“Each commodity has a buy price and a sell price in each of the two Universes; these prices are tracked on the Scientists Prime page of the wiki.”

”The effects of rules in the Alpha Ruleset (also known as “Alpha Rules”) apply only to the Alpha Universe and to those Scientists who are located in it, and the effects of rules in the Prime Ruleset (also known as “Prime Rules”) apply only to the Prime Universe and to those Scientists who are located in it, unless such a rule specifically states that it has an effect on both Universes or the Scientists therein. “

The first sentence fulfills the bolded requirement. It specifically states that it has an effect on both Universes. So, Alpha-Putty exists, and is tracked on the Prime page, and should have some value. It defaults to 0 because of the Appendix’s emergency default mechanism. I buy a load of it with the right Polarity (by paying 0), then I change my Polarity to Prime to win via:

“If a Prime-Oriented Scientist who controls a Self in the Prime Universe has an amount of Putty greater than or equal to the current Crisis of the Prime Universe, and the Prime Universe is not Cataclysmic, that Scientist has achieved victory.”

i hate it but the win’s valid

I’m sorry, it doesn’t. You’re right that putty exists in both universes but it doesn’t have a zero price in either, as “these prices are tracked on the Scientists Prime page of the wiki”. It’s 12 in both.

I don’t see how it’s 12 in both.

“If a game variable has no defined starting value, then that starting value is the nearest legal value to zero that it may take (for numerical variables, defaulting to positive if tied)”

Josh is right—you were not the only person to spot this—and in addition, “ A Scientist may not take any dynastic actions that are contingent on the specific value of an Orphan Variable.” 

It’s not an Orphan variable! They are tracked in Scientists Prime!

“Each commodity has a buy price and a sell price in each of the two Universes; these prices are tracked on the Scientists Prime page of the wiki.”

These. Which are:

“a buy price and a sell price in each of the two Universes”

I was wondering about the Orphan aspect, but then I checked the history and saw that Cuddlebeam added a field for that variable to the Scientists Prime page. Doesn’t that make the variable no longer be Orphan?

The platonic (“real”) gamestate isn’t the same thing as its non-platonic counterparts.

If I add or remove a rule from the Ruleset now, just because, that doesn’t mean that I actually added or removed anything. Same here, we’ve been deluded by our own faults that it wasn’t tracked, but it was actually (on a platonic level) tracked all along. Even if we didn’t intend it, we can’t go against the rules when it describes the way things exist. If it’s tracked, it’s tracked.

It feels like you’re arguing against yourself here Cuddlebeam.

If the stat isn’t an orphan variable because it’s tracked in Scientists Prime, and Scientists Prime says it’s 12, how is it not 12? How do attends rules on defaults come into this?

*Appendix

Scientist Prime said that Putty Prime‘s price is 12.

Not Putty Alpha which is a totally different thing.

Putty Alpha is tracked on Scientist Prime, if the confusion is from there.

There is no putty alpha, as putty can’t have Selves.  In fact, putty is owned by scientists rather than selves; it’s a singular entity that transcends universal boundaries. And all of it costs 12.

No, I mean, there is a price for Putty in Universe Alpha, which is what the Putty-Alpha abbreviation is for.

I believe the declaration is clear enough that they are two different things, the Putty-price-in-Prime and the Putty-price-in-Alpha.

(“Each commodity has a buy price and a sell price in each of the two Universes; these prices are tracked on the Scientists Prime page of the wiki.”)

I find that argument tenuous and unconvincing; the word “each” makes them separable but not separate, and in the absence of a game action that did separate them they remain unitary. Putty has a price; the price must be listed on the correct page; it was. I have not seen anything that suggests that the ruleset requires a separate price for every universe.

Even if your interpretation was correct, the actual correct response would be to treat the earlier deletion of the existing Alpha prices as illegal, which was done when putty was cleared from the alpha ruleset. They should have been moved over to the prime ruleset but they still exist.

Event breakdown:
<ol><li>Before the Split, Putty and Turbos were introduced. In Prime, Putty was 12 buy/10 sell, In Alpha, 15/12.</li>
<li>Several attempts to make use of Materials failed.</li>
<li>The universes Split. The Research Material rule existed as it did before the Split in both Universes.</li>
<li>Research Material [Alpha] was repealed. Research Material [Prime] was unmodified.</li>
<li>The price of “Alpha” Putty has never changed in the Prime Universe. To buy “Alpha” Putty, it costs 15 Budget.</li></ol>

CoV:

Because of Slack convo. I was sleeping on most of the dynasty and didn’t realize that there was a value for it way in the past.

...Gee, thanks comment formatting.

This is very much a result of the dynasty’s experimental nature, and how the split of the rulesets was implemented: a rule that was written to address two Universes was cloned verbatim into separate dynastic rulesets, and in each of them the rule called for the respective wikipage to track the commodity values of both Universes. This was not done properly in practice, but the values continued to be tracked invisibly according to the ruleset.

The failure to properly distinguish the aspects of the two Universes in the rules, in addition to the inherent confusion between Scientists and their Universe-specific Selves, complicated the abolition of commodities in Alpha, which thus left behind some unexpected remnants. This continuity of existence is enough to prove Cuddlebeam’s claim invalid.

The gameplay of this dynasty may not have got off the ground, but i don’t see that as a failure. One of the most amazing things about a Nomic is the process of creating the rules and seeing people’s creativity blossom.