Democracy Meme

[Liwet]

Came up with this in the shower so it's only like 30 minutes old in my mind.

New object: Voting booth

Only one colonist can use at a time but can build multiple and they are ugly to look at (the means of Democracy is an ugly business).  Made of some base material and some cloth/wool/leather.

On the 2nd day of every quadrum (or every other quadrum, or every year) it's Voting day!  Unshown to the player, every adult colonist gets a new work job with a random number to go vote.  Some colonists will roll a low number like a 1 and prioritize voting over all their other jobs.  Other colonists will roll higher numbers and not get to their "voting" job and as a result will suffer a negative moodlet because they couldn't participate in Democracy.  Colonists that vote will get a positive mood bonus and it will be even higher if their vote(s) win.  Voting starts at 8:00(AM) and ends at 20:00 (8:00PM) on Voting day.

On Voting day, the game will pick 0, 1, or 2 social roles and/or specialist jobs in the colony, prioritizing roles that don't yet exist in the colony, with the Leader role always getting picked if there isn't one in the colony.  If a role is picked and someone is already filling that role, that person will be up for reelection.  The game will pick another colonist at random that fulfills certain criteria for that role to go up against that person.  If the role is unfulfilled, the game will pick 2 colonists at random to run against each other.

Colonists will generally vote based on their social preferences so they'll prioritize colonists that they like a lot.  For specialist roles there will be some adjustments based on the skills and passions of the elected pawn but elections will mostly be popularity contests.  If the elected colonist loses the election, their role switches to the other colonist.  There will be no ceremony; the voting process was the ceremony.  The player will be informed of the exact counts of the election after the voting period ends.


New specialist: Psycaster

Democracy does not tolerate Kings and Queens.  Upon picking up the Democracy meme, any Royalty will be stripped of their titles without fanfare, though they'll suffer a negative moodlet for awhile based on their accumulated honor.  Formerly Royal colonists with psycasts can still use their psycasts if they take on the Psycaster role.  As one of the specialist roles, the Psycaster role can be chosen to be voted on.

Hypersensitive colonists are most likely to decide to run for the Psycaster role while dull colonists will rarely run.  A colonist that takes up the Psycaster role will be able to use all psycasts they know plus a smattering of psycasts that the rest of the colony knows so your colony won't be completely defenseless if the role ping pongs back and forth between two colonists.  There could be other psycaster-related benefits to the role as well but the colony will only ever have one Psycaster at a time.

Unlike other memes, there can never be more than one of the same specialist role.  There will only ever be one shooting specialist, one mining specialist, one production specialist, etc.  However, Democracy will allow all roles in the game.  Democracy will also not allow more than 1/3rd of your colonists (rounding down) to have a social role or specialist job (and the first two roles will always be Leader and Moral Guide at 3 and 6 colonists respectively).  Since those roles will be forced on colonists without your control, they will still be able to do jobs that they have at least a 10 skill in.


New precept: Slaves can vote

Under the Democracy meme slaves can vote but their vote is only worth 1/2 (half).  It can be 3/5ths if the coding works but that number might not work out in small colonies.

Just like the social roles and specialists, precepts are up for election as well.  On voting day, the game will randomly pick between 0/1/2/3 precepts to come up for election.  The vote will determine if the precept remains the same or is modified one direction (for precepts that have more than 2 choices).  If the highest result is less than 50%, the precept stays the same, otherwise it changes one level (so nothing too drastic unless you're playing with Randy, then maybe it can adjust by two levels).  I haven't figured out how colonists will choose whether to want the precept changed or not.


New moodlet: Humble defeat

A colonist that loses an election will obtain the negative Humble Defeat moodlet.  Should they suffer a breakdown while they have this, it will become a worse negative moodlet, Sore Loser.  Sore losers will cause problems for a colony following the Democracy meme (I haven't worked out what exactly, maybe something potentially destabilizing to the meme itself).  Colonists that win an election will get a small positive moodlet so they don't go on a drug binge after winning.