An Immodest Proposal: Towards a multi-sim federal system

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Claude Desmoulins
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An Immodest Proposal: Towards a multi-sim federal system

Post by Claude Desmoulins »

DISCLAIMER: This is one person's idea , not a bill, not a proposed amendment, not an official faction platform plank. Please discuss.

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Much of the work done recently has looked at making the government here more scalable. With the approval of an expansion plan the question of how our government will work across multiple sims and larger populations comes to the fore.

What I am about to propose would involve multiple constitutional changes and some fundamental changes in how we operate.

1.The Branches
A. The SC
No Change
B. The RA
Keep the present RA as is (factions, proportional representation, etc.) When We hit five sims. go to a bicameral legislature by adding a senate. The senate would:
1.Have one seat per sim, elected by the residents of that sim
2.Be elected in a vote for the person , first past the post system. With no obligatory reference to factions
a. Those owning land in more than one sim would choose a sim of primary residence in which to vote (and perhaps stand for election to) the senate.
b. In the event no candidate in a given sim received a majority (50%+1) of the cast votes, the top two candidates would participate in a run-off
C The Guild
We can't decide if the Guild is an artisans collective or a business group. Neither really does what we need the guild to do, which is to function as an executive/administrative arm. This can be accomplished via

DECENTRALIZATION

The RA will set basic themes (Medieval Germanic/Ancient Roman/etc.) for each sim, and create a structure by which each sim comes on line with a full covenant in place, Once that happens the residents of each sim will elect a local “Planning and Zoningâ€

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Dianne
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Post by Dianne »

Wow, someone is really thinking ahead here. :)

I like the idea of the second house or Senate phased in as size and diversity begins to become an issue. We might want to have a situation where previous to the five sim minimum being reached, that we allow a Senator from each sim to sit either as a full member of the RA (or perhaps non-voting), especially if it takes a while to reach that number. Thus the RA would be sitting with the honorable senator from Nova Colonia being present in the chamber. It feels much better to me to have some kind of local representation right from the start.

As far as I understand what your suggesting is that the local "planning and zoning" authority would act sort of as the Guild acts now, but locally to each sim? This might be attractive to sims that already have some kind of established situation in that all they have to do is agree to the lawbook and elect their own local P&Z (guild) group and send a Senator to Neualtenburg and they are in the Federation with a minimum of fuss or outside interference. Very interesting. :)

The only thing that stuck out at me right off as being something I didn't like was the line where the RA "sets the theme" of the sim. Perhaps it's just the way it's worded but I would take it to mean "[i:3fbccx3p]initially[/i:3fbccx3p] sets the theme," i.e. on rollout of the sim (if it's a new sim), the theme is set by the RA as the representative of the Federation as a whole. I would expect the local Guild or P&Z or whatever it is would have authority to change the theme if in fact the residents wanted it. It might seem very autocratic otherwise.

It would require quite a change in the structure of the government to accomplish this, but it's interesting how the guild in this proposal becomes almost like a municipal authority within each sim concerned with matters of building and economy. Very practical.

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Claude Desmoulins
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Post by Claude Desmoulins »

I meant "initially sets" for the most part, although the question over how much control the federal government maintains over sim themes is a valid one. For example, would we want to allow a sim under such a federal system to change its theme to "Erotic Exploration"? (I leave details to your fertile imaginations)

I know you have for some time advocated the election of legislators not attached to factions. The addition of a senate under what I suggest would make this happen.

You understand the P&Z proposal correctly. It is very much an attempt to keep some control at the sim level in a multi sim system, so citizens feel vested in their sim politically rather than just members of a larger federal whole.

I guess I'm more idealistic than I thought. :)

Jon Seattle
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A question about groups that want to join..

Post by Jon Seattle »

I could see two cases. One where the existing government decides and approves a proposal, and another where the a group of people (citizens or not) come together and decide on their own to create a sim with a particular focus and organization. A variation would be a sim that decided to join after being established.

1. Does this proposal handle these later cases?
2. What would we ask of the independent group in order to join the federation?

Claude Desmoulins
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Post by Claude Desmoulins »

Jon.

In case one (parallel to the current plans for CN) the federal government decides to add a sim, chooses a theme, builds the sim, and establishes covenants before the sim is populated. There would probably be an interim P&Z appointed by the federal government for a couple of months, then the residents of the sim would elect one.

In case two, I think Dianne suggested a model. An existing sim would agree to join the federal system, accept the federal constitution, elect a P&Z. That P&Z would the supervise the election or appointment of the sim administrator. As soon as the sim joined, there would be an election for its senate seat.

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