Nation States…

Ever wanted to run your own country? I know I have. Everyone has ideals on how to run the government but in the real world, ideals can go down the drain.

I’ve been playing this text based “rpg” called NationStaes. I don’t really think it can be considered an RPG because there is no story, and there is no goal. But, it is a political simulation game and I’ve been having quite a bit of fun playing it.

Every day you get an issue, and your government can decide between a few choices, or dismiss it.

Each choice can affect your political, social, and economic standpoints from conservative, moderate, or liberal.

Right now, my country of Dystopacles is a Democratic Socialist Country. When I first started out I was a New York Times Democracy, and then it went to an Inoffensive Centrist Democracy.

There are 27 different types of categorizations, every single one of them has their own different descriptions.

Its very fun to play, if you’ve always fantasized about running your country. It’s also slightly educational, because often, the choices you pick come out with sometimes hilarious consequences.

here is one example of an issue i have to decide on:

THE GREAT WALL OF DYSTOPACLES?

The Issue

Due to the ongoing wars in neighboring countries, a recent rash of illegal immigrants have been caught at the borders of Dystopacles, prompting many citizens to call for tighter immigration laws.

The Debate

1. May Silk of the Dystopacles National Purity League says “These illegal aliens are just an eyesore with their strange customs and funny languages. Uneducated immigrants like these only worsen crime and steal valuable jobs! I say we should boot them all out on their ears and put a big fence around the country!”
2. Prudence McGuffin of the Dystopacles Civil Liberties Union says “We must welcome these refugees from any nation into our open arms, they are fleeing one oppressive dictatorial regime in the only way they know, we must not let them think they’re jumping from the frying pan into the fire!”
3. “Hold on there, hold on people!” says Roxanne Chicago of the Dystopacles Broadcasting company, “We don’t have to take either extreme, all we have to do is make a TV game show out of it! We put deadly obstacles on the border and monitor it with television cameras! Those that make it across win freedom and citizenship, and those who don’t, well, lets just say that our buzzards won’t starve. We could call it ‘Who Wants to be an Immigrant?’!”

The Government Position

The government has yet to formalize a position on this issue.

Like in the real world, more often then not, you don’t have a choice that makes everyone happy, or is absolutely right. Sometimes, you have to pick what consequences you want to have in order to make the most people happy, and the least amount of people angry.

Alright, I give up makin up a quirky title.

The name is Redgie Mercado.

Spelled with an d in the middle instead of a double “g”. A particular friend of mine calls me “Double G”, he says its my gangstah name. I tell him it doesn’t make sense. He tells me that I need to shut up

There are a lot of things about me that I could recite ad infinitum nauseum, Or actually I could probably just copy paste my facebook profile about me. I really do take a long time to write about me’s because I believe it is possible to know people, by taking snippits from their life events, and interpolating the rest.

But since that isn’t the assignment, so here is that laundry list. I was born in the Phillipines, then a humpback whale took me to the United states at the tender age of 5. I spoke Engleesh, just a little bit and I believed my parents house was the air port.

A few years later at around 11 years old, i got sick rheumatic heart fever. I was put in ICU for a bit, then i recovered.

I was an angst filled teenager for quite a while.

*INSERT COMING-OF-AGE SCREENPLAY HERE*
When I was 14 I got sick again with Endocarditis, and that time heart surgery was necessary. I stayed in the hospital for 33 days, hooked up to Vancomycin and Gentamycin at six hours intervals. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, then let me explain.

Think of penicillin as an m141a. The standard issue rifle giving to the us army infantry. Vancomycin is the Soviet 55 Megaton Hydrogen Bomb.

I missed out of school for a year. High school lasted three years, then I graduated.
The last two years helped me change quite a bit. But I suppose that’s what college does to you, and the whole semi growing up thing.

My Hobbies include (sorry I just laughed, Borat just popped into my head saying “My Hobees”), Anime.

You know “Dem Chineez cartoons”.

I also sew quite a bit. Its mostly for costuming for anime, commonly called “Cosplay” and lolita fashion. I like that crap, and so does my girlfriend. She’s the one who got me into it.

I’m an atec student here, taking a multitude of classes. My favorite is probably Japanese class, since there are many like minded individuals in there. My concentration is Animation, but that’s all i really know i want to do.

Actually my passion is prop making, things that WETA would do. I love making things with my hands. Actually creating something tangible and “cool” and awe inspiring gives me fulfillment.

My Father is a Mechanic. He works on police cars for City of Houston, for the local government.

My mother is a RN. She works at North West Houston Hospital in endoscopy. Gastrointestinal procedures are her game. In other words, she sticks cameras up peoples “wrong side”.

I have three other brothers, one in high school, two in middle school, and they aren’t as strange as me.

I like psychology and I like observing people, and interpolating between those observations to guess what kind of person they are.

My movies and entertainment is very varied. I rather not describe them by genres, but rather by the emotions i seek from them. And usually, if it makes me feels extremes in emotion, then I’m probably diggin’ it.

And that’s about it really.