Breaking news: Babkhans are acting Babkhan!

[Malliki]

I'm a bit unsure about the timeline, but Hesam's actions as Kaiser does amount to treason in my opinion, Babkhan citizen or not. Coming around here afterwards saying "Har har, it's all a bit o' fun" doesn't really change anything. As to any consequences, at the very least the Mango-Camel Pact is voided because of this.

[Erik Mortis]

oh.. that's nice...So I'm thinking the Ham and Cheese. What you gonna get?

[Malliki]

Scrambled Eggs.

[Erik Mortis]

Just plain?

[Malliki]

I'll have some ham in mine, I think. Or some spam spam spam spam spam spam spam

[Erik Mortis]

I like ham in my Scrambled Eggs.. just seems natural to me.

[Jonas]

I suppose as well because Shireroth really doesn't get out much and tends to be outraged over the slightest thing.

Hesam, we are always outraged about the slightest thing but we enjoy ourself with being outraged. That's how Shirerithians are! The Babhkans are still more than welcome, however I'm still in favour to use my guillotine or sending you to the uranium mines in Kildare.

What would life be without Babhkans? Very boring!

[Andreas the Wise]

Tis true, its so much more fun having a spy organisation if there's actually other nations spying on you ...

[Hesam Jayatar]

I was certain about the PM issue, since I recall a number of issues which led me to that conclusion.

First, I knew that Scott and Ari were both historically inventive when it came to information gleaning. I had heard a story about a key stroke logger installed during a RL meet-up and decided it was best to stay on the side of caution.

Second, there was the issue that once given admin of Shireroth, I realized it wasn't "total" admin. That, and the out of date status of the secret forums led me to believe that since my becoming Kaiser was suspect, that there was another level of security above what I had access to. Whether that was simply an email ring between Ari, Scott and Erik or an actual hidden forum, I couldn't determine. I had assumed the former since Shireroth generally doesn't follow the Babkhan school of bureaucracy.

But the real suspicion was when I'd send PM's about the next stage of the plan and the result would be thwarted. I'd send a message about the economy, and the next day a post would be made regarding "we don't need an economy". Or when I had begun the preparations for Ardashir to become Judex and the following day, Erik began developing the legal system. At that point, it was confirmed in my mind.

When the plan was launched, it seemed entirely plausible for it to work. The main problem was that I had over-estimated Babkha's stability and activity. Which meant that the further I became involved in Shireroth, the more Babkha suffered since Ardashir, Ric and myself were spending more time attempting to achieve the goal and neglected Babkha. Which was fine, since Babkha was becoming boring during that time anyway.

The real stopper though was when Erik and company established a Judicial faction. At that point there was no means to achieve anything further than we had. You have to understand though, the motive was not to destroy Shireroth, we honestly did put a lot of effort into improving various elements of the state. Top amoung those was to be the Judicial system since before Erik became involved, the Judex was dead. So the end result was that while Erik becoming Arbiter thwarted Babkha's control, it did regenerate the judex so I consider it a partial success.

The economy was another complete victory. When I began proposing the model that Babkha had adopted, it was an uphill battle. Since Babkha's model did not function due to the lack of an automated Bank, it wasn't much of a selling point to Shireroth. However, once Erik built the bank, and with Andreas' and Sfeir's assistance in getting people interested, it took off on its own without my help. I had played with the idea of rigging the economy so that the largest amount of erb was in the hands of Babkha, but I lost interest in that idea and wanted to see if it would actually work organically.

Then there was the issue of Jacobus. When he and I were running against each other for the Kaisership, I did not know who he was. I soon learned he was like-minded after researching his history in Cyberia. There was some debate as to whether I should run at all, and just let Jacobus become Kaiser and see what he does with it. Following the "election" of Kaiser, It became necessary to somehow link Shireroth to Babkha beyond changeable law. So I wrote out a pledge to the Babkhan Throne which included the convenient element of the Sword of Vengeance. Even writing into the story line that the real sword was in Babkha while a copy was taken back with me to Shireroth.

We had assumed everyone knew what we were up to. In fact as I recall I almost did not become Kaiser due to the calls of "Evil Babkhan Plots". Which in hindsight were perfectly correct. I knew it would have been impossible to achieve the entire plan covertly. Older micronationals knew my history, and younger micronationals don't trust anything related to Babkha, (with good reason). So the motive was to attempt to achieve the plan in plain sight and hope that Shireroth, either out of curiosity or boredom, would just let it happen.

During the early part of my reign as Kaiser, the issue of factions within Shireroth became time consuming. We attempted to balance the interests of the Jacobus faction with the interests of the old guard. But it was extremely time consuming and due to the now smaller population of Babkha, we lacked the people to bolster Babkha's interests. As a result, whenever we absolutely needed something to get done, we created a diversion. The Bosworth war was the most perfect example of this. Further on, when the issue of Scott's DL came to light, a new facet of the issue occurred to me. I had wrongly assumed that Shireroth would not tolerate Double Logins without much basis. I suppose I figured that the old guard had had their fill of DL scandals and was past it and that if the younger members tried, they would be exposed. This is why I did not try the entire plan with a DL to begin with. But after Scott's divulged his DL, it became apparent that the mission could not succeed entirely. Here's why. Even if the entire population of Babkha took residence in Shireroth, someone could simply create enough DL's to match our influence. So we realized that the entire plan would simply become a papel factory and I was lined up to become Shah, that essentially was when I threw in the towel.

Once the mission started winding down, the issue of my succession became a problem. Shireroth would never have accepted Ardashir as Kaiser, and we didn't know Jacobus well enough to say that he would not undo a lot of our work (the economy etc...). So I had to make a choice between Benkern and Ric. At the time, Benkern was only notionally a Babkhan and there was some assumption that he only had Babkhan citizenship to attempt a counter-mission by Shireroth into Babkha. (yet to be determined... ) Which left Ric. At this point, we decided that my abdication should have a bit of intrigue and outrage (as is the Babkhan style), so we set up a succession story whereby Ardashir convinces Jacobus to assist in a plot to assassinate me. On my death bed, I leave the throne to Ric. This was done for two reasons:

Outcome 1. Shireroth rejects the idea of the often-absent Riclyon as Kaiser, and demands Jacobus take the Throne. Ardashir would then become Steward.

Outcome 2. Ric becomes Kaiser and gives the Stewardship to Ardashir, after initially giving it to a series of temporary Stewards.

The result was a bit different. Most people rejected the possibility that Jacobus would plot against the Kaiser, or ignored it. However, the importance of the law ensured that despite being an unpopular Monarch, my wishes were honoured, and Ric became Kaiser. Which was good and bad. We had anticipated that if I left the throne to anyone but Ardashir, the plan would be divulged, (yes even Ric was not above suspicion, sorry Ric). But we had to ensure the work we did was not undone. In retrospect I think we should have let Jacobus in on the plan, and let him decide whether to continue with it, or break off on his own. We didn't go with Jacobus as Kaiser mainly because he was ardently against everything we had done. Anyway, the whole thing wrapped up with a good outcome and that forum has been visible for about a month so this shouldn't be news to anyone.

Observations and Achievements:

- The legal system is often overlooked in this hobby. In times of low activity and consensus, it has no point and can cripple any remaining interest in the nation. However when there is high activity and division, the legal system is the second most powerful organ in the state.

- Consensus kills activity. Babkha has this problem. All of its citizens have known each other so long, there is no friction. Shireroth thrived off of friction from different factions and balanced it perfectly. The key to activity is as follows:

- A goal. Something ambitious people will strive for.
- Initial conflicting interests. There needs to be a number of opposing views and factions which are all striving for the established goal.
- A Threat. There must be a commonly recognized and real threat to the "sanctity" of the nation. Something to hate.
- Good Admin. Everyone knows crisis produces activity. But factions can also destroy a nation while attempting to achieve their goal. There are numerous examples of a nation gaining a massive activity spike and then breaking apart shortly after. Tymaria, Menelmacar etc... To counter this, a nation needs a set of objective admin who's sole purpose is to moderate the conflict and ensure it does not threaten the state. At the same time, it doesn't hurt to stoke the fire and ensure it keeps burning.
- The scholastics. There needs to be a group of people who believe they're better than the conflict who do the actual work and ignore the politics.
- Decency. All of the different elements of the nation must be reliable enough that no one is out to destroy the nation itself. The best case of this is the sore-loser scenario where an individuals unfulfilled ambition leads them to take their faction and start a new rival nation. (Yellow and Green Menelmacar).
- The baseline number of citizens for real innovation is 10. Its my belief that this critical number is where real progress occurs.

Achievements.
- The economy of course. It was bad tasting medicine, but it worked. And despite its current problems, I think Shireroth's economy is as close as anyone has gotten to a working economy in the hobby. The issue still stands of how to produce things that people want, but other than that, the rest works well.

- Secularization. As far back as I can remember, Shireroth was always dominated by a medieval style religious system. 'gods" and priests had as much power or more, than any elected, or appointed government officer. During the past 8 months, Shireroth has moved from religion to law. Where once a "god" would appear and summarily judge a dispute, now the Judex decides. Where is the improvement? This decision is no longer a summary decision. Now the Judex uses the laws established by the Landsraad, the law book, the decree book and precedent to come to a determination. That is a big step forward. Religion still exists, but has its place within culture and tradition as opposed to governance.

- The Judex itself. I can't claim credit for it, but its an achievement of Shireroth's. I'd have to say this has been the single greatest improvement on the nation in years. If things continue the way they looked when I left, Shireroth is an inch away from a working university which qualifies people for different positions. I think the Judex would be top of the list and believe it is extremely important. Some say that law destroys a nation, I think that a working Judicial system, drawing new "faction members" from a working university, which in turn is paid for with Erb promotes the faction model I previously mentioned. Might it turn into a monastery of lawyers? Could be, Might be interesting as well though. But the Judex itself deserves applause, Shireroth went from zero legal activity to becoming the standard of legal systems in the community. Well done.

- De-centralization. Shireroth, through its activity and achievements hit a level of sophistication I haven't seen in ages. Organic growth. Meaning, the nation did not revolve around the Monarch or the legislature or government in general. It hit a point where a good portion of the citizenry was not involved or interested in governance. I remember looking at the forums and finding an extremely involved issue, story or crisis going on in some remote sub-division which had nothing to do with the central government. Shireroth really was so big, there could be something going on in a remote section of the nation that most people had no idea about. Very very interesting.

So once again, the things I learned. While its possible to insidiously overtake another nation, it requires a huge amount of dedicated people with a strong home country which won't die off if a few people leave to achieve the takeover. I also learned that it really isn't worth doing because in the end, there isn't much to do once you've achieved it. My greatest regret was being on opposing sides to Jacobus. Because while it was fantastic to spar with him, I'd much rather help him with some evil plot in the distant future. I realized that even when your enemy wins, they can still be poor sports about it . But most of all, I realized that putting any real amount of attention into this hobby is exhausting whether your intent is constructive or nefarious. But even still, this was the most fun I've had since returning to the hobby.

[Jonas]

Well said, Hesam!

- Secularization. As far back as I can remember, Shireroth was always dominated by a medieval style religious system. 'gods" and priests had as much power or more, than any elected, or appointed government officer. During the past 8 months, Shireroth has moved from religion to law. Where once a "god" would appear and summarily judge a dispute, now the Judex decides. Where is the improvement? This decision is no longer a summary decision. Now the Judex uses the laws established by the Landsraad, the law book, the decree book and precedent to come to a determination. That is a big step forward. Religion still exists, but has its place within culture and tradition as opposed to governance.

Indeed, we need to change that back.

[Malliki]

Or we don't. Isn't it better to have Erik step in and say something isn't okay because it violates the law, than having Brrapa step in and declare something contrary to the will of the gods?

[Jonas]

Or we don't. Isn't it better to have Erik step in and say something isn't okay because it violates the law, than having Brrapa step in and declare something contrary to the will of the gods?

Errr. Let me think.

I chose Brrapa.

[Gman Russell]

Never trust a damn Babkhan. I now know I was perfectly justified in hating them.

[Hesam Jayatar]

I've never trusted Klingons, and I never will. I can never forgive them for the death of my boy.

[Gman Russell]

Ardy bombed my frickin' islands! What the hell do you want from me?!

[Andreas the Wise]

Your soul for Zurvan
Instead of to fight for the Cedrist gods in the end times like its meant to. Zurvan really a Balgurd plot, you see. And Babkha, being controlled by Zurvan, is just a Balgurd plot against Shireroth. It all comes back to demons eventually

[Gman Russell]

We'll frag 'em all!

[Jacobus Loki]

No trials until I figure out what is going on. Arrest whoever, Liam is Steward.

[Erik Mortis]

Umm.. Corey is Steward.

[Ari Rahikkala]

And Liam is Corey...

[Erik Mortis]

I did not realize this... Silly people and their names...

[Oroigawa Koreyasu]

No trials until I figure out what is going on. Arrest whoever, Liam is Steward.

AWESOME! I'M DOUBLE STEWARD!

[Gman Russell]

Bah.

[Kaiser Loki II]

AWESOME! I'M DOUBLE STEWARD!

Just don't try to collect double salary.......