begin with. In Ancient Athens, only 20% of the population were citizens, and that's in Athens. The vast majority of the Elysian population was Plebeians. (It's again unclear how much that is now, it's likely Caelisolans outnumber them now--at least, that was what was intended from the project.)
Patricians are the highest class in Elysia is even 20 million left they would notice. Also you're using earth's population as reference for planet population size? You do realize that that is horribly off. Yamatai for instance considered rather overcrowded, hit 8 billion a few years back. Also if you got approval before Frost was a FM why is this only just now showing up? Who approved this and when? Cause Frost was approved in March. Which by the way this article wasn't made till the 22. So I have a lot of trouble believing you got this approved before Frost was FM. And again, this number of 500 million is a pretty big deal unless most of that is not actually Patrician, because Patricians were not the most numerous of the Elysians. You're taking a large portion of the 'elite'
Given what @Navian stated (that only 20% of the population were citizens in Ancient Athens) I, unless @Wes disapproves, am going to declare the following in order to alleviate any further confusion regarding Elysian demographics...
FrostJaeger (The FM of Elysia) said:
For all Elysians presently existing within the setting:
...seeing as how Elysia is, among other things, heavily influenced by Ancient Greece and Rome. This means that unless you can give me an extremely convincing reason to the contrary, @Zack, I unfortunately must insist that 500 million is still simply too many Patricians and that 5 million at most would be a far more "realistic" figure.
Founding is not far back enough
Ok, this passes the first sniff test, but fails the second. 'far back enough' is a totally arbitrary quantity. Since this is tied to specific IC events I see no problem with the time line. Nor do I see how its a problem that a few hundred million people left New Elysia and its territories when New Elysia was destroyed. Not only is there already a massive outflow of people going on at the time, but its a refuge crisis. People are going to be happy that there are less mouths to feed. Certainly SAINT would have noticed people leaving but really we're getting out of the scope of this article.
@raz resolved my concerns regarding SAINT in this post, and, in fact, pointed out why it was fallacious of me to assume that they would have noticed in the first place; similar to the above, it's something that you have my apologies for @Zack and is something that is arbitrary enough to the point where I'm not going to bother getting involved with it, considering that @Wes has already given his approval. Like before, I withdraw my concerns regarding this section.
What is the structure of their government? Of their military?
That's covered in the politics section of the article. Military structure is out of the scope of the faction article just like how it is for every other faction.
Where are the technology articles for their military equipment (or equipment in general)?
Obviously out of scope for a faction article. The appropriate information is in the plot planning thread and in the RP if you want a preview.
What civilian/military starships/installations do they have?
Out of scope for a faction article like this, and such things are handled in military structure or other articles just like every other faction.
Where is the article detailing the characteristics of the Purgatory system? Where is the article detailing the characteristics of their homeworld?
Out of scope for a faction article, this would be handled in the planet article.
Who is in charge of the Senate?
More or less out of scope since we're talking about NPC articles and the like. The makeup and how the senate works is covered in the politics section.
What is their economy like?
This isn't something that is even covered in other faction articles nor should it need to be covered here. How their society is laid out is covered int he culture and conventions section.
As @Navian stated, what is the status (legal, social, political, economical, et cetera) of Plebeians and Caelisolans?
As stated in the history section, society is being stratified between true elysians and the slave created to handle the lesser tasks.
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Just a bit of perspective here, this is more detail than is required even for new player factions. We're talking about full articles for starships, subsystems, planets, characters, technologies, military structure, civillian structure, assets, ect. This isn't even something that some player factions even have nor does it fall under a different FM to even have approval over.
Articles for all starships utilized by the 4th Elysian Celestial Empire in the roleplay up until the date and time this post was created, in addition to all of the subsystems, weapons, and such utilized by the aforementioned starships.
An article detailing the star system of Purgatory.
An article detailing the "new Elysian homeworld" mentioned in the same section.
Articles for all technology utilized by the 4th Elysian Celestial Empire in the roleplay up until the date and time this post was created, barring equipment that has a specific previously-existing article.
An article listing all of the military assets utilized by the 4th Elysian Celestial Empire in the roleplay up until the date and time this post was created.
That is because the normal approval process is to get things approved one part at a time. In this case we're doing the basic splash page for the faction first. Everything else comes later, and gets put up for approval as it gets completed.
First: Stop being disrespectful to FrostJager. He's the FM of Elysia, which includes using their technology. You need to work with him, because this faction, even if only NPCs, will wither and die without his help.
Second: You need to listen to what other people are saying. Take them as help, not as attacks on you. You have a lot more to do before you put this up for approval. There needs to be information on its military might, its territories and what kind of tech it uses.
Third: 500 million is way too high. Unless they're breeding like rabbits over there, theres no way you have near 500 million. Those people leaving for anywhere would be noticed and reported upon as a mass exodus by the media.
Fourth: You can't only listen to me, and only to my advice. You have to listen to everyone's feedback, even if it isn't what you want to hear. Calling their feedback invalid or saying that they're just plain wrong discredits your future arguments, and makes you seem like a bit of a jerk.
I really want to support you, because you're my friend, and it hurts me to see you going through this.
Edit: Yes, I just realized that the second and third points are somewhat similar, but thats the way my brain spit it out, so sue me.
This faction is an NPC faction that is being used in the 188604 plot line and it is doing just fine without Frostjager's involvement.
I am listening to what people are saying, and I am ignoring arbitrary arguments.
This level of detail is exactly in line with other factions both player and NPC. It is a starting point for approval so I can then move on to other things. It is unreasonable to have to make the same amount of articles as a fully fleshed out player faction just to get started with Wikifying an NPC faction. How this is supposed to work is the basics here get ironed out, and then the next set of articles are made using this as a basis. Trying to do individual items first before the basics are done is putting the cart before the horse.
No one said the Elysians leaving went un noticed. Billions of people were displaced during the destruction of New Elysia by the Elysians and no doubt organizations like SAINT were monitoring the outflow. 500 Million also seems reasonable when they've had years to manufacture new slave bodies and the like. Of course if you don't think 500 million as the current population of a nation is unreasonable then you're welcome to suggest a different number. But seriously, consider that the population of the united states is 3-400 million, and the more populous nations on earth are in the billions. It seems entirely reasonable that a space-future nation made up of part of an entire planetary population would be in the 100s of millions.
And why are we not calling this what it is? This is an NPC nation that broke off from Elysia a long time ago. The basics seem just fine for Wes and the only hold up is Frostjager. Frostjager is asking for far more than any other NPC faction has ever required and this doesn't even affect his faction. This clearly isn't disrupting any plots he is running, nor does it conflict with any articles he's made for Elysia since becoming GM.
About to go to bed, but I will be saying this just because it can be said quickly. Soul Transfer is Elysian technology. And so are the Seraphs. Even if you upgrade them they still originated from Elysian Tech. So yes, Elysian tech is involved in all this.
What you two need to start doing is firstly, talk -to- each other. That means Frost you need to start focusing on what's actually important that'll effect you. And Zack that means you need to stop talking around Frost. You two are going to get no where if there's no discourse of compromise.
And Zack 500 million as a population is fine. What isn't' fine is 500 million -Patricians-. We have asked you so many times for "How many Patricians are there" and you don't answer. And for the record, if they are using a 'made' body they are technically not Patrician. Patricians are a 'natural' race. Yes you can have them make bodies that are just like Patricians if you want, but a number of -natural- Patricians that left would be nice.
If you two can't start actually talking to each other you're both gonna be here forever and neither of you will likely get what you want, but you're both looking really childish right now that you can't even figure out how to hold a conversation between each other.
ST technology is all over the place, it hasn't been a strictly Elysian thing for quite some time.
And as stated before these are new model Seraphs not the older Seraphs. A new article is needed for them and that comes after the basics are approved. Again this doesn't involve the Elysian FM in any capacity.
And now we're talking about breaking out population by race? Do any other factions do that? Has that ever been required of NPC factions? It might be easier for me to just drop the population count entirely since everyone seems to have their own entirely arbitrary idea of what that should be.
I'm having trouble understanding what you mean by 'arbitrary arguments', Zack. It seems to me you're applying the term 'arbitrary' arbitrarily to anything you want to ignore, which is the majority of everything.
Is it less 'arbitrary' if it's backed up by precedent? The Shravana Hive is a similar subfaction and met similar requirements, the 'splash page' for the subfaction was only approved after the articles for the system and world were, and included full details on all the Hive's starships as well as an overview of the Hive's 'political parties' and demographic breakdown.
Its military isn't described beyond its list of ships, because it doesn't properly have one. It doesn't have any unique tech articles, but it links to those of others. Everything that belongs to the Hive that's been used in the roleplay, which ranges from a Traveller Shuttle to its refurbished Yui-class scout ship, has articles.
So, he's asking you to meet the same standard I met. I don't think 'some people weren't held to this standard' is an excuse, if we were to accept that the standards would only get weaker and weaker. We have to make sure all the canon namespaces are up to code, sooner or later. Better to strike while the iron's hot.
For example any argument about 500 million being too much or too little without some solid reasoning behind what would be a reasonable amount. 500 million is 1/14th of the earth's population and that matches up with the % of people I'd expect to be hardliners. Of course this is all spacefuture estimates but I have a reason for my estimates even if they are very rough.
I would also like to point out that the Hive only has two pages which is about the same level of detail here. You weren't asked to make all new starships, all new sub-system articles, and I don't see character articles for your political leadership. The amount of approved articles made for the hive does not come close to meeting what Frost is asking for.
Yes, Reynolds. Still, I already tried explaining that the article was incomplete, Frost forwarded that to Zack, and Zack complained that other factions are also incomplete. I figured pointing out that I managed to meet these standards might help. It didn't take that much effort, either.
Three pages, not two. 4500 words, not 1400. And that's despite the Hive using the tech of other factions. If the 4th Empire has its own tech, and its unique tech has a role in the RP, it needs more information about it.
I'm only saying this for the sake of convincing you despite your hang-ups, though--Reynolds is right, it doesn't matter what standards were applied to other submissions, what matters is the standards FrostJaeger is applying to this submission.
Your estimate is essentially based on whim, if not a failure to research Elysian society--Patricians aren't the standard unit of Elysian, they're the elite; so they're not the bulk of the numbers your estimate's drawn from. That's ignoring all the other assumptions inherent in predicting 1/14th of the population would up and leave to a barren planet because they were unhappy about the political situation.
Even if it made sense in every other way--I don't think it would be feasible--whether or not something is logical in-setting isn't all of how we decide what to approve. The criteria are listed in the submission guide, but even more important than plausibility is how useful submissions are to the setting. A small cell of bad guys is more useful than 500,000,000 of them, whether or not they 'make sense'. It's just easier to use them in plots when they carry less baggage; so there's other reasons to scale it down.
Does anyone have any specific changes or additions to the text of Zack's article they'd like to suggest? Hopefully from @FrostJaeger since he's the guy who matters right now. Because that's what should be happening, rather than long posts generally critiquing the article.
Wes has all but approved it. Say exactly what you think Zack should be adding/subtracting so he has solid points to work off of. Right now you're just giving him "that's not cool I don't like this!" posts, which isn't productive.