The Off Map

[St George]

The Off Map
​

Following the decision on Christianity posted by the Conclave, it was decided that Christianity - Messiahism in Eras - originated from an area 'off map', that is, part of our setting that is not included on the map.

What I'd like for you guys to think about is whether this process could be utilised for other issues, and what you'd like to see going forward in relation to the 'off map' areas of Eras.

 

[Syrixia]

Pardon me if this seems rude, but I always felt saying "Oh, it came from offmap" is a cop-out, not to mention it makes the setting of Eras feel less like a modern world, which one would think would be fully explored and mapped by satellite. For controversial topics like Messianism, I think it would be better just to leave the location of their origins ambiguous. For less controversial topics, meanwhile, during conventions such as this, RPers should come together under the watchful eye of the Mods (to prevent flaming) to discuss, pinpoint, and agree upon specific origin locations.

 

[Andrenne]

Personally, I dislike the idea of everything coming from off-map. I also dislike leaving the origin of messianism completely ambiguous, and I have actually used the off-map for the origin of the Skandans, who began on a small archipelago off-map and island hopped to their modern placement. I think perhaps it could be agreed on that there is an off-map, but it’s mostly ocean with small archipelagos and islands here and there. That’s just my opinion on it, though.

 

[Syrixia]

I think perhaps it could be agreed on that there is an off-map, but it’s mostly ocean with small archipelagos and islands here and there. That’s just my opinion on it, though.

If the Mods are adamant about having an offmap area, then I'd support this stance.

 

[Yrkidding]

While it might be a bit of a cop-out, it's also supremely difficult to assign some things that are very universal to one nation in TNP and then try to build a history as to why it's in other nations with otherwise completely different cultures, etc., especially with some nations disappearing from that chain due to inactivity/falling off the face of the earth. Some of these things, like Christianity for example, would also be constantly challenged by new nations coming into the TNP with that already a part of their created history.

"The Off Map" isn't necessarily an ideal, but it does let us have a consistent origin for certain things that would otherwise be a constant debate and I think it should be heavily considered.

 

[Sil Dorsett]

I'd be more than happy to amend the decision on Christianity to change "off-map" to "ambiguous" but you all need to decide whether the circumference of Eras is really 13500 km at the equator (the map is the world) or if it's more like Earth (40,075 km). This will also affect time zones, so get to deciding...

 

[Sasten]

Something I've been meaning to bring up for a while is a map of Eras on a sphere - which is essentially tied to what is off map or whether we even have on off-map at all. We know that Eras is almost certainly a sphere - it is a planet, and we do have space programs that have yet to find any giant space turtles on the other side of the surface - but we don't know what size it is. Another issue is that the map we currently have is a perfect square with equal distance between all points, and this does not map well to a curved surface.

This all comes back to the off map because in order to have a spherical map, which is something I'd like to see at some point and would be willing to do myself, we kind of need to know what actually is off-map. My idea is that, if we don't end up having an off-map area, what we could do instead is have a continent and an archipelago or two not claimable for player nations - that is to say, they are permanent NPCs.

 

[Yrkidding]

Permanent NPCs is an interesting solution that would allow for that consistency while being much more visible and explainable, totally eliminating the problem Syrixia pointed out about how the world (Eras or beyond) should really be mostly known at this point.

 

[Syrixia]

I'd be more than happy to amend the decision on Christianity to change "off-map" to "ambiguous" but you all need to decide whether the circumference of Eras is really 13500 km at the equator (the map is the world) or if it's more like Earth (40,075 km). This will also affect time zones, so get to deciding...

I would MUCH rather have it be the size of Earth. It would allow us to plan our nations much easier, because everything is on a scale we're familiar with. Plus scientifically speaking, a planet sized only 13500 km at the equator will likely be unable to support life!

 

[Flakey]

Permanent NPCs is an interesting solution that would allow for that consistency while being much more visible and explainable, totally eliminating the problem Syrixia pointed out about how the world (Eras or beyond) should really be mostly known at this point.

Yes, I agree

 

[mcmasterdonia]

While it might be a bit of a cop-out, it's also supremely difficult to assign some things that are very universal to one nation in TNP and then try to build a history as to why it's in other nations with otherwise completely different cultures, etc., especially with some nations disappearing from that chain due to inactivity/falling off the face of the earth. Some of these things, like Christianity for example, would also be constantly challenged by new nations coming into the TNP with that already a part of their created history.

"The Off Map" isn't necessarily an ideal, but it does let us have a consistent origin for certain things that would otherwise be a constant debate and I think it should be heavily considered.

Permanent NPCs is an interesting solution that would allow for that consistency while being much more visible and explainable, totally eliminating the problem Syrixia pointed out about how the world (Eras or beyond) should really be mostly known at this point.

I agree both with your initial view and your proposed solution. These nations would also only need to be fairly small.

I'd be more than happy to amend the decision on Christianity to change "off-map" to "ambiguous" but you all need to decide whether the circumference of Eras is really 13500 km at the equator (the map is the world) or if it's more like Earth (40,075 km). This will also affect time zones, so get to deciding...

I would MUCH rather have it be the size of Earth. It would allow us to plan our nations much easier, because everything is on a scale we're familiar with. Plus scientifically speaking, a planet sized only 13500 km at the equator will likely be unable to support life!

The bigger problem in my view is that whatever the land size our nations are, nobody wants to properly roleplay the problems of poverty, unemployment, and over-population. As our nations get larger (territory wise) I imagine this problem would also grow significantly.

 

[Ceretis]

http://forum.thenorthpacific.org/topic/9080068/1/#new
I have a longer response in that post.

I think we should have a full earth size or even somewhat larger but not too much larger to allow for about the same sort of experience we have on Earth. I don't think Eras should be exactly the same size as Earth because what planets would be exactly the same size.... but for ease of RP it should be somewhat similar.

As far as other regions, I think they should exist, they should be populated with continents and landmasses and everything you'd expect and not some vast ocean with a couple islands. We're playing in TNP and concentrating on TNP. That doesn't mean the rest of the world doesn't exist or if it does it's nearly nothing. Our RP concentrates on TNP, and it's a decently sized area. Maybe there is a gap between us and the other regions landmasses so we're sort of a little isolated. But not so isolated that we don't interact with them in some interaction-light manner and treat the rest of the world as a bunch of NPCs we don't make the center of our regional attention. In your day to day life do you need to know what's happening in Antarctica or in the middle of South Sudan to make decisions about your home country? Nope. Could there be a special event that spills over into TNP? Sure.

Though a large existing world filled with other nations we interact with will solve issues such as trade, characters being present or not, weather events, tourism, etc. A world full of NPCs we mention in passing (mostly) and deal with in passing (mostly) solves a lot of plot holes and irregularities we have in TNP.

 

[St George]

I'm interested in how much cross there would be in terms of stuff from the 'off-map' regions, Ceretis, could you expand more on that?

 

[Antonius Kaizuniviel]

I think that I'm gonna agree with Syrixia with expanding the map. In my opinion, it would make sense to have a world that should've been completely explored at this point. I also think that this would expand the RP on a larger scale, and solve the issue on the ruling.

 

[Ceretis]

I was thinking that the other regions can be referenced in existence and mentioned in passing mostly, but can also help to solve some shortfalls.

So if you have a character who is having a friendly conversation with another character, they might mention how they were on holiday in 'x' nation in another region and maybe talk about some innocuous thing they saw or did there. Maybe they talk about the flight they took to reach that destination or the return.

With the festival RP that Nightsong started, the royal family wasn't all in attendance because the Tsar was away on official business and not in TNP and thus was too far away to just pop in and participate. That's also where I have at times temporarily placed military assets or people that were then unavailable to participate in TNP events. Existing in my nation for quite some time (in RP) as part of its backstory has been a decommissioned military training facility that was originally used by a joint military venture comprised mostly of (NPC) nations from outside the region and my nation. That base has been on and off used in RP by the Helmebaine Alliance and such. But the creation of that base as I mentioned was because of this out of region organization that used to have a facility in Ceretis.

Also there is trade. If you look at the descriptions of people's nations and the trade goods they offer in comparison to IRL nations, it's a bit off. There are a lot of nations offering similar things but yet there is a market (somewhere) big enough to absorb all this excess? Thus the nations excess that can't be sold in TNP could be considered over time (not instantly) to be offered to other nations in the world and then even out the vast surplus and potentially even make these surpluses into a global shortage thus demanding more growth in TNP for the markets.

Look at some of the big shipyards in some nations. These can be more easily explainable if there is more of a world that these nations interact with and not just in TNP. Thus they need the capacity for ocean going global shipping.

As I have said before, I've used other regions to fulfill some of my trade requirements in the Trade and economics section. I gave first shot to TNP nations and gave a long lag time to allow fulfillment but part of the order needed for RP went unfilled. Thus the order was filled on the global market.

Global interaction can also explain why you only hear from some governments sometimes. You can consider that they're busy doing things / interacting with other nations. While TNP takes precedent in all interactions as they're the 'neighborhood' you live in and things are more easily obtained locally, and local events effect your people more directly thus you pay primary attention to your neighborhood.

I would think people could reference the other regions a little bit, they can trade with them in general with somewhat vague/amorphous trade deals or similar vacations or political interactions and such. It might also on a very limited scale be useful to tie up loose ends such as why people aren't around, who completed the trade deal, where your nation is selling its excess oil.

As in all things TNP is PRIMARY and other regions are referenced, easter eggs, and secondary or might even be considered tertiary or afterthoughts.

 

[Sasten]

One of the bigger issues we've faced with determining just what is on the off-map has been the existence or non-such of other regions from NS proper on Eras; TSP I believe was the most commonly mentioned. This has been used as justification for leaving the map as-is and not exploring or knowing what's off-map, and has been kept alive on the possibility of cross-regional RPs. And yet, in all the time I've actually been paying attention to RP here, such a cross-regional event has never happened. TNP is, for all intents and purposes, alone on the planet.

While we're having this convention, I really don't think we should forget about this issue or leave it to simmer. We've never done anything to justify having other regions on our map, and I don't foresee anything of the sort happening; there's no plans, no desire (that I've seen) and no will. There's issues with continuity and reconciliation between different RP and lore rules as well, and if there's anything I've learned from lurking NSRP for several years, these are issues that never have any easy answer.

Ditching the idea of having other never-really-interacted-with regions on Eras opens up the possibility of actually knowing what's on the off-map. Going back to the idea of NPC nations, we could place a continent of these wherever we want, and this could solve all the issues of not being in TNP that Ceretis just posted about. As was said earlier, there's also vast amounts of shipping and vast amounts of IT, resource extraction and heavy industry in TNP with few places to sell it too, but very little agriculture to feed all our nations. Having NPC nations to trade with allows us a place to send all this and solves the issue of how we can have the Erasian economy avoid starving itself to death without forcing human players to be underdevelopped agrarian nations if they don't want to be such.

 

[St George]

With regards to other NS regions being on the map/Eras, it seems people pay as little attention as they do now as they did when I was saying we shared a world with TSP. We don't share a world with TSP anymore, as has been mentioned more than once by myself.

We're not going to add new continents to the map just for NPCs either, not without a very good reason to. Edit: Nor should we be using NPCs as a solution because people have ill-thought concepts in their nations. The goal should always be to find a solution within our setting, and with the players in our community, not throwing NPCs on their to justify what might otherwise be unworkable concepts.

 

[Ceretis]

While I agree we should probably not place visible NPC continents on the map, we should still have there be more to the map (and know how big the world is overall) but it'd be left mostly vague and non specific as to land forms and nations. (Our characters would know this information, and can look at world maps, but we can not.) However, I think similar to Sasten, that these nations can solve the (let's call it) slight problems with the map and trade, thus resolving inconsistencies and making the world more realistic and rich.

I like the possibility being left open that there is room to RP with another region on our map should that become a popular idea one day. I don't think we should close the door to this possibility. Until that time though I still think the general casual mention and limited usage of 'other nations' / NPC which may be mentioned would add more realism and richness to the RP world. Without setting them in stone and without players abusing the system, we can avoid needing to generate a list or lore about these nations other than what is generated by the players at the time as needed, and as the players disappear from the map so too can the NPC nations mentioned by them in another region fade into history.

I have to say that I agree with MadJack on the placing of continents and other regional NPC nations, that they should not be used as a primary solution, they should not be the reason that allows you to do things that otherwise are impossible. Your primary goal is to be in TNP and participate in TNP. However I think they could prove useful in a use gently sort of manner. It's like using herbs and spices in your food. If you use a pinch here and there it's great, but if you load it down it'll ruin the whole dish.
Continuing with the cooking analogy. TNP RP should be like making Creme Brulee. Your RP is all the mixing cooking and refrigerating of the custard portion of the dish. It's the vast bulk of the work. But using the non specific (maybe named maybe not named nations) of other regions would be like adding the sugar topping and then torch finishing the dish to perfection. The last step shouldn't and can't be how you make the whole dish work, but without the torched sugar topping, it's just a bowl of custard.

As far as interaction from others outside the region. I know we have had some rather active members from other regions on the forums. Why can't they be allowed to participate in TNP RP as one of these other regional nations. They're not added to the map because they're not in TNP, but they can send delegates and come and visit from 'off the map' and interact with our nations or our nations can go and visit theirs.