VSAM Administrative Problem Approach


VSAM RULES


1. The VSAM King owns a castle which is located on a pack. There can only be one castle.
2. The castle owns villages.
3. No two villages can live on the same pack nor can a village live on the same pack as the castle.
4. Villages own huts.
5. Huts can live on the same pack as their owning village. Huts can live on a different pack from their owning village but can- not live on a pack with another village, nor on a pack where another hut lives which in turn is owned by a different village.
6. The VSAM king gets space for his castles, villages, and huts from the VS King.
7. A village or castle can declare "dibbies" on a pack to place a hut (for population growth) but not actually put a hut on that pack. This keeps other villages from building huts on that pack and later locking him out.
8. Peasants can live in huts, villages and castles. VSAM peasants can also live places outside of the above places but this is not a good idea as they are hard to identify.
9. Castles are easy to identify as their VTOC entry is always Z9999996...., villages are identified by Z9999994...., and huts are identified by Z9999992....

THE PROBLEM


Intermixed with all these castles, villages and huts are VS peasants. It is a fact that all peasants are hard to control. The existing method for controlling VS peasants is for the VS king to sneak his army called SUPERSCRATCH in every night and shoot all the VS peasants that are not paying property taxes. It is a fact that it is important to pay taxes. This killing causes the VS King to reclaim the property space occupied by that peasant and dole it out again however he pleases.

Unfortunately, VSAM huts look just like VS peasants to SUPER- SCRATCH. If SUPERSCRATCH tries to kill a VSAM hut which is disguised as a VS peasant, then SUPERSCRATCH is poisoned and immediately dies. This is really very good because if SUPERSCRATCH succeeded in killing a VSAM hut then there would be an out and out war between the VSAM peasants and the VS peasants and there would be much killing and gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair and our packs would get bloody. (This is known as a territorial rights war.)

The object is to let the SUPERSCRATCH army continue his nightly killing of VS peasants without trying to destroy any VSAM huts and teach the VSAM King how to control his own peasants.

THE SOLUTION


1. The castle should be very small and live on SYSRES. No VSAM peasants will live in the castle.
2. The castle will put his "dibbies" on all the packs in the system but one for future hut building but will never build a hut there.
3. There will be one village. It has to live on the pack that's left. The village will build no huts on any pack except the pack he lives on because the king knows he has "dibbies" on all the rest of the packs and that would be against the rules.
4. We will trick the SUPERSCRATCH army into thinking that all VS peasants whose VTOC entry is Z999999..... (which we really know is a VSAM village, castle, or hut) are property tax paying peasants, and he won't try to shoot them.
5. Every night after the SUPERSCRATCH army kills the non-tax paying peasants, we will teach the VSAM King to take the roll of all the peasants that live in all the huts.
6. If the VSAM King finds a peasant without proper credentials, he will shoot him himself. Also, if the VSAM King finds he has just killed the last peasant in any hut, he will burn the hut.
7. Later if we find out that there are going to be no territorial rights wars, and the VSAM King is taking proper care of his peasants then perhaps we can "undibbie" a pack and build another village.


P.S. This is not a fairy tale!