Ruleset

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Genetic Engineers shall obey it.

It comprises four Sections: 1) the “core rules” of BlogNomic, covering the essential elements of gameplay; 2) the rules of the current Dynasty; 3) rules which set metagame parameters for the current dynasty; and 4) the appendix, which complements and clarifies the Ruleset.

The Ruleset and Gamestate can only be altered in manners specified by the Ruleset. This document is considered to be, in effect, the only Ruleset for BlogNomic, so long as it is located at at the URL https://wiki.blognomic.com/index.php?title=Ruleset.

If the text of the Ruleset document does not reflect all legal changes that have been authorised to be made to it, any Genetic Engineer may update it to do so.

The gamestate tracking page for this dynasty is the Sublogical Genomics Laboratory page of the wiki. Unless otherwise stated, all publicly tracked gamestate information is tracked on it.

Genetic Engineers

A human with access to the blog who is not already a Genetic Engineer may make a blog post making clear their wish to be a Genetic Engineer (plural form Genetic Engineers); in response, an Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar, at which moment they become a Genetic Engineer. (See the FAQ for guidance on how to apply for access to the BlogNomic blog.)

A Genetic Engineer may only change their name as a result of a Proposal approving the change.

Some Genetic Engineers are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Genetic Engineers who wish to become Admins may sign up with a username for the Ruleset Wiki, and submit a Proposal to make themselves Admins. Existing Admins may be removed from their posts by Proposal, CfJ, or voluntary resignation. Genetic Engineers may be made Admins through Proposal or CFJ.

A Genetic Engineer may cease to be a Genetic Engineer at any time by posting an entry to the BlogNomic weblog requesting such an action. A human who has ceased to be a Genetic Engineer in this way may not become a Genetic Engineer again within the following two weeks.

Idle Genetic Engineers

If a Genetic Engineer is Idle, this is tracked by their name being removed or concealed in the list of currently active Genetic Engineers in the Sidebar. For the purposes of all Gamestate and the Ruleset, excluding the core and appendix Rules “Ruleset and Gamestate”, “ Genetic Engineers ”, “Dynasties”, “Fair Play”, "Mentors" and any of those Rules’ subrules, Idle Genetic Engineers are not counted as Genetic Engineers . The combined term “Idle Genetic Engineers” can be used to refer to Genetic Engineers who are Idle even in rules that do not treat them as Genetic Engineers.

If a Proposal contains a provision that targets a specifically named Idle Genetic Engineer, then that Idle Genetic Engineer is considered to be Unidle solely for the purposes of enacting that specific provision.

When a Genetic Engineer is unidled, if they went Idle in the same Dynasty, their personal gamestate retains the last legally endowed values it had, if they are still valid. Otherwise (including if a value is invalid, does not exist, or the Genetic Engineer Idled in a different Dynasty), the Genetic Engineer is given the default value for new Genetic Engineers, if such a value exists.

An Admin may render a Genetic Engineer Idle if that Genetic Engineer has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), or if that Genetic Engineer has not posted an entry or comment in the past 168 Hours (7 days). In the latter case, the Admin must announce the idling in a blog post, and the 168 Hour idle timeout is considered to be reduced to 96 hours for that Genetic Engineer during the current and subsequent dynasty. Admins may render themselves Idle at any time, but should announce it in a post or comment when they do so. An Admin may Unidle a Genetic Engineer if that Genetic Engineer is Idle and has asked to become Unidle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), and Idle Admins may Unidle themselves at any time, unless the Genetic Engineer who would be Unidled has become Idle within the past 96 hours (4 days), and within the current Dynasty.

Admins who are unidling themselves should, in their first vote following each unidling, highlight their changed idle status and any changes to Quorum to have come about as a result of it.

Idle admins can resolve Votable Matters as a non-idle admin would.

Dormancy

If there are fewer than four Genetic Engineers (not including the Head Researcher), then BlogNomic is on Hiatus.

Dynasties

BlogNomic is divided into a number of Dynasties. Each Dynasty may be headed by a single Genetic Engineer, known as the Head Researcher. If there is no Head Researcher, the Dynasty is a Metadynasty.

An Interregnum is the period between dynasties, after a DoV has been enacted and before a Dynastic Reset has been performed. During an Interregnum the game is in hiatus; additionally, no DoVs may be made, and no Genetic Engineer may achieve Victory. However, dynastic actions that are specifically permitted to be carried out during an Interregnum may be carried out.

Unless otherwise stated by a dynastic or Building Blocks rule, then for the purposes of dynastic and Building Blocks rules, the Head Researcher is not a Genetic Engineer.

Votable Matters

A Votable Matter is a post which Genetic Engineers may cast Votes on, such as a Proposal, a Call for Judgement or a Declaration of Victory.

Votes

Each Genetic Engineer may cast one Vote on a Votable Matter by making a comment to the Official Post that comprises that Votable Matter using a voting icon of FOR, AGAINST, or DEFERENTIAL. Additional voting icons may be permitted in some cases by other rules. A valid Vote is, except when otherwise specified, a Vote of FOR or AGAINST. A Genetic Engineer‘s Vote on a Votable Matter is the last valid voting icon that they have used in any comment on that Votable Matter. Additionally, if the author of a Votable Matter has not used a valid voting icon in a comment to the post, then the author’s Vote is FOR. A non-Genetic Engineer never has a Vote, even if they were a Genetic Engineer previously and had cast a valid Vote.

If a Genetic Engineer other than the Head Researcher casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Head Researcher. When the Head Researcher has a valid Vote other than VETO on a Votable Matter, then all votes of DEFERENTIAL on that Votable Matter are instead considered to be valid and the same as the Head Researcher’s Vote for the purposes of other rules unless otherwise specified. When the Head Researcher themselves casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, it indicates an indication of confidence in the votes of the other players; please see the Rules and Votable Matters section of the Appendix for more information on how this is resolved.

A Votable Matter is Popular if any of the following are true:

• It has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum.
• It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, it has more than 1 valid Vote cast on it, and more valid Votes cast on it are FOR than are AGAINST.

A Votable Matter is Unpopular if any of the following are true:

• The number of Genetic Engineers who are not voting AGAINST it is less than Quorum.
• It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and it is not Popular.

Enacting and Failing

Votable matters have a status, which can either be Pending, Enacted, Failed, or Illegal. When a votable matter is first put forward it is considered Pending (which is tracked as having no status in the current blog software), and it remains Pending until it is Resolved.

A votable matter is resolved by an admin setting its status through use of the “status” field in the blog post editing form. When an admin resolves a votable matter they should mark their name, and are highly encouraged to report the final tally of Votes (or the fact that it was withdrawn or vetoed). Comments cannot be made on resolved Votable Matters.

A votable matter may not be resolved except as directed by the ruleset, and the status of a resolved votable matter, once resolved, is determined by the votes cast upon it, as assessed by the rules that govern the specific kind of votable matter (as well as any other considerations regarding the legality of the votable matter, such as the stipulations put forward in the Appendix rule Official Posts). When a Failed proposal has been Vetoed it may optionally have the Vetoed status upon resolution, which is considered to be the same as Failed for the purposes of all other rules.

This rule cannot be overruled by any other rule in its application to Calls for Judgement or Declarations of Victory.

Tags

Votable Matters have zero or more tags. Tags are represented in the title of a Votable Matter with the format “[X]” (e.g. “[Core] Wording Fix”, where “[Core]” is the tag).

Votable Matters making changes to the Core Rules, the Building Blocks Rules or the Appendix Rules require any of the following to be true for each such change in order to make that specific modification to the ruleset:

• The Votable Matter has the appropriate Tag or Tags for that change: [Core] for Core Rules changes, [Building Blocks] for Building Blocks Rules changes and [Appendix] for Appendix Rules changes.
• The modification is preceded or followed immediately by an unambiguous statement of which section of the ruleset it takes place.
• The modification specifically states a rule using its number or the name of the stated rule only occurs once in the ruleset.

Proposals

Any Genetic Engineer may submit a Proposal to change the Ruleset or Gamestate, by posting an entry in the “Proposal” category that describes those changes (unless the Genetic Engineer already has 2 Proposals pending or has already made 3 Proposals that day).

Special Proposal Voting

When a Genetic Engineer casts a vote AGAINST their own Proposal (which is not in the form of a DEFERENTIAL vote), this renders the Proposal Withdrawn, even if the author later changes their Vote. The Head Researcher may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a Proposal; when the Head Researcher casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Head Researcher later changes their Vote.

Resolution of Proposals

The oldest Pending Proposal may be Enacted by any Admin if all of the following are true:

• It is Popular.
• It has been open for voting for at least 12 hours.
• It has not been Vetoed or Withdrawn.

The oldest Pending Proposal may be Failed by any Admin, if any of the following are true:

• It is Unpopular.
• It has been Vetoed or Withdrawn.

If a Proposal somehow ends up being pending for more than 7 days, it is ignored for the purpose of calculating the oldest pending Proposal, and can be failed by any Admin.

When a Proposal is Enacted, its stated effects are applied by treating the text in the Proposal as a series of steps starting from the beginning of that Proposal’s text and performing each step until reaching the end of that Proposal’s text, except that if the Admin Enacting it reaches a step which cannot be applied immediately (e.g. “two days after this Votable Matter enacts, Genetic Engineer A gains 1 point”) or at all (e.g. applying to a rule which does not exist), that step is ignored for the purposes of Enactment; the Admin Enacting the Proposal shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correct any gamestate-tracking entities, as specified in each step that was performed.

Calls for Judgement

If two or more Genetic Engineers actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Genetic Engineer feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Genetic Engineer may raise a Call for Judgement (abbreviated “CfJ”) by posting an entry in the “Call for Judgement” category.

A Pending CfJ may be Enacted by any Admin if all of the following are true:

• It is Popular.

A Pending CfJ may be Failed by any Admin if any of the following are true:

• It is Unpopular.
• It specifies neither changes to the Gamestate or Ruleset nor corrections to any gamestate-tracking entities.

When a CfJ is Enacted, the Admin Enacting it shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correct any gamestate-tracking entities, as specified in the CfJ.

This Rule may not be overruled by Dynastic Rules.

Victory and Ascension

If a Genetic Engineer (other than the Head Researcher) believes that they have achieved victory in the current Dynasty, they may make a Declaration of Victory (abbreviated “DoV”) detailing this, by posting an entry in the “Declaration of Victory” category.

A Genetic Engineer’s vote on a DoV is encouraged to reflect whether or not they agree with the proposition that the poster has achieved victory in the current Dynasty. If there is at least one pending DoV, BlogNomic is on Hiatus, no Idle Genetic Engineer may be made unidle, and no new player joining requests may be administered.

A Pending DoV may be Enacted by any Admin if any of the following are true:

• It has a number of FOR Votes greater than 2/3rds of the number of Genetic Engineers, it has been open for at least 12 hours, and either the Head Researcher has Voted FOR it or it has no AGAINST Votes.
• It has a number of FOR Votes greater than 2/3rds of the number of Genetic Engineers, and it has been open for at least 24 hours.

A Pending DoV may be Failed by any Admin if any of the following are true:

• It is Unpopular, and it has been open for at least 12 hours.
• It is more than 48 hours old and cannot be Enacted

If a DoV is Failed and it had at least one AGAINST vote, the Genetic Engineer who posted it cannot make another DoV until after 120 hours (5 days) have passed since the time their DoV was Failed.

When a DoV is Enacted, all other pending DoVs are Failed, the Genetic Engineer who posted the DoV becomes Head Researcher, and the game enters an Interregnum. When a DoV is enacted then all game actions that led up to it are considered to be upheld.

If the game is in an Interregnum then the new Head Researcher must make an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category. The Ascension Address should specify the Head Researcher’s chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and it may optionally specifiy one or more of the following:

• New dynasty-specific terms as outline in the rule “Synonyms”
• A number of dynastic rules to keep (if none are specifed then the entire Dynastic Ruleset is repealed)
• Any number of Building Blocks rules to remove or insert, as per the instructions in the Building Blocks section
• The name of the gamestate tracking page referred to in the rule “Ruleset and Gamestate” to a different page that does not exist and does not start with the word “Ruleset”
• The Head Researcher’s Imperial Style, which if specified is a set of nonbinding guidelines that the Head Researcher is encouraged to follow, using the terms defined on the wiki page Imperial Styles.

If it has not been done since the most recent posting of an Ascension Address, the Head Researcher or any Genetic Engineer (if it’s the latter, they must wait until at least 4 hours after that Ascension Address has been posted) may perform a Dynastic Reset, which is an atomic action with the following steps:

• Update the Ruleset to reflect any changed terms as outlined in the most recent Ascension Address.
• Repeal any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept in the most recent Ascension Address.
• Update the gamestate tracking page referred to in the rule “Ruleset and Gamestate” with the name specified in the most recent Ascension Address, if any.
• Make any specified or automatic changes to the Building Blocks section of the ruleset as described in the most recent Ascension Address.
• Update the Building Blocks page to reflect any changes to the terms outlined in the rule Synonyms.

Once this Atomic Action has been completed the Interregnum ends and the new dynasty begins.

Fair Play

The following are BlogNomic’s rules of fair play. If any of these rules are found to have been broken, or if a Genetic Engineer’s behaviour or actions are otherwise deemed unacceptable (socially or otherwise), a Proposal or CfJ may be made to reprimand or punish the perpetrator or, in cases of extreme or repeated violations, remove them from the game and bar them from rejoining. Genetic Engineers should vote against any DoV that relies on having broken a fair play rule.

• A single person should not control more than one non-Idle Genetic Engineer within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Genetic Engineer and any Idle Genetic Engineers. This extends to exerting full control over the actions of another Genetic Engineer, defined here as the controlled Genetic Engineer’s game behavior being functionally indistinguishable from if the controlling Genetic Engineer was logged into their account and playing through it, over a period of more than a day.
• A Genetic Engineer should not “spam” the BlogNomic blog. What counts as spamming is subjective, but would typically include posting more than ten blog entries in a day, more than ten blog comments in a row, or posting a blog entry of more than 1000 words.
• A Genetic Engineer should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
• A Genetic Engineer should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Genetic Engineer.
• A Genetic Engineer should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
• A Genetic Engineer should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
• A Genetic Engineer should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an Ascension Address).
• A Genetic Engineer should not roll dice that are clearly associated with a particular action in the Ruleset, but with the intention to not use these rolled values to the best of their ability to resolve that action. a Genetic Engineer must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
• A Genetic Engineer should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
• A Genetic Engineer should not use a Core, Building Blocks, or Appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly cause a Genetic Engineer to achieve victory.
• A Genetic Engineer should not trade actions in BlogNomic for favors or compensation outside of BlogNomic, nor trade actions in any other game for favors within BlogNomic, nor trade actions or favours in one Dynasty of Blognomic for actions or favours in another Dynasty of Blognomic.
• A person with administrative, moderation, or other heightened access to the software running or supporting BlogNomic should not take any action using such heightened access for the purpose of causing any Genetic Engineer or Genetic Engineers to gain, receive, maintain, or preserve gameplay advantage unless any of the following is true:
  • Such action is required or explicitly permitted by the rules or required to implement an action required or explicitly permitted by the rules.
  • A reasonable, impartial, and prudent external observer would deem such action necessary or reasonable for the purpose of supporting, moderating, or administering BlogNomic or such software.

All Genetic Engineers and idle Genetic Engineers should be aware of the BlogNomic Community Guidelines. The contents of this page are not ruletext and are nonbinding as pertains to the ruleset, but Genetic Engineers are encouraged to commit to upholding them to whatever extent is possible.

Dynastic Rules

The Genome

The following letters are considered Nucleotides: A, C, G, T. The Genome is a publicly tracked sequence of Nucleotides.

Synthesis

If they have not done so since the last time the Synthesize action was performed (or if the Synthesize action has not yet been performed), each Genetic Engineer should, at their earliest convenience, privately submit to the Head Researcher a single Mutation that they wish to perform. The valid choices for Mutation are listed in the Mutations subrule. Each such Mutation has a Cost, which is the amount of Research Points that must be spent to submit the Mutation request and may be 0, and the Requirements, which must be true for the Genetic Engineer who is submitting the Mutation request and may be None. If a Genetic Engineer has made multiple such submissions, only their most recent submission is considered valid.

Submissions is the number of Genetic Engineers who have submitted Mutations since the last time the Synthesize action was performed (or since the beginning of the dynasty if the Synthesize action has never been performed) out of the total of active Genetic Engineers and is publicly tracked by the Head Researcher. If there are one fewer Submissions than the number of Healthy Genetic Engineers, then the Head Researcher is encouraged to publicly remind the remaining Engineer (on Discord or the blog) that they need to submit a Mutation.

The Head Researcher can and should perform the Synthesize action once every Healthy Genetic Engineer has made a new submission to the Head Researcher since the last time the Synthesize action was taken (or since this rule was enacted if the Synthesize action has not been performed yet).

Synthesize is an atomic action consisting of the following steps:

• Perform every valid Mutation submitted, with the following exception: if two or more Mutations specify the same position, those Mutations are instead not performed; for this purpose, insertion Mutations are not considered to specify the same position as any non-insertion Mutation. Perform insertions after all other Mutations, with insertions specifying later positions to be performed before insertions specifying earlier positions.
• Processing them from left to right: for each set of three consecutive Nucleotides in the Genome, follow the corresponding instructions in the rule “Codons”.
• If the Genome is not Refrigerated, add a random Nucleotide to the beginning of the Genome.
• For each Genetic Engineer whose non-empty Hypothesis is a subsequence of the Genome, increase their Understanding by N-3, where N is the length of their Hypothesis, and set their Hypothesis to empty.
• For each Genetic Engineer with a Status of Injured who is in the Medlab, set their Status to Healthy.
• For each Genetic Engineer who Discovered a Codon which is currently present in the Genome, give that Genetic Engineer 1 Research.

Mutations

Mutation	Cost	Requirements
Change the Nucleotide at a specified position in the Genome to a different Nucleotide	0	None
Pick two distinct specified locations in the Genome and swap the two Nucleotides at those positions with each other	3	None
Insert any valid Nucleotide directly before a specified position in the Genome	6	Must be in the Computer Room
Remove the Nucleotide at a specific position	2	Must be in the Autoclave
The Genome is Refrigerated for the duration of this Synthesis	0	Must be in the Freezer

When performing a Mutation, the Cost of that Mutation is increased by 1 for that performance if the changes caused by that performance would result in a Codon that has an Effect becoming a Codon with no Effect.

Codons

The following table lists sequences of three Nucleotides (known as Codons), along with their corresponding effect when the Synthesize action is performed and optionally the name of a Genetic Engineer (or idle Genetic Engineer) who Discovered them. If a Codon does not appear in the table, it is considered to have no effect.

Codon	Discoverer	Effect
ACT	-	Add a new Organism to a random Containment Cell and assign that Organism a (not necessarily unique) random Codon. The Genetic Engineers (if any) who most recently caused a Mutation in this Codon gain 3 Research Points each if they are in the Computer Room, 6 Research Points each if they are in any Room whose name starts with “Containment Cell” in which there is at least 1 Organism, and 0 Research Points otherwise..
ACC	Desertfrog	Move each Organism to a random Room connected to its current Position (excluding all Rooms with the word “Airlock” or “Freezer” in their names).
CGA	JonathanDark	Randomly select an Organism, then add 1 to its Stage if it is legal to do so
ATC	Kevan	For each Room where the total Stages of all Organisms in that Room exceeds the number of Genetic Engineers in that Room, set the Status of all Genetic Engineers in that Room to Injured.
TGG	JonathanDark	For each Organism with a Stage of at least 2, randomly select a Room connected to their current Room containing at least 1 Genetic Engineer (excluding all Rooms with the word “Airlock” or “Freezer” in their names), and if there is such a Room, move that Organism to that Room.
AGG	Kevan	For each Room which has multiple Organisms in it, remove all but one of those Organisms at random and add the combined Stages of the removed Organisms to the Stage of the Organism left in that Room.
CAT	Desertfrog	If there is at least one Organism in the Wet Lab, randomly choose one of them and move it to the Materials Airlock. Additionally, if there is at least one Organism in the Hallway, randomly choose one of them and move it to the Materials Airlock.

Some Codons may be assigned to one or more Rooms, Organisms, and/or Genetic Engineers. There is a publicly tracked table that lists all such assignments.

Research Points

Each Genetic Engineer has a publicly tracked number of Research Points, defaulting to 0.

Each Genetic Engineer has a publicly tracked number of Understanding, defaulting to 0.

The Laboratory

The map of the Laboratory

The Laboratory consists of a number of named Rooms. Each Genetic Engineer has a publicly tracked Position that is a Room in the Laboratory, defaulting to the Computer Room. A Genetic Engineer or an Organism who has a Position of a specific Room is said to be “in” that Room. Otherwise, they are not “in” that Room.

Each white-floored area on the map which is enclosed by a black wall and which also contains a text string is a Room, with the string as its name. The thin white rectangles with no text are Doors: if two Rooms both adjoin the same Door, then those two Rooms are Connected.

If they have not done so since the last time that the Synthesize action was performed, a Genetic Engineer may change their Position to any Room that they can trace a path of Connected Rooms to from their current Position, so long as:-

• That path does not involve using both doors of the Personnel Airlock
• That path does not involve using the door that connects the Materials Airlock to the Wet Lab (the hatch is too small)

Organisms

There is a publicly tracked list of Organisms, defaulting to an empty list. Each Organism has a Position that is a publicly tracked Room. When adding an Organism to the publicly tracked list, the name of the Organism should be the text “SGL-” following by a number generated from rolling DICE10000, repeating this roll until the resulting name does not match any in the existing Organisms list.

Evolution

Each Organism has a publicly tracked number named “Stage” which defaults to 1.

If an Organism’s Stage is at least 3, a dynastic action may not increase that Organism’s Stage unless that Organism’s Codon can be found in the Genome at the time the dynastic action is performed.

Hypotheses

Each Genetic Engineer has a Hypothesis which is privately tracked by the Head Researcher, which is either empty or a sequence of 4 or more Nucleotids and defaults to empty. As a virtual action, a Genetic Engineer may pay 3 Research Points to set their Hypothesis to any valid Hypothesis that is not a subsequence of the Genome.

Injuries

Each Genetic Engineer has a publicly tracked Status which defaults to Healthy and may be one of the following: Healthy, Injured. When a Genetic Engineer’s Status is Injured, they may not take any dynastic actions other than changing their Position to another Room.

Dormancy Plus One

If there are fewer than five Genetic Engineers (not including the Head Researcher), then BlogNomic is on Hiatus. This rule may be repealed at any time by any Genetic Engineer whose name is not Darknight, Desertfrog, JonathanDark or Kevan.

Building Blocks

Building Blocks are rules that can be substituted in and out of the ruleset as needed, usually as a result of an Ascension Address. All rules in the Building Blocks section are ruletext.

Potential Building Blocks rules can be found at the Building Blocks page of the wiki. That page’s contents are not rulestext. When the contents of the Building Blocks page are referred to as ‘rules’ by the ruleset or by a votable matter, it should be assumed that said contents are being referred to as potential rules rather than actual rules.

When a Head Researcher specifies the Building Blocks rules in use for a new dynasty in an Ascension Address, they should specify (by name) the rules from the Building Blocks page that they would like to be included in this section of the ruleset. When a Dynastic Reset is performed, the Building Blocks rules selected in the most recent Ascension Address (if any) must be transcribed faithfully to this section of the ruleset, and any Building Blocks rules not so named in that Ascension Address must be removed from the Building Blocks section. Some rules on the Building Blocks page are listed as being Recommended; if the new Head Researcher makes no statement on Building Blocks rules to be included in their Ascension Address then the Recommended Building Blocks are considered to have been selected. There are currently no Recommended Building Blocks.

Virtual Actions

A Virtual Action is a type of action that the Head Researcher performs on behalf of a Genetic Engineer. A Genetic Engineer may initiate a virtual action by privately communicating to the Head Researcher their request to do so, along with any additional information needed to carry it out. The Head Researcher shall resolve the Virtual Action by performing the following Atomic Action:

1. Determine whether the Virtual Action fails (if it does not fail, it is successful).
2. If the action is successful, apply any specified effects on the gamestate and/or perform any specified actions on behalf of the Genetic Engineer.

If a Virtual Action fails, the Head Researcher should tell the Genetic Engineer why. A virtual action may fail for any of these reasons:

• Some requirements/prerequisites to perform the action are not met.
• The request does not contain all the information needed to resolve the action.
• The request is unintelligible, or too vague to interpret unambiguously.
• It would require the Head Researcher to do something they cannot do.
• Any other reason specified by the action itself.

Except where otherwise stated by the ruleset, the Head Researcher must resolve all virtual actions in the order that they are received. A virtual action is considered to have occurred at the time it was resolved.

Until a virtual action is resolved, it is pending. A Genetic Engineer may cancel a pending Virtual Action by privately communicating to the Head Researcher their request to do so.

Appendix

Keywords

A keyword defined by a rule supersedes the normal English usage of the word. A keyword defined in this glossary supersedes that defined by a rule. (e.g. A rule specifying “bananas are blue” cannot be overruled by posting a dictionary definition or a photo of a banana, and a rule specifying “every day is Sunday” will be overruled by the glossary entry below.)

Imperatives

Can

“is able to”

Shall

“is required to”

Should

“is recommended that”

Time

Daily Action

If a game action is a Daily Action, each Genetic Engineer able to perform it may take that action once each day, but not more than once every ten hours.

Daily Communal Action

A Daily Communal Action is a Daily Action that can only be performed by one Genetic Engineer per day.

Day

References to a “day” as an entity rather than as a duration (e.g. “Sunday”, “The day after performing this action”, or “August 2nd”), unless otherwise stated, refer to a day beginning at and including 00:00:00 UTC, ending when the next day begins. It can never be 2 different days at the same instant.

Week

References to a week as an entity rather than as a duration (e.g. “At the beginning of each week”, or “already happened this week”), unless otherwise stated, refer to a period of time between the beginning of a Monday and the end of the following Sunday.

Weekly Action

If a game action is a Weekly Action, each Genetic Engineer able to perform it may take that action once each week, but not more than once every twenty-four hours.

Weekly Communal Action

A Weekly Communal action is a Weekly Action that can only be performed by one Genetic Engineer per week.

Other

Comment

A blog comment published to the BlogNomic weblog at blognomic.com

Core Proposal

A Proposal which mandates changes that, even if conditionally, are limited to the creation, deletion, and/or amendment of core rules and/or the glossary, and/or renaming, banning, and/or the granting or removing of Admin status from one or more Genetic Engineers.

Dice

References to “DICEX” or “YDICEX” refer to X-sided dice and Y amount of X-sided dice, rolled using the Dice Roller.

Dynastic Action

An action that is defined in the Dynastic rules.

Dynastic Proposal

A Proposal which mandates changes that, even if conditionally, are limited to the creation, deletion, and/or amendment of dynastic rules and/or gamestate defined by dynastic rules.

Effective Vote Comment (EVC)

A Genetic Engineer's Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter is that Genetic Engineer's Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Genetic Engineer's Vote on that Votable Matter.

Commentary

When posting a blog entry, a Genetic Engineer may use the “Commentary or flavour text” field of the blog publishing form to add their own comments or description of their post. For the purposes of all other rules, such text is not considered to be part of the post.

Discord

The BlogNomic Discord can be accessed at https://discord.gg/J7kP9KuHQK and is also linked to on the sidebar. Genetic Engineers , as well as people who are not Genetic Engineers but are interested in learning more about BlogNomic, may join the Discord by clicking the button in the sidebar.

Discord Channel

A Discord Channel is any channel on the BlogNomic Discord in the BlogNomic Discussion category. All Genetic Engineers who are in the Discord should have the ability to access all of these channels. To reference a Discord Channel, use a hash (#) followed by the name of that channel (e.g. #random).

Flavour Text

If a part of the ruleset or gamestate is defined as being “flavour text”, it retains its context, but is not considered to have any meaning beyond being a string of characters. Genetic Engineers are not required to obey flavour text and may not perform any action defined by it, and any statements that flavour text makes about gamestate are ignored.

Gamestate

Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of. All wiki pages that the rules and Building Blocks explicitly mention (except for the FAQ, the dynastic histories and discussion pages) and any images or Templates contained within (or indirectly invoked by Templates contained within) those Wiki Pages are assumed to be Gamestate.

Hiatus

If BlogNomic is on Hiatus, Dynastic Actions may not be taken (except where the rule defining the action explicitly requires it to be taken during Hiatus), and Proposals may not be submitted or Resolved. If multiple rules require BlogNomic to be on Hiatus at any given time, BlogNomic will continue to be on Hiatus until no rules require it.

Post

A blog post published to the BlogNomic weblog at blognomic.com

Quorum

Quorum of a subset of Genetic Engineers is half the number of Genetic Engineers in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Genetic Engineers it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Genetic Engineers.

Resolve/Resolution

If used in a context of a Votable Matter, the word “Resolve” means to perform the act, as an Admin, of enacting, failing, or marking illegal a Votable Matter. The world “Resolution” means then the act of doing so. If used in any other context, the meaning of both “Resolve” and “Resolution” is the standard English meaning of these words. The resolution of a votable matter is tracked by reference to its status in the blog post edit form. If otherwise legally applied, the application of any status through the blog post editing form is sufficient to consider that votable matter to have been correctly resolved, but a resolved votable matter should have the correct status wherever possible; if any admin believes that a resolved votable matter has an incorrect status then they may correct it.

Rule

Each individually numbered and titled block of text (using the wikimedia section heading formatting) of the Ruleset is a rule, including rules that are subrules of other rules; with the exception that the top-level headings defined as ‘sections’ in the rule “Ruleset and Gamestate” are considered sections but not rules themselves.

Sticky Post

A blog post where the “Make Entry Sticky” option has been enabled. Changing the state of this option is not considering altering or modifying the post with regards to the rules on Official Posts. The sticky status of posts should generally be left to the discretion of the Head Researcher.

Story Post

A Story Post is an entry in the “Story Post” category.

Subject

The “subject” of a blog entry is the part of the Title of an entry which is after the first colon. If the Title does not contain a colon, then the whole Title is the subject. Any entry whose subject is “” (i.e. an empty string) is not valid.

Seasonal Downtime

On the 24th, 25th and 26th of December, BlogNomic is on Hiatus. In addition, game actions defined by the core rules titled “Genetic Engineers” and “Victory and Ascension” (with the exception of Voting in DoVs) may not be taken.

Subrule

A subrule is a type of rule that is hierarchically ordered beneath another rule. Rules and proposals that refer to a rule do not also refer to its subrules, unless otherwise specified.

Table of Contents

The directory of section headings that is generated by the MediaWiki software for most pages in the wiki.

Uphold

To Uphold an illegal action is to retroactively declare the attempt to take it to have been successful, and to declare that all attempted game actions taken after it were attempted as if the Upheld action had been successful.

Vote

The word “Vote”, used as a noun, means a Vote that is cast in accordance with Rule “Votable Matters”. The word “Vote”, used as a verb, means the act of casting such a Vote.

Voting Icons

For use in voting, a check box http://blognomic.com/images/vote/for.gif shall represent a Vote FOR, an X http://blognomic.com/images/vote/against.gif shall represent a Vote AGAINST, a DEF http://blognomic.com/images/vote/imperial.gif shall represent a Vote of DEFERENTIAL, and a crossed-out circle http://blognomic.com/images/vote/seal.gif shall represent a vote to VETO.

Wiki

The BlogNomic Wiki at http://wiki.blognomic.com

Gamestate Tracking

Official Posts

Votable Matters and other official posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at http://blognomic.com. Any Genetic Engineer may post to the blog at any time, but may only make official posts to the blog when the Ruleset allows it. Posts following the format specified by a rule are considered official posts. Any single official post cannot be of two different types of official post unless a rule explicitly states otherwise. Dynastic rules cannot define posts in the “Call for Judgement” category to be a type of official post other than a Call for Judgement, and this restriction cannot be overridden by dynastic rules.

An official post may only be removed as allowed by the Ruleset. An official post may be altered by its author if it is less than 4 hours old and either no Genetic Engineer has commented on it or (if it is a Votable Matter) if all comments on it contain no voting icons; otherwise this can only be done as allowed by the Ruleset. However, despite this, official posts can never be changed from one category to another, or changed to be a different sort of official post, if they have been posted for more than fifteen minutes. The Admin processing an official post is allowed to append to the post to reflect its new status. Anything appended to a post in this way must be placed in the Admin field of the post, and the post’s Status must be changed to reflect its status. An official blog post that has the status of Enacted or Failed cannot change categories, except that a votable matter’s illegal resolution may be overturned. An official blog post’s status may never be altered except in accordance with the rules that define that official post.

A non-official post may not, through editing of the blog or otherwise, be changed into an official post, with the following two exceptions: Firstly, whilst a non-official post has been posted for less than fifteen minutes and has no comments, the author may change the categories as they wish. Secondly, if a post is less than six hours old and appears to the Head Researcher to have been intended as a Proposal, and if its author does not already have two Proposals pending, then the Head Researcher may move it into the Proposal category, causing it to be considered to have been open for voting since the time that the post was first posted.

Any post that is or is made illegal as a result of an infraction against any of the prohibitions set out in this rule, except for a votable matter’s illegal resolution that has been overturned, continues to be an Official Post but may no longer have any effect on the ruleset or the gamestate. If it is a Votable Matter then it is Unpopular, regardless of any other performance against criteria set out in the core rules. When it is resolved it may be marked as Illegal by the resolving admin. A post that is illegal in this manner cannot subsequently be made legal by any means, except for the legal enactment of a CFJ. An illegal CFJ cannot cause itself to become legal.

Representations of the Gamestate

If authorised by the rules as a result of a Genetic Engineer’s action, changes to gamestate which is tracked in a specific place (such as a wiki page) do not take effect until the representation of that gamestate has been updated to match the authorised change. One wiki update may contain one or more alterations, or one alteration may be split over multiple updates, as long as it is clear what is happening and the alterations are otherwise legal. The wiki merely represents the Gamestate tracked there, and is not the same thing. In the event that the Gamestate and its representations are different, any Genetic Engineer may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

If a Genetic Engineer feels that a representation of the gamestate (such as a wiki page) does not match the gamestate, they may either:

• Undo the effects of any alteration that led to it, if that alteration did not follow the rules at the time it was made.
• Alter the representation to match what they believe to be the correct application of an incorrectly-applied alteration. This may include completing incomplete actions on behalf of the original Genetic Engineer, if doing so would not require the correcting Genetic Engineer to make any decisions on behalf of the original Genetic Engineer.

Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Genetic Engineers are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement. The historical fact of the occurrence of a defined game action is itself considered to be gamestate, tracked in the history of whatever resource is used to track the gamestate modified by that action, where possible, or in the wiki page Gamestate Modifications if this is not possible.

Orphan Variables

An Orphan Variable is a dynastic gamestate variable which has neither a location in which it’s tracked, nor a reasonable manner in which it can be determined from other gamestate variables, specified in the Ruleset.

A Genetic Engineer may not take any dynastic actions that are contingent on the specific value of an Orphan Variable.

Random Generators

The Dice Roller at https://blognomic.com/dice/roll.php can be used to generate random results.

• The DICEN command can be used to generate a random number between 1 and N.
• The FRUIT command will return a random result from the following options: Lemon, Orange, Kiwi, Grape, Cherry, Tangelo.
• The COLOUR (or COLOR) command will return a random result from the following: White, Red, Green, Silver, Yellow, Turquoise, Magenta, Orange, Purple, Black.
• The CARD command will return a card with a random suit (either Hearts, Diamonds, Spades or Clubs) and a random value (either Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King). A card with a value that is either Jack, Queen or King is a face card.
• A list of comma-separated values in curly brackets (eg {x,y}) will return one of the values at random.

Any changes to the potential outcomes of the Dice Roller’s random result commands must be made by Votable Matter.

If a Votable Matter proposes a change to this rule that would require server-level access to the BlogNomic site to fully enact its effects, that Votable Matter must name a Genetic Engineer with such access. Only a Genetic Engineer with such access may Enact that Votable Matter. If that Votable Matter does not name a Genetic Engineer with such access, that Votable Matter is Illegal.

If a number or other game variable is selected “at random” or “randomly” from a range of possible values, its value shall always be taken from a uniform probability distribution over the entire range of possible values, unless otherwise specified. This value must be determined by an appropriate roll in the Dice Roller, unless otherwise specified, and which value the roll result corresponds to must be reasonably inferable from the nature of the roll and any comments supplied by the Genetic Engineer making the roll before or while making the roll. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Genetic Engineer making this determination may do so using a private method of their choosing, instead of the Dice Roller.

Atomic Actions

An Atomic Action combines otherwise separate game actions into a single action.

• All steps of an Atomic Action are considered one action, including the steps of an Atomic Action that is itself a step of a parent Atomic Action.
• When a Genetic Engineer performs an Atomic Action, they must complete all its steps; they must complete them in order; and they may not take any other dynastic action, or achieve victory, until all the steps are complete.
• If a rule allows the Genetic Engineer performing an Atomic Action to skip some of its steps, the skipped steps are considered to have been completed.
• If a Genetic Engineer arrives at a step in an Atomic Action and they cannot perform that step, they undo all the steps they have performed of that Action and are considered never to have performed that Action.
• If one or more steps of an Atomic Action were done incorrectly, the Genetic Engineer must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Genetic Engineer uses any legal steps that have already been completed in the illegal Atomic Action and only redoes the illegal ones. (For example, if an Atomic Action consists of rolling a dice and then doing steps based upon its result, the Genetic Engineer would have to reroll the dice only if they rolled the wrong one in the first place, and would then have to repeat any steps that depended upon the result of that dice; however, if they rolled the dice correctly but took an illegal step later on, the result of the original dice roll would still be used in the redone step.)
• For the purposes of determining the ordering or legality of game actions, the time of an Atomic Action shall be the time that it is completed. For Atomic Actions that are redone, the time of completion is the last redone step.

Clarifications

Numbers and Variables

• If a set of valid values is not specified in their definition, game variables defined to hold numeric values can hold only non-negative integers. Any action that would set those values below zero is an illegal action unless explicitly otherwise stated in the Ruleset.
• Any situation which would require a roll of DiceX when X is zero or lower always yields a value of 0 unless stated otherwise.
• All numbers, unless stated otherwise by a rule, are in base ten.
• Unless otherwise specified, to “spend,” “pay” or “lose” an amount X of a numeric value “V” means to subtract X from V; to “gain” X of a numeric value “V” means to add X to V; and to “transfer” or “pay” X of a numeric value “V” from A to B means to subtract X from A’s V and add X to B’s V. Unless otherwise specified, only positive amounts can be spent, paid, lost, gained, or transferred, a Genetic Engineer can spend or pay from only their own values, and a rule that allows Genetic Engineers to transfer or pay a numeric value to another Genetic Engineer only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to that other Genetic Engineer (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
• If a Dynastic Action is defined as having a cost X of numeric value V, or defines a requirement to spend, pay, or lose X of numeric value V to accomplish an effect or multiple effects, then the arithmetic effects of spending or payment and the act of carrying out those effects are considered to be subsequent steps in an Atomic Action, with the spending or payment step taking place before the effects step unless stated otherwise.
• A Genetic Engineer who has a choice in whether to take an action defined by a dynastic rule may not take that action if both of the following conditions are true: a) the action’s effects are limited to changing values tracked in gamestate-tracking entities (such as a wiki page), and b) the action would change one or more of those values to an illegal value.
• If a rule implies that the result of any calculation should be an integer (for instance, by attempting to store that result in, or add it to, a gamestate variable that can only hold integers), the result of the calculation is instead the result rounded towards 0.
• If a game variable has a default value but no defined starting value, then its default value should also be considered a starting value. If a game variable has neither a default value nor a starting value, then both may be considered to be the nearest legal value to zero that it may take (for numerical variables, defaulting to positive if tied), blank (for a text string or list that may be blank), the alphabetically earliest legal text string it may take (for a text string which may not be blank, with the digits 0 through 9 considered to precede “A”), or the list which is alphabetically earliest from the set of lists with the fewest elements (for lists which may not be blank, and considering each list to be a single unpunctuated text string, with the digits 0 through 9 considered to precede “A”). For the purposes of this bullet point, the names of Genetic Engineers are not considered to be legal values for game variables, nor for list items within game variables.
• If the rules that define a game variable are amended, and some previously valid values become invalid as a consequence, any existing variables whose current values would become invalid are instead set to their starting value.
• Invalid values for game variables can never be used, even if the values stored in a gamestate-tracking entity remain valid. (for example, if X appears in a formula referring to a value that is a non-negative integer, X must be used as a non-negative integer)
• DICEN cannot be rolled in the Dice Roller if N is greater than one million.
• If a piece of information is described as being tracked secretly or privately by the Head Researcher (including secretly random selections), then that information may only be revealed by the Head Researcher when the ruleset allows it. If a Genetic Engineer should already know such a piece of information (in that the Head Researcher has already told them it, or vice versa, and there is no way that the information could have been changed since then), the Head Researcher may repeat it to them.
• A range of numerical values stated to be “between” one value and another value is treated as an inclusive range unless otherwise explicitly stated.

Rules and Votable Matters

• If a new rule is created by a Votable Matter and its location is not noted in that Votable Matter, that new rule is to be placed in the Dynastic Rules.
• If a wiki page becomes gamestate as a result of a Votable Matter enacting, that page shall – unless otherwise specified – be reverted to whatever state it was in at the time of that Votable Matter’s submission (and if the page did not exist at that time, it shall be blanked).
• Where a Votable Matter would amend the effects of Votable Matter Enactment, this does not apply to its own enactment unless explicitly stated (e.g. a Votable Matter proposing that enacted Votable Matters earn their author a banana when enacted would not earn a banana for its own author, when enacted).
• Rules which trigger upon the Resolution of a Votable Matter are the responsibility of the Admin who Resolves it.
• Unless otherwise specified, a new Dynastic rule shall be placed at the end of the Dynastic Rules.
• If a dynastic rule has no text and no subrules, any Genetic Engineer may delete it from the ruleset.
• A rule may be accompanied by one or more illustrations, and an illustration may have a caption. In all situations, unless otherwise explicitly stated, an illustration and a caption to an illustration must be treated as flavour text.
• When the ruleset calls for the use of a specific tool (such as the dice roller, or an off-domain website, or a specific piece of downloadable software), Genetic Engineers may not deliberately interfere with the function of that tool except in ways explicitly permitted by the ruleset.
• If the Head Researcher has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, they are not considered to be a Genetic Engineer for the purposes of totaling quorum on that Proposal. Votes of DEFERENTIAL made by other Genetic Engineers on the same Proposal are not considered to be valid, but the Genetic Engineers who made them still contribute to quorum

Time

• For the purpose of all rules, time in BlogNomic is in UTC.
• All references to time must be either specific or defined within the Ruleset to be considered achievable in the gamestate. Abstract concepts of time (e.g. “dinnertime”, “twilight”) cannot be achieved until they fulfil one of these criteria.
• Where the month, day and/or year of a calendar date are ambiguous (e.g. “04/10/09”), it shall be assumed that the date is in a day/month/year format.
• A Genetic Engineer may not take more than one dynastic game action at the same time (excluding any actions which have been ongoing for more than three hours).

Spelling and formatting

• Superficial differences between the spelling of geographic versions of English, e.g. British English, American English and Australian English shall be construed as irrelevant for the purposes of play.
• Genetic Engineers may correct obvious spelling, punctuation, and/or typographical mistakes in the Ruleset, the Building Blocks page, and their own Pending Votable Matters at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns that refer to Genetic Engineers with the corresponding forms of the singular “they”.
• A Genetic Engineer may reformat a list of items in the dynastic ruleset to have bullet points or other appropriate list markup, if doing so would not change the order of that list, nor how any rules interpreted its content.
• A Genetic Engineer may change the layout or design of a gamestate wiki page if doing so would not change how any rules interpreted its content.

Names

• Within the Ruleset, a word only refers to the name of a Genetic Engineer if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Genetic Engineer's name.
• If a rule would ever have no name, it is instead given the name of the Votable Matter that created it, or (if this is not possible) the name “Unnamed Rule”.
• The names of rules and wiki pages (other than the Ruleset) are flavour text.
• Subrules can be referred to by a name which incorporates name of the rule they are a subrule of. Example: a subrule of the rule “Gin” is a “Gin Rule”, however the rule “Gin” is not a “Gin Rule” because it’s not a subrule of the rule “Gin”.
• When referring to a Votable Matter, the name used in reference to a specific Votable Matter may be simplified by not including braces and any text between the opening and closing braces. i.e. a Votable Matter named “Changes [Core]” could instead be referred to by the name “Changes”.
• When referring to a Rule, the name used in reference to a specific Rule may be simplified by not including braces and any text between a pair of opening and closing braces, as long as such a reference would be unambiguous.
• Where a Votable Matter refers to a second Votable Matter by name, it is assumed to refer to the most recently posted Votable Matter of that name which pre-dates the first Votable Matter.
• When changing their name or joining the game for the first time, a Genetic Engineer's (or prospective Genetic Engineer's ) new name must be between 3 and 30 characters in length, and may only include the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, numbers, underscores, hyphens, full stops and apostrophes.

Prioritisation

• If two parts of the Ruleset contradict each other, precedence shall be construed in the following order:

1. The Appendix has precedence over any other Rule;
2. If a Core Rule explicitly says it cannot be overruled by a Dynastic Rule, that Core Rule has precedence over a Dynastic Rule, otherwise a Dynastic Rule has precedence over that Core Rule;
3. If a Building Blocks Rule explicitly says that it cannot be overruled by a Dynastic Rule, that Building Blocks Rule has precedence over a Dynastic Rule, otherwise a Dynastic Rule has equal precedence as that Building Blocks Rule;
4. If two contradicting parts have equal precedence, the part with more limited scope applies (e.g. if the rules “Genetic Engineers may Kick each other” and “Genetic Engineers may not Kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Genetic Engineers may not Kick each other);
5. If two contradicting parts have the same scope, or have scopes that only overlap where they contradict each other, the negative rule applies (e.g. with “Genetic Engineers may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Genetic Engineers may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Genetic Engineers may not Punch Spacemen on Friday).

Mentors

A Genetic Engineer may have another Genetic Engineer as a Mentor. Genetic Engineers who are willing to act as a Mentor are listed on the Mentorships wiki page, and are said to be “Tenured”. An Admin may add or remove their own name, or the name of a Genetic Engineer who has requested a change on their own behalf, from this list at any time. The Mentorships page is also used to list the names of players who are prohibited from becoming Tenured; this list may only be amended by the effect of a votable matter.

If an unmentored Genetic Engineer requests a Mentor, or a new Genetic Engineer has joined the game and has no Mentor, the Head Researcher should select a Tenured Genetic Engineer and ask them to take that Genetic Engineer on as a Mentee; if they accept, then such a Mentorship is established. The members and starting dates of all active Mentorships are tracked on the Mentorships wiki page, and whenever a new Mentorship is established, the Head Researcher should announce it in a blog post. The Head Researcher should take care to consider game balance when selecting a potential mentor.

A relationship between a mentor and a mentee is a Mentorship. A Genetic Engineer may dissolve a Mentorship they are part of at any time, by announcing this in a blog post.

If there is no Head Researcher, any Genetic Engineer who has been active in at least three previous dynasties may act as Head Researcher for the purposes of this rule.

Things that a mentor must do

A mentor must do the following:

• Make pro-active contact with their mentee when appointed, and explain the dynamics of the Mentorship system;
• Be available to answer any questions that their mentee may have about the game, including explaining the rules, common standards and etiquette of play, proofreading posts and clarifying game events;
• Introduce their mentee to the various platforms of the game, including the wiki and Dice Roller, and optionally the game’s Discord and social media feeds
• If possible, give their mentee a nudge if it appears that they are at risk of becoming Idle;
• If they themselves go idle, communicate with their mentee to either continue to support them as an idle Genetic Engineer or arrange a handover to another mentor if requested.

Things that a mentor should do

The following sets out suggested best practice for Mentorship relationships:

• The Mentorship lasts for four weeks or until the next Ascension Address, whichever occurs latest. It can continue informally for longer but after this threshold the mentor is no longer bound by any of the conditions set out in the parent rule to this rule, or any of its subrules.
• The mentor can and should advise the mentee on how to proceed in the mentee’s own best interests. This can include making connections with other Genetic Engineers .
• The mentor should consider copying the mentee in on private, game-related communications, where it does not unfairly prejudice their own interests. The mentee should keep this information private without explicit consent from the mentor.
• The mentor and mentee may work together to achieve victory. If a mentor achieves victory with support of their mentee then they should, if the mentee wishes it, pass the baton to the mentee.

Things that a mentor should not do

The following sets out a list of things that a mentor should not do in their relationship with their mentee. All of these are considered to be Fair Play rules, as per the rule Fair Play.

• The mentor should not sock-puppet, bully, coerce or otherwise manipulate the mentee into performing any game actions.
• The mentor should not seek to dissuade the mentee from pursuing other alliances.
• A former mentor should not seek to use the fact of a prior Mentorship to influence the former mentee on an ongoing basis.

Synonyms

A dynasty may provide extra theming by using alternative terms for words like “Genetic Engineer” and “Head Researcher”.

Each term in this list is synonymous with the term in parentheses

• Genetic Engineer (Player)
• Head Researcher (Emperor)

When a new Dynasty is started, the Ascension Address may specify new terms for each entry in the above list, provided the newly chosen term does not appear anywhere in the Building Blocks page or the ruleset outside of this rule (though if it only appears in rules which are being removed as part of the Ascension Address, it is fine), and that doing so would not cause two terms in the above list to become synonymous with each other. Doing so causes the old corresponding value (including regional spelling variations) to be replaced by the new value everywhere in the ruleset except in any of the parentheses in the above list.