1580 SIFA Women's World Cup Qualifying

The 1581-1582 SIFA World Cup Qualifying will decide the 11 teams which will be compete, along hosting nation Florinthus, for the title in the 1583 Florinthus Brigidnan Cup. For first time, the Brigidnan Cup winner (Kazemura in 1579) will have to qualify, in a similar system than the World Cup Qualiying.


HOST:
Florinthus

SIFA Women Ranking 1580



1 Florinthus
2 Valland
3 Gehenna
4 Lanlania
5 Oslanburg
6 Castleon
7 Nyland
8 Goldecia
9 Galeae
10 Aurentine
11 Millerainia
12 Sequoia
13 Arrenland
14 Mestra
15 Saratov
16 Keszaria
17 Jandrea
18 Ostland
19 Sainam
20 Angiris
21 Kyrland
22 Kave
23 Severyane
24 Vienland
25 Valiszfoldek
26 North Strathae
27 Kazemura
28 Videjszeme
29 Mordvania
30 Harmajaa
31 Karjelinn
32 Singan
33 Akitsu
34 Rohn
35 Maurnnia
36 Taeunas
37 Lomarre
38 Wadiyah
39 Carpathia
40 Kyrzbekistan
41 Hylis
42 A'Sir
43 Nerysia
44 New Galasia
45 Pythos
46 Dyrheim
47 Khibland
48 Lusby & Corwyn
49 Calradia
50 Hoinom
51 Tieguo
52 Eskkya
53 Svarna Surya

Hahk has reminded us that we ought to sort out the new history of Marzanna, considering the old one was built off of the old map. a link to the Google Doc where we started (but never got very far) is below. It contains some interesting notes regarding the formation of modern nations by Nents, basically that we should avoid the "proto-Kubanizans became tribal Kubanizans, then tribal Kubanizans formed a kingdom, then the kingdom formed an empire, then modern Kubaniza is formed" cliche.

So far, all we have are the proto-Vostics migrating from the Far East to Marzanna across those big ass mountains (which I forgot the name of), forming the "Lower Vostics" of Severyane & Co. and the "Upper Vostics" of Duran (inventing these terms literally just this moment). Then some guy from Galasia named Alexios comes along and writes The Alexian Chroncicles, which give us an IC historical look at ancient Marzanna. Alexios also gives us our alphabet.

So, as I helpfully added after this:

First empires appear?

Nomadic invaders?

Interactions with Mahkal Empire?

Interactions with Galasia?

Rise of the Kubanizans to world domination? Total Kubanization of the Galaxy

What's next? I believe we were considering the idea of nomadic invaders, possibly causing an external pressure which led to the first fully-formed and fully-functional states. This external pressure could also have been applied by the Mahkal Empire, or a combination of both.

A further note: we want to make sure that we keep our historical development reasonably in line with the rest of the world (unlike last time, where we were totally out of alignment). There are some reference dates at the top of the Doc.

Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yb_o...X9Z_c/edit

62th Cycling World Championship – Lauren, Valland

So, I'm in the process of trying to write a story (hoping it'll eventually become a novel/novella) but I'm at the start and I've already found myself divided.

I've written down a few paragraphs of what should be the beginning, which as it stands right now is simply a prologue. But that got me thinking - should I do a prologue at all? Is a story better told with a short prologue, or by just jumping straight into it?

Please vote in the poll (if you want) and let my know why/why not here.

Voice of Siora International Music Competition

1580 - Valland

The beautiful Notre Dame de la Garde in the seaside city of Arseille. Gorgeous!



Stade Vélodrome

So I'm going to pop this here, some thoughts I've been having for a while and haven't put into words, but I don't really want it public because of the contents. You'll see why.

I'll just preface by saying I'm not pointing fingers (because most of them would be at myself), just voicing a concern I've had for a few months, at least.

Activity on the board is slowing down. Noticably. One glance around sees that maybe 50% of RP activity currently takes place in the news section...which isn't odd, since it's easy to do a quick status update there. The problem is that maybe the other 50% is done in extra fluff stuff that really can't be called so much "RP" as minimal-input simulations for the sake of curious numberphiles: sports sims, Voice of Siora, Nyland's legislature/elections (the last two of which at least need input, but actual "rp" has been sparse since the first renditions of either), etc. Every now and again, someone will make an actual vignette or post, but it's the exception rather than the rule.

Surely a large reason for this is just that our community, as a whole, is somewhat older than average (both in age of members and age of board)...2 years here as "Eternity," 4-5 years old including time as "Oracia," and a whopping...god, pretty much just about 10 years or so if you reach back to Caprecia (and some of us come from older places than that, even). Lots of people have moved on, as demonstrated with so many people busy with school and other things. Some have left, no longer interested for whatever reason. Others, like myself, simply have lost interest in the idea of "national roleplay," at least in the current NationStates-influenced format for individual nations. (I know some of you are in this last category; for my part, I'm still much happier with a different sort of rp, as embodied in Andlosheim, and some other fantasia/ old space stuff.)

But I grow concerned for the sake of the community. I want us to continue to exist as something other than a shallow husk of people doing silly simulations and competitions while once in a while posting something random about games or politics.

- - - So my question for us is: "What is our vision for the community?" - - -

We're not going to go back to the "good old days" of NS rp, not without a push for new blood...but NS itself is fading and has been for years and maybe even the forum rp/writing scene as a whole, across the entire internet (it really is a product of a bygone age, the forum age, when we weren't always connected before social media et al). So lets ask an honest question, and figure out where we're going from here If we're going to continue as an NS forum, we need to go hard into it, get back into writing dispatches, making "ambassadors" and generating new traffic and interest...and maybe even finding avenues for advertisement outside NS, to generate new blood and new interest.

For my part, I've wanted to build more upon the "community" aspect than the "rp" aspect of our forum name. Honestly, it's time for a rebrand, to use our steam group to get everyone back to spending time together, to host our own gaming things to both stay doing things together while also perhaps bringing in new blood (self-hosted servers for stuff like, say, Minecraft et al? Use of youtube and the like to record our exploits and redirect "veiwers" here? Creating community posts elsewhere and clans/guilds/whatever in games we play to bring people here in one community?) and then re-jig the forum for talking about that, coming together around that.

I don't know if I'm really putting well into words my thoughts. Probably not; things seem jumbled.

The short of it is, we need to figure out what we're doing with this community (not "forum," it's more than a "forum") and really making an actual effort to go hard for that vision, even if that means making exquisite dwarven beards in video games putting less/more emphasis on MTRP and such. Yeah, I'm really not explaining myself very well.

I don't know. Input needed.

This is yet another language that has caught my interest in the last month that I have been working on. It is not necessarily linguistically pure, but the goal is to make a language that is somewhat comprehensible to German yet be distinct as an English language using Latin and french loanwords when necessary like with Scientific and Academic words

The link the the page is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13f3D...sp=sharing

Meanwhile please do reply with the answer to these questions:

For German speakers:
How well can you understand the language? How can it be related to German on vocabulary and grammatical perspective?

For English speakers:
Can this language sound rather archaic at some points? What makes the language sound familiar or understandable at some points? Do you understand the basic grammatical concept just looking at basic phrases?

I understand I have been inactive for quite some time so I will dedicate a chunk of my time telling you what happened with the past 2 years or so with Aflinland and Octitania and what will happen both in character and behind the scenes development.

The Empire of Octitania
A better explanation of what exactly happened before and after the civil war both in character and out.
The Octitanian civil war was at first supposed to be a fascist uprising up I was rather secretive on what was going to happen at the end result. For hundreds of years, the Empire of Octitania was isolated and quite, especially for its size. It imposed a xenophobic policy allowing hardly anyone to enter their country or out. As a result the Octitania way of life was built around the lack of foreign influence and modernization was exceedingly slow. Octitania by the late 1400's was falling far behind when it came to standard of living, technology, and maintaining its society in an ever changing world. As Polikhronon was acknowledging the problem they seemed rather apathetic at first and by the early 1500's the political landscape became so polarized that a revolution almost seemed imminent.

A young Duke charismatic and popular among the people, Diodus II, hailing from Aetos came upfront about how primitive Octitania was becoming. He called it, "The worst disaster Octitania has ever encountered." This paralleled the modernization movement to the point were the Traditionalists were on the verge of losing power on an imperial scale. However this did not stop the Duke from gaining the Imperial throne in 1557 CE. The newly crowned Emperor made great strides, sometimes recklessly. While new technologies were introduced to Polikhronon and across the Empire, it shook the social stability of the country at an unprecedented amount that Octitania had experienced.

The Duke however, was seen as a hero by many. Part of this was because the damage he had done to social stability was not apparent and if it was talk about it was usually pushed aside by many Octitanian looking to the positive things it was bringing to Octitania. Little did they know that this triggered a rise of a Fascist movement.

The Kaspalion controversy was a near political downfall of the Imperial throne and the Emperor left nearly killed. A diet was called between all of the local tribunes about the future of Octitania in 1568 CE. The fascist movement attempted to shutdown the meeting by escalating tension over complicated but touchy subjects in the Empire such a public services and more importantly modernization. (I did mention before the this subject was not discussed that much. It was true among the populous of Octitania, but was a furiously debated topic among the aristocracy)After the shutdown failed and only caused a stir among the Tribunes, the fascists tried to assassination the Emporer by releasing chlorine gas in the assembly room. This put the nation under shock and inspired the traditionalist to come into solidarity to overthrow the Emperor. To this day, there is still some speculation if Diodus has natural causes of death.

As the 1560's came to a close the Emporer was beginning to age. As a result, many began to worry about the future of Octitania and what direction the nation take. One duke from  promised to carry out Diodus' legacy to keep the nation stable. But people still did not get that only more damage was being done to society.

On The 16. Marth 1575, the Diodus the second died. It took a year for Polikhronon to explain his death. Alexander XV was elected onto a throne that little people knew was in deep trouble. Alexander quickly recognized this but was quiet about it. Most of his reign was tried to keep the growing elephant in the room from getting too big. He used every political trick in the book to keep these movements getting recognized. His lagacy is marked with passing a few pieces of law that would transition Octitania into a pollution free state. This was not an act of goodwill, he stated "but merely an act to stopped reliance on sources that are finite."

But Alexander's efforts to keep silence in the seven realms were futile. Soon, may republicans, so called "communists", and nationalists attacked the Emperor after his veto on a tariff bill failed. His statement on the New Year of 1578 fanned the flames as he directly addressed the unrest that he was hiding for so long. This was the finial straw that gave way to a new revolution that still somewhat lives on to this day.

The civil war was short lived but was silenced due to political matters. Basil II abdicated his throne as a result and a new Constitution was introduced on the second week of 1580. Many concessions were made, especially to the republicans. A bicameral system was established granted limited powers to the monarchs if at all. The upper house known as the Imperial Council consist of certain delegates that represent the duchy as a whole while the lower house, known as the Chamber of Tribunes, is proportionate on population strictly and based on popular vote.

The Empire of Octitania in 1580 elected its first Arch-Chancellor, Andor Kastaros. He is a centre-left Republican that advocates for healing the wounds that the civil war inflicted and move further into modernization of Octitania.

As for Aflinland nothing much had changed their. In fact their politics I would imagine would be in their slow period right now. Nothing noteworthy at this moment....

And for that, I hope this explained alot of things about Octitania. I will explain more in detail at a later date.

Ciao,
His Wizardness

Apparently I need this... so here.