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shirenomadMy brother Will's got this thing with getting involved in empire building. He's a PolySci major; he can't help it. Or rather, he's a PolySci major because he can't help it.
It probably started with the summer before his sophomore year in high school. He found out registered high school students could take courses at the local community college for free (I took a night course in piano myself, for all the good it did me). So that summer he took Intro to Philosophy, and he hasn't been normal since. Took several more Intros over the next few summers and came out rather convinced that the world was rapidly traveling towards Hades in a handheld containment vessel, but that was the start.
That same sophomore year he took his second high school English course with Ms. G (full name withheld, partially because I don't feel like slamming her behind her back, partially because it's a long name and I don't want to type it out repeatedly). Ms. G could certainly teach English -- I credit most of my writing skill to the time I spent in her classes -- but she had her ideas about how the world should work (which she happily presented to her classes as dogma), and by this point Will was also forming his own, and they didn't match at all. This was the beginning of an interesting relationship, which came to a head with the Arenna Project.
The Arenna Project was Will's first experience with nation simulation outside of Avalon Hill's Civilization board game. Ms. G decided that since this was a class on World Literature, it was best to understand how different cultures might present different perspectives. So the class was chopped up into committees, and each was instructed to design some aspect of a new culture (government, military, arts, etc.) named Arenna. There were several problems with this idea off the bat, mostly due to the fact that the groups weren't necessarily required to coordinate (and they often didn't). But Ms. G also decided to give not-so-gentle nudges as to what she thought the entire system should look like. This came to a head when she made a "modest" proposal of adding a "No Waste" clause to the constitution (or "Compact" as they were calling it). That's right. No waste whatsoever.
Will was on the government "committee" and couldn't believe it. But he knew Ms. G wouldn't let up. At the same time, he spotted an opportunity. The government was an alliance: the Council (five members, ostentatiously the government committee) was chosen for life but really didn't have much power save to hold the individual states together. Under the Compact. So Will grins and tells Ms. G what a great idea the "no waste" law is. Then he slips a new clause into the Compact: the Compact Enforcement Commission. The CEC was part of the military, and was charged with making sure the people of Arenna obeyed the Compact. It answered only to the Council. The military committee, who due to Ms. G's "suggestions" had been limited to law enforcement anyway, loved the idea.
Now, given that no human being can ever avoid generating waste (depending on how literally one interprets that law, using the bathroom without recycling every last molecule could be illegal), the Council now had the power to arrest anyone, anywhere. And suddenly Will's got his own secret police. Presto! Fascist/communist military dictatorship under the pretense of environmentalism! Ms. G never noticed.
Anyway, I bring this up because Will's taking a a class in Foreign Policy and Decision Making this semester, which has a simulation with several countries interacting. Last year they were allowed to name their countries, given professorial approval; the professor let a United Republic Made Of Many slip past, and under wise leadership URMOM dominated the simulation (until everyone else got sick of it and allied against it in "Operation: Screw URMOM"). This year the professor is naming the countries himself, go fig. But there are a few good ones, and Will hopes to get assigned to the Empire of Nod, just for the "Soon comes the Empire" letterhead.
[edit: Sorry, I meant to cut that.]
It probably started with the summer before his sophomore year in high school. He found out registered high school students could take courses at the local community college for free (I took a night course in piano myself, for all the good it did me). So that summer he took Intro to Philosophy, and he hasn't been normal since. Took several more Intros over the next few summers and came out rather convinced that the world was rapidly traveling towards Hades in a handheld containment vessel, but that was the start.
That same sophomore year he took his second high school English course with Ms. G (full name withheld, partially because I don't feel like slamming her behind her back, partially because it's a long name and I don't want to type it out repeatedly). Ms. G could certainly teach English -- I credit most of my writing skill to the time I spent in her classes -- but she had her ideas about how the world should work (which she happily presented to her classes as dogma), and by this point Will was also forming his own, and they didn't match at all. This was the beginning of an interesting relationship, which came to a head with the Arenna Project.
The Arenna Project was Will's first experience with nation simulation outside of Avalon Hill's Civilization board game. Ms. G decided that since this was a class on World Literature, it was best to understand how different cultures might present different perspectives. So the class was chopped up into committees, and each was instructed to design some aspect of a new culture (government, military, arts, etc.) named Arenna. There were several problems with this idea off the bat, mostly due to the fact that the groups weren't necessarily required to coordinate (and they often didn't). But Ms. G also decided to give not-so-gentle nudges as to what she thought the entire system should look like. This came to a head when she made a "modest" proposal of adding a "No Waste" clause to the constitution (or "Compact" as they were calling it). That's right. No waste whatsoever.
Will was on the government "committee" and couldn't believe it. But he knew Ms. G wouldn't let up. At the same time, he spotted an opportunity. The government was an alliance: the Council (five members, ostentatiously the government committee) was chosen for life but really didn't have much power save to hold the individual states together. Under the Compact. So Will grins and tells Ms. G what a great idea the "no waste" law is. Then he slips a new clause into the Compact: the Compact Enforcement Commission. The CEC was part of the military, and was charged with making sure the people of Arenna obeyed the Compact. It answered only to the Council. The military committee, who due to Ms. G's "suggestions" had been limited to law enforcement anyway, loved the idea.
Now, given that no human being can ever avoid generating waste (depending on how literally one interprets that law, using the bathroom without recycling every last molecule could be illegal), the Council now had the power to arrest anyone, anywhere. And suddenly Will's got his own secret police. Presto! Fascist/communist military dictatorship under the pretense of environmentalism! Ms. G never noticed.
Anyway, I bring this up because Will's taking a a class in Foreign Policy and Decision Making this semester, which has a simulation with several countries interacting. Last year they were allowed to name their countries, given professorial approval; the professor let a United Republic Made Of Many slip past, and under wise leadership URMOM dominated the simulation (until everyone else got sick of it and allied against it in "Operation: Screw URMOM"). This year the professor is naming the countries himself, go fig. But there are a few good ones, and Will hopes to get assigned to the Empire of Nod, just for the "Soon comes the Empire" letterhead.
[edit: Sorry, I meant to cut that.]
