keeveek: No. If you paid attention to the game, you would realise that most eastern countries are even worse than Arstotzka, this is why so many people are coming to you.
And many of them, if not most of them, have not legit papers, because they are escaping their country and couldn't get legit papers because the regime simply denied them.
Murfallo: Thank you for presuming that I am unable to read. I will, in turn, presume that you are either too young or too idealistic to understand how migration politics work.
First of all, people escaping from the hardships of their country is NEVER a sufficient reason to blindly let them in your country. This process has to be diligently measured and controlled, so that you don't get a spike of criminal activity and don't make the border areas extremely uncomfortable for native population.
I will reiterate that the passport control officer has no means to evaluate the effect his criminal decision will have in future. He is apriori unable to discern spies, terrorists, insane applicants in remission and, generally, almost any other condition which would preclude the entry of such applicant.
I will also point out that the only document that is issued natively is the passport. Every other paper you require is issued by your native consulate. So it is not the regime they are fleeing from that denied them the papers, it is your own compatriots after careful scrutiny of the request for admission.
Must say I have to agree with Murfallo on this one. Frankly I'm actually really surprised that so many people are really surprised that a lot of people play this game without thinking about the repercussions. In a real-life situation, it is not the
job of the inspector at the border to allow or deny people based on his/her own assumptions. This person is in no position to make that call, and as such should simply follow the paperwork.
keeveek: If you wouldn't have any dilemmas, if that wasn't a game but real life (with the same political reality), you're not human, you're a machine.
Murfallo: And if you would have any dilemmas, you would be a criminal and an incompetent employee.
Imagine what would happen if every single border guard, police officer, etc. in the world thought they knew better about the laws that they're paid to uphold and enforce? It's not their job to decide which ones to obey and which ones to break.
As for the people trying to get in in the game, the person/people they should be whinging to is the person/people who can authorise the documents, or get better underworld contacts to get better forgeries!
Having said that though, if they do try to scheme in anyway, they could at the very least offer a bribe or some other incentive - don't they realise how little they get paid in Arstotzka? That's actually something else this game highlights quite well - if you don't pay your border guards well enough (at least enough that they can support themselves and their family), then you have to expect corruption - the most oppressive regime won't be enough to stop that, as people will always find a way around it, and has happened (and continues to happen).
Personally I think there's a huge difference between someone taking bribes to make ends meet, and someone taking bribes because of pure greed. Since it's a game, I would have favoured the greed option anyway, but given the bad pay and the fact that terrorist attacks reduce it even further, why should my family go hungry just so other people can miss out on their drugs? :) Or maybe I'm just a bastard, but seriously why get a citation with no benefit?
Take the husband and wife duo - they knew the wife's paperwork was missing, so you'd think they'd at least try to shove some cash my way. Also, why did the husband go first? Surely he would have checked to make sure the wife got in first - unless maybe ditching her was his plan all along, and he's actually total prick who has a secret girlfriend in Arstotzka...
I was actually disappointed more people didn't offer me a bribe after the scans showed something dodgy - everyone except two (scripted) people tried to deny it. Then all were always so surprised when they were arrested - what did they think was going to happen after getting caught out, and then STILL lying about it?
keeveek: But if you think that strip-searching every Kolechian because one of the terrorists was Kolechian is a reasonable and not over the top excuse, I don't have any further questions.
Yes, that's an example of profiling. You'll notice that their respective Government complained about this and the practice was stopped the very next day (fast, this Arstotzkan bureaucracy!). Given the circumstances (terrorist attacks), and lack of better detection mechanisms at the time (which they introduced later), one can't totally blame them. Also not unexpected from a country that has "job lotteries" and has everyone say "Glory to Arstotzka!" a lot - it's much worse when Western democracies do this (as some have done in the not so recent past). Also you're not denying them entry, you're just assuming they're probably dodgy based on their country of origin - bad, but not as bad as locking someone up because their forms have wrong serial numbers (I'd guess that's due to some public servant stuffing up somewhere - but surely that'll get cleared up after their arrest)...
keeveek: There is no rationalisations for most rules at all. They are vastly over the top. Because there was some polio breakout in one country now we are inspecting everyone?
Well polio is pretty serious - did you see what countries did when the Swine Flu was around? Now
that was over the top, and it wasn't anywhere near as bad a disease (as it turned out). And that was Western democratic nations doing the "over the top" thing - it happens. To their credit, it only takes them one day to come up with a proper solution (vac certificate) - again, fast this Arstotzkan bureaucracy! So the "deny everyone" was just a knee-jerk stop-gap until something more permanent could be implemented.
Murfallo: /Spoiler
Apart from confiscating valid internal passports. The rationale behind that rule I didn't get at all.
I guess they didn't want these people to leave, so they could watch and/or interrogate them, and in the meantime they wouldn't be able to escape and/or get in touch with others out-of-country to do more (potential) damage. Again it's a very broad rule, which gets broader - that's oppressive regimes for you, especially those with ineffective internal security mechanisms (they obviously couldn't infiltrate the group or discover the information some other way). Of course the "order" could just be quite clever...
The thing that doesn't make sense though is that you confiscate passports even from those who you deny entry - unless this is to ensure that they don't come back in. Still, I would have thought that they would have a rule change that states that anyone whose passport you confiscate who
doesn't make it in gets arrested immediately.
coagmano: It also didn't take long after I was offered bribes for detaining people that I started doing it as often as possible!
Filben: I stoped that when he couldn't pay me the whole amount and as I detained people and I haven't got the money the day later. I'm not that fast (in average 10, sometimes one or two more or less) so I need every dollar for my family. As the bribes fail to appear I stoped detaining people not until the guard came back and gave me the rest of the money.
SPOILER ALERT
Did you actually get the guard to give you ALL that he owes? I remember having detained something like 8-9 people each of the first two times he paid me, and each time I think I only got 5 bucks out of him. The third time he gave me 15, but I think at least 5 was for the bomb he sold, so he was still short a fair bit. I started getting cash at my apartment, but I'm pretty sure that was for new detainees, and not for the others. He did say he'd pay 5 for every 2, right?
I actually didn't notice this the first game I played, but then I didn't detain more than 5 each time in that one.
Filben: It started as an simple and addictive game but now grows to something in which your part is not that small. I support the Ezic where I can and if my penalties alows it I let through specific individuals. If I got my last warning I stop doing that because my family is priority one.
MORE SPOILER ALERT
The EDIC guys tend to pay you around 20 bucks each time you do something for them, at least after the first two. Not actually sure if they can ever properly pay for that since the first time I didn't burn the cash (so they just "helped me out" when I got into trouble for it - never got it back though), and the second play-through I semi-ignored them (so had to flee to Orbistan, as opposed to hanging around for the "better" ending).
I won't mention specifics (and you've likely found these anyway), but there are a couple of other good cash injections (better than the 20 bucks edict deals by a fair bit). One took me a few tries to get though...
