Horo the Wise Wolf

"Wow. Uhh, alright.", said Schëre, briefly slipping out of the Royal demeanour. A bear? A Cavalry Regiment?! How do you even own one of those? Did she own the horses and equipment? The people themselves? What if one of them died of old age or something? Would she be forced to abdicate?! "Well, we don't want to go trampling on Maria's good faith - I'll work on keeping these items safe, and the pets happy. Then we'll be managing the country from then on - I'd like a concise and relevant report on Romanian Foreign Affais, and anything domestic that seems like it would be worthy of my attention, especially if it relates to any service or the like provided by our Government." "I look forward to working with you, Miss Constante. What would you have us do in the meantime? I'll need to return to Prussia briefly to pick up some other goods and belongings, and perhaps a few aides who will provide invaluable to managing the realm's affairs.", she said with a smile.

Schëre gave a small, and moved her head back slightly. The requirements were to... look after the Royal Inventory, and pets? Were they perhaps bundles of terror and chaos that had proved impossible for anyone else to look after? Well, hopefully not, but one always had to ask about these things. Mihaela seemed sincere enough, but... "I see. I'd say that I could do that, but I'd appreciate a list of the things in the inventory, and the umm, Royal Pets and their needs. I don't want to end up losing something on my first day!", she said, with a nervous laugh.

With further concerns about the realm's safety, King Wilhelm has seen it fit to further expand the Preußische Marine. Added, will be sixteen Waschmaschine-class, six Luftwaffle-class, twelve Tabelle-class, and seven Andocken-class. Private Dispatch to Romania:

"I see.", said Schëre shortly. She didn't want to give away too much at this point, but insight into Romanian Foreign Policy would help create a more unified front, especially if she was in the position to be a catalyst to do so. "It sounds like both the Royal and Cotroceni palace would fit our needs well, for both receiving Foreign Dignitaries, and domestic matters." Upon their arrival at the palace, she would be happily escorted to the reserved room.

Feeling almost jarred by the constant "Your Highness", Schëre merely gave a mental shrug and decided to just live with it. "Alas, I do not know what the palace is like - whilst I was in attendance of the meetings, as you say, I did not have the chance to explore and visit the rest of the palace. Might you be able to show me around, in that case?". She never had been given the chance to explore - Maria had always seemed like she had better things to do than to indulge the interest of Foreign Dignitaries in the home, which was understandable - she probably hadn't expected to have suddenly died like that either. The time for childish play-acting was over, and now she'd be entering a foreign court to entertain and appease foreign nobles on their home turf and grounds... well, no one said it would be easy. Who knows perhaps they'd even be reasonable, and accept her with minimum fuss and skimp over the relatively unimportant details. It was almost a chance to show up her oaf of a father, and show him how wrong he'd been. Then she'd have two crowns to her name; truly an enviable position.

The flight hadn't been particularly long, but Schëre had spent it reading up on Romanian history and politics. It seemed they'd done well for themselves, and were perhaps not the hovel many people made it out to be. Still, the air felt almost cold and the day was grey as she stepped out of the plane and into the arms of the awaiting entourage. Well, it would surely get brighter in the coming days. Admittedly, the prospect of entering this foreign court and having to entertain and lead them was indeed a towering one, but it would hopefully be well within her power to contain. Friends and alliances would need to be secured, and rabble rousers straightened out. Clad in her simple black dress, she almost blinked as the leader of the Romanian group referred to her as "Your Highness". Well, not Romanian group for much longer; her group soon enough. She did wonder who it was greeting her, though; there surely had been bloodshed over being the first to meet the fledgling and mouldable Queen, and begin working on the influence and trust game early. Well, she'd be able to find out later; now was not the time for worrying and scheming, but for friendly and kind words. "T'is an honour to be here, and I am eager to start working with you. Still, I feel it may be a bit presumptuous to call me 'Your Highness' already, but I'm sure we can work on that.", she said, with a smile and inclination of her head towards Mihaela.

I've seen threads that have been posted in, in there, that had been left for months/even a year or two, and nothing came of it. I think it'll be alright :P

Look here, shit head. Eva is my bud, and if you fuck with her, I will come down on you like a ton of feathers (HINT: IT WEIGHS A TON BTW) if you refer to her in such loose language again. Do you hear me? And no, I am not joking. Do you get me?

"We happily and readily welcome another independent German state." - King Wilhelm von Hohenzollern

Willy's Wilhelm's brow furrowed at the news of Maria's passing. To think that she had been offed like that was a bit confusing, seeing as he'd expected her to be a thorn in his side for many years to come. Still, as tempting as it was to break out the champagne, it was somewhat of a shame to have lost what could have been a rival, and a dynamo in what was becoming a boring world led by true fools and their sycophants. He sighed. He heard a knock at his door, and a muffled "Father.", from the other side. Inviting them in, he watched as Schëre shuffled in, almost awkwardly, holding a letter in her hand. "I've received a letter from Romania.", she said, sitting down in the chair opposite him. He watched as she fidgeted in her chair and waited for the words to come. Reigning his almost immediate annoyance in, he sat silently and waited for her to continue. "It details the succession law of the Romanian Crown and also contains an invitation to Bucharest.", she said, tilting her head slightly and looking at the floor. Goddammit. So that's what the old hag planned. He couldn't very well keep her from going, nor did he want to send such a helpless mewling to become Queen suo jure. Here she was, her voice almost quivering like a leaf, and about to become a ruling monarch? Reality was was certainly a cruel mistress, and now he was going to have to train a new heir to cover for her inevitable failure. Still, Romania would struggle to wield any kind of influence in the absence of Maria, and Leo was turning into a fine nobleman, and seemed almost qualified to run a nation himself. Actually, that wasn't such a bad idea - Leo would most likely be Schëre's next-in-line due to her lack of consort, and he could easily place the momentum back into Prussia's hand. Oh, how short-sighted she had been. Still, there would be manners to attend to. "Then I would suggest you go there post-haste.", he said. "I will have much to work on to prepare, and I imagine that you will too.". [hr] Schëre nodded as her father's words resounded in her head, and stood up wordlessly. His influence had been a demeaning and suffocating one, and it seemed not to have changed given the news. And unless he'd misread his own succession laws, she was going to be inheriting his throne and his position; perhaps something he should have been more mindful of as she silently left the room and pulled the ribbon from her hair. T'was a memento of her late mother, and one of the few ones that actually resided in the palace after her passing. Not that anyone actually knew it was from her, of course; it was a simple light blue ribbon that ponytailed her hair up on occasion, but perhaps something that did not mix well with the regalia of Queendom. Collecting the basics that she'd already packed, she left for the airport and for Bucharest. She'd be back, for for the rest of her belongings and perchance some courtiers. She couldn't take many, for fear of alienating the existing Romanians, but mayhap Sophia and Friedrich would be interested in the opportunity. She'd have to ask.

What if we made the terms longer? A lot less elections that way.

And there are actual military movements taking place, so it would probably apply here.

IT'S TIME TO GET ROLLING

Prussia would extend diplomatic recognition to Borneo, for their hearts were kind and benevolent.

They were going to have to speed up, or risk bottlenecking the entire program. Initial shuttle prototypes were being created, with test launches planed within the coming months. Taikonauts were advancing quickly through the stages of their training program, and mathematicians were dusting off the final figures. The project had born enough fruit to be considered a success, but would it not taste sweetest when fully ripe? It would essentially be sending a child into the inhospitable void beyond, and then making them the backbone of the entire flight. Well, maybe a child that already had the mental capacity of a fully-developed adult, but it would've been nice to make the maiden voyage one with already a marked success. Although, maybe it'd be better not to tell them... Mei nodded to herself as she compiled the ship's navigation AI without the capacity to develop a personality or to truly learn. Instead, it'd operate as the product of three subsystems, each of which with a different decision making process, so that they could have more than one decision to choose from. Pretty similar to what NASA did, though they wouldn't get ostracised for having a different opinion. It'd be even more interesting once she'd created the template and putty from which to later develop a personality off of, but such intrapersonal (or would it become interpersonal? The amount of uncertainties and possibilities would make for an exciting conclusion) conflicts would have to be shelved until the launch proper. Yu Bin, one of her assistants, had written the pathing and navigational decision making for this module, and had done a mighty fine job of it. Still, she'd made sure that there was major room for improvement and that he'd have a chance to go again. Where is a child without their parent, after all? [hr] And so went the third unmanned test flight into that great beyond. The shuttle shot through the sky from its rough landing bad, and left a curve in the sky that would make even the best of artists jealous. It was just as well this one went well, because the Government had started asking questions after the horribly botched initial take-offs. The first hadn't actually left the ground, and had instead fallen onto its side in an accident of huge financial strain. As comical as it was seeing the multi-billion technological marvel roll around on the floor like some turtle that was stuck shell side down, the Prime Minister hadn't been too happy. Something about rumours of "resource mismanagement" and "strange priorities". Still, it had been bearable until the second one actually exploded after take off. Mei herself had no idea what had happened, as such things had been delegated to people capable enough to do the job, but not so capable they'd be her personal division. It was a strange balance Still, she smiled for the cameras as she posed with the Prime Minister and shook hands with him in the post-launch conference. She'd given the seat to her left to the rather unambitious yet useful Wang Jin, who lead what she sometimes liked to refer as the "Space and Expensive Materials Division". It was his quiet and and cautious nature that let her run amok doing research on AI, which some might call "wasteful." And here was his reward - public recognition! Truly, it was quid pro quo.

Let me fix that for you. If you think that's the best way of doing it, sure. Just stay mindful that this solves neither an existing problem, nor is it a way of actually keeping people from having de facto merges with more than 800 points if they wanted.

You're not making it hard for them, though. They'd just go with the OOC notion that they are separate countries, but RP ICly like they are one. The pretence could be anything - vassal, Personal Union, whatever. If anything it's easier, since they don't have to go through the whole hassle of merging OOC proper. It's not a misuse of the system in the slightest if a nation has 1,600 points, since the points would be coming from two different players. Just make the inactivity rules apply to both of them, so they both have to keep posting or something. You're trying to overcomplicate things now, and there rarely even are mergers in-game anyway.

What's wrong with mergers? It's basically the same as two nations having a strong alliance, just under the same name. Limiting mergers to 800 points isn't going to do anything, because anyone who really wanted to game the system would just have a separate nation next to the person they wanted to merge with and act as if they were merged ICly.

The room was dark, and the only light was from a monitor that shone an almost blinding light that encompassed the room. The woman sat in front of it had clear bags under her eyes as she briefly closed her eyes and thought to herself. This would be a big breakthrough for the project, and would speed up the rest of it significantly if it was completed. "Begin", typed the woman into a separate computer. It then read out her words slowly and clearly, as if teaching a child to talk. Waiting... flashed up onto the screen, the black text almost grating against the plain grey background of the console. "List libraries.", it intoned. It was more of a test to ensure that the basic and core functions were working, rather than to check the polish of the final product, but much of what was considered done already was an integral and difficult part of the project itself. Libraries: stdcorelib.h statistics.h sorting.h searching.h "What is your name?" error C2065: 'name' : undeclared identifier Well, it was always a long shot. The capability to choose its own name hadn't even begun to have been implemented yet, but the romance of such things was always illusive and beckoning. At least it worked, but...

To further consolidate Danish strength and its ability to defend both its sovereignty and people, both King and Prime Minister have begun laying down the foundations of the Forsvaret. Designed primarily to protect core territories, it will complement the terrain and geography of the nation, plus its political stance. [spoiler]OOC Domestic Tech: 1940 (150 points) Industry: 70 (70 points) Army Soldiers: 1,300,000 (130 points) Artillery: 6,000 (20 points) Light ARVs: 1,000 (10 points) Medium ARVs: 2,000 (40 points) Armoured Cars: 1,500 (10 points) Air Force Aircraft: 30,000 (300 points) Navy Submarines: 210 (70 points)[/spoiler]

With the Government's growing national surplus, Prime Minister Jiucheng Yi looked for a way to balance the budgets and aim to break even. With tax rates in not causing an issue and all desirable industries that needed them already subsidies, it came down to finding some way to increase both national prestige yet and to further the nation in general. And thus, the Meihua'a Space Probe Agency (国家航探测器天局) was created. Aimed at quite simply sending something into space, it would have the long-term goal of large-scale satellite coverage with the possibility of a space station to boot. Handed over to the new Director, Dr. Hsiu Mei, great amounts of money and excitement were being funnelled into the Agency as a whole, and results were expected. [hr] Alas, handing the reins of a project, with immense resources dedicated to it, over to certain eccentrics could often have mixed results. Whilst most resources had been dedicated so space travel and exploration proper, a substantial amount had been dedicated to a thus unnamed department, presided over by the Director herself. Said to have been aimed to birth Artificial Intelligence designed to assist in space-faring endeavours, few people in the Agency had actually seen or been involved in its work. The people who did assist, and temporarily at that, had credentials that ranged from nanolithography to machine learning; scheduling to psychology; neural networking to architects. The only people who were actually seeing the progress as it went were the Director herself, and her assistants, who weren't actually formal members of the Agency.

How about a Jurassic period one? I would be the T-Rex nation.

You just need to have it documented somewhere.

Don't worry about industry points. I've been looking into it, and it's just decorated fluff around the edges. Get 50 points in that. The remaining points should be sent as follows: 150 on tech (to get to 1940) 600 on aeroplanes (to get 60,000) From then on, you just steamroll everyone and everything. On an unrelated note, there is a redundant quote for the point distribution rules.

With the ever-changing political landscape and climate, King Christian X has seen it fit to take more moves to ensure the protection the sovereignty of Denmark and her people. To this extent, the Sound Toll was brought back. It was a mandate for all non-Danish ships passing through the Danish straits to pay a sum of 2% of their cargo value when passing through, as maintenance and disturbance fees. Ships would be directed to Helsingør to pay the toll, and then sent on their way. Furthermore, Danish port authorities would be given authority to purchase some of or all of the ship's cargo at the rate announced by the fee payer. Furthermore, no foreign military ships would be allowed to pass through without seeking explicit permission from the Danish authorities at least two weeks in advance, and they could allow and deny passage as they willed. Those policies would be enforced by either sinking or capturing offending ships.