Imperial Order AII-13: Heir

[Kaiseress Anandja II]

1. I don't know what that button would look like. It has always been my position that you opt out of the economy by not having an account.

2. The sphere of influence proposal is on its way to becoming law.

3. If the Duke of Mortis wants to call his lands "Duchy of Whateveristan", that is his prerogative. A Duchy is held by a Duke, that is, the head of a Major House. That is at least my current position.

4. Perhaps more Imperial smackdowns when it comes to rebellion?

[Erik Mortis]

(this was in response to Harvey.. it took to long to write)

But there has been a growing 'asshole' driven aura to the Nation in the last while. Matched with a growing "complain about everything" aura. Put those together and you get those that complain and those that are assholes to the complainers.

I can deal with the assholishness because I'm not really a nice person, and only care about systems at this point, and building things, and not the drama. But the complaining is getting annoying, since there is never any counter, constructive, ideas to go with them.

Honestly, I think once we get this whole new system worked out and people accept it, it'll help a lot. There's been lots of compromise and bribing with land to get Kildare to accept the new system, but they need to realize they are reaching a point that they won't get much more out of the other side, thus the whole Mortis Vs Kildare war brewing(though that also just seemed like good ol fashion fun).

The thing is this isn't just assholes v. non-assholes. I mean, I side with the assholes cause I'm tired of the complaining, whining even. Every since post it seems by some folk is a jab at the new system of some comment to the respect of "Bring back the Duchies"...etc. And that gets grating. Now, could we be more nice about moving lands around, yes. And I think that may be the biggest flaw in the new Kaiseress' schemes. My biggest fear is Scott will go To Far the other direction and just give the discontents everything they want, dismantling the new system in the process, whether he means to or not. Thus I advise a very moderate tone for the next reign.
I took a rather hardline tone myself, so has Mike, and that may have been to much hardline. Considering this is only his 2nd reign, I think he's doing very well. Though a bit more of the velvet glove might be nice. But that can't be the case all the time. The velvet glove becomes a noose over time. We had to many soft and cuddly reigns and we paid for it, and are paying for it.
The Kaisership is about hard choices, not about getting your way. I made Hard choices, Mike has made hard choices. But it is needed to make those choices in a gentle way some times. I knew the old system had to go, and I tried to make the change as softly as I could. I gave people lots of say in the matter, I let them reform as the wanted, and most got to keep then core land. I think it'll be another 2 reigns before things settle out from that again, assuming we don't blow it and revert.
Anyhoo, yes. We do need to be a bit more sensitive to the feelings of others, but everyone needs to also realize that this is a Micronation and we aren't all going to get what we want. We can't have it all. We can't have ALL the old land we had. We can't ALL be nobles. I didn't even give myself a title when we made the new system to show by example. I lost 3 counties personally. Though I have gained one back indirectly, I recognize I barely used the other lands at all. Mike is still trying to balance the lands out a bit. I pulled back most of the land to the Government, Mike has given many back. Kildare especially has gained back many of thier lands. As the 3rd largest house, Minor House, they hold an equal number of lands to Mortis and Kalir I believe. Kildare has been given much to appease them, and when they constantly keep complaining, it kinda pisses off others who have been working, not complaining, for what they have gotten.

But, at the same time. Are things really THAT bad? Jake and Jonas are the only two completely pissed off all the time. and Greg...He's not around often, so I can rarely get a gauge on him. He's got all his lands still since they all got merged into 1 county long ago. *shrug* moving on.

I think if Jake would stop rousing the rabble and trying to set people against each other it might help a lot. And on the same coin, Mike and other stop going around telling people to STFU and saying things are stupid, might also help. (I'm just recalling back a few months when mike kept going into Goldshire and saying how stupid everything was. A bit of old news, but the effects linger).
And as for the Rebellion culture. That has gotten completely out of hand. And that's my fault. And Scott's. (who seems to encourage rebellion as an actual political tool). Rebellion was used LONG ago as a background threat for if a Kaiser got truly out of control and started to literally give land away to other countries, and stuff like that. If a Kaiser blatantly disregarded everyone. Not just the imagined everyone, but truly everyone. For a Kaiser we couldn't get to step down, and had to call on me to use my admin to dislodge. THAT was rebellion. Not this "I rebel" bullshit that I helped to encourage as a joke. This is why I said I would brook no rebellion under my reign. And that is why House Mortis is going after House Kildare right now. Rebellion should be real, well supported or not happen at all. If you are gonna say "I'm not loyal to the throne" you better well have 75%+ of the nation backing you right then, or you should pay the price.
Houses fighting is NOT rebellion. But saying you are disloyal to the throne is. Rebellion should ALWAYS be the last resort in Shireroth, not the first. And you need to know what you are doing. I'm fine with recwars between Houses, I think that could be good ol fun. So, taking that into account, maybe Jonas should think about what he's doing. And before someone uses my 4 Kaiser rebellion as evidence against me. That was the biggest mistake I have made in years. I got caught in the 'Rebelling is Fun' mindset. Yardistan had the right as a special case, but everyone started thinking they were Yardistan. Well, Yardistan died. Only Greg holds the flame (and maybe me...), but even then.

End of Ramble.

[Kaiseress Anandja II]

I agree regarding rebellions.

[Erik Mortis]

We should recriminalize Rebellion.

[Kaiseress Anandja II]

You're the Landsraad member.

[Aurangzeb Khan]

With regards to rebellion you need something that legitimises success and punishes failure. Recwar won't cut it unless its by mutual consent. Perhaps the pretender to the throne should be banished for three months if they fail to carry off their coup.

[Erik Mortis]

If they fail.. they'll likely suffer. If they succeed, what do we care about the law?

Like a said, a real rebellion should require an admin to succeed.

[Scott of Hyperborea]

This would be a remarkably bad time to recriminalize rebellion - not to mention that even before it was officially decriminalized people were still overdoing it.

[Harvey Steffke]

The only "real" rebellion I can think of is when you (Erik) and I protested the unilateral flag decree by refusing to do our jobs, which effectively shut down the government for a day. We received an exceptional amount of flak from that (especially from Scott, who was calling us whiny babies or something) but I feel that was the right kind of rebellion. No recwar nonsense. No "I'm pissed therefor I no longer have loyalty" crap. Specific actions we are doing because of specific grievances against the government that can be fixed in specific ways.

The problem is that people use rebellion as an all-purpose "I'm upset with how thing are running" statement. And you can blast them and flame them all you want, but let's face it; it's one of the few ways to actually get your voice heard around here. For some reason people are trumpeting how much of a brutal dicatorship we are these days. There's no democracy. You have no recourse if people won't listen to you other than to yell and stamp your feet, thus the rebellions. It's a negative thing, yes, but it's learned, natural behavior that comes from a system that doesn't allow much other expression.

Because let's face it. Mike isn't really a Kaiseress. You aren't really the head of a major, country controlling house. A lot of this, nearly all of this, is just pretend. We're all willing volunteers in a community simulation. So when people get all power-trippy assholey because they happen to be the one pretending to be the absolute monarch and they start treating other people like dirt, it's pretty natural to not want to put up with this. If this was a real feudal country you'd have my head on the chopping block. But it's not. It's a (occasionally) fun little sim and I'm here because I want to be but I can be pissed off and want to be other places if things get too rough.

When you start saying things like 'I'm not really a nice person, and only care about systems at this point, and building things, and not the drama." ... that's bad. Because you could build up culture without any of us being here, just like Scott could write Hyperborean culture and Greg could write Amity culture and I could write Nelaga culture. But then we'd all be in our little closed off forums (which is dangerously close to how Shireroth operates normally, actually...) not interacting with anyone and not appreciating anyone else work or building off it, and then what is the freaking point of any of this Shireroth nonsense? No. NO, I say! The only thing that keeps things remotely worthwhile is the interactions with people. And the people get treated like crap a lot.

So yes. I take "drama" and "whining" and "ragequits" very seriously. I worry about every emigration. I watch other nations and see what they're doing right. You never hear about people leaving Antica in protests. No big Gralus exodus. Nobody fleeing from Ashkenatza. It's just us that has this crap and we have it constantly. We're not really the big boy in micronations that can afford to be assholes because we have people knocking on our doors. And if this nation is to have any sort of future, I can't be the only one thinking about things like this.

[Kaiseress Anandja II]

I don't exactly consider myself to be treating people like dirt.

The main difference between Shireroth and almost every other nation is that we are not a democracy. Perhaps that is where the problem lies.

[Falkner van der Sluijs]

Woah! Hold on right there, missy! Toketi was pretty damn absolute back in the day and it worked great. We tried democracy, it put us in the shitter, we went back to absolute rule, and all were happy.

[Falkner van der Sluijs]

Also, point of that post: There are other absolutisms out there, and they're working just fine.

[Kaiseress Anandja II]

So why are we so shitty at it?

[Erik Mortis]

We didn't used to be.

[Harvey Steffke]

I don't exactly consider myself to be treating people like dirt.

Well, you are intentionally being antagonistic, which is basically the same thing. But as much as I'd love to blame you for all of it, I can't. It has more to do with the fact that the system doesn't allow a lot of citizens to do much. Like right now we have, like what, three people that can vote out of the entire nation? Leaves me with too much free time to write protest threads. And I know that's never gunna get changed, but it's still a problem. Like all I want is a Landsraad voice. Not some shitty bought one that can be revoked on me, but a quasi permanent one. It's the only reason I refounded Goldshire and the reason I was so upset when that whole fiasco immediately went south.

[Kaiseress Anandja II]

You mean a Landsraad voice or Landsraad vote?

[Harvey Steffke]

Suppose it doesn't much matter either way since I'm just sorta bitching about the past, but a vote's better than just being able to speak.

[Erik Mortis]

Would you like me to buy you a Thane title?

[Harvey Steffke]

That doesn't really feel like the right answer.

[Erik Mortis]

I've got money. I've done much with the bank and other things and said "Pay me" enough times to have quite a hoard of cash. I would like to use it for others. Do you want to be a Thane? I only ask you don't leave the economy. and even that isn't required.

[Harvey Steffke]

If that's a major point to you, you should know that I don't have any money. I really did give it all away and I have nothing coming in. I'm not sure what the major distinction is between having 0 erb and not being in the simulation at all.

[Erik Mortis]

None really. But being out of it means you won't even attempt to get or use erb.

[Harvey Steffke]

I think I could make a pretty strong case that attempts don't do me any good.

But enough of that. Okay. Let's play this game. You can buy the Thane thing when that law passes and I'll be in the simulation still for better or worse and we'll see where it goes from there.

[Jonas]

Erik, before you started the civil war-thread I had excused me by His Niftiness via PM (now doing it in public) for my reaction about the banishment. This doesn't mean I'm agreeing how things are done here (discussions about banning people should be done public, that's my point of view and I have told this once more to Her Niftiness), but I exaggerated at some point by shouting to her.
I however, didn't take up my arms to fight Her Niftiness. I'm disloyal, but not really rebelling. I would love to see a good old civil war, but as Andreas hasn't the time I have decided to step down as Dutch now (we could do, however, still a little war ).
I'm not sure how you're seeing a rebellion, but in, my eyes it always were recwars. As I said before: I dislike banning, etc., so I would probably be the last one who would try to convince an admin to abuse his powers.

To be honest: Erik, your argument abou "Kildare has gotten more then enough land, blabla" shouldn't really count. As most of us just want the Duchy system back, in which we get all land back. And no, I'm not trying to start another debate here (for someone who says Jake and I are always telling the same, you aren't doing much better, what you said here is something I have heard several times already ) but be honest, in theory: if you can get 10 counties with system X, and 5 under system Y, then you're going for system X. Even if you get 2 extra counties in system Y.
As I dislike the current system, I'm not very eager to help developing it, while I know there's a better system (the old one) from my point of view.

Besides, it's not only the land: I liked the Duchy system and the kind of feudalism we had. And that isn't going to change. And yeah, it's irritating, but you guys stay nagging about the old flag (and not a little bit!), so don't blame me for this.
I'm not opening debate about this, we have enough topics about it, but I wanted to make this once and for all clear.

[Kaiseress Anandja II]

The sphere of influence proposal will probably give Kildare a few more counties.

[Jonas]

The sphere of influence proposal will probably give Kildare a few more counties.

I wanted, for once (and because Erik is asking so nicely ), to speak about something else then the counties (as we have discussed it over and over again): the devastating REBELLION in which I will take POWER and become MAHARADJAMINAROTHEM I!

In short: Maharadja.

[Kaiseress Anandja II]

So, what you're basically saying is that you want to talk about the counties?

[Harvey Steffke]

To be honest: Erik, your argument abou "Kildare has gotten more then enough land, blabla" shouldn't really count. As most of us just want the Duchy system back, in which we get all land back.

Wow, you're just playing into their hands now.

[CJ Miller]

The sphere of influence proposal will probably give Kildare a few more counties.

I wanted, for once (and because Erik is asking so nicely ), to speak about something else then the counties (as we have discussed it over and over again): the devastating REBELLION in which I will take POWER and become MAHARADJAMINAROTHEM I!

In short: Maharadja.

Don't forget the improbable but still extant odds that I take power and become WILHELM I.

[Erik Mortis]

/exits conversation at this point.