Ever wondered just how close to midnight your town’s personal doomsday clock should be? Start the calculations rolling with this little tool that lets you know just how much nuclear danger you’re in.
Please note the disclaimer:
“Please, please, please do not make any important decisions based on this information.”
Sink or Swim
Now you’ve got your own little piece of land, the start of your empire, you’re ready to start out on a campaign of conquest that will hopefully eventually take you to the very pinnacle of humanity. The next step is the important one. This is the point at which you need to decide whether you want to continue in your quest for power.
So once you’ve weighed up the pros and cons and decided to continue in your quest it’s on to bigger and better things, there’s no pulling out now. The best, quickest and most cost effective way to establish yourself as a power to be taken seriously on the global stage can be summed up in two words – NUCLEAR ARMAMENT. That’s right. Surplus nukes shouldn’t be to hard to purchase with the current political stigma attached to owning them. Nations are being forced to disarm and they’d probably be more than happy to have you take them off their hands. You may have to tell a little white lie at this point and promise to dispose of them “thoughtfully and carefully,” that’s what you needed Tasmania for, obviously.
To be taken seriously at meetings of the United Nations Security Council you need to have demonstrated not only that you have nuclear capacity but also that you’re not afraid to use it. I suggest aiming one of your missiles squarely at somewhere that no one really cares about, and pressing the little red button. A good option might be parliament house in Canberra, Australia, that’ll get you noticed, but not necessarily loathed by those over at the UN. The Australian people will also love you for it. I mean nobody likes Canberra anyway. It’s a hole.
What’s in a name?
So now that the Security Council is ready to discuss you, you need a name that they can bandy about the boardroom table. Studies have shown that of the last group of major global super powers there has been a preference for a reference to some form of unity. Nominal unity is the best kind, you can be united in name and your nature really doesn’t matter. When was the last time the United Nations made a unanimous decision? For your purposes it doesn’t matter if it’s a complete misnomer. The use of the word united as an adjective, or sometimes a noun, or the past tense of a verb, has been over done in naming new countries. You have your United States, United Kingdom, and United Arab Emirates, there’s no real room, or need, for one more. I’d suggest going for the less popular, but equally successful “Union.” Since our example empire is in the south it might be worth including that in the name. Just to help people visualise it during discussions. You don’t want to be to visual as that might lead to the Americans having some notion of where it is, and their next step is to send in the bombers. So let’s just call it the Southern Union of the lesser Australasian states. That should be enough to send the US bombers to Austria and keep our country relatively safe.