I presume the idea is that if both universes become cataclysmic, the flavour text in blockquotes becomes rules text?

If that is the case then, at the moment, I’m not sure that is clear enough. Perhaps a minor edit to make it clearer that the blockquoted flavour text becomes rules text?

Otherwise i like it :)

Can we find a better markup for this kind of thing than “blockquote”? It’s going to trip us up when we hit an enacting admin who doesn’t know what a blockquote tag is, or wrongly assumes (as I did until I looked at the page source) that “:” is wiki markup for it.

I suppose an admin getting the blockquote wrong is just an illegal enactment, really, so could be fixed. Still a bit odd to have rules depending on underlying and invisible markup, though.

It is odd… If we referred to “quoted text” within a rule, would that be clearly and unambiguously understood? The effect of the blockquote is the same as that of quotation marks.

In any case, instead of trying to erase our tracks, I think it would be better to put the content in a sub-rule and declare the sub-rule flavour text unless the conditions exist to activate it. (Something that has already been tried; there was confusion there, but that was partly because the clause declaring “Divergence” flavour text was in a different rule rather than in a parent rule, where it would be easier to find.)

The proposal’s purpose is interesting, in it aims to… smash the two universes together? Is that the undesirable outcome players will aim to avoid? Better than an “everyone has lost” metadynasty, I suppose.

All right, 5 votes in favour as of now. If nothing else, I’ll aim to replace the blockquote with a subrule at some point (I only have so many slots), and move the rule’s second paragraph ahead of this one; it fits better there anyway.

Question… After this “shutdown” is activated, what happens once neither Universe is cataclysmic any longer? There is no provision here to put it back in its box, so this must be a permanent change rather than an interlude.

[Duke] This is intended to be an actual fail state—a permanent change that means the cooperative group, in whatever sense, has lost the game. Josh’s idea was to end the dynasty immediately when that happened, to which numerous people objected. My alternative here is something that doesn’t end the dynasty, but can only be undone by proposal (an extradynastic cooperative mechanic).

That sounds reasonable. Thanks!