Triumvirate Content Poll #2 (Preemption of Powers)

[Alphawolf]

Should the Triumvirate or the President have the power to preempt certain, specified powers of other offices during Wartime?

Yes
No
Other

-the Wolf

 

[ravensfire]

Never.

Do we only sometimes trust our elected officials? That's the implication of the overrides - that we don't trust our leaders to work together when needed.

Imagine you are the Governor of a province. Unde normal times, you control your cities. Ah, but we're now in a war, so now the President can come in and screw up your plans? Without even asking? How rude!

-- Ravensfire

 

[Donovan Zoi]

I vote YES, let's bring politics back into this game. We seem to be on the verge of creating a utopian society where there are no challenges except to place your instructions in time.

Grant the President wartime powers, and watch campaigns become more interesting. Will a popular but hawkish President lose re-election to his office because a war is looming for the next term? Will the people think more carefully about entereing war knowing these ramifications of their choices?

We'll never know if we continue on the toothless path of compartmentalized bookmanship. Controversy = fun! We can handle it, can't we?

 

[Alphawolf]

DZ more or less hit the reason I gave the President Wartime powers right on the head, to make people think more about the possibility of war and the consequences of declaring it.


-the Wolf

 

[DaveShack]

This is actually a tough one.

I do believe that there are circumstances when it is appropriate for an official to assume greater responsibility, and war is one of those times. However, giving the President the power to essentially take over an office leaves someone without a job, and in an in-your-face kind of way. It also gives one person more power than may be prudent.

It would be better to have the official run the deparment, and have a mechanism for remedy of the situation if and only if results are inconsistent with the overall plan.

DZ is right in a way, we need some conflict to make the game interesting. Many of the most memorable DG events have been incidents where someone wasn't going along.

I'm going to hold off a bit and see what other comments may arise.

[edit]
For an example (extraterrestrial but still interesting) of changing official roles based on situation, look at the book Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. The fithp herdmaster essentially gives up control of the ship to the attackmaster while on the offensive, and to the defensemaster when threatened. If we followed an analogous system in the Demogame, the military advisor would be two roles for attack and defense, and one or the other would take over for the President during times of war.
[/edit]

 

[Swissempire]

Yes, because if your a governer and it wartime, and we need say swordsman, you might not care because your on the other side of the map. So the Tri should have the over ruling power in this istnace. We should give the president a clause for RESTRICTED EMERGENCY POWERS.

 

[Stilgar08]

Agreed with SwissEmpire here.. Add: Furthermore the office-holders can sue for re-instalment at the judiciary branch if they don't feel it a necessary thing! And the "thrown-outs" could be kind of a lobby commenting on actions of the DP, therefore generating public pressure and remaining some sort of power...

 

[DaveShack]

Some things I'd like to make clear, for myself if not for anyone else.

• The people have an ultimate check on all elected officials. One of the provisions of the Constitution mandates that a straight up/down vote of all the citizens can overrule any official. It must be a fair and informed decision, but an official cannot run away with the game.
• The proposal in this poll is for someone (President / Tri) to have the ability to control certain responsibilities of certain offices. It does not say exactly what all the details would be.
• We can always reject this in the CoL ratification vote if the details are too extreme.
• We can always vote to amend this if circumstances force us to ratify the CoL with flaws.

Given we have the ability to fix it if it's broken, and in the interest of leaving the door open to different rules than traditional (as I promised when this forum was first opened), I'll vote a cautious yes.