1. Thanks to a suggestion from Aryeztur last week, I'm increasing the canonical length of time between the Apocalypse and Year One to five hundred years instead of two hundred. That'll allow a bit more historical development. Of course, all the history got lost during that period and timekeeping in a postapocalyptic civilization is difficult at the best of times, so feel free to use larger or smaller numbers if it suits your story.
2. The year-length issue is a potential disaster and I think the best possible solution is to ignore it and hope it goes away. Use whatever real-world time to in-simulation time is most convenient to you. I'm going to continue referring to days as "years" for convenience, but just as the Biblical Creation days may not have been exactly twenty-four hours, so our years may not be exactly twelve months; Pelagian years may last only four Earth days like those of 51 Pegasi, or they may last two and a half Earth centuries, like those of Pluto. Quite a few people have mentioned they intend to have their characters live around one real-time year or a little less, which may be a more important number.
3. The Speaker election is now open in the Senate. There hasn't been any campaigning or discussion yet, but it's never too late.
4. If you've read through the religions and SMAC factions posted last week, please vote for the winners of the religion and Alpha Centauri contests.
5. In what I hope will become a tradition, we once again have two contests this week: the capital city contest and Pelagivision. Please check them both out.
6. Map version 6.1 is now up, which adds Omega and should address most other outstanding complaints.
7. There is a Cartography Class planned for #nelaga at 10 PM GMT on Thursday. If you're interested in learning to make pretty maps, give it a try. A copy of Photoshop is a must, and Fractal Mapper is recommended but a lot of people are having trouble getting it (see the thread) so we'll probably figure out alternate arrangements.
8. We've definitely left behind the new micronation "honeymoon" period where we automatically get lots of great activity, and entered the equally inevitable doldrum period where people are still trying to figure out what to do. My thanks go out to people like the Demon of Fides who are fighting the doldrums and keeping things interesting. Hopefully once the Speaker is enthroned he can take over that job, and I can stop fretting about it all the time and concentrate on making pretty maps
9. I'll be on LoA from June 6 to 14th. I'll be in Haiti and I don't know if there will be working Internet connections there. I seriously seriously seriously want this whole doctor thing in Drachumve finished before I leave, or before I come back at the absolute LATEST. It's great that there's an interactive roleplay thing going on, but I can't move my Drachumve storyline along until that part finishes and if it doesn't I hope no one will be offended if I just tie it up myself and move on. (that having been said, Shy, I know I need to write some more for the Kennerixt story and I'll get around to it)
10. So. Artifact system. There are a few ways we can handle this. The first and simplest is to keep doing what we're doing with Expansion Credits. The second is to have different types of credits. Maybe one for expanding territory, one for building cities and roads on the map, one for better bonuses in recwars, one for greater prominence of your forum on the board, and one for the occasional extra Senate vote. These would all be kept separately and people would have to trade among themselves to get the ones they wanted. Would this be more interesting, or just annoying?
