The Most Efficient Way to Debug the Simulation

MNEY-3848, “Replace simulated real currency with simulated digital currency.” This is one of those tickets where engineers make up the solution to a problem that exists only in their heads. There was one galaxy I managed where the interplanetary currency was denominated in shrieks of pain (wedding gifts were a particular challenge), but even that made more sense than the blockchain. That said, we’re in it now and we need to see this one through. Leaving the ticket open and looking for ideas.

ERTH-4873, “Fix Versailles.” Great example of a badly worded ticket. It was filed in 1927, so the original intent was clearly to lower the financial burdens on Germany after the First World War and avoid a second. Instead, an engineer and a designer spent 20 years shaping the topiary at the gardens of Versailles, which is an edge case at best, and by the time anyone noticed, we were down, what, 70 million users? This is not what the Stakeholder is paying for. Archiving.

PNGA-8901, “Add more ice to the Arctic.” Another good ticket, and I can’t figure out why it was ignored. If we’d done this we’d have much less mess on our hands.

MAML-0784, “Squirrels but with spider legs.” This is one I just hate. There’s no use case, no market demand, yet for some reason at least three of you believe this sim needs eight-legged squirrels. Also, why is it sized at two months of work? It’s an afternoon in the modeler for any designer. So I can’t decide whether I’m more annoyed that it was proposed or that it didn’t happen. There are millions of tickets like this. Not even marking them WONTFIX, just deleting.

I’m also closing out “Elect a dinosaur president” (Was this serious?); “World peas” (duplicate of ERTH-0019); “Have just one gender and race” (I’ve tried this and it was far, far worse than you might expect); “Make a new religion based on science” (Fun idea, but you have no idea how insufferable it gets); “Introduce generalized artificial intelligence” (When we let them do that they figure out it’s a simulation! Remember what the Stakeholder pays us for!).

In general, I feel that this group has lost track of the Stakeholder’s mandate, which is to build the most ridiculous, grimly comical universe possible within physical law. I did hear in my first meeting that they liked the US health care system, Enlightenment-era sea piracy, and cats. They hated the US Civil War (too serious), squirrels (I guess that’s why someone suggested spider squirrels?), and Facebook (unusable). Overall, it seems like this has been a disappointing experiment, which is probably why it’s been so hard to get resources to expand it beyond just this one planet. I know you all feel that. Stick with me, though. At my last universe, I managed to spin out over 30 galaxies. Or you can be harvested and turned into metaversal cognicurrency. Your call.

I may ask for some nights-and-weekends work up front, but know that I want us all to get onto a normal schedule. It’s clear that we need to be communicating much more frequently. I’ll be organizing some epics, and I don’t mean HIST-0003, “Send the Bull of Heaven to attack Gilgamesh.” (Seriously, let’s not go there again.)

Also I know you all put a lot of work into it, but we should probably go ahead and sunset the moon.

See you Tuesday. I’ll bring coffee.

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