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ysabetwordsmithThe Republic of the Maldives will have some unique issues coming up, due to the rapid influx of soups. Remember, spoilers ahead!
* The big meeting at SPOON about the Maldives is some time in the summer, after the Maldives passes America in Gross National Happiness. Then Dr. Infanta decides to investigate the place, so that's when she forms solid connections there. ("I'm your goddamn nuclear option.")
* A significant number of those immigrants are supervillains. Even if they want to go straight, it's not that easy to do, and some of them will slip. So that's going to run up the crime rate, which will make the locals unhappy, and if not addressed will make them less tolerant of soups. The parameters do include a warning that immigrants who break laws in Maldivian territory can be kicked out. But if they do that over minor to moderate slips, they're going to lose soups unnecessarily and, especially, lose the chance to pull people off the black. So they need to have a discussion about how to handle those things.
* Aquariana and the President of the Maldives talk about growing fears among the ordinary citizens that soups will overtake the culture and make everyone else into their slaves. She says that the first problem -- fear itself -- is basically racism, to be treated with education and outreach. The practical concern is that ordinary people have a hard time keeping up with soups, because soups are born with or stumble upon special abilities. But naries have talents of their own, too. They usually need education to develop that, so it would help for soups to fund scholarships. An employment program would help naries who lose their jobs to soups or cultural upsets caused by the influx of superpowered immigrants. Aquariana and the President also discuss the possibility of a supernary training program, but aren't sure how to make that work, so they just start with the other stuff.
* Some of the naries will just plain get jealous. This is unavoidable, but can be managed after the fact. So it's the first country that starts a supernary academy. You want to do extraordinary things and you're willing to work your butt off? Go there. You want the perks without doing the work? Quit whining and go home, you're a blot on the Maldivian reputation for hospitality.
* The President of the Maldives is unusually inclined to see expert input, and he has a very cosmopolitan idea of "expert." That means, as various supervillain representatives start to sound him out, he's going to hustle them for ideas on how to handle their part of crime. So for instance, Ras el Hanout knows all about smuggling and contraband substances. Ask him how to handle addictions, he has seen everyone's laws over it so he knows which work and which don't.
* They'll also start integrating soups into municipal jobs. (I note that the Ring Mistress has completely missed the news about the Maldives putting soups into advisory positions.) Among the first examples of that came up in the trial of the Japanese whalers, so that the Maldivian navy now consists of two whales.
* Due to having its population dispersed over many islands, the Maldives fields a number of hospital ships. A new one is the supervillain-funded Restitution.
* A gizmologist in the Maldives develops ink based on the sea hare's natural defense of releasing a reddish-purple ink when threatened. The calligraphy ink becomes popular for artwork in the Maldives. The tattoo ink blunts hyperactive senses, which is helpful to some people whose Super-Senses leave them with sensory processing disorder.
http://marinesavers.com/2016/04/dhiya-creatures-of-landaa/
"To Be Able to Rise from the Earth"
Timeline date: February 1, 2015
* One of the things I mentioned is that there's a nanotechnologist who comes to the Maldives with a space program in a briefcase. You set the scale, pop the thing open, and it does its trick. The briefcase has enough material for a room-sized model. Beyond that, you need a place to put it, and it still requires raw materials, but at that stage it's cheaper than building everything by hand. The expense is primarily the creator's buildtime, which is already done and offered in exchange for citizenship.
Well, if they have that, they'll need astronauts. They'd have no trouble attracting some, but poaching outright would be undiplomatic. However, once again they have something very nice to offer in trade: a tropical island paradise. The Maldives would be an ideal place for astronauts to recover after orbital time, which is pretty rough on the body. Here they've got a beautiful landscape to encourage them out of bed, water to swim in so they don't have to readjust to gravity all at once, and a medical system that's rapidly incorporating healers. Once recovered, the astronauts could run a mission for the Maldives, especially since a new space program tends toward short missions at first, and those don't run down the body as much as the long ones. With the whales and Aquariana already knowing some folks on the ISS.
"Flowing into the Future"
* A negotiation nets them Aunt Flo, creator of Aunt Flo's Flushies (a feminine hygiene supply) and PseudoBabe (a very effective birth control method using a fake embryo).
* The first serious teleport accident, which leads to the development of the first teleportation "airport."
"There I See the Kraken Rising"
* Contingency X, the decloaking of Kraken.
* The Maldives is the first place to establish a school especially for superkids. In exploring options, they like a lot of the Waldorf principles including faceless or stylized dolls and emphasis on spiritual aspects; this adapts easily to the needs of a Muslim country. They also ask the Marionettes for help since that Family already has schools for their own offspring, just mixed super and nary.
http://leadtogether.org/core-principles-waldorf-education-psc-2014/
When the President of the Maldives starts hustling the Marionettes to make him a school for superkids, because they know how, they'll have something other to say than "Ack ack ack." They can say, "Dr. G, HELP! We're mobsters, not superintendents!" And after he stops laughing, he'll say, "Well, you should have thought of that before you optimized your private school for superkids. Let's talk about what can be carried over and what we might need to adapt for a different culture and environment."
* The big meeting at SPOON about the Maldives is some time in the summer, after the Maldives passes America in Gross National Happiness. Then Dr. Infanta decides to investigate the place, so that's when she forms solid connections there. ("I'm your goddamn nuclear option.")
* A significant number of those immigrants are supervillains. Even if they want to go straight, it's not that easy to do, and some of them will slip. So that's going to run up the crime rate, which will make the locals unhappy, and if not addressed will make them less tolerant of soups. The parameters do include a warning that immigrants who break laws in Maldivian territory can be kicked out. But if they do that over minor to moderate slips, they're going to lose soups unnecessarily and, especially, lose the chance to pull people off the black. So they need to have a discussion about how to handle those things.
* Aquariana and the President of the Maldives talk about growing fears among the ordinary citizens that soups will overtake the culture and make everyone else into their slaves. She says that the first problem -- fear itself -- is basically racism, to be treated with education and outreach. The practical concern is that ordinary people have a hard time keeping up with soups, because soups are born with or stumble upon special abilities. But naries have talents of their own, too. They usually need education to develop that, so it would help for soups to fund scholarships. An employment program would help naries who lose their jobs to soups or cultural upsets caused by the influx of superpowered immigrants. Aquariana and the President also discuss the possibility of a supernary training program, but aren't sure how to make that work, so they just start with the other stuff.
* Some of the naries will just plain get jealous. This is unavoidable, but can be managed after the fact. So it's the first country that starts a supernary academy. You want to do extraordinary things and you're willing to work your butt off? Go there. You want the perks without doing the work? Quit whining and go home, you're a blot on the Maldivian reputation for hospitality.
* The President of the Maldives is unusually inclined to see expert input, and he has a very cosmopolitan idea of "expert." That means, as various supervillain representatives start to sound him out, he's going to hustle them for ideas on how to handle their part of crime. So for instance, Ras el Hanout knows all about smuggling and contraband substances. Ask him how to handle addictions, he has seen everyone's laws over it so he knows which work and which don't.
* They'll also start integrating soups into municipal jobs. (I note that the Ring Mistress has completely missed the news about the Maldives putting soups into advisory positions.) Among the first examples of that came up in the trial of the Japanese whalers, so that the Maldivian navy now consists of two whales.
* Due to having its population dispersed over many islands, the Maldives fields a number of hospital ships. A new one is the supervillain-funded Restitution.
* A gizmologist in the Maldives develops ink based on the sea hare's natural defense of releasing a reddish-purple ink when threatened. The calligraphy ink becomes popular for artwork in the Maldives. The tattoo ink blunts hyperactive senses, which is helpful to some people whose Super-Senses leave them with sensory processing disorder.
http://marinesavers.com/2016/04/dhiya-creatures-of-landaa/
"To Be Able to Rise from the Earth"
Timeline date: February 1, 2015
* One of the things I mentioned is that there's a nanotechnologist who comes to the Maldives with a space program in a briefcase. You set the scale, pop the thing open, and it does its trick. The briefcase has enough material for a room-sized model. Beyond that, you need a place to put it, and it still requires raw materials, but at that stage it's cheaper than building everything by hand. The expense is primarily the creator's buildtime, which is already done and offered in exchange for citizenship.
Well, if they have that, they'll need astronauts. They'd have no trouble attracting some, but poaching outright would be undiplomatic. However, once again they have something very nice to offer in trade: a tropical island paradise. The Maldives would be an ideal place for astronauts to recover after orbital time, which is pretty rough on the body. Here they've got a beautiful landscape to encourage them out of bed, water to swim in so they don't have to readjust to gravity all at once, and a medical system that's rapidly incorporating healers. Once recovered, the astronauts could run a mission for the Maldives, especially since a new space program tends toward short missions at first, and those don't run down the body as much as the long ones. With the whales and Aquariana already knowing some folks on the ISS.
"Flowing into the Future"
* A negotiation nets them Aunt Flo, creator of Aunt Flo's Flushies (a feminine hygiene supply) and PseudoBabe (a very effective birth control method using a fake embryo).
* The first serious teleport accident, which leads to the development of the first teleportation "airport."
"There I See the Kraken Rising"
* Contingency X, the decloaking of Kraken.
* The Maldives is the first place to establish a school especially for superkids. In exploring options, they like a lot of the Waldorf principles including faceless or stylized dolls and emphasis on spiritual aspects; this adapts easily to the needs of a Muslim country. They also ask the Marionettes for help since that Family already has schools for their own offspring, just mixed super and nary.
http://leadtogether.org/core-principles-waldorf-education-psc-2014/
When the President of the Maldives starts hustling the Marionettes to make him a school for superkids, because they know how, they'll have something other to say than "Ack ack ack." They can say, "Dr. G, HELP! We're mobsters, not superintendents!" And after he stops laughing, he'll say, "Well, you should have thought of that before you optimized your private school for superkids. Let's talk about what can be carried over and what we might need to adapt for a different culture and environment."
(no subject)
Date: 2018-05-14 10:37 am (UTC)Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-14 05:14 pm (UTC)And of course, fliers are very useful there, because once you get into an archipelago, there are lots of islands within a very short hop. There are plenty of boats and planes, but those take up space and require expensive imported fuel. A flier can just flit over there.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-14 09:07 pm (UTC)Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-15 12:22 am (UTC)Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-15 09:56 am (UTC)Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-15 02:37 pm (UTC)Tentatively, I'd say probably not that much of a boom if she adopted a 'superman' pose in flight, the cross-sectional area of the human body isn't all that big in a head-first position, and the outstretched fist would act to create a small bow-shock which most of her body would trail behind in. Kind of like the pointy bit at the end of the nose cone of most fighter planes.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-15 12:24 am (UTC)The astronut training program wouldn't hurt either! They build rocket planes after all.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-15 12:35 am (UTC)A lot of people are struggling with that decision. It's a huge change, but it brings enormous benefits for soups. Even the ones in nice countries are considering it.
>> but if it meant Joan got a proper education in a school set up for soups, her moms would do it! <<
That's one of the later projects, but yes, it'll happen.
>> The astronut training program wouldn't hurt either! They build rocket planes after all. <<
:D I imagine the President will do much the same thing he did with soups: offer a real sweet deal to any astronauts or rocket scientists who want to immigrate.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-15 12:58 am (UTC)Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-15 01:11 am (UTC)Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-15 01:25 am (UTC)Although... now that I think about it, what they could bring to Maldives is the ability to take the designs in the 'space program in a briefcase' and tinker with them to make them suitable for a sea launch system.
Amphibious rocket planes perhaps... or something like what Elon Musk is doing in L-space at present. But something that takes what is the Maldives single liability [lack of land] and turn it into an advantage.
Hell... they might even contribute to something like the Sea Dragon, once the Maldives gets it's program up to speed.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-15 01:51 am (UTC)That's not easy to come by. There are a handful of airports in the Maldives, of which the one in Male is the biggest -- and it's actually on a neighboring island that had to be extended to make room for that runway. A lot of Maldivian airports look like this.
>> Although... now that I think about it, what they could bring to Maldives is the ability to take the designs in the 'space program in a briefcase' and tinker with them to make them suitable for a sea launch system. <<
That would be tremendously useful. The Maldives already has plenty of capacity for seaplanes and boats. The nanotechnologist is good at what he does, but not necessarily experienced in those areas.
>> Amphibious rocket planes perhaps... or something like what Elon Musk is doing in L-space at present. <<
That's a good idea. Water makes a terrific landing zone for a space program. But you do have to block out room for that, because the Maldives has relatively heavy air-and-water traffic already.
>> But something that takes what is the Maldives single liability [lack of land] and turn it into an advantage. <<
They are looking into things like floating islands and habitat ships. Once Kraken decloaks, that will become a lot more feasible.
>> Hell... they might even contribute to something like the Sea Dragon, once the Maldives gets it's program up to speed.<<
They would definitely be interested in that, because cargo hauling is another major limitation for the Maldives. So much of their basic needs must be shipped in, it runs up the costs and limits what they can accomplish. That turns their attention to heavy haulers, whether ships or soups. The teleport airport will have a cargo section, which will make it easy to attract those, because other places usually want personnel transport. It can be hard for a cargo teleporter to find work. In the Maldives? "Here's your immigration packet, when can you start work?" LOL
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-15 02:04 am (UTC)Kate could design that, easily... although Jean might grumble about becoming a 'damn truck driver!'
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-15 02:10 am (UTC)Not a bad idea.
>> with modern jet engines and modified kelp-based carbon-fibre hull [because of a lack of trees!] <<
Kelp doesn't grow in the Maldives. They have some edible seaweeds, though, so some other kind might be good for construction.
>> Kate could design that, easily... although Jean might grumble about becoming a 'damn truck driver!' <<
LOL
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-16 01:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-05-14 08:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-05-15 12:21 am (UTC)