MasNES I: Ghosts of Empires - Preview Thread

(I'll be doing one or more of these per update. Just to provide some story material. Watching the trial and execution of the Anne mutineers could turn someone off capital punishment or spur them to become a lawyer for example.)

Telegraphs and Dispatches

Over two inches of rain fell at Muese Creek on Monday night, and one and a half inches were registered at the Thames Creek Station on the same date.

The District Officer of Lueven telegraphed last night to report that the Dutch Steamer Europa had been floated off the the reef and towed into Cook Bay for repairs. He notes that the master of the ship has need of two European boilermakers to effect the repairs.

The Eastern which left Branbrakel on Friday night for Singapore and intervening ports took away five ladies as passengers. We received compensation, however, for our loss, as a few days previous the SS Australian bought us the same number of ladies, all of whom are strangers to our island.

The Hong Kong Weekly Press, of January 27, says: "two more cases of bubonic plague have occurred in Manila. Out of thirteen cases reported eight have provided to be bubonic plague." As Manila is only a very short step from Pulau Emas it behooves the local authorities to see that the health regulations are most strictly enforced.

A general meeting of the members of the Branbrakel Orchestra will be held on Friday night, Feburary 16th, in the Governors residence. The business to be transacted is the election of officers, and the making of arrangements for the ensuing season. It is to be hoped that a good must of musicians takes place, and so help along this pleasure-giving institution.

Miss Bell, who has been appointed to take charge of the daughters of the officers was a passenger on the Australian and made the acquaintance of Mr Jims, the head of Fitch and Sims, while making her transit.

A word from a trusted source is our authority for stating that Miss Bell has been appointed to take charge of the education of the Company's Officers in Branbrake. Her lessons are to begin on Monday next, February 12.

A meeting of the local bicycle club will be held one night next week to appoint officers for the ensuing year, make preliminary arrangements for the race meeting to be held in May next, and fix any other matters pertaining to cycling that the club may have on hand.

Mr F. E. Findlay was a passenger on the Australian. He was forced to leave the Branbrake on account of his failing health. For the last two years, or thereabouts, he has been connected with the British-Singapore Bank, and will be remebred by many Islanders as holding the position of librarian to the Governors Residence, a post which he filled most satisfactorily. We wish Mr Findlay a speedy and permanent return to health.

Letters have been received recently in Boston (reported the National Provisioner, dated New York, December 2nd) from a naval officer stationed at Manila, saying that plans have been made to establish a line of regular communication with Australia by which fresh meat can be supplied constantly to both the army and navy. Three ships have been selected for this service, the Culgoa, the Celtic and the Glacier. The Culoga and the Celtic are supply ships and the Glacier is a refrigerating ship, They will make fortnightly trips between Manila and Australia, with a stop-off at Branbrake.

The rumor published by us a week or two ago, to the effect that the Luckystrike mine was about to shut down till after the workings dry was apparently incorrect. Work is being carried out as vigorously as ever at this live mine, and a cleaning has just taken place, the result being an enticing cake of tin weighing some 300 pounds. We might remark that the publication of misleading and annoying rumors of the above character might be easily avoided if persons interested would take the trouble to send along a little authentic information which we shall be only too glad to publish at any time.

Further particulars of the case of piracy on board the British barque Anne, which was engaged in the all Indies trade and stopped in at Branbrake regularly, have been published, on the information of one of the crew named Pereira. His story is that, in a mutiny, the master of the Anne was murdered along with his son. The mate was then killed. the corpses were then pitched overboard, after which the mutineers took counsel what to do. Pereira they forced to join them under threats of death. A Japanese and a negro on board were looked up as so dangerous that they were also murdered. The mutineers upon this thought of making for Manila but were dissuaded by their ringleader who advised them to scuttle the vessel instead. the mutineers did so, and made for a Dutch island where they arrived in the guise of shipwrecked mariners. The islanders sent them on to the nearest Dutch official. To him, Periera told the story. The whole gang were thereupon seized and sent to Macassar. Proceedings are currently under way to have them extradited to the island. The Judicial Officer has had carpenters repairing the gallows and erecting seating in preparation for their return.

Our telegram contains little new information on the sanguinary duel being played over in South Africa.

 

TAN Koi Boon (陳凱&#25991

Son of a Hakka Chinese tin miner made good, the younger Tan spends his days managing the family accounts, keeping abreast of the complex social, financial and legal hacks required to hide this wealth from the Company and its auditors. Umarried, he is the subject of considerable gossip; it is widely believed that he is too obsessed with literature to make a devoted husband. He is, undoubtedly, a voracious reader; a steady stream of pamphlets and periodicals, in English, Chinese and French, begin their circulation at the Tan family compound. While the Tan name has considerable esteem among lower-class Chinese, having paid for several funerals of indigent Mainlanders, both he and his father are widely distrusted by the Kapitan Chinese (both as a Mainlander and as nouveau riche).

 

Muhammed Bin Tuanku

Muhammed is the crown prince and spoiled heir to the thrown of Pulau Emas. He may be mentally disturbed, or just has a very weird obsession with peppers and all drinks European. His father the Sultan of Pulau Emas is rather disgusted with the behavior of his only son, who oftentimes spends days at the local tavern drunk and allows Europeans to try on his royal garb. Sultan Raja's days are of course beginning to be numbered and the crown prince does not appear to change his behavior anytime soon. Pulau Emas is looking to him as the future of the island, will he change? Can he change?

 

Just recently discovered the NES forum...any objection to me lurking on this game and occasionally asking what will probably be viewed as silly questions to get a better understanding of how NESes work?

 

None at all, although this isn't all that representative of how most games work.

 

I'm very interested. Expect a posting by me within 24 hours again

 

Masada, can I post my folks in thread or do you want to see them first?

 

Thank you very much; the reason I chose this NES (even if it is a bit unusual) is because it seems more likely I might be able to join it later. So, thanks again and I'll try not to pester anyone too much!

 

You can send in a proposal now if you want. I'm more than happy to act as a sounding board.

 

Winston Henri Lee

Mr. Winston Lee is the youngest son of a family of well-known and reputable family of Straits Singaporean Chinese merchants. He attended and excelled at both the Raffles Institution as well as the University of London. Clerking for a British shipping firm specializing in the Chinese trade the year after graduation, he was forced to ignominiously flee London after a certain unknown incident at the firm.

Returning to Singapore to family, his grandfather promptly exiled him to the family's most desolate concern: Palau Emas, with the order to improve local operations before he could even once more show his face in Singapore.

Mr. Winston Lee is charming and well-educated 23 year old young man who would appear to be the model of proper decorum. He is a member of the Church of England and is one of the more noticeably outspoken Straits Chinese upon their second-class social status. In Mr. Lee's mind, his time spent at Raffles and UCL more than permits him access to European society.

 

Katsu Kobayashi: age 22 has recently assumed head of household status with the death of his parents from disease and is an agent for a large Japanese trading company. He also runs a small family shop/import business that sells inexpensive goods to the local populace. He has ambitions, though, to use the family capital to expand his reach, power and status.

Miyako Kobayashi: Katsu’s younger sister, age 15. She is beautiful and charming with a knack for languages. She already speaks English, French, local Maylay and Chinese. She too is ambitious to gain greater standing in the community.

Spoiler :

Miyako has noticed Mr. Winston Lee and thinks that, for a Chinaman, he is handsome.

 

I'll be launching this next week. The first update will not require player input and will take this form. In most cases I won't mention your character directly but I will try and include events that have a direct effect on you. These will give you something to write about and will help to shape the future of the island. At first these might be minor changes but as time goes on and non-European political consciousness develops the scope for player influenced change will increase. Updates will be spaced out over three months intervals. At the end of the turn, I'll just write a short summary of how the players actions have worked or not worked out. I reserve the right to leave more important stuff to the first update of the next turn!

As a friendly pointer, I'd suggest that players brush up on the following events, people and organisations if they have time:

• The Philippine War of Independence;
• The Moro Rebellion;
• The Boxer Rebellion;
• The Ethical Policy;
• The Aceh War;
• The career of Sun Yat-sen;
• The careers of Yap Ah Loy and Yap Kwan Seng;
• Bodi Utomo;
• Sarekat Islam;
• Indische Party; and
• The Tiandihui

The first two in particular will have profound implications on the colony in the coming years.

 

Jules-Damien Vernier

The Jesuit Order has long been the spearpoint of the Roman Catholic Church in its efforts to evangelize East Asia. Of course, Pulau Emas, unlike the great spiritual battlefields of China and Vietnam, has long escaped the notice of both the Order and the Church at large. And that...has not exactly changed. But it will for one man.

Père Jules has had a short but entirely curious life, born to a family of committed Parisian anticlerical haute-bourgeoisie from whose society he was unceremoniously expelled at the age of seventeen after professing an unwavering faith in Jesus Christ. His previously-excellent secular education made him a superior fit for the Orders, and he was admitted into the Jesuits after only five years as a scholastic at Brussels, a remarkable feat for one so young.

Jules, unfortunately, suffers from the unlucky and uncommon ailment of being too Christian for the Catholic Church. As such he was rubbish at politicking and forming connections, preferring as a young priest to write, say Mass for the poor, and perform works of charity. Furthermore, his developing friendships with the Catholic Workers' movements were viewed as frankly alarming by the hierarchy. A man picked out for higher office who is not a careerist is inevitably envied by those who are, and Jules enemies (who he didn't even know he had) maneuvered to get him appointed as the very first head of the newly-established Apostolic Vicariate of Pulau Emas, (requested by the Chairman to improve the current state of affairs of the Church on the island, namely awful) which is effectively a death sentence.

As apostolic vicar, Jules is arriving with the titular rank of a bishop, a liberal and tolerant conscience typical of those dangerous Jesuits, and a heart on fire to follow the path of Francis Xavier and company. He is almost entirely unprepared for what awaits him on the island, due to the dearth of information in European libraries. Ad Majoram Dei Gloriam.

 

I giggled.

 

I will be on vacation M-Th next week and don't know about my connectivity. My plan is to back home Friday.

 

That's fine. I won't be working on the narrative side of the update until after New Years. So players will have about two weeks to write stories before getting feedback on their actions.

 

Ibrahim ibn Sulaiman

Born the son of a moderately prosperous, by the standards of rural Pulau Emas, village head-man, Ibrahim ibn Sulaiman was never truly interested in the hard labor required on his father’s farm. Rather, Ibrahim felt most at home at the local mosque and when doing his daily prayers, as he felt the tug of a real spiritual connection with Islam. It should not come as a surprise then, that when his father sent him to study under an Arab merchant to better learn the ins and outs of trade and management, Ibrahim immediately expressed a desire to learn Arabic, the language in which the holy Qur’an is written. Progress was slow, as Ibrahim also had to learn the skills his father had sent him for and he was not even literate in Malay to begin with. The Arab merchant also bequeathed upon him a deeper understanding of Islam, at least as the Arabs saw it. By the time his apprenticeship had ended, Ibrahim knew that he was destined for the life of an Imam. By chance, the elderly Imam at Ibrahim’s village’s local mosque had passed during Ibrahim’s apprenticeship. Ibrahim took up the role of Imam at the mosque upon his return, becoming his village’s spiritual leader. He knows however that a deeper understanding of Islam would require a deeper understanding of Arabic. Therefore Ibrahim travels for a week every month to learn Arabic from an Arab Imam in the capital, a contact of the Arab merchant whom Ibrahim had studied under.

Though his journeys to the capital are helping him to attain further spiritual enlightenment, Ibrahim remains concerned for the spiritual growth of his flock in his home village. More and more Ibrahim sees in his village the degradation of tradition and morality by modern, foreign influences. He has made it his goal to bring moral righteousness back to his village. Ibrahim has come to realize that even his own father doesn’t sufficiently uphold Islamic moral standards, though getting through to his father has been harder ever since Ibrahim has become an Imam, which Ibrahim’s father sees as an excuse to avoid the hard labor necessary to maintain the family’s farm. Ibrahim also holds distaste for those Chinese tax collectors who come through his village, whom Ibrahim sees as purveyors of immorality by their very presence. His quest for personal enlightenment and his desire to tend to his village spiritually have left Ibrahim in a stressful position as he tries to balance his goals.

 

I have two proposals:

(1) Players can do simple orders in this thread which will be reflected in the update. Writing stories (not necessarily on the thing you want to pursue) will influence how benevolently I like upon them.
(2) Each update I will put an issue which players can vote on. This turn's issue will be whether to hang Pereira. You can find his story here:

If players are interested I'll contribute a story where he explains, in his own simple words, what happened on the Anne. All the decisions that players make will have an impact now and into the future.

 

On that note, I'd like a few more stories before I update. Just saying.

 

oops.