ALL RIGHT, LET'S DO THIS.

[Kaiser B'caw I]

Okay. Been talking with people by IM and in the chat and been looking around the fora. Why exactly this had to happen now is beyond me, but now is when it's happening, so:

-We now have Elwynn, Modan-Lach, and Straylight declaring various forms of independence.

-Maksym cited a desire to generate activity in his MCS claim for Modan-Lach.

-Some inquiries in private have mentioned the House system and the erosion of local identity; others the general grouchiness among Shirerithians in general; yet others feel over-tranquilized/over-instigated over the previous few reigns.

-There seems also to be an increasing "Shireroth sux" sentiment happening.

-We now have no Arbiter, MiniInfo, or MoMA, MiniEx is on LOA, and MiniImNat hasn't said much since he got the job, and I suspect that even if there were no rebellions, a bill in the Landsraad would barely attract a glance. For the most part, we have no government other than me.

-Related to the above, a number of our most prominent citizens have either resigned, seceded, or are distracted/on LOA.

-Just crushing rebellions might just work if there was a lot of activity and only a few rebels, but since the opposite is the case I suspect doing so would not help matters one bit.

Clearly, something big has to be done here, and more than just recruitment. I'm not generally one for bold moves, but it's time for some. My own chain of thought is along the following lines:

1. The House system has gotten to the point where it does not seem to be keeping many people happy. I personally never had a problem with it myself, but then the effects on me were small; the portions of Shireroth with the strongest identities - Elwynn and Kildare - never really seemed to enjoy it much, and various individuals have expressed repeated discontent with it. Therefore, idea #1 is the dissolution of the House system.

2. What comes after is a bit harder. At the moment, I'm thinking either some form of restoration of the old Duchies, or else a deletion of the middle tier of government: no Houses, no Duchies, just Counties, each with a vote in the Landsraad. The former might help with the cultural concerns of wider regions, but the latter might help with developing culture on a county level.

3. Associated with the above, the rewriting and/or severe reduction of the Lawbook and the Decreebook, and possibly the Charter. We need room for freshness, and I would hope simplicity, in the law.

And I want to hear your ideas. ALL your ideas, whether you're a secessionist or not, whether they'e radical ideas or not. I know well enough that ignoring people won't get me anywhere, not when people are already feeling ignored. What do you think should be done? If you have left, or want to leave, or if you're just inactive, what would bring you back? IS there anything that would bring you back?

And if not... well. I'm not sure what I'll do then. I'm tempted to whip out the End Times, but that's Erik's right if it's anybody's, and I don't think he'd want to. But these are dark times, nonetheless.

[CJ Miller]

I agree with the dissolution of Houses.

As for what comes after:

1. Restore (somewhat) the Duchies in the form of Provinces, each with a Governor-General (and possibly an elected Premier or such).
2. Every citizen will have a vote in the Landsraad, which should be renamed to the Folketag.
3. Cut the shit from the LB and DB.
4. Instead of the semi-hereditary system currently used for the Kaisership, make it a monarchy elected by the Folketag.
5. Rename the country to the Shirithian Empire or some such.
6. Rewrite the Charter.

[Elliot Markham]

I agree basically with everything the Kaiser has said. There is not a better Kaiser for us now than he. If a "system restore" of Shireroth's government could get it back its good old days, then I support that.

However, with all due respect to CJ of Safiria, I disagree with his proposed subsequent changes. They are too drastic and too democratizing for a historically monarchical society.

[Harvey Steffke]

Shyriath: for the record, I think you're a good man and you're doing your best in a situation that you didn't deserve to happen on your reign. I already said that personally to him in another medium, but I thought it was worth repeating.

With that said...

I'm quite glad that this topic doesn't mince too many words about the darkness of the situation because I don't think I could stomach playing those games right now. If we want to talk serious, let's cut any remaining flowerness and talk serious.

Gunna have to backtrack here a bit. Try to be patient.

Shireroth's policy has been twofold for years. First, to attract citizens. It accomplished this by subdivisions, more than we have active cits, so any newcomer could get a piece of land to play around with. Second, to keep citizens. It accomplished this by limiting the amount of citizens that could hold power on a national level: one duke per duchy, limited number of duchies, and the ultimate power position requiring ZERO citizenships outside Shireroth. On the whole, for many years, these policies worked pretty well, and Shireroth became known as a place that wasn't too hard to get involved in and rise up.

The problems here were obvious from the beginning. People became attached to their little subdivisions more than they became attached to the country as a whole or the community. Shireroth, in many ways, is like a loose collection of those wikinations or blog nations that are run by a single person. For the longest time, very rarely, if ever, were serious matters discussed on a national level. I mean, what identity does Shireroth have outside the subdivisions? Mangoes? Malarbor? Boomist assault rifles or something? All of these iconic symbols are years upon years old. We're talking like 2002 or earlier here. Shirerithian national culture is stagnant and dead, specifically because it was so easy to get into subdivisions and forget about everyone else.

And as time passed, much like how the average lifespan of a micronation in the Apollo era was measured in weeks but today you don't get any amount of respect without being six months or older, so did people get more attached to the few things they had, and more unwilling to let them see major change without getting all upset. Things like the flag changes and the duchy to house system changes were met not with any enthusiasm but with either frothing anger or just out and out apathy.

Why?

We have forgotten how to be a micronation. We have forgotten that none of the laws really matter all that much. It's been about the community, about having fun. It's always been about compromises between people, or even better than compromises; the trying of new ideas that we're not really sure will work but hey, what the hell, let's do it anyway because this is a fake country and we can make up the rules on the way if we really want to. It's about being happy and carefree and trying new things and starting over if we don't like where we've gotten.

Shireroth is hitting a dead end because all avenues are closed and the ones that are open are boring and played out. It creates a lot of frustration because we're all trying to work within a framework that seems intentionally designed to support itself with no other functions permitted. And there's no sense of community outside the legalism. Even the wonderful projects, the true diamonds in the rough of these dark times, like Shyriath's map work, are personal things. I think it's flipping wonderful what he's doing, but there's nothing I personally could do to help him. I had some ideas for community-wide projects, and tried to encourage some others like the Diplomacy League, but scrapped all of that when I lost faith in Shireroth's future. And I see a few things that could be interesting, like the Shirerithian Association Football League but honestly I think they'd be better suited moving to a more healthy corner of the community.

It alarms me that the only possible solutions anyone is offering to this mess are legal ones, reinstituting duchies and rewriting the lawbook and shit. Because it shows me that nobody here still is of the mindset that people are more important than the laws.

So where from here?

Actually, you know what? I don't give a frack anymore. Nelaga is doing okay; even if we have like 5 citizens, they're good chaps and I don't feel like I have to gush like this because it never winds me up. And there are plenty of other nations too that I hang around in if I want more of a taste of the community. Heck, apparently we've got two new micronations emerging from the ruins of feudalism. Maybe they'll develop into something more healthy than this twisted mess.

[Kaiser B'caw I]

e have forgotten that none of the laws really matter all that much. It's been about the community, about having fun. It's always been about compromises between people, or even better than compromises; the trying of new ideas that we're not really sure will work but hey, what the hell, let's do it anyway because this is a fake country and we can make up the rules on the way if we really want to. It's about being happy and carefree and trying new things and starting over if we don't like where we've gotten.

It alarms me that the only possible solutions anyone is offering to this mess are legal ones, reinstituting duchies and rewriting the lawbook and shit. Because it shows me that nobody here still is of the mindset that people are more important than the laws.

I don't disagree with you. I would hope that clearing the slate would at least bring a breathing space, though.

That said, I'm not sure that any amount of suggestions, focused on people or not, will help heal a community. I can ask people to try to behave a certain way, but that's about it; and it's possible for people to feel it goes too far. I rather suspect that that's part of what happened under Scott. The rest is up to the people themselves.

[Scott of Hyperborea]

I just came to check up on you guys and what is this?

I probably lose Internet access for two weeks starting tomorrow. Until I manage to review the issue further, Hyperborea does not assent to Elwynn's revolt unless it's some kind of hokey just-kidding revolt, in which case we hokey just-kidding assent for now but will be having a long talk with Ric and Ardashir later. I assume Modan-Lach and Elwynn are just kidding since neither of them would last a second on their own, but it looks like the Kaiser doesn't think that and I don't have enough time to investigate.

Harvey is right that Shireroth has always been a bunch of semi-independent states without much tying them together, but that was good! We got to have the fun of developing our own culture without being bothered, but also got to do nifty things that required many people, like soccer leagues and universities and legislatures. I don't know why everyone suddenly started having a problem with that around the beginning of this year, but I wish they'd stop. If the Kaiser's got to get rid of the House system to make people stop, then go for it (even though I myself have no problem with it).

[Malliki Tosha]

FEDERATE!

[Erik Mortis]

I'll get to this tomorrow. I just got off an 8.5 hour shift and it's now my birthday. (Yes, I got off at 12:40am...) and this isn't how I wanna end my day.

But To the claims of independence. Expect bloody retrobution. To those with griviences that aren't acting like traitors.. let's sort this out.

I'll be back in a few hours.

[Malliki Tosha]

Happy birthday Erik.

[Erik Mortis]

yeah... yay. The, apparent, destruction of Shireroth.. great thing to come home to for my b-day.

1. Shireroth will and must stay as a single nation. No break away counties, independence movements..etc. I don't care how it's done. I don't care why people are trying to declare independence, whether it's from malice or benign reasons. Activity and truly trying to destroy the nation. No.

2. I just want Shireroth to live. Whole. If this means a new government. Or the dissolution of Houses... so be it.

3. Find a solution that maintains the integrity of Shireroth. And I'll back it.

Now.. I'm going to go cry for a few more minutes... then go to bed... and wish for my birthday to be over. Say whatever you want about me. I don't care anymore.

oh and: http://shireroth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=281&t=13802

[Ari Rahikkala]

when I lost faith in Shireroth's future

I wish I could remember times people have wronged me in Shireroth so I could brag about having gotten over them.

yeah... yay. The, apparent, destruction of Shireroth.. great thing to come home to for my b-day.

Ehh, aside Straylight this is pretty much just Actual Shirithian Politics as usual. Especially after you apologized to Max. Which is too bad, really, I actually wanted to destroy the nation

[Maksym Hadjimehmetov]

yeah... yay. The, apparent, destruction of Shireroth.. great thing to come home to for my b-day.

Oh stop being so bloody melodromatic. Every day seems to be the aparrent destruction of Shireroth according to someone. You guys spend so much time over-analysing your aparrent predicament and getting into pointlessly long, pseudo-intellectual debates about the subject that you don't have any time left to actually be the community you've forgotten you are. A real community lasts through the good times as well as the bad- because you guys are really pretty lucky here. You have a nice website, an entire Wiki devoted to your own nation, a great history, vast swathes of land on the MCS and the automatic respect of the majority of Micran nations.

What I'm trying to say is that you seem to worry too much about the future to enjoy the present. Actually try to enjoy what you have, and from my position it seems to be a lot.

Incidentally, Happy Birthday Erik!

[Andreas the Wise]

Um. Yeah.

To be honest, I have had less times for micronations in general when I got back from my camps; a combination of wanting to spend more time with God and also of getting Starcraft II (and now I just got Series 1-4 of the new Dr Who too, which is great for my LT enjoyment but not good for my immediate study). I've focussed more of my attention on Gralus and Nelaga because they're the nations that need me more than Shireroth does, since Shireroth has a bunch of other citizens. But to be honest, Shireroth hasn't been too interesting for me since ... well, since the Al'Magroth thing fell through and it really hit home to me that somehow, in some intangible hard to describe way, Shireroth wasn't my kind of micronation anymore. It's had it's moments since that, but hasn't been generally that exciting for me*.

The House system was fun at the start but ended up not fun because I lost apparent control of all the land I'd mildly developed; and now everytime I think about doing land stuff, I either think "am I doing this just because I feel guilty that I'll lose it?" or I think "I don't have the time to properly do it enough to earn it back" or I think "Will I actually be active on Shireroth enough in that county to keep it if I do earn it back?" and so got annoyed at that.

How to fix it all? I don't know. Landsraad democracy is not the answer. Duchies, maybe, though I think the Kildarians have all become too meh about it to be that excited about restoring Duchies. Really, you need to build a time machine and add another four hours to my day, that would help Seriously, though, my vote goes for end times. A recwar would be cool, from my perspective, but I sadly don't have the time.

*For anyone interested, what I've enjoyed about Shireroth back in the day was when we were doing all that awesome economic development (I loved how we tried all these different systems, that was very cool); Kildare stuff when there were a couple active Kildarians around; and reading Scott's stories (oh, and Allot/Chogall/Leo/Ardy's antics were fun too).

EDIT: I should add, in this specific context, obviously Max seceded to provide us a civil war. The other people seceding I don't know about, but it was a nice enough move by Max to provide us someone to fight. So why aren't we all uniting to fight him (or at least, those of us with enough time to recwar properly).

[Jonas]

This will sound like my usual nagging about the House system and will probably frustrate someone (Erik, Mike,...?) but I have to say it: I remember the period in which the Duchy system existed as lots of fun. Yes, there was inactivity. Yes, there were frictions but not as much as now. And there was cultural developments.
I personally loved to (re)construct my own subdivision: Kildare. Like Harvey said: Shireroth exists of several semi-nations. And that is what attracted me so much to this system: I could construct a 'nation' with some others without having to worry about things like exterior affairs, basics of economy (this even gave us the opportunity to be pretty active in the economy and try to get our own economic activity: we even sold Seanad seats and the Dutchal Throne), etc.
Like our Kaiser said: I have the feeling that this disappeared (partly my own fault).
I see the House system as a complete failure: of course I'm glad that we got Corey and Jake in our House, but I have the feeling we lost a part of our identity. I can't get rid of the feeling everything went wrong from the start of that system (at least: I began to lose interest, and it seems I'm not the only one). The Duchy system was simple. I can't say it more clear than it is.
We don't lose much by returning to it (let's face it: now there isn't more flexibility then in the past and the reign of the Kaiser over the counties has lead to nothing). Perhaps it will lead to the return of some former citizens and will avoid too much friction in the future (people will return to their subdivisions, which could lead to some peace between the different personalities).

I think it's a step in the good direction. Not the solution, but a good step.
At least, this is the opinion of a Kildarian who has nostalgia to the summer of 2008 and 2009...

To be clear: I love Shireroth as it has been! Yeah, several nations together. But even Kildare, which has almost no shared (fictional) history with the mainland, thanks its existence and culture to Shireroth.

[Malliki Tosha]

Don't mind me. I don't care (much) anymore. But I do agree with you. The only thing (well, almost) I regret from my last reign was not flushing the House system down the toilet.

[Jonas]

Don't mind me. I don't care (much) anymore. But I do agree with you. The only thing (well, almost) I regret from my last reign was not flushing the House system down the toilet.

I have never told you... but I love you.

[Malliki Tosha]

Well, it's easy to be wise afterwards.

[Ryan]

This is all very reminiscent of how the UAS, Tymaria, etc, fell apart and collapsed.

[Jonas]

This is all very reminiscent of how the UAS, Tymaria, etc, fell apart and collapsed.

You can't compare those with a great nation like Shireroth that has existed over 10 years.

[Kaiser B'caw I]

The important thing is to look into the distance with a profound look on your face. Never hurts for the wisdom cred.

Anyway, I've had a chance to calm down a bit since last night. First: happy b-day, Erik. Second: I hold a lot of respect for Erik's opinions, generally, but I have to say that in this particular case I don't think that bloody retribution is going to help matters, not at all. I really, really don't.

Third: I do wish Max had chosen a different method, or different order of actions, or different timing (or something!), but I admit that he's right about taking this too seriously. And Scott, too, is right that we should be having fun here. I should have kept both points in mind myself, considering the Kaiserial name I chose.

For tomorrow, Saturday, and most of Sunday, I won't be around, so I'll be attempting a whirlwind of activity tonight. There seems to be agreement that the House system should go, so go it will. We have a bunch of vacancies in the government and steel not many people to fill them, so either I'll be reducing the size of the government or assuming its functions myself until that situation can be changed. I've already asked Daniel to air some of his grievances and ideas here on behalf of Elwynn, and I hope that I can address them in such a way as to convince them to rescind their declaration of independence.

As for Max and Modan-Lach, I'm going to be busy enough with all this that I don't know if I can give him a proper recwar if that's what he's looking for, but I can try. I haven't yet figured out Ari's motivations in all this, exactly, but if there's a way to convince him not to insist on towing his sancts away, I'd like to find it. And I dunno WHAT's up with Aryez and his claim on Goldshire...

[Malliki Tosha]

And I dunno WHAT's up with Aryez and his claim on Goldshire...

Landgrab?

[Kaiser B'caw I]

That's what I'm betting on at the moment, but still...

[Jonas]

Allright, a summary:
- Elwynn: Babkhan vassal
- Laqi: Ashkenatzan vassal
- Straylight: Antican vassal
- Khorze: Antican vassal

[Falkner van der Sluijs]

Khorze isn't going anywhere, Aryeztur doesn't have any claim on it, he's not been a citizen for months.

[Jonas]

Khorze isn't going anywhere, Aryeztur doesn't have any claim on it, he's not been a citizen for months.

Yeah. This says enough:

Personally, I wouldn't mind using this to take Melangia and also seize Khorze, my former Barony, while at it.

[Chrimigules]

Emphasis on "personally".

[Jonas]

Emphasis on "personally".

http://www.nafticon.org/phpbb/viewtopic ... 354#p24354

Tsss, evil Anticans...

[Chrimigules]

...who is a private citizen.

[Jonas]

...who is a private citizen.

I assume that two citizens is a good base to start waging for war.

[Jadie Kelb]

This whole situation makes me really sad. I know I don't post much, sorry...school/work etc...but I come back and the country seems like it is falling apart. Why don't we remember why we joined Shireroth in the first place? Hmm? I will give you one word: Community. In one form or another all of you joined because of Community...We just need to find something that brings us together as a whole country again. Houses or Duchies...*shrugs* No big difference to me...I'm fine with it either way...we just need to find something to keep us together. Too many people in Shireroth have known each other for too long and have created too many friendships to have this fall apart now. Stay strong people!!!

And selfish moment: Hands off my Goldenmoon!!