How does Scatterhome self-govern without a government?

I recently updated the Scatterhome page with a lot of info on how they self-govern without a formal ‘government.’ Here’s an OOC description, but there’s a long-ish history of how the system evolved from all-out-anarchy to self-governance without a permanent formal government on the Scatterhome page. While there’s no permanent government, the citizens of Starmourn have worked out a system of governing themselves, for regardless of their antipathy for formal government, someone has to be able to command their armada, someone has to be able to spend Marks on the city’s behalf, and so on.

It works like this: every citizen of Scatterhome has a formal Influence number.

Influence is gained by doing things that help Scatterhome, like taking Cosmpiercers, killing enemies while they’re in the city (or even via outright bribery…this is Scatterhome after all.)

Influence does, however, slowly drain away with time. Scatterhomeans mostly care what you’ve done for them lately.

When someone wants something done, they put out a Call for that thing. For instance, one might put out a Call to kick someone you don’t like out of the city. The Call runs for 1 day (24 rl hours), during which people may vote yea or nay on the Call. Every influence point that person has counts as one vote for yea or nay – one person one vote is not the Scatterhome way.

People are allocated powers within Scatterhome this way too. There are a few sets of powers, and someone may Call to bestow those powers on themselves or someone else.

If one places a Call that is unsuccessful, a small amount of Influence is lost, and it’s also possible to Call to besmirch someone’s reputation, in which case that person loses some influence.

Essentially, this system means that those who work to help Scatterhome (in the ways that can be measured at least) will have vastly greater influence over the goings-on in the city than those who don’t, and anyone can submit Calls to do a variety of things. We don’t know how it’ll play out, as we’ve never implemented a system like this before, and I’m not aware of any other game that has either. We do think it’ll be interesting to see and a new experience for Scatterhomeans who might be used to how government tends to work in our other games.

Remember to go read about the history of how the system evolved (towards the bottom of the page).