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As I mentioned to Steve earlier, I'm interested.

Force Lord wrote:I'm interested in joining. Maybe do a constitutional monarchy or go fascist again.

First of all, & I think I've said this before but I feel really bad about how SDNW4 blew up while your computer was down & the story we were planning ended up not happening cause of that.

I'd be quite happy to work with you again FL. Maybe even as allies this time.

@STEVE
How weird would you say "strange real" is? I'm not familiar with the term. I think you mean that it is close to SDNW2 rather than the 'realism' of SDNW3 or the fanatasy of SDNW4.

Also the start date of 2000 has been done before and while it appears to be somewhat ideal why not slightly earlier, like 1980s or 90s?

Finally while nukes have a bad rep thanks to Shep I am convinced Super weapons in general are a good idea to include (so long as they are rare and maybe expensive) since they are more convenient than conventional armies from a story telling perspective. We could do alternative super weapons like Tesla Death Rays, Stealthy flying Aircraft Carriers and such rather than nukes.

@ Everyone
This is just some general advice that I've thought up since last anything happened around here. When you write a story keep the conclusion in mind so that if you are still writing we can skip ahead and keep a constant pace just by asking you for a cliff notes of the end state of your story. If it's big and international though use the discussion thread to reach a consensus conclusion that satisfies everyone more or less, again so that we can keep a constant pace and not wonder if this big story isn't going to place the world into an unknown state even though we are writing in the future compared to the Big International story. PS this means if it is a story involving the major state of the world don't use an outside communication type to setup the conclusion, it's really frustrating for those that don't use the same communication as you.

You can also put the year your story is set in within the Subject line of the post and it will help us keep the timeline straight.

I'm personally thinking of playing multiple smaller non-aligned nations at the start and if that doesn't work I can always have them unify later on.

Agent Sorchus wrote:

Force Lord wrote:I'm interested in joining. Maybe do a constitutional monarchy or go fascist again.

First of all, & I think I've said this before but I feel really bad about how SDNW4 blew up while your computer was down & the story we were planning ended up not happening cause of that.

I'd be quite happy to work with you again FL. Maybe even as allies this time.

Oooh you were planning a storyline? Cool.

@STEVE
How weird would you say "strange real" is? I'm not familiar with the term. I think you mean that it is close to SDNW2 rather than the 'realism' of SDNW3 or the fanatasy of SDNW4.

"Strangereal" is the world of the Ace Combat computer games. In other words:

1) Fictitious in geography
2) Multipolar
3) Relatively highly developed- Strangereal has many power blocs capable of fielding things like their own F-22s in the modern era, whereas few have this in real life. While I'm sure there will be undeveloped regions and countries in our proposed SDNW6, if past STGODs are any guide, this one will probably have a higher overall level of economic development than Earth.
4) Considerable amounts of strange or 'super' technology that is utterly impractical in real life, such as giant skyscraper-sized laser cannon, railgun turrets designed to shoot down incoming asteroids, and gigantic flying superfortresses with a wingspan of half a kilometer or so.

I don't know how much Steve meant us to read into (3) and (4).

Also the start date of 2000 has been done before and while it appears to be somewhat ideal why not slightly earlier, like 1980s or 90s?

The start date is arbitrary; the technology less so. Allowing modern technology if we declare that game start is 1985 or whatever might make some people feel weirded and anachronistic.

Finally while nukes have a bad rep thanks to Shep I am convinced Super weapons in general are a good idea to include (so long as they are rare and maybe expensive) since they are more convenient than conventional armies from a story telling perspective. We could do alternative super weapons like Tesla Death Rays, Stealthy flying Aircraft Carriers and such rather than nukes.

That depends on the level of realism people want.

@ Everyone
This is just some general advice that I've thought up since last anything happened around here. When you write a story keep the conclusion in mind so that if you are still writing we can skip ahead and keep a constant pace just by asking you for a cliff notes of the end state of your story.

This is wise. I always tried to do this.

If it's big and international though use the discussion thread to reach a consensus conclusion that satisfies everyone more or less, again so that we can keep a constant pace and not wonder if this big story isn't going to place the world into an unknown state even though we are writing in the future compared to the Big International story. PS this means if it is a story involving the major state of the world don't use an outside communication type to setup the conclusion, it's really frustrating for those that don't use the same communication as you.

I am inclined to agree; that's a big lesson of SDNW4. Part of the problem with the way the MEH War went down was the role of off-forum communication. It contributed to groupthink among the people who were party to that communication, and a sense of irritation and disenfranchisement among those who were not.

I would prefer not having any superweapons or superpowers but it is not a deal breaker to me, as long as it does become incredibly ridiculous like "I got a turbolaser in orbit".

Simon_Jester wrote:

Agent Sorchus wrote:Also the start date of 2000 has been done before and while it appears to be somewhat ideal why not slightly earlier, like 1980s or 90s?

The start date is arbitrary; the technology less so. Allowing modern technology if we declare that game start is 1985 or whatever might make some people feel weirded and anachronistic.

Why are we already aiming for 2000's level of tech at all? Why is the technology not arbitrary?

Or is it that the "core" clique has already decided: repeat the original SDNW1-2 concept. Now I'm really asking the reasoning behind that decision, if you were a part. And if you weren't than why do you consider it non-negotiable? Or where there no Devil's advocates asking those questions and gathering reasons for the presentation?

I'm just afraid that it will become more of the same and without some important people that made the first 2 incarnations good. It really needs to find a life of it's own rather being leftovers. Which should be the lesson from sdnw5. (nocaps intentional)

Finally while nukes have a bad rep thanks to Shep I am convinced Super weapons in general are a good idea to include (so long as they are rare and maybe expensive) since they are more convenient than conventional armies from a story telling perspective. We could do alternative super weapons like Tesla Death Rays, Stealthy flying Aircraft Carriers and such rather than nukes.

That depends on the level of realism people want.

Not the way Steve presented it it doesn't. He made no nukes a pretty big deal, and yeah Shep has done a good job at poisoning the well there. BUT once again I disagree with that position. While I think nukes are too much when they are spammed (as in 100's+) having maybe a handful in a nation gives an easy cornerstone to write stories around. If you only have a few weapons and they are so very expensive and as a whole incapable of being the only tool needed to wreck a nation they might make a great addition as a story telling tool. And other super weapons are similar. Steve and the other vets have already seen that just banning nukes hasn't stopped Shep for going all out on WMD's of the biological and chemical nature (hell super soldier commandos fit this category also), I'd rather talk about embracing the whole category as a potential tool for story telling rather then trying to deal with it in a hamfisted way.

Also think of it this way, if we had the same problem player as in SDNW4 and we all had a handful of nukes... we wouldn't need a big story line that causes confusion and delay to deal with the problem in universe. (Which we could have always just made the problem vanish through the power of handwavium.) And since we only would have a handful of superweapons we couldn't use them to solve every single problem.

Thanas wrote:I would prefer not having any superweapons or superpowers but it is not a deal breaker to me, as long as it does become incredibly ridiculous like "I got a turbolaser in orbit".

Yeah that would be a bad use of the concept. I'm thinking more along the lines of: I have 10 old soviet missiles that might or might not function with a huge error rate that I could use in maybe one conflict to get some minimal (but impressive) results to change the course of an invasion. Really no different than saying that I win a big victory but not a total victory in a story.

They are also discrete objects that can be traded, stolen, dismantled or used in ways that they wouldn't have been intended. And still limited in numbers.

An easy way to stop a potential abuse of superpowers would be to have some sort of megastate bigger than all of the player nations combined who would have such strength in numbers that resistance would be futile. Said megastate would then be kinda like the Solarian League in Honor Harrington (but not a complete joke like in that series) enforcing a prohibition on abuse of superpowers.

Only thing is though that it would have to be a rule that anybody who wants superpowers or superweapons should not get the right to bitch or negotiate if the mods decide that a potential abuse should result in the megastate doing anything (anything from aiding the parties that it was used against to outright slaughtering the player nation).

Just arbitrarily decree that the planet has lots of thorium but only trace uranium in the crust. Nuclear power is still possible but breeding and refining plutonium for bombs will be really hard and expensive.

All of this talk of StrangeReal makes me think of the defining feature of the StrangeReal world in Ace Combat : the extinction-level asteroid strike that mostly was averted by international co-operation, but left the planet seriously battered by secondary impacts and littered with spare superweapons, military extremists and local wars. Would make a good meta-plot and excuse for chaos, plus mods could decree mid-size impacts on anyone spoiling fun or just wherever it would be dramatic.

I don't see a particular issue with having superweapons (be it magictech or plain old nukes), though I do agree that they should be limited rather heavily.

I won't have any, at least in the current country drafts I'm doing, at any rate.

Thanas wrote:An easy way to stop a potential abuse of superpowers would be to have some sort of megastate bigger than all of the player nations combined who would have such strength in numbers that resistance would be futile. Said megastate would then be kinda like the Solarian League in Honor Harrington (but not a complete joke like in that series) enforcing a prohibition on abuse of superpowers.

The MESS power bloc served a similar purpose in effect, if not necessarily in intent, during SDNW2. Even if half of the members of the bloc were relatively inactive, their combined forces were still bigger than everyone else combined, and you had to take into account the possibility of one of those sleeping giants waking up (and possibly rousing the others along with them) if you wanted to do anything militarily within their spheres of influence.

That said, I second Starglider's suggestion of "rocks fall, everyone dies" to deal with recalcitrant players. I'd much rather have semi-random asteroid strikes than an NPC superstate that sits there on the map doing absolutely nothing.

Agent Sorchus wrote:

Simon_Jester wrote:

Agent Sorchus wrote:Also the start date of 2000 has been done before and while it appears to be somewhat ideal why not slightly earlier, like 1980s or 90s?

The start date is arbitrary; the technology less so. Allowing modern technology if we declare that game start is 1985 or whatever might make some people feel weirded and anachronistic.

Why are we already aiming for 2000's level of tech at all? Why is the technology not arbitrary?

Or is it that the "core" clique has already decided: repeat the original SDNW1-2 concept. Now I'm really asking the reasoning behind that decision, if you were a part. And if you weren't than why do you consider it non-negotiable? Or where there no Devil's advocates asking those questions and gathering reasons for the presentation?

You sound a little... offended?

I'm open to the idea, but I want to make sure it's something a lot of people actually want to do. Maybe we want 1985, maybe we want 2030. Maybe the majority of the players want a world with an Internet. I honestly don't know, and was using as my default assumption "technology greater than or equal to that of the present day, but not by a lot."

So forgive me for making such an unwarranted assumption, and being so presumptuous and cliquish.

Sorry, maybe I'm overreacting to your tone.

Not the way Steve presented it it doesn't. He made no nukes a pretty big deal, and yeah Shep has done a good job at poisoning the well there. BUT once again I disagree with that position. While I think nukes are too much when they are spammed (as in 100's+) having maybe a handful in a nation gives an easy cornerstone to write stories around.

The thorium-based "hard nuclear technology" paradigm actually justifies this- nuclear bombs are harder to acquire, not impossible, so they're harder for startup countries to create.

Honestly I'd be just as happy to write a setting where nuclear weapons are as available as in the present day... whether Shep comes back (unlikely IMO) or not.

Thanas wrote:An easy way to stop a potential abuse of superpowers would be to have some sort of megastate bigger than all of the player nations combined who would have such strength in numbers that resistance would be futile. Said megastate would then be kinda like the Solarian League in Honor Harrington (but not a complete joke like in that series) enforcing a prohibition on abuse of superpowers.

Unless you posit the Martian Navy in orbit, it's hard to do this on a single planet without making things singularly un-fun, in my opinion. Do we really want to play minor powers in a world where Hypermerica is the dominant hegemon and gets to enforce whatever international law it pleases?

Starglider wrote:Just arbitrarily decree that the planet has lots of thorium but only trace uranium in the crust. Nuclear power is still possible but breeding and refining plutonium for bombs will be really hard and expensive.

All of this talk of StrangeReal makes me think of the defining feature of the StrangeReal world in Ace Combat : the extinction-level asteroid strike that mostly was averted by international co-operation, but left the planet seriously battered by secondary impacts and littered with spare superweapons, military extremists and local wars. Would make a good meta-plot and excuse for chaos, plus mods could decree mid-size impacts on anyone spoiling fun or just wherever it would be dramatic.

I like this idea VERY MUCH.

Shinn Langley Soryu wrote:

Thanas wrote:An easy way to stop a potential abuse of superpowers would be to have some sort of megastate bigger than all of the player nations combined who would have such strength in numbers that resistance would be futile. Said megastate would then be kinda like the Solarian League in Honor Harrington (but not a complete joke like in that series) enforcing a prohibition on abuse of superpowers.

The MESS power bloc served a similar purpose in effect, if not necessarily in intent, during SDNW2. Even if half of the members of the bloc were relatively inactive, their combined forces were still bigger than everyone else combined, and you had to take into account the possibility of one of those sleeping giants waking up (and possibly rousing the others along with them) if you wanted to do anything militarily within their spheres of influence.

Yes, but:
1) This happened semi-spontaneously; we should certainly not set it up to happen on purpose.
2) Such an arrangement more or less replaces moderator sanction of badly behaved nations with the threat of player mobbing of badly behaved nations. Which has its drawbacks, see the MEH war for reference.
3) The existence of a few big power blocs can create bad blood between players in general, even if no major crises arise.

That said, I second Starglider's suggestion of "rocks fall, everyone dies" to deal with recalcitrant players. I'd much rather have semi-random asteroid strikes than an NPC superstate that sits there on the map doing absolutely nothing.

YES.

as a first timer, what sort of prep and how much drafting should I be doing?

I am strongly opposed to a megastate modhammer because 1) this state will be a dead zone on the map where nothing happens because it isn't an actual place, it's just a tool, 2) it raises questions of who gets to control it, 3) its actions will almost inevitably end up looking bizarrely random: why does it heavy-handedly intervene in X when it didn't do anything in Y? And that randomness will be used against its wielder: why are you picking on me when you didn't do anything to him? It's just a bad idea.

Meanwhile I'm not opposed to having a few nukes around, or a handful of 'superweapons', provided they are at least vaguely plausible. I'm also not completely averse to shifting the starting time around a bit, although moving it into the past will I suspect just serve to make the game completely anachronistic real quick, because I certainly am not going to google exactly what was invented when every time I write something. Setting it roughly present day removes that problem, which is why it's preferable to me.

Siege wrote:I am strongly opposed to a megastate modhammer because 1) this state will be a dead zone on the map where nothing happens because it isn't an actual place, it's just a tool, 2) it raises questions of who gets to control it, 3) its actions will almost inevitably end up looking bizarrely random: why does it heavy-handedly intervene in X when it didn't do anything in Y? And that randomness will be used against its wielder: why are you picking on me when you didn't do anything to him?

Sounds a lot like the UN

Siege wrote:I am strongly opposed to a megastate modhammer because 1) this state will be a dead zone on the map where nothing happens because it isn't an actual place, it's just a tool, 2) it raises questions of who gets to control it, 3) its actions will almost inevitably end up looking bizarrely random: why does it heavy-handedly intervene in X when it didn't do anything in Y? And that randomness will be used against its wielder: why are you picking on me when you didn't do anything to him? It's just a bad idea.

Meanwhile I'm not opposed to having a few nukes around, or a handful of 'superweapons', provided they are at least vaguely plausible. I'm also not completely averse to shifting the starting time around a bit, although moving it into the past will I suspect just serve to make the game completely anachronistic real quick, because I certainly am not going to google exactly what was invented when every time I write something. Setting it roughly present day removes that problem, which is why it's preferable to me.

Yea, you convinced me on both points.

I just hope people won't be douches and go "well, theoretically I could do X right now except nobody ever has really done it".

Starglider wrote:Just arbitrarily decree that the planet has lots of thorium but only trace uranium in the crust. Nuclear power is still possible but breeding and refining plutonium for bombs will be really hard and expensive.

"Nuclear power exists, but uranium is too rare for nuclear weapons to be affordable; thorium and other similar materials are the main source of fuel for reactors, that is, stuff that can power reactors but not be useful for nuclear weapons."

Already covered.

All of this talk of StrangeReal makes me think of the defining feature of the StrangeReal world in Ace Combat : the extinction-level asteroid strike that mostly was averted by international co-operation, but left the planet seriously battered by secondary impacts and littered with spare superweapons, military extremists and local wars. Would make a good meta-plot and excuse for chaos, plus mods could decree mid-size impacts on anyone spoiling fun or just wherever it would be dramatic.

I'm not sure that'll be necessary.

Agent Sorchus wrote: How weird would you say "strange real" is? I'm not familiar with the term. I think you mean that it is close to SDNW2 rather than the 'realism' of SDNW3 or the fanatasy of SDNW4.

As explained, I meant an Earth that doesn't have Earth's geography. We can import bits of Earth geography if we want, but we're not obligated to use Earth itself as a base.

Also the start date of 2000 has been done before and while it appears to be somewhat ideal why not slightly earlier, like 1980s or 90s?

2000 has more zeroes.

It just seemed to me to be the "right" year, a symbolic one with the changing of the century and such.

Finally while nukes have a bad rep thanks to Shep I am convinced Super weapons in general are a good idea to include (so long as they are rare and maybe expensive) since they are more convenient than conventional armies from a story telling perspective. We could do alternative super weapons like Tesla Death Rays, Stealthy flying Aircraft Carriers and such rather than nukes.

The issue with nukes is that everything eventually gets mired down in strategic paralysis.

As for the others, we'll have enough fights over conventional miltech even with a desire to avoid minutiae, throwing in fantasy weapons like the Shield Helicarrier will make things worse.

@ Everyone
This is just some general advice that I've thought up since last anything happened around here. When you write a story keep the conclusion in mind so that if you are still writing we can skip ahead and keep a constant pace just by asking you for a cliff notes of the end state of your story. If it's big and international though use the discussion thread to reach a consensus conclusion that satisfies everyone more or less, again so that we can keep a constant pace and not wonder if this big story isn't going to place the world into an unknown state even though we are writing in the future compared to the Big International story. PS this means if it is a story involving the major state of the world don't use an outside communication type to setup the conclusion, it's really frustrating for those that don't use the same communication as you.

You can also put the year your story is set in within the Subject line of the post and it will help us keep the timeline straight.

An interesting proposal. I think it has merit.

I'm personally thinking of playing multiple smaller non-aligned nations at the start and if that doesn't work I can always have them unify later on.

Given how Shady operated in the Border States, Siege with Transtaafl and Sabika, and myself with Adabani and then Alaska in SDNW2.... I don't see too much of an issue.

Simon_Jester wrote:"Strangereal" is the world of the Ace Combat computer games. In other words:

1) Fictitious in geography
2) Multipolar
3) Relatively highly developed- Strangereal has many power blocs capable of fielding things like their own F-22s in the modern era, whereas few have this in real life. While I'm sure there will be undeveloped regions and countries in our proposed SDNW6, if past STGODs are any guide, this one will probably have a higher overall level of economic development than Earth.
4) Considerable amounts of strange or 'super' technology that is utterly impractical in real life, such as giant skyscraper-sized laser cannon, railgun turrets designed to shoot down incoming asteroids, and gigantic flying superfortresses with a wingspan of half a kilometer or so.

I don't know how much Steve meant us to read into (3) and (4).

3, sure, but I'd rather not do 4. I was mostly referring to 1 since 2 and 3 will be determined in part by what people want to play.

I really would welcome the "earthly but non-earthly" geography, should allow me to build a nice nation uninhibited by historical constraints.

Steve wrote:I'm not sure that'll be necessary.

I think you should seriously consider the idea.

Having a world that is exactly like Earth only with alternate geography and various wonky cultures isn't necessarily The One True Way. A little bit of craziness will help encourage people to join and become psychologically engaged in the game.

Steve wrote:

Agent Sorchus wrote:How weird would you say "strange real" is? I'm not familiar with the term. I think you mean that it is close to SDNW2 rather than the 'realism' of SDNW3 or the fanatasy of SDNW4.

As explained, I meant an Earth that doesn't have Earth's geography. We can import bits of Earth geography if we want, but we're not obligated to use Earth itself as a base.

I approves. At the same time, I do think it might be nice to at least entertain the notion of a few 'wacky' elements. The game might gain a certain richness (including, hopefully, some able-minded fresh blood beyond the old SDNW2 hands) from that.

On that, I agree... with... Sorchus?

[looks down at hands, is perplexed]

My head hurts so much.

Finally while nukes have a bad rep thanks to Shep I am convinced Super weapons in general are a good idea to include (so long as they are rare and maybe expensive) since they are more convenient than conventional armies from a story telling perspective. We could do alternative super weapons like Tesla Death Rays, Stealthy flying Aircraft Carriers and such rather than nukes.

The issue with nukes is that everything eventually gets mired down in strategic paralysis.

As for the others, we'll have enough fights over conventional miltech even with a desire to avoid minutiae, throwing in fantasy weapons like the Shield Helicarrier will make things worse.

I think it'll be all right if we all agree to just, y'know, have actual fun.

madd0ct0r wrote:as a first timer, what sort of prep and how much drafting should I be doing?

coff.

Yes, but I'm allowing for different views of what's fun. What concerns me about the active meteorfall thing is that it's invoking a piece of history for players that may run counter to what they want to do. That kind of thing has an effect upon society and development, it can't be reasonably avoided.

Anyway, our first step should be seeing everyone's nation concept so we can weave a world together from them.

maddoctor, start with a country proposal. What your society will be like, if you want to be First World or Second World or Third, an ex-colony of some sort or not, etc.

If you want to have meteor fragments impact your country then by all means go for it. And if it then turns out others want to do their own spin-off from that, great. But I'd prefer not to force all players to explicitly have to account for such an event if they don't want to.

Same thing for superweapons etc. 'Weird' elements are fun but difficult to balance so I'd urge everyone to at least be conservative. It's great fun if players have a few crazy impractical things like submersible aircraft carriers in their arsenals, but be sure to have only a couple, and no Nimitz-size ones. This stuff can't be captured in rulesets, so just go by the rule of thumb of 'does this sound reasonable?'

Steve wrote:Yes, but I'm allowing for different views of what's fun. What concerns me about the active meteorfall thing is that it's invoking a piece of history for players that may run counter to what they want to do. That kind of thing has an effect upon society and development, it can't be reasonably avoided.

On the one hand, it's not hard for a country to say "we didn't get pounded that hard by meteors." On the other, we're already imposing some pretty substantial constraints by requiring a high degree of 'realism,' by restricting nuclear arsenals, and so on.

It's hard to play in a shared game without at least some kind of constraints defining the limit of the shared playspace. On the other hand, those constraints can evolve naturally and be a good fit and all, so...

Anyway, our first step should be seeing everyone's nation concept so we can weave a world together from them.

I agree. About how many nations do we want to see before this occurs? Some people will want to join afterwards, I suspect, but once we've got a reasonable minimum we can go on from there.

maddoctor, start with a country proposal. What your society will be like, if you want to be First World or Second World or Third, an ex-colony of some sort or not, etc.

As I think I discussed, Umeria is pretty blatantly Second World: largely state-controlled economy even if a considerable number of privately owned facilities (many of them foreign-run) exist due to the technarchs' plans.

Standard of living is, oh, somewhere in the range between China (lower bound) and the poorest European countries (former Soviet bloc ones like Romania). Electricity is ubiquitous, basic medical care is widely available, there haven't been any significant famines in two generations... but a large chunk of the population are still farmers in the hinterlands. Urbanization and industrialization are still underway.

Umeria's history is loosely inspired by China, so I feel that there was probably a period of colonial exploitation in the previous century (the 19th, if we have a 2000 start date), but the country was never ruled by foreigners except perhaps for some enclaves.

Siege wrote:If you want to have meteor fragments impact your country then by all means go for it. And if it then turns out others want to do their own spin-off from that, great. But I'd prefer not to force all players to explicitly have to account for such an event if they don't want to.

Fair enough. Perhaps we could take all the players who want to have such an impact, and put them on the continent that 'got the worst' of it? That would trivially explain why nobody else experienced any meteor damage of note, and why there is no mention of it in their history. Because either they didn't get hit at all, or they only got hit in the middle of nowhere (Tunguska) or in ways that caused no lasting effects (Chelyabinsk).

How does that sound, Siege?

Same thing for superweapons etc. 'Weird' elements are fun but difficult to balance so I'd urge everyone to at least be conservative. It's great fun if players have a few crazy impractical things like submersible aircraft carriers in their arsenals, but be sure to have only a couple, and no Nimitz-size ones. This stuff can't be captured in rulesets, so just go by the rule of thumb of 'does this sound reasonable?'

Agreed.

Simon_Jester wrote:Fair enough. Perhaps we could take all the players who want to have such an impact, and put them on the continent that 'got the worst' of it?

Sure. Players who want to have an event like this (or, say, a big plague, or a zombie problem for all I care) in their backstories can just propose it here and see if anybody else wants to run with it also. Then tally, maybe decide to involve an NPC or two, and scale and zone the emergency accordingly. Everyone who doesn't want to deal with it, simply wasn't affected. Sounds like a good way to handle it to me.

Sounds like it would work to me too.