What, in your personal opinion, is, or should be, the goal of Universalis? [...]I think Universalis should mostly focus on our countries, how they are politically, their history, and all the details such as infrastructure networks, production etc. that people want to describe. Well, some people are also interested in linguistics and climate, and I don't think it hurts the project they focus on that if they want. I just find the design-your-own-country (thinking out all the economic details, planning the cities, the transport systems, thinking up some interesting history etc.) the most interesting part. I think technology equivalent to Earthly around 2030 suits the project well, it leaves some options open to use the imagination a bit about future tech while not going so far that we'll probably have no clue about it. I can kind of sense the climate discussion is inevitable, so my comment on that is I think realism in the project is a good thing, but I think it's too late to push any climate model upon people. For myself I didn't pay that much attention to researching what kind of climate I'd have before drawing Blaist Blaland and now the country's position and shape is a rather hard thing to change (which I'm also not really interested in at this point), so I'm not opting for a perfectly realistic climate. I also think it's unlikely any of us has the knowledge to make a very accurate climate model so while I can only appreciate using your knowledge to design something realistic, I wouldn't want the climate models to be pushed upon people. If you by coherent you simply mean everyone come to agree on how the climate, coastlines, elevation, etc. is, I agree that's a goal, it would be an odd project if someone disputed the coastline of Kallisto and had a different definition of it than vh. But I think vh has the last say in how Kallisto's coastline should be.
What are your personal goals for your nation(s)? [...]First to Tuto: Remember this is a forum for astronomy software, so most people here probably has some interest in it (including me).
Not that I have any problem with your nation being around the top of astro research.
My goal for my nations are a bit different:
Blaist Blaland isn't really supposed to be an utopia (some people would say socialism is unrealistic and in that case just consider it a utopia - that's not really the discussion), but a kind of ideal, well-functioning country based on my ideas, with focus on e.g. science. A kind of society I still imagine to be possible in the real world. I'd like to write an interesting history for it with some hopefully humorous stuff buried (social justice wars,...). I made it with a climate in mind that was mainly forests, plains, lakelands, grasslands, and planning for large parts of it to be covered in agriculture, and I've generally tried to shape it a bit to some of my earlier country fiction - e.g. implementing my largest city drawing as capital and basing it on language I made long ago.
Red Rainbow is a bit similar, but totalitarian, oriented towards military, and here the climate isn't as important to me, large parts may be desert, although I've also had ideas for the northeast to be forested and possibly cold due to elevation.
What is important to you about the project and what you've done so far? [...]I don't know what to pick out specifically, one thing I spent a long time on was the anthem of Blaist Blaland, which was an important thing to me as this could communicate a lot of values and details from your society combined with some music from the country. The city drawing might be a bit cheaty to pick but that's also a thing I think is important, and something I'd like to be a part of the "main" fictive country project I work on. Having spent a lot of time drawing the borders, terrain, regions and some historical areas' borders now, which I'm rather satisfied with the look of (plus some of it being in the anthem video), I also consider these rather important. And in general I guess those are some of the things I like about the project, that you can start working on pretty much any detail about your country when you feel like it. Another day I might write some laws or add in some more details on the economy or draw the major monorail lines connecting all the cities. I like to do stuff like that.
