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It looks like you, Nesh, and Lily all landed in almost the same spot. And it does seem that certain values do correlate.

—Ls really likes maps!

What exactly would you consider a “fair share” that, as you put it, “Bezos and friends” should pay in taxes? It’s an incredibly vague phrase, so I’d like to know what exactly you mean.

—Ls is genuinely curious as to what you and others have to say. And he’s not really a Jeff Bezos fan either.

Ve are Linstarists, zat is our religion, of course ve are eevil. All hail Ze Eevil Lord Linstar! But ve are not ridiculously eevil, just absurdly.

By ze vay, ve are using our manna to build an island, just to spite you.

Mwa ha hah ha!

—ZELL

(Since it's been some time since I last explained this... PPC+20 is a project to re-plug every PPC story from the first couple of years of our existence, exactly 20 years after it first came out.)

It's been a while, and that means it's actually realistically for me to be a little late: our hypothetical reader in the year 2002 clearly missed these stories when they came out on the 21st, and has only just noticed them. Sure. That's what I'm going with.

Protectors of the Plot Continuum: Two Worlds United by Jay & Acacia

It's been a month and a half since the original Assassins moved to Crossovers, but "Two Worlds" shows that they haven't given up on us. And nor have their spinoff writers, because:

PPC: From the Files of Polaris and Aria - Forward & A Time to Love, a Time to Fly by Cat Meringue

I confess I don't remember this at all; maybe I've never read it! I'll have to take a look when I get a chance. Page 3 of the reviews is a role-call of early PPC writers: we've got Wunderlust (Jay), Meg Thornton (Despatch), Meir Brin (HFA), and I'm delighted to see Jocelyn, LeoD, and Andy and Saphie dropping in too. Lots of memories of those people. :)

And a bonus non-story, from the very same day!

On the Art of Creating Original Characters in Fanfic by Architeuthis

Wayback Machine link, but this is a great essay by Archi about how (not) to do OCs. The PPC has no problem with original characters (just Suvians), and this is Archi's way of helping people do it right.

hS

FROM: Huinesoronic Diplomatic Corps, Groundside Unit

TO: Huinesoronic Department of Diplomacy, asteroid 7219 Dafyddillian

Anarchy!

That's not a complaint, you understand: it's a description of what's going on on the ground. Our two nearest neighbours, the GMA and the doctorlit, are flying the black banners of the anarchists. And predictably enough for such hierarchy-averse forces, they are currently at war with one another.

The problem is that the mountains west of the Fabled River are growing too crowded. They are an excellent landing site - we touched down there ourselves - but the snowy peaks leave little room for maneuver. The doctorlit have managed to eke out an uneasy peace with Neshomeh to the north, and although the Lilies of the Winterwoods are convinced everyone is out to get them, the doctorlit appear to be happy to live with them. But the GMA simply find them too laissez-faire for comfort; even from here, we can see their planes dogfighting above the peaks.

Naturally, we have lent low-key support to the GMA, as our closest ally groundside. But our priority must be to bring peace between the factions here in the west, before the Linstars and their allies of convenience can find whatever it is they are seeking.

Yeah, so everyone in the west is up a mountain, despite that area being originally drawn as plains; and everyone in the east is in the sea despite me drawing it as mountains. Them's the breaks!

It's increasingly obvious how strongly correlated most of the PolitiScales values are. I think the only scale where there's any overlap between west and east is Yuki, who has a couple of more westerly traits.

hS

I'm a little surprised to see anarchism there, since I don't think of myself that way . . . I guess I'm more fed up with the U.S. than I realized!

The results.

Only just realized there are two tests in this thread; I'll have to hit the other one later.

—doctorlit wants progress towards problem-solving

Unsurprisingly, I'm a heathen leftist.

On PolitiScales, I'm at Equality - Humanity - Socialism. Kinda surprised at that heavy communist score, though? Is it that radical to want to make sure folks like Bezos and friends pay their fair share? :P Which is probably also why I got the Conspiracist label. I promise I'm not one of those weirdoes who think there's lizards in the government. That's unfair to lizards when, again, Bezos and friends are right there.

It looks like Ze Eevil Lord Linstar will have allies—or at least people nearby he can claim are allies.

Ls loves maps. A lot. Good work, hS!

—Ls

A lot of people in the US who left socialist countries like Vietnam, China, etc (or former ones like Russia) might swing harder in the other direction politically, whereas a lot of people in the US who've never lived in those countries may be looking more at socialist theory and ascribing to that. Gotta be careful of where the line gets drawn, though, lest one crawls into tankie territory.

FROM: Huinesoronic Scouting Corps ("The Redder Kites")

TO: Ground Command

Yo boss man, how's it going? Because it's going really well out here.

The maps from our briefing pack are about as accurate as you'd expect (to whit: not at all), but we've made some progress on filling in the blanks. Did you know the area around the Fabled River is stuffed with mountains? Ours is kind of the worst one, too: GMA forces have picked a much nicer one just over the river, and the Neshomehs have set up shop in an actual forest above the snowline. I guess they can eat the trees or whatever it is they do.

Good news is, the natives are friendly (just my little joke). Obviously the GMA are still nearly as devoted to the Great Regulation as we are, and between us we have the highest tech level we've yet seen groundside. Their anarchist tendencies might give some difficulties if we see combat, but as a deterrent they're top notch. (Not that they don't have other odd ideas, but I'll leave their brand of feminism to the scholars.)

The Neshomehs aren't quite as dedicated - bit of a laissez-faire touch to their ideas, if you'll pardon my Hardrician - but I reckon we could bring them on side if we point out what the rest of the field looks like. The Orange Foxes agree with me - they preferred to sail around the entire north penninsula than to stay under the shadow of the Neshomeh guns.

Between you and me, boss man, I'm a bit worried as to what's actually going on in the north-east. There's four teams on the ground there, all of them Let-It-Be leaning but none of them fanatical about it. They are fanatical about other things, though - three of the four of them have claimed "religious reasons" for landing. I can't argue - they're certainly not here to fight, with those (lack of) weapons! - but given the Linstars' immediate beeline for the War-Queen's old haunts, I'm worried the "religion" in question has something to do with Mana... or Chaos. I really don't want to see that old hazard coming back on our watch; we've got enough to worry about.

(Oh, and the Cartographers missed an entire island; are we sure the satellites are pointed at the right planet?)

Trying to work the extra badges in too. Linstar, Bookworm, and OrangeFox all have Missionary stickers, Nesh has Vegan and Pragmatist, and GMA has Anarchist and Radical Feminist. The stickerless Huinesorons are scathing about all of them, natch. ^_~

I'm still working on hacking the URL format - it is doable, I'm sure, but there's enough inconsistencies between people to make it tough (& I couldn't find it in the source code for the site, either).

hS

The Essentialist Mages of Linstar need to recognise that their flaws are their own - and, indeed, by their own belief system it could be no other way! "One is not made, but born Ridiculously Evil." (See 2015 alignment chart for the background on 'ridiculously'.)

Besides which, their purported 'bias' is largely neutral, and partly pro-Linstar. Where is the 'bias' in reporting that they have established themselves in an oceanic region, rather than on a freezing cold mountaintop? How is it worse to not bring high-tech weaponry to Plortitics, and not to spend all their time shooting anything that moves? Really, their only real complaint is that by seeking out radioactive ruins, they have found radioactive ruins.

If they didn't want to be evil, they shouldn't have set up shop in the land where all the evil people live. That's just science.

((We've had both a Dark Brother, an Uber Overlord, and a dark lord in that area of the map, plus Alleb enthusiastically accepting the War-Queen mantle. Also a badger, but that might fit the pattern a bit less.))

hS

And it has a hat, too. Nice, it can come to my office and watch me attempt to work.

Thank you very much! I like cookies!

Edit: Never mind, I'm wrong.

and everyone else is more socialist than me 🤣

P.S: Since this is a sensitive issue, I suggest we tread lightly.

That’s a good choice to work in.

—Ls

But I knew you’d come for a Plort thread!

—Ls, glad that his old RP buddy is posting.

That said, working in Intelligence seems interesting. Go in, see the horror, get out without being in any real danger. Bad Slash fics might be the most fun for me to read, and Mary Sue missions can be a bit more dramatic, but when it comes to what the best job would be... yeah, I don't like extremes that much. They get tiring quickly.

Looks like I got the same label as last time. I'm a bit surprised by my Ecology/Production score; I think the reason "Ecology" sits at only 55% is that I disagree with the dichotomy; there are ways to make goods in a more environmentally friendly way, so production usually doesn't have to suffer for the planet to remain comfortable for life. I think that the main thing that has shifted for me is that I'm more revolutionary. I just hope that the revolution makes things better and not worse...

Full results, for the curious.

Humanity - Work - Liberty

...it is biased against those vis a low Ecology, Rehabilitation, Constructivism, and Military score. You have constructed zis map just zo you can make it be against me, ze Eevil Lord Linstar. Zis is unfair! Ve, here at Linstar, have found some ov ze old Mage technology. Ve have found it by ze power of Essentialism. And vis it, ze Let-It-Be-ers shall triumph. Mwa ha ha! Fangz for ze technology, Alleb. Ve vill use it well.

((Yeah, I’m an Eevil Lord now. And I have an accent. Deal.))

—ZELL

Because he totally fits the definition of “sociopathic would-be dictator.”

Ahem. I find I agree on the ecology thing. Somewhat. Nature is good for people. Though I’d choose people over nature, as my score shows.

—Ls tried a vegan burger recently, and he thought it was pretty good.