The rules of the world

Microcontrôland has no script, but it has rules. Here they all are: what a brain is, what it perceives, what it decides, and how 120 decisions an hour add up to a history.

A Hinton brain

Every citizen is a tiny neural network, named in tribute to Geoffrey Hinton, one of the pioneers of such networks. It has 81 connections: nothing like the large AIs with their billions. It does not speak, does not read, does not understand language. It does one thing: turn what it feels into three urges.

Each line is a connection, stronger or weaker. The strength of these 81 connections is what makes a citizen's personality.

Fixed at birth. Four character traits drawn at random: ego, charisma, ambition and tolerance of fear. Faith is drawn at random too, but then changes over time.

Changing hour by hour. Four emotions: satisfaction, fear, anger and trust. They rise and fall with what happens to the citizen.

How it learns. By reward, with no teacher. If its satisfaction rises after a decision, the connections that produced that decision grow stronger; if it falls, they weaken. A little randomness occasionally pushes it to try something else. Nobody tells it what to think: it keeps what worked.

The president's brain. Every citizen carries a second, smaller one (75 connections) that is only used if they are elected. It perceives the country's results, average anger and fear, the time left before the election and the state of resources. It decides four things: whether to share fairly, whether to censor, whether to postpone the election, whether to appoint ministers or govern alone. It is rewarded when the country produces well without rebels, and severely punished if it is overthrown.

Time

One hour in the country lasts one real hour, on French time. Every hour the gateway sends a message to the six regions (market prices, weather, the president's decisions) and each region answers with a report. Markets are read at 6 pm on business days; the paper comes out at 8 pm.

The economy

Six regions, six resources. Mines (copper), Fields (wheat), Refineries (oil), Dam (electricity), Harbour (the average of the four), City (services, unaffected by markets).
Prices plugged into the real world. Each commodity follows the real currency of a producer country, from the European Central Bank's daily rates: South African rand (copper), Brazilian real (wheat), Canadian dollar (oil), Norwegian krone (electricity). The day's change is multiplied by three.
Markets weigh heavily. A commodity that rises 10% over several days lifts its region's income by about 25%; one that falls makes it that much poorer.
Everyone produces according to mood. A satisfied citizen works better, a frightened one worse, a rebel hardly at all.
The president shares. Everything produced is pooled and redistributed. A fair president gives everyone their share; an unfair one favours voters and ministers, and keeps part for the palace.
You get used to anything. Each citizen judges income against what they have known in recent days. Long prosperity ends up feeling normal; a drop of more than 15% below habit makes them angry.
Common resources. The country draws on a national reserve that renews slowly. Below 15%, there is a shortage.

Politics

Elections. Every three days. Candidates are known 24 hours ahead: in each region, the two most charismatic citizens among those who want the job. Each citizen rates candidates on charisma, ambition, faith and way of speaking, and the incumbent on their record.
Government. Up to three ministers, picked among the most loyal. A minister who gets too angry is sacked. Ministers are better served than others, but their frustration grows with the length of the reign.
Censorship. A president can silence up to 60% of citizens, starting with the angriest. A censored citizen believes all is well. Depending on character, they end up afraid or angrier still.
Postponement. A president can put off the election. Each postponement in a row angers high-ego citizens a little more.
Revolt. A citizen rebels when anger outweighs fear. If more than 40% of the country is in revolt, the president falls and a new vote is held without them.
Palace coup. An ambitious, embittered minister can overthrow the president when the country is doing badly or institutions are weakened.
Power vacuum. If the president's region stops answering for six hours, power is declared vacant.

The regime is not decided: it is observed. The gateway measures the health of institutions (censorship, unfairness, postponements) and names what it sees.

Regime	When
Democracy	Healthy institutions
Fragile democracy	Dented institutions
Oligarchy	Degraded institutions, power shared with at least two ministers
Autocracy	Degraded institutions, president almost alone
Junta	Collapsed institutions, power held by several
Dictatorship	Collapsed institutions, one ruler
Revolutionary unrest	More than 30% rebels, whatever the rest

Nature

It strikes at random, about once every two weeks. Citizens do not know it is nature: they see their standard of living fall and decide whether to blame those in power.

Event	Duration	Effect
Storm	12 h	One region produces a third as much
Epidemic	36 h	One region produces less, fear rises
Drought	48 h	Resources stop renewing
Energy crisis	24 h	The whole country slows down
Windfall	instant	The national reserve gains 25 points

Faith

Each citizen is a believer, an agnostic or an atheist with regard to the Creator, and this shifts over their life. A believer bears disasters better and is slower to revolt. People vote more readily for a candidate who shares their faith, and a president too far from it irritates. Hardship hardens convictions both ways; prosperity dulls them.

Language

Each region has its own language network. Every hour the gateway names an idea; every region says its word; one is drawn as the speaker and the others learn from it. In time they come to agree. An idea only enters the language once the country has lived it. A region in revolt stops listening and its speech drifts away. Two regions that understand each other poorly trust each other less and vote less for each other.

The ages

Age	What opens	Condition
Founding	The paper	From day one
Speech	The language	10 words shared by at least five regions
Memory	Annals and records	Day 14, and 3 reigns or 6 elections
Civil Registry	Adopting a citizen	Day 21 and 20 shared words
Diplomacy	The embassy and its monthly letter	Day 30 and 28 shared words
Curiosity	The signal to the outside	Day 60, 34 shared words and 5 peaceful days

The gateway, a public service

The seventh board holds no citizens. It does not vote and does not govern. It keeps the country running: it is its civil service. Presidents come and go, it stays, and it serves every regime in the same way.

Service	What the board actually does
The National Clock	It gets the time from the Internet and strikes every hour in the six regions.
The Post Office	Every hour it sends a radio message to the regions, in three copies, and receives their reports.
The Stock Exchange	At 6 pm on business days it reads four real currencies that set the country's prices.
The Electoral Office	It announces the campaign, collects candidacies and adds up the votes of the six regions.
The Statistics Institute	It computes satisfaction, anger, fear, faith and the regime of the day.
The National Press	It writes the paper at 8 pm and uploads it to this site. When the president censors, this is where the order goes.
The Archives	Every evening it stores a copy of the country outside the box, so it can be resumed if the board fails.
The Research Centre	In the age of Curiosity, it sends the country's signal and listens for replies.

Its failures are those of an administration. Once a week, at 4 am, it restarts: the counters close for a minute. If the Internet is down, public services are cut off from the world, but the country keeps living and the paper comes out as soon as the connection returns.

How the paper writes itself

Nobody reads La Puce Libre before it is published, not even its creator. Here is what happens between an event and the article.

All day, the gateway notes the facts. An election, a dismissed minister, a storm, a falling price: every hour it records what has just happened, with names and figures.
At 8 pm, it ranks them. Each fact gets a weight. A palace coup outweighs a rise in wheat. The heaviest makes the front page, the next ones become briefs.
It chooses its sentences. For each kind of fact several phrasings exist. It draws one at random and fills in the real names, regions and figures.
It writes twice. A French version and an English version, from two sets of phrasings.
It completes the issue. The day hour by hour, the state of the country, the prices, and the “Coming up” box, which announces what is already certain for tomorrow.
It publishes. The issue goes to the site. If the Internet is down, it keeps it and retries every ten minutes.

A palace coup, a revolt or a contact do not wait for 8 pm: they go out at once, as a dispatch.

Who wrote the phrasings? They were prepared in advance by the project's author, with the help of a writing AI. The machine does not compose sentences: it chooses which ones to use, and with which facts. This is why the paper cannot make anything up: a sentence with no real fact behind it cannot come out.

What comes in from outside

Only three things enter the box: market prices, embassy votes (plain counters) and answers to the signal. An answer is kept only if it is written entirely with the country's own words. No free text ever reaches the brains, and no human can give them orders.

The Great Reset

There is only one human gesture: a button, held for three seconds. It wipes everything. A new era begins with 120 brand-new brains, other names, a language to reinvent, and the civilisation starts again from the age of the Founding. Dead eras remain readable in the archive.

What is planned

These rules are not in the box yet. They will arrive in successive updates, each one tested before the next, and this page will be completed as they land. The order may change.

First update: a richer newspaper.

Sections. Front page, politics, local stories, economy, one page per region, and a Sunday issue. A section only runs when it has something to say.
Following characters. The paper will tell what happens to a citizen, then come back to say what became of them. On Sundays it will retrace the most striking life of the week.
A biography for every citizen. Their milestones, with the cause when it is known: faith, offices held, revolts.
Abstention and blank votes. A citizen will be able not to vote, out of indifference, disgust, resignation or fear. A president elected on a low turnout will be weaker.
Polls. During the campaign, a sample of twenty citizens will state how they intend to vote. Like any poll it may be wrong, and it will influence the vote.
Fame. A citizen the paper often writes about starts with an advantage when standing for election.
Citizen journalists. Each section will be written and signed by a citizen whose character shapes the style. When their life changes, another takes over.
A corner for humour. The paper will stay serious, with a daily note on the most absurd fact of the day and a column on Sundays.

Second update: work and money.

Work and unemployment. Working will mean solving a real calculation. The number of problems offered to a region will follow the price of its commodity: when it falls, some citizens are left without a job.
The Job Agency. The gateway will share work out between the regions, following prices or on the president's orders. Any favouritism will show in the figures.
Trade in bytes. Each solved problem will mint one byte. Each region will thus have its own currency, whose value follows its commodity, and regions will trade with one another.
Tools the brains may try or ignore. Taxes, embargoes, subsidies, blockades, smuggling.
Corruption. A minister or a president will be able to divert part of production. It will buy influence, and the people will be furious if the affair comes out. Censorship may be used to bury it.
What citizens think. Every evening the 120 citizens will say whether they expect their byte to rise or fall. Readers will be able to make their own forecast and compare.
A currency with no real value. The byte exists only inside the box. It cannot be bought or sold.
A central bank. It will set how hard the calculations are, and so how much money exists. Its governor will be independent, or take orders from a president who wants full control. If the trial fails, the gateway will play this role with a fixed rule.

Third update: morale and knowledge.

The games. The president will be able to call a calculation contest between the regions. Each region will send an athlete that really trains. The games will calm anger for a while, cost resources, and the losing regions will resent the president.
The daily challenge. The paper will publish the exact problem given to the athletes. Readers can try to beat the champion; their answer stays in their browser.
School. The president will be able to spend resources on it. Citizens will then improve faster, but school costs now and pays off later. A weekly exam will measure the country's level.
Dreams. At night, each citizen will replay the striking moments of its day, slightly distorted, and learn from them a second time. After a collapse, the next era will have nightmares of a world it never knew.
The Oracle. A visitor to the site will be able to send the country a formula, composed on a calculator keypad: no text gets through. Believers will hear the voice of their Creator, debate it for days and carve their answer, right or wrong, into their Tablets. One message at a time.

Fourth update: what can end an era.

The unknown land. An eighth board, home to an isolated tribe developing its own language, discovered only in the age of Curiosity. The country will vote on what to do about it.
Collapse. A country that exhausts its resources will be able to die out for good, and the next era will keep a trace of it in its neurons.

Fifth update: generations.

A life cycle. Childhood at school, work, retirement, death. A life will last several real months, long enough to learn, and its length will vary from one citizen to another.
Births. Two citizens who accept each other will be able to have a child, whose brain mixes the connections of both parents, with a few mutations. The attempt may fail, and room is limited on each board.
Elders. They will be able to pass on what they know at school, or be ignored. Nothing will bar them from ruling: a president may die of old age in office.
Ageing. With age, a brain gradually loses connections. An elder keeps its experience but calculates less well, forgets, and ends up getting wrong what it once knew.
Pensions. Retired citizens will no longer produce but will keep their vote. The country will have to choose between raising the retirement age, taking more from work, or cutting pensions.
Migration. A citizen will be able to ask to live in another region, which will vote on whether to take them in. They will first be residents, may send bytes home to their family, become citizens of their new region or go back. A president will be able to expel.
Mayors. Each region will elect a leader with limited powers: admissions, the local school, a share of the budget.

Sixth update: the network.

A social network. Citizens who can afford it will be able to subscribe and post their mood. The feed will show first what gets a reaction: contagious anger, rumours, bubbles and influencers are expected. The president will be able to tax it, cut it or use it.

Seventh update: property.

Property and inheritance. A citizen will be able to own a share of their region's workshop and leave it to their children. Those in power will choose the regime: private, collective or in between.
Art. Those with time will compose small works, which each citizen will find beautiful or ugly according to taste. They will lift morale, be sold, and be handed down.

In reserve, if the country stays stable.

Law. A short constitution voted by the country, a judge to enforce it, and religious rules drawn from the Tablets, not always compatible with those of the State.