Talk: North Americans

I'm thinking that "Virginians in The Disunited States of America" might be a doable option, though none of the other DSA nations would qualify.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 09:40, November 21, 2017 (UTC)

The lack of parallelism is a turn off, but I won't rule it out completely. TR (talk) 16:58, November 21, 2017 (UTC)

It's probably best to do this for the V'ans. There are something like 5 Californians identified in the novel, just barely enough to be a category.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 21:42, January 31, 2018 (UTC)

The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

Apparently, citizens of the Confederated Provinces are called "Confederals." There are quite alot of characters in this novel, which is currently something of a blind spot in this wiki. Is it okay to create a cat?Matthew Babe Stevenson (talk) 03:31, June 29, 2019 (UTC)

We didn't for the North American Union. I don't see any point in doing it for these either. I would think, given the story, most of the characters will be of that nationality so they are adequately covered by the story characters category. ML4E (talk) 15:45, June 29, 2019 (UTC)

There are a significant number of non-CPA characters in the novel.Matthew Babe Stevenson (talk) 04:07, June 30, 2019 (UTC)

I'd rather not. There's the NAU precedent, and the fact that we just don't have that many TCotTSD characters' articles anyway, and that it would get, well, confusing. Turtle Fan (talk) 23:44, June 30, 2019 (UTC)

Matthew: Given this discussion, why do you think creating Category:People from the Confederated Provinces without any other comment was a wise idea? ML4E (talk) 18:12, December 10, 2019 (UTC)

<Bump> There was no follow-up on this and so the Category remained untouched until I re-read this today following other comments by MBS. I have now rectified this oversight. Thanks for bringing this to my attention Matthew. I do not see any need to discuss this further until the character articles of Toxic Waste Dump are substantially beefed up. ML4E (talk) 16:51, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

"Powerless"

I think sectioning out the people from the West Coast commie nation would make this category less crowded and unwieldy.Matthew Babe Stevenson (talk) 09:57, May 3, 2020 (UTC)

This category has 44 articles and 23 sub-categories. That's not unwieldy. TR (talk) 14:17, May 3, 2020 (UTC)

No indeed. Turtle Fan (talk) 18:45, May 3, 2020 (UTC)

With Pacifica competing with WCPDR, and whatever we want to call Rekek's nationality, I would say the viability of this has increased.Matthew Babe Stevenson (talk) 11:10, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't see how. Even with Pacifica, I don't think we're going to break 100 articles. TR (talk)

As all of the Pacificans will be also listed in Americans, I agree that a subcategory for the denizens of Pacifica in TBoN will help eliminate confusion and redundancy. I no longer object to creating that subcategory.

I still object to WCPDR people as a category at this time. TR (talk) 21:10, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

It might be better to list them only as Pacificans, and make it a subcategory of Americans. Given that the story only covers the first few days of Pacifican independence, there aren't any characters who are Pacifican but were never American. No time for post-ID babies to be born. There is a dim possibility that there will be a sequel novel someday, covering a later generation of Pacifica, but it would probably be without any HT input.

No, they start as US citizens, so they should be double-catted. We've done thus under plenty of circumstances. TR (talk) 05:00, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

And I'd argue that a Pacificans category should be balanced out by a People From the WCPDR category, as both nations are the same region, so there could be confusion, plus we have a "West Coast" (with presumably the same borders) in "Manuscript Tradition", even though there aren't any named citizens of it.Matthew Babe Stevenson (talk) 04:01, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

"Balance out"? I do not think that phrase means what you think it means. None of the characters in "Powerless" have any recollection of the US. Leaving them in this category is sufficient. And MT is irrelevant to this conversation. TR (talk) 05:00, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Revisiting this, it seems that WCPDR has more named characters than Pacifica does, so a WCPDR category makes sense.Matthew Babe Stevenson (talk) 08:58, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

What does that have to do with anything? TR (talk) 02:48, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

The category is weighted in favor of that one fictional country right now.Matthew Babe Stevenson (talk) 07:33, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

A category centered on a short work that HT is unlikely to revisit. It's not going to grow. TR (talk) 13:30, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

It's already big enough. See Pacificans.Matthew Babe Stevenson (talk) 06:37, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Does anyone else want to weigh in on this? TR (talk) 14:49, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

I see no need. First, WCPDR is only a Minor Fictional Country while Pacifica has its own article. This indicates to me the relative importance of the respective nationalities within their stories. Clearly, nationality is incidental to "Powerless" while HT's contribution to Breaking is about the creation of Pacifica.

Second, there are 22 characters in "Powerless". Most are either from WCPDR or historical references. Unlike say the short story "Topanga" where distinguishing the two sides in their conflict is important, there is little importance to nationality in "Powerless". The character category need not be duplicated by nationality since it adds very little. ML4E (talk) 16:51, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Well, the foregoing conversation has not aged well.

The novel probably will justify the category, especially if we get characters from other countries. In OTL, the Soviets cajoled the rest of the Warsaw Pact to help clamp down on the Prague Spring. I imagine we'll see some of that with the Soviets persuading the various North American republics to get the tanks rolling on Sacramento. I'm not counting getting proper names, just titles. Obviously, we shouldn't create the category until after the novel's release. TR (talk) 20:00, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Revisiting TCotTSD

Now that the Powerless West Coasters as well as the Pacificans have been split off, it feels like time for the same to happen to the Confederals.Matthew Babe Stevenson (talk) 05:13, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

I assume you used the word "feels" because there isn't a logical reason to create the category. TR (talk) 16:14, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

The logical reason is that they are weighing down the list, and are more numerous than some other story-specific subcats.Matthew Babe Stevenson (talk) 08:43, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

I don't know how a list of 59 articles on the internet can be "weighed down". Also, you've yet to address any of the arguments at the top of this talk page, to wit, the category is so underdeveloped overall that there is no urgency. TR (talk) 16:36, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Category Narrative

Paragraph 4 begins with:

• However, there are several instances where subcategories are not justified, such as the various independent countries in The Disunited States of America, or the tribes in "Secret Names".

Given we have "Californians in tDSoA" and "Virginians in tDSoA" as sub-cats, this needs to be reworded. See their respective Talk Pages for what looks like valid justifications to keep the sub-cats. ML4E (talk) 20:57, 19 September 2025 (UTC)