Ruleset 183

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Pilots 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 apply in special cases; and 4) the appendix, which complements and clarifies the Ruleset.

The Ruleset and Gamestate can only be altered in manners specified by the Ruleset.

If the Ruleset does not properly reflect all legal changes that have been made to it, any Pilot may update it to do so.

Pilots

Any human may apply to join BlogNomic (if they are not already a Pilot) by registering at http://blognomic.com via the Register link in the sidebar, and then making a post making clear their wish to be an Pilot (plural form Pilots). An Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar, at which moment they become a Pilot.

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

Some Pilots are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Pilots 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.

Idle Pilots

If a Pilot is Idle, this is tracked by their name being removed or concealed in the list of currently active Pilots in the Sidebar. For the purposes of all Gamestate and the Ruleset, excluding Rules “Ruleset and Gamestate”, “Pilots”, “Dynasties”, “Fair Play”, "Mentors" and any of those Rules’ subrules, Idle Pilots are not counted as Pilots.

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

When a Pilot 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 Pilot Idled in a different Dynasty), the Pilot is given the default value for new Pilots, if such a value exists.

An Admin may render a Pilot Idle if that Pilot has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past four days, or if that Pilot has not posted an entry or comment in the last seven days. In the latter case, the Admin must announce the idling in a blog post. 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 Pilot if that Pilot is Idle and has asked to become Unidle in an entry or comment from the past four days, and Idle Admins may Unidle themselves at any time, unless the Pilot who would be Unidled asked to become (or rendered themselves) Idle within the previous four 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 enact and fail Votable Matters.

Dynasties

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

Votable Matters

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

Votes

Each Pilot 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 Pilot’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-Pilot never has a Vote, even if they were a Pilot previously and had cast a valid Vote.

If a Pilot other than the Poindexter casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Poindexter. When the Poindexter 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 Poindexter’s Vote for the purposes of other rules unless otherwise specified.

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 Pilots 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 can either be Pending, Enacted, or Failed. When a Votable Matter is first put forward, it is considered Pending.

Whenever 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 self-killed or vetoed). Comments cannot be made on Enacted or Failed Votable Matters.

This rule cannot be overruled by Dynastic Rules 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 require the “[Core]” tag in order to make changes to the Core Rules, the “[Special Case]” tag in order to make changes to the Special Case Rules and the “[Appendix]” tag in order to make changes to the Appendix Rules. Votable Matters other than DoVs require the “[Victory]” tag in order to grant victory to a Pilot.

If a Votable Matter would make a modification to the rules and it does not have the tag to make that modification, that Votable Matter will still be able to make that specific modification if any of the following on the following list are true:

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

Special Proposal Voting

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

Resolution of Proposals

The oldest Pending Proposal may be Enacted by any Admin (by updating the Ruleset and/or Gamestate to include the specified effects of that Proposal, and then setting that Proposal’s status to Enacted) 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 Self-Killed.

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 Self-Killed.

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.

Calls for Judgement

If two or more Pilots actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Pilot feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Pilot 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 Pilot (other than the Poindexter) 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.

Every Pilot may cast Votes on that DoV to indicate agreement or disagreement 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.

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

• It is Popular, it has been open for at least 12 hours, and either the Poindexter has Voted FOR it or it has no AGAINST Votes.
• It is Popular, 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.

If a DoV is Failed and it had at least one AGAINST vote, the Pilot 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, and a new Dynasty begins in which the Pilot who made the DoV becomes the Poindexter.

The new Poindexter will make an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category. This should specify the Poindexter’s chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and it may optionally specify that the terms “Pilot” and “Poindexter” will be replaced with theme-specific terms throughout the entire Ruleset (where the replacement terms are different, and neither includes any words in a form in which they already appear in the non-dynastic Ruleset), and/or list a number of dynastic rules to keep. When such an Ascension Address is posted, the Ruleset is updated to reflect any changed terms, and any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept are repealed. Between the enactment of the DoV and the posting of the Ascension Address, no new DoV may be made and BlogNomic is on Hiatus.

Before an Ascension Address has been posted for a new Dynasty, the Poindexter may pass the role of Poindexter to another Pilot by making a post to that effect.

This rule cannot be overruled by Dynastic Rules as it relates to Declarations of Victory, but it can be overruled in other matters.

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 Pilot’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. Pilots 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 Pilot within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Pilot and any Idle Pilots.
• A Pilot 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 Pilot should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
• A Pilot should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Pilot.
• A Pilot should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
• A Pilot should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
• A Pilot 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 Pilot 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 Pilot must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
• A Pilot should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
• A Pilot should not use a core, special case or appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly achieve victory.

Dynastic Rules

Pilots and Shells

At any time each Pilot may be Outfitting, Jockeying or Recovering, defaulting to Outfitting, and their status is publicly tracked. A Outfitting or Jockeying Pilot has the following tracked information: a Shell Type (whether Archetype or Subtype), amounts of Power, Attack, Defence, and Speed (which are all non-negative integer or “-”), all of which are “-” by default. A Shell Type of “-” means the Pilot lacks a Shell. Each Pilot has an Arsenal, which is a list of Arms, or “-” to indicate empty Arsenal.

When a Pilot is Outfitting, they may freely select a Shell. They must then empty their Arsenal and then set their Power, Attack and Defence to the default value for their selected Shell. They may also freely select an Arsenal; whenever a Pilot changes their Arsenal they must modify their statistics as appropriate. The list of available Shells and Arms can be found in the rule Armoury. At any time, an Outfitting Pilot with a Shell may set themselves to Jockeying.

If a Jockeying Pilot ever has a Power of zero then their Shell is destroyed. Additionally, as a weekly action, a Jockeying Pilot may perform an Emergency Shutdown to destroy their Shell. When a Jockeying Pilot’s Shell is destroyed, their Shell Type, Power, Attack, and Defence are set to “-” and their status to Recovering.

If a Pilot has been Recovering for the last 24 hours, they may become Outfitting.

Armoury

Each Shell has a name, a brief description (which is flavourtext), a default Power value, a default Attack, a default Defence and a default Speed. The following is the list of Shells that has been approved by RAID R&D:

• The Mark I
  • Description: The first Shells to roll off of the Ansible’s production line. Clunky, slow, but durable.
  • Default Power: 90, Attack: 15, Defence: 20, Speed: 18

• The Mark II
  • Description: A field-upgrade to the Mark I, with enhanced speed drawing from defensive and power systems
  • Default Power: 80, Attack: 15, Defence: 10, Speed: 12

• A-1 Nutcracker
  • Description: An adaptation to DEVAs that proved impervious to the initial Shell designs, the Nutcracker is designed for sustained attacks against hard targets
  • Default Power: 70, Attack: 21, Defense: 12, Speed: 18

• A-2 Tortoise
  • Description: This sluggish heavy weapons Shell is the last resort against the toughest RAKSHASHA.
  • Default Power: 45, Attack: 33, Defence: 20, Speed: 60

• P-1 Hare
  • Description: This underarmed but highly customizable platform evolved from a scout prototype.
  • Default Power:125, Attack: 8, Defence: 15, Speed: 16

Each Arm has a name (which is flavour text), cost and an effect. The cost of an Arm must be spent in Power when it is added to a Pilot’s Arsenal, and may be refunded if an Outfitting Pilot removes the Arm from their Arsenal. An Arm may not be added to an Arsenal if it would cause the Pilot’s Power, Attack or Defence to be reduced to zero or below. Percentage-based modifications to a Shell’s statistics from an Arm’s effect are based on the Default statistics for that particular Shell. Multiple instances of the same Arm do not stack in effect. The following is the list of Arms that has been approved by RAID R&D:

• Auxiliary Reactor - Cost: 10. Effect: +30% Power -20% Defense
• Structural Reinforcement Plates - Cost: 15. Effect: +20% Defense. Ineffective if the Pilot also has an Auxiliary Reactor.
• Side Jets - Cost: 20. Effect: +10% Attack +10% Defense
• Onboard AI - Cost: 15. Effect: Every time a Pilot with this Arm defeats a Bogey, gain 20 power.
• Efficient Circuitry - Cost: 25. Effect: When a Pilot with this Arm has already made at least one Fire Attempt on a Bogey, their subsequent Fire Attempts at the same target cost 3 less Power.
• Cluster Munitions - Cost: 40. Effect: When a Pilot with this Arm declares a fire post, they may declare a second Bogey as an additional target, using the same fire vector at no additional cost. When such a fire post is resolved the main target should be resolved first, followed immediately by the additional target.
• Seeker Munitions - Cost: 40. Effect: If the Fire Vector of a Fire Action by a Pilot with this Arm would exceed the target’s Defence by exactly 1, upon finding that it is not miscalibrated, it corrects its Fire Vector to equal the target’s Defense.
• Shielded Cabling - Cost: 15. Effect: A Bogey’s abilities can’t reduce the power, attack or defense of Pilots with this Arm.
• Soul Threasher - Cost: 30. Effect: Whenever a civilian attack is resolved successfully, Jockeying Pilots with this Arm gain 10 power, plus an additional 10 power for each full 1 million casualties it caused.
• Heavy Core - Cost:0. Gain 10 Power. If a Jockey has this Arm in their Arsenal then they may not have more than one other Arm in their Arsenal.
• Cellular Sampler - Cost: 5. Effect: If any Pilot with this Arm is Jockeying when a Scheduling Post is posted, any Bogey that completed a DEVA Action during the period confirmed by that post shall have its Subspecies revealed (if it wasn’t already public).
• Camera Turret - Cost: 5. Effect: -10% Attack. When a Bogey deflects or is destroyed by the Pilot’s attack, its subspecies shall be revealed (if it wasn’t already public). After the Schedule Post resolving such an attack, the Poindexter shall privately inform the Attacker of one of the Bogey’s numerical statistics or Features, chosen randomly.
• Overcharger Pod - Cost: 10 Power. Effect: +60% Attack, but the Pilot’s Fire Actions fail if they have taken another Fire Action during the preceding 18 hours.
• Bombardier Pod - Cost: 15 Power. Effect: +1 Attack. When the Pilot makes a Fire Attempt, they may declare it to be a Bombardment and spend extra Power on it. Their effective Attack for that Fire Attempt is increased by 1/4 of the extra Power spent, rounded down.
• Hot Blood - Cost - 5 Power. An Recovering Pilot with this Arm may become Outfitting after 6 hours instead of 24.
• Promotional Banner - Cost: 20 Power. Effect: +8 Speed, -10% Defense; used by the rule Advertising.

An Arsenal cannot simultaneously contain any two Arms whose names share a word.

Development

Each Pilot has the following trackable variables: Experience and Memes.

Experience can be gained in the following ways:

• A Pilot gains 1 Experience every time they start Jockeying a new Shell
• A Pilot gains experience equal to the Experience Yield of a Bogey’s sub-species whenever a Bogey is eliminated as a result of one of their Fire Actions
• A Pilot gains 1 Experience every time they cease to be Jockeying because their Shell is destroyed, unless it was destroyed as a result of an Emergency Shutdown
• A Pilot gains 1 Experience whenever they Assist a Fire Action that destroys a Bogey, if the shot would have been miscalibrated had the Fire Action not been Assisted.
• A Pilot gains 2 Experience if they successfully disrupt a Bogey’s Timed Action.

Whenever a Pilot’s Shell is destroyed, while they are Recovering, they may spend the cost in Experience of an Arm in their Arsenal to gain it as a Meme. While Outfitting, a Pilot may add any Arm that they have as a Meme to their Arsenal without paying its cost.

The Battlefield

A Jockeying Pilot (the attacker) may spend 10 Power to make a Fire Attempt. A Fire Attempt takes the form of a comment to the most recent Schedule Post that contains a target, which must be an ID Code of a Bogey, an integer that is greater than zero (it's Fire Vector), and a schedule time, which must be a UTC time of the Pilot’s choice between x and 72 hours (where x is the Pilot’s Shell’s Speed) after the time at which the comment is made. A Pilot may combine multiple Fire Attempts into a single blog comment by separating them with five or more tilde symbols.

For each valid Fire Attempt, a Fire Action is scheduled, which is a Timed Action (taking place at the specified time) in which the attacker attacks the target along the specified Fire Vector.

When Poindexter resolves a Fire Action they should refer to the following, and reflect any outcomes in the appropriate Schedule Post:

• If the attacker has ceased to be Jockeying since scheduling the attempt to fire, the Fire Action is cancelled with no further effect.
• If the Fire Vector is greater than the attacker's Attack then the shot was miscalibrated and the Fire Action has no further effect.
• If the target no longer exists, the shot struck debris and the Fire Action has no further effect.
• If the Fire Vector is exactly equal to the target’s Defense, Poindexter must apply all Effects of its Death Features, in the order that they are listed in the ruleset. These should also be disclosed in the appropriate Schedule Post. Then the target is eliminated. If the target had the feature Refracted Crystal Heart, the attacker gains one Crown.
• If the Fire Vector is above the target’s Defence, the target evades the shot.
• If the Fire Vector is below the target’s Defence, the target deflectes the shot.

If, after resolving a Fire Action, the target is still in play, Poindexter must apply all Effects of its Reactionary Features, in the order that they are listed in the ruleset. These should also be disclosed in the appropriate Schedule Post.

If a Pilot’s Power would be set to zero or below by the power expenditure required for a Fire Attempt then their Shell is destroyed as if they had done an Emergency Shutdown. The Fire Attempt still takes place, however, and when it’s resolved it uses the statistics and Arms the Pilot had when they scheduled it.

Assists

At any time between a Fire Attempt and its corresponding Fire Action, any Jockeying Pilot other than the attacker may spend 5 Power to Assist it by making a comment to the same Schedule Post, saying that they are Assisting and uniquely identifying the Fire Attempt. The attacker’s effective Attack for that Fire Action is increased by the sum of the Attacks of the Pilots that Assisted the Fire Action.

Corporations

Each Pilot has a publicly tracked Affiliation, which may be one of the Corporations listed as subrules of this rule and by default is Unaffiliated. Two Pilots whose Affiliation are the same Corporation are said to be Affiliated with each other.

As a Weekly Action, a Pilot may cease to be Affliated with any Corporation by setting their Affiliation to blank. A Pilot may never rejoin a Corporation that they have previously ceased to be Affiliated with.

Each Corporation has a Creed, which is Flavor Text.

Each Corporation has a Requirement. An Unaffiliated Pilot may change their Affiliation to any Corporation for which they meet the Requirement.

Ace League

Creed: Death and Glory

Requirement: A Pilot must have eliminated a Bogey and lost a Shell as a result of a Bogey’s Attack on a Military Target to join this Corporation

Air Power

Creed: Aim High

Requirement: A Pilot may join this Corporation if they have been Jockeying a Shell during at least 15 non-consecutive days.

Order of the Blue Lotus

Creed: Armis et Gubernatoris

Requirement: A Pilot must be publicly invited to join by a Pilot whose affiliation is the Order of the Blue Lotus. The invite must be accepted within a week or it becomes invalid and the Pilot must be invited again and accept in order to join.

Meritous

Creed: Fiat Corona

Requirement: A Pilot may join this Corporation if they have never joined any other Corporation.

Time and Schedules

Timed Actions are a type of action that occurs at a specific time. The entity performing the action does not have to be present for the attack to occur; once it has been scheduled it will occur at the specified time.

Any Timed Action should have, as part of its definition, the method by which its occurrence is scheduled. Once per day, Poindexter should make a Scheduling Post to the blog, confirming the Timed Actions that took place after the last day whose Timed Actions were thus confirmed but before the current day, their impacts (evaluated in chronological order from oldest to newest), and detailing any Timed Actions that are due to take place in the forthcoming day. Any Pilot may then update gamestate tracking to reflect the changes of the confirmed Timed Actions. If a Timed Action has no defined scheduling method then by default it may be scheduled by making a comment to the scheduling post detailing when it will take place.

Timed Actions may be staged. A staged Timed Action has one or more consecutive spans of time (stages) during which that action is ongoing. The end of each stage is itself a Timed Action, but if any stage fails or is disrupted then all future stages of that Timed Action are cancelled.

DEVAs

Individual DEVAs exist. They may also be referred to as Bogeys once they have Emerged. All Bogeys are publicly tracked.

Each DEVA has a public, unique, unchanging alphanumeric ID Code assigned by the Poindexter.

Each DEVA has statistics that are secretly tracked by Poindexter, that fall within the ranges for that DEVA’s sub-species. Whenever Poindexter has to generate a new DEVA, they should secretly randomly determine its Energy, Attack and Defence based on the published ranges, and secretly randomly determine whether it has any of the special features possible for its sub-species. Each Bogey has a space in public tracking for information relating to each Bogey’s statistics; any Pilot may add or remove information, including amending the available fields, at any time. Any Pilot may fill in the publicly tracked information for Bogey statistics to reflect information that they have publicly or privately gained, guesses or inferences derived from other game events, or speculation. The publicly tracked information on Bogey statistics is flavour text and does not reflect or imply the private statistics of those Bogeys, and in the event that they disagree, the privately tracked information will be considered the true statistics for each Bogey.

When a DEVA is eliminated it is removed from the game and is no longer publicly or privately tracked.

DEVA Sub-species

There are various sub-species of DEVA, each of which has its own characteristics. Each sub-species of DEVA has a Designation (which is flavour text), an Energy range, an Attack range, a Defence range, a list of native special features with the probability a new individual of that sub-species has each of those features, an Experience Yield value and a scratch count.

The known sub-species of DEVA are tracked on the Ansible Hangar page of the wiki.

Each Feature has an Effect, and a Type indicating when that Effect applies to a DEVA with that Feature. If Feature has a type of “Passive”, its effect is continuous and always applies to the DEVA. Otherwise, the Effect happens instantaneously whenever some other Dynastic Rule says it does. The named Features of DEVAs, and those Features Types and Effects, are listed below (with the Name in bold and then the Type, then the Effect):-

• Refracted Crystal Heart. Passive. Effect: The target may exceed the limits imposed on statistics by its sub-species.
• Deflector Shield. Reactionary. Effect: If the Fire Vector is smaller than the Bogey’s defense, the Bogey gains 1 defense, if this would bring the Bogey’s defense above the maximum it becomes the maximum instead and the Poindexter should add a comment saying that the Bogey’s shield has shorted out.
• Radiant Beam. Reactionary. Effect: If the Fire Vector is greater than the Aggressor’s Defense, the Aggressor’s Power is reduced by 10.
• Basilisk Eye. Reactionary. Effect: If the Bogey has at least 5 Energy, it spends 4 Energy to reduce the Aggressor’s Defense by 4, destroying the Aggressor if the Defense would be reduced to 0 or less.
• Organic Resonance. Reactionary. Effect: If this is the third attack of the day on this Bogey, create a new DEVA.
• Acid Blood. Reactionary. Effect: Enact Civilian Casualties as if this Bogey has completed an Attack a Civilian Target action. May only be activated once per Bogey per day.
• EM Weapon. Reactionary. Effect: The attacker may not make a Fire Attempt for 24 hours. Any pending Fire Actions for the attacker still take place.

Every time a Bogey is eliminated, increase the scratch count for the Bogey’s subspecies by 1.

DEVA Actions

All DEVA actions must be Timed Actions. Poindexter is responsible for privately scheduling and tracking, and then publicly or secretly (as appropriate) carrying out, the actions of all DEVAs. To whatever extent is possible, Poindexter must generate and maintain any necessary information to map out the generation and actions of any DEVA for at least the next week. If a DEVA’s planned actions do not cover the full period of the next week then Poindexter should randomly generate new actions for it until the full period of the next week is scheduled with actions.

Generating DEVA Actions will require Poindexter to generate times for those actions (or stages of actions) to occur. Each DEVA action or action stage has a range of hours associated with it; when generating that action or action stage, Poindexter set the start time to the end time of the action or action stage before it, and must randomly select a point within that range and set the end time for that action or action stage to be x, where x is its start time plus the randomly selected duration from the time range.

Poindexter should detail all of the day’s scheduled DEVA Actions in each day’s Scheduling Post.

If a DEVA’s action can’t legally take place for any reason (such as an invalid target) then it is stunned and all subsequent actions on its schedule are delayed for 48 hours. If a DEVA’s staged Timed Action has a stage that is disruptable then any Fire Post targeting it during a disruptable stage (i.e. after the disruptable stage of the action has begun but before the next stage begins) then the entire Timed Action is disrupted and will not take place. If a Bogey is eliminated before any of its actions would take place, all of those actions are cancelled.

Available DEVA Actions are listed as subrules to this rule.

Emerging from the Breach

When Poindexter has created a new DEVA, the first item on its schedule should be Emerging from the Breach. Emerging from the Breach may not be selected as an action for a Bogey.

The start time for the first stage is the time at which the DEVA is created. Emerging from the Breach is a staged Timed Action with the following stages:

• 0-24 hours: Gestating
• 24-96 hours: Emerging

Once a DEVA has completed an Emerging from the Breach action it has Emerged and becomes a Bogey.

The date and time upon which the next new DEVA will Emerge from the Breach is publicly tracked information.

Attack a Civilian Target

Time range: 12 and 72 hours.

When a Bogey completes an Attack a Civilian Target action they have a 5% chance of gaining the Refracted Crystal Heart feature.

Civilian Casualties are a publicly-tracked integer defaulting to 1,000,000. When a Bogey completes an Attack a Civilian Target action, increase the Civilian Casualties by x, where x is a random number between 1 and 100,000, multiplied by that Bogey’s Attack.

Attack a Military Target

Attacking a Military Target is a staged Timed Action with the following stages:

• 0-48 hours: Travel
• 1-12 hours (disruptable): Prepare
• 1-24 hours: Aim
• 11-12 hours: Attack

When a DEVA finishes the Aim stage, a Jockeying Pilot must be secretly randomly selected as its target.

Whenever a Bogey’s attack on a military target is completed, Poindexter must, in the next Schedule Post, inform the Pilots that the attack has taken place and the Attack value of the Bogey who carried it out, which then becomes publicly tracked information. The targeted Pilot then loses Power equal to the Attack of the Bogey minus their own Defence.

Hibernate

A Bogey can only schedule the Hibernate action when its Energy is below the starting minimum for its sub-species. If a surviving Bogey has 1 or less ENERGY, its next scheduled DEVA action is replaced by a Hibernate action.

A Hibernate action is a staged Timed action with the following stages:

• 8 Hours - Torpor
• X to Y Hours - Dormancy
• 8 Hours - Stirring

where X is half the difference between the Bogey’s current energy and the starting minimum for its subspecies, and Y is half the difference between the Bogey’s current energy and the starting maximum for its subspecies.

When the DEVA starts Stirring, it gains 2 Energy for each hour it spent in Dormancy, rounded to the nearest whole Energy.

Team Victory

Each Pilot has a number of Crowns, which defaults to zero and is publicly tracked. Each Corporation has a number of Crowns, which is the sum of the number of Crowns held by Pilots Affiliated with that Corporation, plus any Crowns that have been directly awarded to that Corporation, and is publicly tracked. Whenever a Pilot ceases to be Affiliated with a Corporation, their Crowns are no longer considered to be part of their ex-Corporation’s total.

A Corporation is Meritous when it has a number of Crowns that exceeds the number of Civilian Casualties divided by 2,000,000, and which is greater than 1.

If a Corporation is Meritous, any Pilot whose Affiliation was that Corporation when its most recent Crown was awarded may make a Promotion Request by making a story post to the blog with “Promotion Request” as its title. When a Promotion Request is posted, the Poindexter shall evaluate whether the specified Corporation is Meritous, and if he agrees that it is, he shall choose a random Pilot whose Affiliation was that Corporation when the Crown was Awarded and name them in a comment to the Promotion Request. The selected Pilot achieves victory.

If a Crown is Awarded to a Corporation, but there is no Pilot whose Affiliation was that Corporation when the Crown was Awarded, then that Corporation cannot be Meritous until it wins another Crown.

Aces

A Pilot may claim an Ace by making a blog post saying they do, which identifies five former Bogeys they have destroyed. A Pilot who has claimed an Ace may not use any of the same former Bogeys when claiming any future Aces.

When a Pilot claims an Ace, if the Poindexter determines all five kills are valid and not repeated claims, the Poindexter shall congratulate the Pilot in the next Schedule Post, at which point the Pilot is awarded a Crown.

Revenge

Whenever a Pilot destroys a Bogey that has completed at least two “Attack a Civilian Target” actions, or that has destroyed two or more Shells with its own actions or reactions, the destroying Pilot is awarded a crown.

Advertising

A Corporation is Advertising if a Pilot Affiliated with it is both Jockeying and equipped with a Promotional Banner. An Ad Spot is an event that occurs each Tuesday at Noon. When an Ad Spot occurs, each Corporation that has been continuously Advertising since the last Ad Spot is awarded a Crown.

Tempo

The Rift Size is a numeric variable, currently 3. If the number of individual DEVAs that have not been eliminated is less than the Rift Size, Poindexter may create a new DEVA at any time.

Additionally, once every 3 days, Poindexter may create a new DEVA. As a weekly action, Poindexter may reduce the number in the previous sentence by one, to a minimum of 2; if it’s already 2 or less, the same weekly action instead increases the Rift Size by one.

Special Case

Special Case Rules can be Active or Inactive. If the title of a Special Case Rule includes "[X]", where X is either Active or Inactive, then its status is X. Otherwise, its status is its Default Status.

Special Case Rules have a Default Status, which can be Active or Inactive. If the title of a Special Case Rule includes an asterisk, (*) its Default Status is Inactive, otherwise, its Default Status is Active.

When a new Dynasty is started, the Ascension Address may list any number of existing Special Case Rules to be set to a status other than their respective Default Status. All other Special Case Rules are set to their respective Default Status.

The text of a Special Case Rule that is Inactive is flavour text.

Seasonal Downtime [Active]

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

Dormancy [Inactive]

If there are fewer than five Pilots, BlogNomic is on Hiatus.

Imperial Deferentials [Inactive]

If the Poindexter has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, that vote is instead considered to be valid and either FOR (if more Pilots have voted FOR the Proposal than have voted AGAINST it) or AGAINST (in all other cases).

Dynastic Distance [Active]

For the purposes of dynastic rules which do not deal with voting, the Poindexter is not a Pilot.

The Traitor [Inactive]

The Traitor for a particular Dynasty may be a Pilot (including an idle one), or may be nobody, and it defaults to being nobody. The Traitor’s identity in the current Dynasty is tracked privately by the Poindexter, and the Poindexter should not share this information with Pilots other than the Traitor.

If there is no Traitor for the current Dynasty, and BlogNomic is not on Hiatus, the Poindexter may secretly randomly select a Pilot (other than the Poindexter) and privately inform them that they are the Traitor for the current Dynasty.

A Traitor is under no obligation to honour any informal promises they have made with other Pilots, nor to tell the truth to them, and is encouraged to betray other Pilots in order to achieve victory.

Dynastic Tracking [Active]

The gamestate tracking page for this dynasty is the Ansible Hangar page of the wiki. Unless otherwise stated, all publicly tracked gamestate information is tracked on it. A Poindexter may change the wiki page referred to in this rule to a different page as part of their Ascension Address.

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 Pilot 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 Pilot 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 Pilot 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 Pilot 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 Pilots.

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 Pilot’s Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter is that Pilot’s Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Pilot’s Vote on that Votable Matter.

Commentary

When posting a blog entry, a Pilot 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.

Flavour Text

If a part of the ruleset is defined as being “flavour text”, it is gamestate and remains part of the ruleset document, but is not considered to have any meaning beyond being a string of characters. Pilots 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 Dynastic Rules explicitly mention (except for dynastic histories and discussion pages) and any images or Templates contained within those Wiki Pages are assumed to be Gamestate.

Hiatus

If BlogNomic is on Hiatus, Dynastic Actions may not be taken, 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

Private Message

A message sent via BlogNomic’s Private Messages system at blognomic.com.

Quorum

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

Resolve/Resolution

If used in a context of a Votable Matter, the word “Resolve” means to perform the act, as an Admin, of enacting or failing 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.

Rule

Each individually numbered section of the Ruleset is a rule, including sections that are subrules of other rules.

Slack

The BlogNomic Slack is located at blognomic.slack.com. Pilots may request an invite to the Slack while logged in by clicking the button in the sidebar.

Slack Channel

A Slack Channel is any channel on the BlogNomic Slack. To reference a Slack Channel, use a hash (#) followed by the name of that channel (e.g. #random).

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.

Subrule

A subrule is a type of rule that is nested within another rule. A Proposal that specifically affects a rule affects all of its subrules; a Proposal that specifically affects a subrule does not affect its parent rule or any other subrule of that rule, unless they are also explicitly cited as being affected by that Proposal.

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 Pilot 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.

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 two hours old and either no Pilot 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. 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 by a New Pilot is not in any category but follows the wording of a Proposal, in that it has written changes the gamestate and or Ruleset, and if it has been posted for less than six hours, then any Admin may change it to be in the Proposal category. A New Pilot is defined as a Pilot who has been a Pilot for fewer than seven days or a Pilot that has unidled in the past seven days after being idle for at least 3 months.

Any post that is or is made illegal as a result of an infraction against any of the prohibitions set out in this rule 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.

Representations of the Gamestate

For gamestate which is tracked in a specific place (such as a wiki page), any alteration of that gamestate as a result of a Pilot’s action is (and can only be) applied by editing that data in that place. 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 Pilot may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

If a Pilot 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 Pilot, if doing so would not require the correcting Pilot to make any decisions on behalf of the original Pilot.

Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Pilots 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 Pilot 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.

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

If a Proposal proposes a change to this rule that would require server-level access to the BlogNomic site to fully enact its effects, that Proposal must name a Pilot with such access. Only a Pilot with such access may Enact that Proposal. If that Proposal does not name a Pilot with such access, that Proposal 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 DICE roll in the Dice Roller, unless otherwise specified. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Pilot 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 Pilot 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.
• An Atomic Action may direct the Pilot performing it to skip some of its steps, which the Pilot must do and in which case the skipped steps are considered completed for this rule.
• If a Pilot 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 Pilot must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Pilot 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 Pilot 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” 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” 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, lost, gained, or transferred, a Pilot can spend only their own values, and a rule that allows Pilots to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Pilot (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
• A Pilot 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”).
• 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.

Rules and Proposals

• If a new rule is created by a Proposal and its location is not noted in that Proposal, that new rule is to be placed in the Dynastic Rules.
• If a wiki page becomes gamestate as a result of a Proposal enacting, that page shall – unless otherwise specified – be reverted to whatever state it was in at the time of that Proposal’s submission (and if the page did not exist at that time, it shall be blanked).
• Where a Proposal would amend the effects of Proposal Enactment, this does not apply to its own enactment unless explicitly stated (e.g. a Proposal proposing that enacted Proposals 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 the Admin enacting a Proposal reaches a step which cannot be applied immediately (e.g. “two days after this Proposal enacts, Pilot A gains 1 point”), that step is ignored for the purposes of enactment. Once a Proposal has been enacted, it can have no further direct effect on the gamestate.
• If a dynastic rule has no text and no subrules, any Pilot 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.

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 Pilot 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

• 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.
• The terms “Pilot” and “Player” are synonyms.
• Pilots may correct obvious spelling and typographical mistakes in the Ruleset and their own Pending Proposals at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns with the singular “they”.

Names

• Within the Ruleset, a word only refers to the name of a Pilot if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Pilot’s name.
• If a rule would ever have no name, it is instead given the name of the proposal that created it, or (if this is not possible) the name “Unnamed Rule”.
• The names of rules 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 Proposal, the name used in reference to a specific Proposal may be simplified by not including braces and any text between the opening and closing braces. i.e. a Proposal 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, any text between a pair of opening and closing braces, and, in the case of Special Case Rules, any asterisks, as long as such a reference would be unambiguous.
• Where a proposal refers to a second proposal by name, it is assumed to refer to the most recently posted proposal of that name which pre-dates the first proposal.

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. A Dynastic Rule has precedence over a Core Rule, unless that Core Rule explicitly says it can’t be overruled by a Dynastic Rule;
3. A Special Case Rule has equal precedence as a Dynastic Rule, unless that Special Case Rule explicitly says it can’t be overruled by a Dynastic Rule;
4. If two contradicting parts have equal precedence, the part with more limited scope applies (e.g. if the rules “Pilots may Kick each other” and “Pilots may not Kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Pilots may not Kick each other);
5. If two contradicting parts have the same scope, the negative rule applies (e.g. with “Pilots may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Pilots may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Pilots may not Punch Spacemen on Friday).

Mentors

A Pilot may have another Pilot as a Mentor. Pilots who are willing to act as a Mentor are listed on the Mentorships wiki page, and are said to be “Tenured”. A Pilot may add or remove their own name from this list at any time.

If an unmentored Pilot requests a Mentor, or a new Pilot has joined the game and has no Mentor, the Poindexter should select a Tenured Pilot and ask them to take that Pilot on as a Mentee; if they accept, then such a Mentorship is established. The Poindexter should take care to consider game balance when selecting a potential mentor.

A relationship between a mentor and a mentee is a Mentorship. The members and starting dates of all active Mentorships are tracked on the Mentorships wiki page, and whenever a new Mentorship is established, the Poindexter should announce it in a blog post. A Pilot may dissolve a Mentorship they are part of at any time, by announcing this in a blog post.

If there is no Poindexter, any Pilot who has been active in at least three previous dynasties may act as Poindexter 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, Slack, and end-of-dynasty notifications through the Facebook group or Twitter;
• 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 Pilot 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 Pilots.
• 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.