Yeraennus: A State of Crisis

MacSalterson

MacSalterson

TNPer
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I was ruminating over Yeraennus recently and have come to a set of rather startling and concerning conclusions. Some of this was posted on the RMB by me wallet earlier in the week.

I am in no way meaning to brag, but objectively, in most aspects, my nation is a rather idealized image of a nation. Socially Progressive, Environmentally Friendly, Healthy, Advanced, Excellent Economy and Welfare, all the bits and bobs. These bring about several consequences that are rather more disastrous than beneficial.

Here's a list of the problems my nation faces due to how it is designed:

  • The way my nation is set up, an overwhelming majority of my nation's population is urban, with little infrastructure existing outside the main cities. This means growth is difficult, with little room for expansion.
  • Citizens of Yeraennus are by and large long-lived with only a small risk of heart disease. As a developed country, this means that with little population growth, the workforce is gradually shrinking, which I'd understandably bad.
  • Recovering from a half a century of civil war. No need to explain this. Still somehow stable in many ways.
  • Agriculture is limited by thick forests and mountains with relatively poor soil, self-sufficiency is difficult at best.
  • As Yeraennus is just joining international affairs again, there is little in the way of Foreign relations to alleviate the presumed sufficiency problem.
  • Horrible weather and climate. No need to explain this I hope.
  • A one in five chance you will die by getting lost. So much for technology.

There are quite a few problems for Yeraennus. Would anyone be willing to do an RP on or discuss the slow collapse of a Nation?
 
Yeraennus:
I was ruminating over Yeraennus recently and have come to a set of rather startling and concerning conclusions. Some of this was posted on the RMB by me wallet earlier in the week.

I am in no way meaning to brag, but objectively, in most aspects, my nation is a rather idealized image of a nation. Socially Progressive, Environmentally Friendly, Healthy, Advanced, Excellent Economy and Welfare, all the bits and bobs. These bring about several consequences that are rather more disastrous than beneficial.

Here's a list of the problems my nation faces due to how it is designed:

  • The way my nation is set up, an overwhelming majority of my nation's population is urban, with little infrastructure existing outside the main cities. This means growth is difficult, with little room for expansion.
  • Citizens of Yeraennus are by and large long-lived with only a small risk of heart disease. As a developed country, this means that with little population growth, the workforce is gradually shrinking, which I'd understandably bad.
  • Recovering from a half a century of civil war. No need to explain this. Still somehow stable in many ways.
  • Agriculture is limited by thick forests and mountains with relatively poor soil, self-sufficiency is difficult at best.
  • As Yeraennus is just joining international affairs again, there is little in the way of Foreign relations to alleviate the presumed sufficiency problem.
  • Horrible weather and climate. No need to explain this I hope.
  • A one in five chance you will die by getting lost. So much for technology.

There are quite a few problems for Yeraennus. Would anyone be willing to do an RP on or discuss the slow collapse of a Nation?
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These are almost the exact conditions I have for Sadakoyama. Here's how I dealt with them:

  • Growth is important if accumulating wealth is a priority. SDKY brainwashes educates it population rather stringently, from birth, that wealth is a tool, not something to value. Also, our tech level is high enough for us to be post-industrial; most of our economy is focused on IT, tourism, and publishing, not mass production of things. We don't have landfills full of Bart Simpson dolls because we never make useless drek like that to begin with. We have also eliminated individual investors as a class, so we don't have an elite of wealth hoarders bleeding the economy dry.

    The population is kept stable by free and extensive use of birth control, plus a large number of our people are out of the country for extended periods of time on science missions.
  • Our elderly are not only long lived, but are healthy as well; with their quality of life high and most basic needs provided for, there are plenty of elderly still in the workforce contributing meaningfully - not as Walmart greeters, but as educators, consultants, and counselors.
  • We have suffered a serious shift in our zeitgeist, but not a war, as such. So that's one point of difference.
  • Aquaculture is extensively practiced, so is large-scale carniculture, fish farming, and GMO crops maximizing yields.
  • Sadakoyama is basically a catcher's mitt for almost all the hurricanes that hit the SE continent. It creates a tropical rainforest climate in much of the country that is difficult if not impossible to live in. On the flip side, it is a cornucopia of bio resources. It also means we produce the best raincoats and waterproof (not just resistant) electronics on the planet.
  • If you go wandering off, we're not going to chase you. Tlalocan is hella dangerous, enter at your own risk. Plus the outsider countries are bloodthirsty savages.

    You don't need to collapse your country, just think about how your people would adapt to those challenges.
 
When worldbuilding my nations Myroria and Floresque I try to consider often how the worst-off people live; the people that society forgets. You don't necessarily have to show your nation collapsing to show it has problems - consider the most oppressed. Your nation sounds fairly Western, and even the most progressive Western nations have problems with gender pay gaps, racism, etc. Perhaps consider characters from oppressed backgrounds like those and how they interact with a government that, while liberal, still has hurdles for them.

You mentioned there is little infrastructure outside the cities; rural poverty might be an interesting angle to explore in an RP. How do people make the best of their situation?
 
Of course, actually collapsing my nation is exaggeration, but realistically, it does have multiple serious problems that I felt like mentioning.

@Pisci: Those are several nice points you bring up. Our nations do seem to resemble each other in many aspects, so taking inspiration from you is entirely plausible. There are a few differences though.

Despite the relatively high individual income, most of it is redirected back into government taxes, which is then redistributed as Welfare, Education, Environmental Care, Industry, Healthcare, etc., so it sort of balances out.

Birth Control and other planned parenthood tools and techniques are universally legal, OC. Partially contributes to lack of population growth.

Our population is generally healthy as well, but having 90 year olds work industrial jobs isn't the safest idea, so retirement is kept at about ~70 or 80, but there is an increasing number of retired citizens. We do have major IT and Tourism industries, but manufacturing and electronics are important too. Nuclear Plant and Wind Farm jobs are also large.

There's a difference between hurricanes, that allow for tropical rainforests and massive wind/ice storms on top of Typhoons/Hurricanes. We get the latter.

Of course. There's a huge amount of wilderness that's rather dangerous.


@Myroria: It's not that there's little infrastructure, it's that outside a few roads/wind farms and some small towns that are largely research devoted, there's nothing.

@Syrixia: who are they?
 
Yeraennus:
@Pisci: Those are several nice points you bring up. Our nations do seem to resemble each other in many aspects, so taking inspiration from you is entirely plausible. There are a few differences though.

Despite the relatively high individual income, most of it is redirected back into government taxes, which is then redistributed as Welfare, Education, Environmental Care, Industry, Healthcare, etc., so it sort of balances out.

Birth Control and other planned parenthood tools and techniques are universally legal, OC. Partially contributes to lack of population growth.

Our population is generally healthy as well, but having 90 year olds work industrial jobs isn't the safest idea, so retirement is kept at about ~70 or 80, but there is an increasing number of retired citizens. We do have major IT and Tourism industries, but manufacturing and electronics are important too. Nuclear Plant and Wind Farm jobs are also large.

There's a difference between hurricanes, that allow for tropical rainforests and massive wind/ice storms on top of Typhoons/Hurricanes. We get the latter.
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Yeah, Our tax rate is ~83% right now. :)

Population growing slowly or not at all isn't necessarily a problem. Western lifestyles need a constantly growing population because they need a constantly growing economy or the bubble bursts. If your culture isn't focused on "owning stuff" that becomes far less of a problem.

Even in industry, there are admin and supervisory jobs (most of which benefit from lots of experience) that are suited to the elderly. You don't need to have Nan on the production line for her to be productive.

Sounds like your climate is ideal for server farms. You might also check out strategies for long term Mars colonization, some of those might be adaptable to your situation.
 
Pokes southern neighbor... Don't go and collapse on all of us, I'm not sure my nation's population can come down from their high long enough to save you.
 
I'd be up for RPing with you, either as Imperium Augustum or as a private individual/organization.

Not in the immediate term - two weeks from now. Exam period.

But, as a quick aside:

1. Overpopulation is fairly well-documented, and frankly hard to deal with. Japan, India, and China are the best examples of overpopulation, and the sheer amount of money required to keep a good standard of living (in terms of land-use) are simply extraordinary. India and China, of course, have simply utilized urban sprawl. Some nations, like Singapore and Hong Kong (nation but not a state), heavily use land reclamation to create buildable coast area. My father lives in a Singaporean apartment building in the Punggol New Town, which is a development project heavily focused on land reclamation to create waterfront estates near older development.

Tokyo, on the other hand, uses ridiculous amounts of urban planning. They literally build highways through office buildings. They also have a fairly strong architectural tradition that has learned to make the most of small spaces, and the Asian countries have a significantly more positive attitude towards apartment living. Making liberal use of eminent domain, as China does, can help you redevelop areas into high-density development - eminent domain a suburb, build skyscrapers, pay the former owners back with a cheap apartment. Consider developing underground, although this is /often/ prohibitively difficult due to existing water and electricity lines, and the dangers of disturbing geology with any speed.

2. That's an aging population, also well-documented in nations that quickly improved living standards - both nations that are currently developing, like certain African nations which rapidly dropped birthrates, and Japan, which dropped birthrates and significantly improved the average age. Most nations around the world are actually facing the same problem, because of varying tipping points where the elderly are retiring with more and more lifespan to go, and hence becoming more expensive to maintain through aged care and social security.

The reaction in my home country, Australia, was to institute things like superannuation and raise the retirement age, the prior reducing the costs to taxpayers and putting more money into domestic investment and the financial sector. It's not a particularly effective solution on its own, though, and raising the retirement age is close to useless for anything besides stopping the gap for a couple of years.

3. If it's somehow stable despite a civil war, and you like it that way, then it's somehow stable despite a civil war. Go for your life, mate. If you don't like it that way, though, it's your life, and it's now or never, do you want to live forever? But you may want to look at Sri Lanka, where the comprehensive defeat and subjugation of a modern non-state actor led to...relative stability, with the wartime ruling party under Mahinda Rajapaksa having replaced him, although they retained him as an MP. They've been taking steps to reconcile with the Tamil population and international community through economic and diplomatic liberalism, and an investigation of war crimes during the civil war by a government-appointed judiciary that has already conceded they are looking at substantial evidence.

4. Agriculture in the real world is often carried out by nations that simply shouldn't be handling that sort of industry. Florida. Enough said. They literally grew rice in the desert. Hydroponics is basically witchcraft.

5. Easy enough to resolve. Assume you've developed private-private relations, set up an embassy thread, reach out to the posters here, enough said. Hell, I'd not be surprised if you put this one in there just to get people to offer :P

6. Most of the tropical nations and the Eastern Seaboard have gotten pretty good at handling this. Dykes, dams, and architecture will stand you in good stead, particularly if you're doing high-density constructions - sky scrapers can take brutal amounts of punishment, as you can put huge amounts of money into building them sturdy. They only occupy a small amount of space, but you can pack hundreds of people into them, so they're worth the investment into shock-proof foundations and the like.

7. Stop using Apple Maps.
 
The PDT, or Phra Dong Triad, is a colossal organized crime group operating all over Caltania, and based in Shei Ren.
 
The Grim Reaper:
I'd be up for RPing with you, either as Imperium Augustum or as a private individual/organization.

Not in the immediate term - two weeks from now. Exam period.

But, as a quick aside:

1. Overpopulation is fairly well-documented, and frankly hard to deal with. Japan, India, and China are the best examples of overpopulation, and the sheer amount of money required to keep a good standard of living (in terms of land-use) are simply extraordinary. India and China, of course, have simply utilized urban sprawl. Some nations, like Singapore and Hong Kong (nation but not a state), heavily use land reclamation to create buildable coast area. My father lives in a Singaporean apartment building in the Punggol New Town, which is a development project heavily focused on land reclamation to create waterfront estates near older development.

Tokyo, on the other hand, uses ridiculous amounts of urban planning. They literally build highways through office buildings. They also have a fairly strong architectural tradition that has learned to make the most of small spaces, and the Asian countries have a significantly more positive attitude towards apartment living. Making liberal use of eminent domain, as China does, can help you redevelop areas into high-density development - eminent domain a suburb, build skyscrapers, pay the former owners back with a cheap apartment. Consider developing underground, although this is /often/ prohibitively difficult due to existing water and electricity lines, and the dangers of disturbing geology with any speed.

2. That's an aging population, also well-documented in nations that quickly improved living standards - both nations that are currently developing, like certain African nations which rapidly dropped birthrates, and Japan, which dropped birthrates and significantly improved the average age. Most nations around the world are actually facing the same problem, because of varying tipping points where the elderly are retiring with more and more lifespan to go, and hence becoming more expensive to maintain through aged care and social security.

The reaction in my home country, Australia, was to institute things like superannuation and raise the retirement age, the prior reducing the costs to taxpayers and putting more money into domestic investment and the financial sector. It's not a particularly effective solution on its own, though, and raising the retirement age is close to useless for anything besides stopping the gap for a couple of years.

3. If it's somehow stable despite a civil war, and you like it that way, then it's somehow stable despite a civil war. Go for your life, mate. If you don't like it that way, though, it's your life, and it's now or never, do you want to live forever? But you may want to look at Sri Lanka, where the comprehensive defeat and subjugation of a modern non-state actor led to...relative stability, with the wartime ruling party under Mahinda Rajapaksa having replaced him, although they retained him as an MP. They've been taking steps to reconcile with the Tamil population and international community through economic and diplomatic liberalism, and an investigation of war crimes during the civil war by a government-appointed judiciary that has already conceded they are looking at substantial evidence.

4. Agriculture in the real world is often carried out by nations that simply shouldn't be handling that sort of industry. Florida. Enough said. They literally grew rice in the desert. Hydroponics is basically witchcraft.

5. Easy enough to resolve. Assume you've developed private-private relations, set up an embassy thread, reach out to the posters here, enough said. Hell, I'd not be surprised if you put this one in there just to get people to offer :P

6. Most of the tropical nations and the Eastern Seaboard have gotten pretty good at handling this. Dykes, dams, and architecture will stand you in good stead, particularly if you're doing high-density constructions - sky scrapers can take brutal amounts of punishment, as you can put huge amounts of money into building them sturdy. They only occupy a small amount of space, but you can pack hundreds of people into them, so they're worth the investment into shock-proof foundations and the like.

7. Stop using Apple Maps.
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@Kalti: Well, complete collapse probably isn't going to happen.

@Nebula: You're doing something devious and I'm too tired to understand it. Pls don't.

Now, Grim, you make a ton of good points. I'll try and respond to them.

1. Yeah, if anything, the situation my country is dealing with is closest to Singapore or Japan. Barely any land is open enough to facilitate the expansion and building of cities, despite the relatively large land area of the country, due to the large forests and mountains. Instead, cities are constantly looking to expand upwards or downwards, either creating taller towers or digging underground. In general, when my cities build underground, they use it mostly for industrial factories and nuclear plants. The actual population is kept above ground and only descend to work. There are also some tunnels connecting cities, but these are not well used or maintained. Building further up does have the foreseeable and real consequences of wind and weather being drastically more effective, and as such, there are generally only a few towers tall enough to stand above the rest of the city in each city. Luckily, the cities are compact enough that larger (6 lane each way or something ridiculous like that) highways are generally not required.

2. Prime Real World example: Italy. An increasing plurality of Italy's population is above 40, and the population is actually shrinking there, ignoring immigration. In Yeraennus, I think this is the only major and urgent problem. I really can't think of a way to counteract it right now.

3. Yeah, I'm just breezing over this one mainly because I'm too lazy to create an actual explanation.

4. Yes, I understand this bit, and hydroponics is probably the only thing that my already dying agricultural industry survives on, besides arboreal based agriculture outside, but close to, cities.

5. Already have a foreign relations and embassy department. Psst, it's here: Yeraenn Foreign Relations Department

6. Yup. The main prevention method in Yeraennus is building literal walls around the city, meaning only the skyscrapers and the tops of the otherwise tallest buildings take the punishment.

7. Clever.

@Syrixia: Why would you want a bunch of criminals anywhere near Yeraennus?
 
Because maybe you could use that as your crisis or something. Some evil criminal trouble. Say, a bomb goes off in the Yeraenn capital?
 
I'm going to pull a Germany on you. By accepting refugees and offering aid, I look better in the international community, gain more people for the workforce, and create a Yeraennian population in Nebula, which might very well serve me well later. Hardly devious.
 
Syrixia:
Because maybe you could use that as your crisis or something. Some evil criminal trouble. Say, a bomb goes off in the Yeraenn capital?
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Something along these lines might work. The K'ter family could be one of the older crime families in the region, and have (recently) gone legitimate (becoming the leader of the country will do that), essentially cutting off a hub to the Seran Islands and proving to be problematic.

Sphan is caught between crime and leading his country and Yada Yada scandal and shadow gang wars being fought as members of crime families that support the two clash. A second crime organization could even be involved, being the opposing force to the PDT.

A little bit rough, but whaddya think, Syrix?
 
Sure. Perhaps the K'ter Family and the Triad can have a sort of worldwide gang war?
 
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