His: Apollo History by Scott Siskind

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Apollo History by Mr. Scott SiskindFrom Hyperborea's Historical Documents forumQuote:Apollo History 101 2nd editionWritten By: Scott SiskindCompiled and Edited by: E. MetzlerLesson I: In The Beginning…The Apolyton Forum and the Grand AllianceIt all began in a forum called The Apolyton Civilization II Site Off-TopicThis forum still exists today, and can be seen at the above link, but it's changed a lot. In August 1999, it was a vibrant community, with fascinating people, freedom to say whatever, and a great sense of friendship. Now it's mainly a place where annoying people complain and a heavy-handed moderator deletes anything that isn't about something he likes, but that's a different story. In any case, the forum in 1999 was an important site with hundreds of people visiting.One of the people who visited went under the nick of Giant Squid. One night (August 5, 1999), while randomly scanning the Internet, he came across a Geocities site called The Grand Alliance. While he did not know it, he had stumbled upon an example of micronationalism, a totally new concept to him and everyone at the forum. Excited, he immediately started a thread at Apolyton asking if anyone else was interested in this concept. He got a number of replies showing a cautious interest, and one person who seemed extremely excited. This person went, of course, by the nickname Evan von Christoph.Evan von ChristophEvan was a very interesting character, as anyone who knew him (and there are still a few people left in the Apollo Sector who did) will be able to tell you. He claimed to be a German fascist (but *not* a Nazi...he couldn't stand being called a Nazi) who led a small terrorist organization called the Truppen des Todes. No one quite believed him on this one, but he definitely tried very hard to make it plausible. He spoke quite a bit of German and was always up to date on the latest conspiracy theories involving the CIA. Most people hated Evan, and he usually hated them back. But everyone agreed that he was intelligent, humorous (if not intentionally) and definitely interesting.The First Chat and its AftermathEvan and Giant Squid immediately met at the Apolyton Java Chat to arrange a plan. In meeting lasting no more than a half-hour, they decided that Apolytoners should start their own micronation. Squid and Evan were to be co-leaders until a normal government could be set up. Evan immediately registered a Geocities site at http://www.geocities.com/Capitol...nate/7777/ (this is historically interesting, but the site has long since been replaced with something else, so don't bother going to the link). Later information turned the fact that it was due to some superstitious fascination of his with the number 7, but that wasn't known until later. Giant Squid then registered a forum with http://www.eesite.com. In an incredible historical tragedy, Eesite deleted these fora about 6 months ago, but Duke Caruso may have backup copies...I'm trying to get them. Anyway, about 10 or so Apolytoners immediately starting posting and we formed a little community.The Creation of the SiteThe website was designed and created mainly by Giant Squid. It featured a logo similar to that of the Apolyton Civ Site, and a flag of which unfortunately no copies have survived. It consisted of two units from the game Civ2 on either side of the game's logo, a planet earth with a pyramid by it. Maybe if I have time I'll create a passable copy of it to show you. The website has of course long since been replaced by the Audentior site, but I may be able to get some of the graphics to show you.The EconomyThe basis of the economy was never really in doubt. A few months before on Apolyton, a group of people, who were obsessed with their post count there, created a unit, the @, which represented the post. @’S became the basic Apolyton currency unit. People were given @s by the government based on their post count at Apolyton. The ways to spend these were few and far between. There were a couple of the ever-popular fictional-product stores; however, the most popular business was Makeo's Casino. In this, you could bet @s on the outcome of sporting events or on whom the moderators would ban next from Apolyton. Makeo became extremely rich through this.PoliticsGiant Squid and Evan von Christoph were provisional leaders, meaning they could do whatever they wanted. However, as Squid had a chronic fear of leadership positions and Evan knew that everyone hated him, they decided it would be best to have a "puppet government". They looked for someone who was popular at Apolyton and willing to serve, but very unlikely to get anything done. When Squid asked Mark Laanen whether he would be Prime Minister, and Laanen replied, "As long as I don't have to do anything", they knew they had found their man. Laanen was immediately appointed Provisional Prime Minister, and elections for a more permanent government were set for August 20th or so.The elections spurred a move to make an absurd number of parties. In a nation which had, at the time, about 20 people, there were at least 7 parties, with an average membership of only about 3. As there weren't many real issues, these tending to be groups of people with a single agenda. For example, the Apolyton Veterans Party, one of the largest, thought that people who had been on the Apolyton fora the longest should become something of an aristocracy, while another party of newbies vigorously opposed them. There was a Libertarian Party, which was like every other Libertarian Party in the Universe, a party that thought that the micronation should be less serious, and all kinds of other things.The major political event of this period was the Sort Of Coup on or around August 15th or so. Evan von Christoph had grown increasingly paranoid about plots to overthrow him. He had created a Secret Police, and appointed Makeo the leader, which was somewhat comical, as he was horrible at secrecy and kept on bragging that he was head of the Secret Police when technically no one was supposed to know it existed. On the 15th, or whenever it was, Evan's paranoia reached a climax, and he decided that either Giant Squid or an unknown faction within the country was about to overthrow him. Therefore, he took GSquid's power over the fora away, making him sole admin. Shocked and disappointed, Squid decided to strike back by blocking Evan from the site. The standoff continued for about 5 minutes, after which Evan hacked into the site and took it back, leaving Squid without a leg to stand on. However, for reasons unknown, Evan then gave control of both site and forum back to Squid, making him promise first not to take it away. While the motives are still not clear, possibilities include the fact that Evan didn't want to do the whole thing on his own, or that he feared that Squid (who had Laanen's support), would be able to take away all the citizens and make a country of his own. Evan's official response was that the coup was just a trick to provoke any plot against him to come out into the open, and since none did, he was satisfied and was very sorry that he had to test Squid like that.The fall of ApolytonOn or about August 17th, Squid had to leave for a family vacation. Before leaving, he instructed Laanen to make sure to hold the elections on the 20th as had been planned. However, few of the parties were prepared for the event, and Laanen gave into their demands, pushing it forward to an undisclosed date. When Squid returned, he was furious, and demanded that the elections be held immediately. Laanen said that would never work and would result in the fall of the country, which had already been weakened by people gradually losing interest in the past week. Although the two tried to come to a compromise, more and more people left while they were negotiating, including Evan, who was later to say that he was captured by Israeli spies and held him in a secret jail in Turkey during the period. In any case, both of them soon had other things to do, and the elections were never held. By September 1st, 1999, Apolyton Independent Nation was completely dead, and it was doubtful that anyone suspected that they would ever be hearing of micronations again.Lesson II: The Audente Age Note: As I participated in these times and even led one side on and off, I really can't claim, nor will I claim, to be unbiased. I've tried to get rid of as much bias as possible, but doubt it worked. That being said, go Audentior! Death to the Automatic scum!On November 27th, Evan von Christoph returned to Apolyton. He claimed to have been held in a Turkish jail between August and then, but the reasons are immaterial. In any case, he immediately checked the old site of Apolyton Independent Nation and noticed its fall. He talked to Squid, and the two agreed that the time was ripe for a recreation of the country.Originally, they hoped to call it Apolyton again, and they again asked the owners of the Apolyton Civilization Site for permission. Unfortunately, they said no, worried by Evan's growing reputation as a weird person. The two immediately worked on a new name. They wished to keep the AIN acronym because of work that had already been done on the site, and thus needed only another word that begun with "A". In his Latin class, Squid had heard a motto that stuck with him: "Audentior ito qua tua te fortuna sinet"…continue to go more boldly where fortune allows. The two agreed that the word Audentior, meaning more bold, would be an optimal new name.The AIN website is probably the best known in Apollo Sector history. Rather than describe it, I will give you a link to the Great Audentior Museum, maintained by Bill Dusch at http://www.geocities.com/audente/. This is a very good copy of the original site, although a few images are broken. The distinctive cloud and rainbow motto pattern is well known.The flag was a difficult matter, and originally Squid was appointed to design it himself. In all innocence, he suggested a flag based on the spectrum of light, but Evan, a violent homophobe (he later turned out to be gay, but that's a different story) informed him that that was the gay flag and would not be acceptable for the nation. Squid submitted a number of designs based on fractals, but everyone else thought they were too complex and weird. Finally, the design fell to Adam Stone, who had some experience in graphic arts. He created the "rising sun" flag that can be seen on the front of the museum page, and that was continued for the new Audentior, which will be discussed later.Audentior first met in early December on a UBB forum provided by "MasterBob" (real name unknown). Its first government was a Parliament of five people, directly elected by the citizens and without a definite leader. The first Parliament, so far as I can remember, consisted of Squid, Ming (real name known, but not public), MasterBob, Adam Stone, and MarkL. Mark was chosen Prime Minister. For the first month, the nation was involved in, well, domestic stuff. I don't think anything important really happened. There were a few laws passed, and Ross Alexander wrote the first constitution, which can be seen here: http://www.geocities.com/audente/hiscon.html. Before going further, it will be necessary to discuss Bill Dusch, the keeper of the museum, in more detail. Dusch, at the time this was occurring, believed in a form of government he had invented, called Demesos, which was more or less a combination of democracy and socialism. Fundamental principles of Demesos included a Watcher branch, which would make sure that the other branches did their job, a powerful President who ruled until impeachment, and a prohibition of racism. These principles, while controversial, attracted a small following. For more on Demesos, see the Demesos Presentation at members.nbci.com/_XMCM/bi.../index.htmOn December 28th, 1999, Bill founded the United Demesos, which has more or less been preserved as the Great Demesos Museum at members.nbci.com/unitedemesos/ (the page is really bad without IE, so consider yourself warned). The Audente reaction to this was cautious optimism on the outside and extreme annoyance on the inside. The Audente leadership did not want everyone and his brother going and founding a new country: they wanted a monopoly power in the Sector. (Originally called the Apolyton Sector, it was shortened to the Apollo Sector when Apolyton Civ II Site asked us not to use their name).Thus, they covertly tried to prevent the UD from really getting anywhere.This failed. Bill and the United Demesos discovered dual citizenship, and got about 15 citizens early on, many of who were active. Eventually, Audentior decided that, since Demesosians could still be Audentior citizens, a partner to interact with would be a benefit. They officially recognized the United Demesos. Until this they had done almost no foreign policy.Around this time, Squid was trying to increase Audentior's citizenship, so he talked to various people at his school. None of them really thought much of it except for John Sager, who was in the same English and History classes. Sager originally laughed off the idea and ridiculed the participants, but eventually he got more interested and became an Audentior citizen. He then started no end to trouble.He first founded the Automatic For The People party, named after some music album. The platform of this party was to increase participation in government and to fight what he thought of as a dictatorship by Squid and Evan. At first the government laughed off his efforts, but he soon grew into a political force.OutOfTimeUnregistered User(2/10/00 8:05:36 pm) New Political Party Forming For Audentior [01-08-2000 21:25:58]Hello, I am forming a "perfect" political party of Audentior. I hope you will take the time to read this & consider its benefits. Signup below the message. Automatic For The People Political Party Of Audentior "Come As You Are" We are a party that wants equal rights & give every willing individual a chance to make a decision in affairs of government. In our party everyone is equal, & everyone gets a say in the decisions made by our parliementarian. (On 02/01/00, we will have to band together to vote to put an Auto in parliament. Two would also be a great accomplishment. Once we get an Auto in parliament the ideas & reforms of our people can go into effect through the Auto). All people of a party, who choose so, can get a say in the decisions of our parliamentarian. Members of the Party: 1. Leader (voted the weak before national elections) 2. (3) Associate Leaders (voted the weak before national elections) 3. (2) Parliamentarian Candidates (can be leaders or autos) 4. (*) Autos (anyone who wants to be an auto can be an auto & vote regularly & constantly participate in party & national decisions. You must parcipite in 3/5 voting measures to keep status as an Auto. 5. People (the people of the party who wish not to take the responsibility of the decisions but still may participate in discussion & become an Auto) Priorites of Automatic For The People: (no order) 1. Expand Audentior 2. Promote equal rights & all participation everywhere 3. Win imperialism 4. Raise money through advertising for charities. 5. Make changes for the better. 6. Participate in real life political forums. 7. Spread ideas of equality, toleration, and humanity. 8. Have fun. 9. Reform Audentior Government. 10. Improve Audentior There are still faults in this system. Many details have not been worked out with the party. We need to form the party to work out details & we need to win a seat in Parliament on 02/01/00. Timeline Of Automatic For The People: Signup 01/08/00-01/23/00 In Party Elections- (discussion in forum to be decided) 01/24/00-01/31/00 February 1st 2000 Vote for our representative in parliament. This party is searching for the perfect government. To do so change is needed & we will make change where it will benefit humanity. Everyone counts in this society. Audentes: Please consider joining this party Non Audentes: Please join Apolyton & consider joining this party. If you have any questions please contact Drake44444@AOL.com Signup Form- Name: Email: Audentior member? (Y/n): Will you be a loyal member attempting to benefit humans & will you back up our views? (Y/n): Do you want to be an Auto?:Do you want to run for Leader or Associate Leaders?:Do you want to be a candidate for parliament?:Comments: Thank you very much for consideration!** Original post announcing the creation of the AFTP. Sager, who took the Internet name "RainbowJDS", immediately attracted some new people to his party. The first was a new micronationalist named Jason Steffke. After a week, party membership had reached 5, and it looked like they would get a Parliament seat in the next election. Because of their emphasis on the current government being a vehicle for a dictatorship by Squid and EvC (which, to be fair, it more or less was), the government didn't particularly like them. Evan especially started sounding off propaganda pieces against the AFTPers, and AFTP responded by filling their party newsletter with anti-AIN propaganda. Soon the two factions absolutely loathed each other. At about this time, Sager found a new forum service called EZBoard, which he started using. Evan used spies to discover the EZBoard while it was still under construction and opened an AIN EZBoard at about the same time, to the great annoyance of Sager, who was hoping to get a leg up on the competition. This is the first recorded use of EZBoard by any micronation, and one of those micronational accomplishments the Apollo Sector is proud of.In any case, the intra-party government of AFTP and its conflict with the AIN government made a revolt inevitable. In mid-January, AFTP started doing things that were not normal for a party to do, and which hinted that they were becoming their own country. On February 4th, they officially declared independence.Audentior's ally, the United Demesos, immediately declared war on them. Squid and EvC led a motion in Parliament to declare war on the secessionists, but it narrowly failed, defeated both by pacifists and by AFTPers who had actually won seats in Parliament (they conveniently waited until after the election to secede, establishing their reputation for trickery and less-than-honest dealings). The UD, while relatively large, could not fight the war alone, and called upon a new nation, which they had just discovered and established relationships with, Ceres. (Ceres is the country, which is now known as Blackrock). Cerean/Demesosist troops disrupted the AFTP forum in a struggle that is now known as the Automatic War, probably the largest conflict ever in the Apollo Sector. While banned by Parliament from participating directly, Audentior's first-class spy network, led by Evan, wreaked havoc on the rebels as well. The Audentior plot was to provoke a rebellion among the Automatics, and around February 15th they did just that. Jason "Djugashvili" Franz, leader of the Automatic For The People Secret Police and Automatic Communist Party, seceded with his followers to form the Great People's Republic, which joined the allied Ceres-Demesos troops in invading AFTP. In the midst of the chaos, Jason Steffke decided he had enough of the war and created the Flying Islands Of Jasonia as a huge refugee camp supposedly made by using antigravity generators on an Automatic fortress to flee the Allied invasion. We will come back to the Islands eventually. Squid approached the same problem in a different way, founding the Apollo Confederacy as a force for peace within the Sector.After two weeks of war or so, the UD and AFTP made a peace treaty, although they still didn't like each other, and Ceres followed. The conditions of the peace were that Ceres and a neutral nation would maintain peacekeeping garrisons in AFTP territory. The neutral nation chosen was the Purple Bunny Federation, a friend of Ceres's.After the war was over, the Great People's Republic and Automatic For The People saw their differences fade away, and merged into the Great Automatic People's Republic, or GAPR. Franz was chosen Commissar, the highest position, and Sager had most of the real power. From the beginning, Audentior and GAPR hated one another. As a former Audente myself, I can't really tell you the GAPR side of the cold war that followed, but I know that Audentior successfully put a few spies in high-level GAPR positions and caught (and fed misinformation to) a few of their spies in our army. Maybe if John reads this he'll be able to tell you a little more of their secret strategy. In any case, it was pretty ugly. Eventually Squid got tried for something or other in the GAPR fora and was banned, and Evan banned John from Audentior under security pretenses. The GAPR built up a large fake army and navy, commanded by Patrick Foley, the Commander in Chief from AFTP (if anyone wondered why we sometimes call him CINCAFTP, that was his nickname then due to his position) The UD, which was firmly on the Audente side during this conflict, also built a large fake navy. Evan then took a short trip. When he returned, he started spreading rumors among the army. Parliament got sort of worried that he was planning something. And indeed they should have been. Evan announced to Squid that, with or without his approval, he was going to overthrow the legitimate Audentior government and replace it with a dictatorship under him. Squid decided that it would destroy Audentior to try to resist the change, and instead tried to temper Evan's plans. What it finally resulted in was that Evan, backed by the army, proposed a new constitution giving him a huge amount of power and declaring him Emperor, and that it was accepted. On March 21st, 2000, the Audente Empire begun.The point of the Empire, it was immediately made clear, was to carry the struggle against GAPR to a new level. Ties were made with Ceres and the United Demesos that formed a major defense alliance that was obviously opposed to GAPR. In return, GAPR recruited the Flying Islands to sign an alliance with it, polarizing both factions. Now, in the middle of this brewing conflict from which both nations could not emerge alive, I want to interrupt this to explain some things I left out that will be important later on.First is the MyNation affair. Matt "The Brain" Lamantia from Apolyton thought that micronations were silly and created a satirical country called MyNation. Their flag was a smiley face, and their major industry was Spam mining. Eventually, Matt and his friend Greg "Gman" Shaddinger tired of it, and let it laps into inactivity, where a joint Ceres/Demesos force invaded it. During the Audente Empire, Emperor Evan managed to convince the allied occupation to give a large chunk of the country to Audentior.Second is what was going on in the United Demesos at the time. The nation was now mature and built up, and, after someone or other who's not important resigned as Vice-President (Bill, of course, was President), an election sprang up between Clifford "Dracon" Smith and a new recruit named E. "UEC" Metzler. (Mr. Metzler doesn’t want his first name revealed). Metzler won by one vote. This took on major significance later, when Bill, due to mental problems that I don't know the details about, either attempted or came close to attempting suicide. Due to treatment, talking with his parents, etc., he was unable to participate in micronations for a while. Metzler ran the country, and reformed many of Dusch's policies. When Dusch returned after a few weeks, he got angry with Metzler for his policy changes. In return, Metzler accused Dusch of micronational genocide due to some order of his like kill all GAPR supporters. I never was too clear on that one. In any case, Metzler left the UD and founded his own nation, the Republic of Shireroth, on about March 26th, in the midst of all this other madness, which brings us back to Audentior.Mark Laanen, former Prime Minister, was strongly against the Audente Empire. He asked for asylum in GAPR, claimed he was the legitimate Audente leader, and operated a Government-in-Exile. As you can imagine, the GAPR was all too happy to have him.A Parliamentary election was scheduled for the end of March. The Constitution had given most power to the Emperor but still allowed Parliament to make some important decisions or even contradict the Emperor if they had enough support. GAPR flooded Audentior with new citizens. I'm not sure how many of them were fake, inactive, or what, but they now controlled a large part of the voting base. The Parliament and the Emperor's council met on what to do, but there was no consensus. Democracy advocates strongly opposed just calling off the election. Finally, Evan made an Imperial Decree that double citizenship was illegal. Any person who was a member of another Apollo nation would just have to leave. And they did, en masse. Jason Steffke, the Lord in charge of Science/Technology, left. E. Metzler, an Admiral of the Navy, left. Various other less important people also left. In despair, Evan resigned the Emperorship and invited the Leninists to return and create a new democratic government. They did, but the GAPR interfered and no one was really too interested anyway. On March 27th, Squid, the Lord of Domestic Affairs, and Adam Stone, the Lord of Justice Stuff, left (more on this next class) and on March 31st, the nation was pretty much dead. Some refugees fled to the United Demesos, some to the Flying Islands, and some to GAPR. A good number went to all three. Thus did the greatest empire the Apollo Sector has ever known collapsed into ruins.Sic transit glorio mundi.Lesson III: The Dark Ages Remember that history is written by the victor, or at least by the people who end up having enough time. In this case, the person who had enough time was I. I didn't like this period, so it's the Dark Ages. But a fan of GAPR could equally well call it the Golden Ages…it was not a time of rampant inactivity and barbarism like the first Dark Ages in September 2000 and so on.It begins with the fall of the AIN. GAPR is now without doubt the major power in the Sector, with at least 40 members and perhaps 10 to 15 active ones. The GAPR hoped to control the Sector from now on.Wait…I just remembered I said I'd talk about economics this time. In early Audentior, there was the ADEX, or Audentior Stock Exchange. It was similar to today's stock exchanges with the exception of the lack of Dstryker. There was the similar problem of the fact that no one would ever buy anything unless bothered incessantly, in particular. When the UD came into being, it seemed like a great opportunity to expand the currency system. For this reason, Gsquid invented the first exchange formula, a vastly simplified version of the one used today. Rather than the International Currency Exchange Organization, it was simply the Inter-micronational Currency Exchange. A version about halfway between the first and the current one can be seen at http://www.geocities.com/audente/currency.htmlI don't remember exactly when Dstryker came, but it was around this period. He was, if I remember right, a citizen of the GAPR…he might have been a citizen of AIN before this, but I don't remember it. He can probably clear it up. In any case, he soon revived the defunct formula, added a few new pieces to it, and started an economy not unlike the one today.The Dark Ages were probably the most economically active time in history (with the exception of the second CHE). Because some people had little or no country to hang onto, or because few international relations took place, people turned to business as an outlet. Probably the most important of this time was MEGACORP, whose motto was "We own you". It dealt in pretty much everything, from WebPages to plasma rifles, and had branches in almost every Apollo nation. Other major businesses included the Texas Stock Brokerage in the GAPR and Drunken Yeltsin's Hacking Supplies in the Flying Islands. Despite all these businesses, few transactions actually took place. Though enthusiasm for the economy was high, most governments mismanaged it, and few economic breakthroughs occurred.Now back to the GAPR. They attempted to get an alliance with the Flying Islands, and yes. It…did not pass, and would have been illegal anyway. However, they did encourage E. Metzler to create the nation of Shireroth by convincing him that Jason was an evil dictator (although the convincing didn't really stick).Other important events during this period included two trials, among only three I can think of in history that ever ended up concluding. These were the trials of Mleonard and Gsquid in GAPR. Gsquid was accused of using a double login in the GAPR forum (which he did…he had pretended to be the President of French Polynesia, for reasons too weird to get into here). He tried to defend himself by saying it wasn't technically illegal, but the prosecution, led by Adm. Foley, fought back with the bold statement that it was technically illegal. Squid was found guilty and was banned from the GAPR forum. The trial of Mleonard was for desertion. The charge was leveled against two other soldiers, but for some reason that I can't remember, only Mleonard was important. Maybe the others decided not to have a trial or something. In any case, this was for actions in the Demesosia. The Demesosian War sprang from the conflict between GAPR and the UD. Bill Dusch of the UD believed (probably correctly) that the GAPR had its sights set on making it a satellite state. Although Dusch was in the GAPR at the time, the UD was part of the former AIN-allied block of nations, and, to resist possible annexation, he started verbally attacking the GAPR in manifold ways. At about this time, he founded a lot of little leagues and military organizations, none of which ever worked out. Then, on or about April 6, he somehow obtained the GAPR forum password (I think it might have been Stodlum's fault…I know Bill told us, but I don't remember). So, he immediately conquered the GAPR. He replaced all their graphics with UD ones and put in a message that the United Demesos had annexed it.When John saw this, he was enraged. He immediately declared war and asked Jasonia to do the same (Squid and he weren't exactly on speaking terms, and Hyperborea was neutral anyway, so he didn't ask them). However, John ran into a stroke of good luck. Due to something about the board system he used (it wasn't EZBoard), it required two passwords, and Bill had only taken one of them. John got in using the other password, and not only blocked Bill, but managed to get HIS account's password (it was "Alsace&quot . He then used this knowledge to take over the United Demesos forum. Bill immediately complained to EZBoard, who gave it back to him, but the damage was done. Though the UD sort of floundered on for a few more days, everyone left it, and it was dead within a week.Anyway, back to the Mleonard trial. During the Demesosian War, the GAPR government had sent messages to all of its soldiers to report for duty. Mleonard, along with the two others I mentioned, had not, and the government took that as desertion. During the trial, Mleonard's lawyer, Squid (always happy to have something to do that would bother the GAPRians) presented the following defenses: 1. He didn't check his email too often, and 2. He had emigrated from GAPR weeks before anyway. The prosecution, under Foley, said that this was no excuse. The climax of the trial came when Leonard said he didn't care anyway and the whole thing was a pathetic farce and left. Squid would have tried to cover the losses, but he had been called away from the computer for a few minutes. With this, the jury expelled Mleonard from the country, which of course had no effect since he had already emigrated.Never one to rest for more than a few moments, Bill, less than a month after the UD's death (so this would be late April/early May), founded Tapfer, a "new UD". JDS then approached Squid, Bill, UEC, and Jason with a proposal: merge all of their countries into one. They all thought it was an interesting idea, and debated how it could be done. However, the Automatic leader had not expected debate, and was hoping everyone would just acknowledge his leadership, since GAPR was by far the biggest of the nations involved. So, about two days after suggesting the idea, he stepped out of it. To his dismay, everyone continued to negotiate in his absence, and while the Flying Islands were not big on the idea, Hyperborea, Tapfer, and Shireroth discussed it almost daily. Through some astute political maneuvering, Squid managed to convince everyone that the new nation that would be thus formed would be a resurrection of Audentior. The three nations started the plan up, and then asked Jasonia to join. About two weeks later, it did. It was a harrowing vote. As you probably know, all Jasonian votes on important stuff like merging must be unanimous to pass. Originally, this seemed likely, but Gman voted against it. With only hours left, Squid, Jasonian, and others convinced Gman to change his vote, and the Dark Ages were over.I still have to mention what happened in GAPR in the time between the first merger meeting and the completion of the merger. Activity had begun a steady decline. This was not helped by the GAPR's decision to change its name every few days for little to no apparent reason (the only one I can remember from this period is Temoe Confederation of Oceania or something like that). Finally, Commissar Djugashvili, the de jure leader of the nation, resigned. The supporters of the merger saw a great opportunity to get someone into power in GAPR.This next part of history is a really delicate one, and I still don't know all sides of the story. However, basically the proto-Audentes had UEC run for Commissar and managed to turn the vote in his favor with extensive political manipulation. His rival was Patrick Foley. The election was clinched when JDS, to the shock of the proto-Audentes, publicly supported UEC, although later research suggests he knew what the Audentes were doing. UEC won, and, although he served as a good Commissar, little was done to stem the tide of inactivity, and in the last week of May, he helped push through a bill to disband GAPR and give it to Blackrock. Before this, the proto-Audentes had made a secret deal with Blackrock that they would deliver GAPR to them if the Blackrockians would later give Audentior half. The Blackrockians agreed, and all went according to plan. This is why Blackrock had a province called Temoe when it broke up, and this was the province that WarVoid and Thomas Hubert vied for control over. Istvanistan also made contact in this period.Lesson IV: The New Audentior Anyway, back to Audentior. I think we left off somewhere back in the Dark Ages after JDS called a conference to consider a merger. Everyone agreed, but after JDS learned he wouldn't be in control, he left. I sort of manipulated stuff so that it would become Audentior again. I think I already passed this part. Anyway, on about May 12, the AIN fora were refitted and Tapfer, Shireroth, and Hyperborea officially merged. The former leaders of the three merging countries (Bill, Squid, and UEC) formed a provisional government to take care of stuff until a better one could be formed. The provisional government did a few things, like reinstate the @ as currency, erect monuments, and create an incentive program for new citizens. On about May 15th, Jasonia joined the merge after a long and sort of worrisome vote. Jasonian votes to do something like merge must be unanimous. While it went well for the first day or so, Jasonian himself was sort of vacillating, and about halfway through the second day Gman voted no. Jasonian and Squid were able to convince him to change his vote to abstain, and the merge finally passed. Audentior had a big celebration and stuff, and the islands also had a festival which concluded with them landing in Audentior (no records survive about what the people they landed on thought about this). Eventually, elections got held under a constitution written in about 10 minutes by Squid. He still likes the constitution, but no one else really did, something that would prove important later. Basically, it provides for a strong "cabinet" of officials called PICOs, for People In Charge Of. For example, the PICO: Military ran all military-related matters. It also had each province elect one representative to a legislature called the Tetrapole, which would do stuff like declare war or anything else that was really important. The Legislative, Judicial, and Executive branches would each choose one Chair, and the three Chairs would elect one leader to co-ordinate everything. In theory. In practice it didn't work at all. I don't even remember who the chief Chair was but I know he didn't do much.Only one position actually had two people running against each other. In this position, PICO: Military, Imran beat Lukedu (VH Fenrir) by a small margin. Squid was chosen webmaster, Imran was chosen Judge, and Lightening was given a medal of honor for making a really cool bank program which I don't know why we stopped using. The Tetrapole seats were given to Squid, Bill, UEC, Lukedu, and Imran. With the exception of the addition of Jasonian and WarVoid, this was to remain the Tetrapole throughout the nation's history. This would also become important.A few things happened in this early period. For one, Imran and Bill started yelling at each other and just generally fighting. Squid was forced to intervene, for which everyone got sort of annoyed at him. JDS founded Paramount after the death of GAPR, which was a secret plot to destroy the AIN. Stodlum convinced JDS that he was on his side, but fed us at Audentior most of the information, which we found sort of amusing. JDS also just generally tried to annoy us, and we tried to annoy him back, which was a fun feature of this period. If you're looking for interesting insults, the AIN forum of this time is full of them, between me and Imran and JDS and Bill and all. The Paramount/AIN problem intensified when Squid told the Prince of Alameigh about a Paramount plan to attack them. The Prince was decidedly ungrateful, deciding to tell Paramount that we told, for which reason Squid is still a little suspicious of them today. JDS almost declared war, but eventually everyone cooled down except Squid, who was still sort of annoyed at the whole thing. During this time also Bill coined the name "Airosamente" for the Audente capital, and it stuck. Come to think of it, the old Airosamente website's still up at geocities.com/dr_tapfer/c...index.htm. If it looks a little like Manhattan, well…that was Bill's young and stupid period, to quote CoD.In the first week of June, Bill teamed up with a new Apolytoner who Squid had recruited to micronationalism. Named Ryan Caruso, he went by the nick WarVoid, and, although originally part of Hyperborea, he soon founded his own province, the Universe of Allied Nations. This dissolved pretty quickly, and he went back to Hyperborea. I don't know why I even mentioned it, except as an introduction to WarVoid, who'll be showing up a lot in the next few classes.There was a minor conflict involving Apolyton I won't get into, and then we get into the interesting part. The Great Audentior Riot occurred on or about June 24th. Basically, a couple of people, led by UEC, were unhappy with the Tetrapole. They were used to FIoJ style Direct Democracy, and had noticed that the Tetrapole was taking forever to get the smallest things done. So UEC sort of jokingly suggested a riot. Squid decided to make a thread for discussion and titled it "riot thread". Big mistake. People started going insane and posting all kinds of horrible riot-related messages. Then UEC used a smiley bomb. The smiley bomb was a horrible B00/\/\ist weapon invented around this time that either crashed your computer or otherwise caused you grief if you tried to open a thread that had it. So Squid banned UEC. UEC used double logins to riot some more, and the nation came to the brink of civil war. Shireroth announced that it was about to secede. Finally, Jasonian called a chat with UEC and Squid in which the following was decided:-Squid would unclose all fora-UEC would stop rioting and clean up the smiley bombs-Squid would pay a fine of 5@ for banning without due process-UEC would pay a fine of 5@ for disrupting the peace-JDS would pay Jasonian 10000@ for working out the solution.Obviously, JDS was not present at this meeting. Which brings me to a minor economic crisis. When he saw Paramount wasn't going to work with destroying AIN, he dissolved it and confiscated its treasury. There were no laws against this back then, so he converted it all to @s and became insanely rich. He funneled most of his money into a company called Red Hot Entertainment, which had grandiose visions but failed when JDS went on vacation and then lost interest.The solution worked for a few days, but then Squid went to summer camp. Radical factions decided this would be an opportunity to take control. So, led by WarVoid and UEC, they staged a revolution thing. WarVoid blocked Squid from the forum, UEC worked on a provisional government, and Jasonian aided the effort. About this time, Evan came along and deleted the site for no apparent reason. Chaos ensued. When Squid got back, he was not happy. He demanded his admin back. WarVoid refused. He bothered Jasonian incessantly about it, but Jasonian refused, for which Squid still hasn't really forgiven him. Luckily, the two factions managed to work out a deal. Squid got admin back, and the Tetrapole voted to disband itself in favor of a new constitution. The deal worked for about a week.However, the new Constitution provided for a President. Before this, the nation had deliberately avoided such a position, due to the strife it would cause. Political division was at an all time high. Although the Libertarian Party, led by Imran Siddiqui, existed, the two main parties were the BOO/\/\ists, led by UEC, and the Demesosians, led by Bill3000. Although these two parties didn't have much of a difference in policy, they absolutely loathed each other. Both parties put up a candidate for President. The BOO/\/\ists supported WarVoid, and the Demesosians supported Bill. During the election, Bill, while not actually doing anything illegal, sort of pulled a G.W. Bush and legally rigged the election in his favor. He got old Audente citizens back from March or earlier who had been gone for months and had them vote for him. This swung the results widely it his favor. I'm not sure what the results would have been if this hadn't happened, but the BOO/\/\ists were pretty sure the election had been stolen from them. Shireroth decided their only option was secession, which they did. Bill immediately invaded as a countermeasure...but he did it using ".gif wars", in which he just sort of does stuff like say "Our armies are now outside your capital, you have no choice but to surrender, I win, haha". Shireroth laughed this off. Finally, embarrassed at his failure to win, Bill resigned from Audentior and had Tapfer secede (or, as he called it, 'succeed'). Jasonia seceded next just because that sort of seemed like the popular thing to do at the time. When Squid returned from the next session of summer camp, he had Hyperborea secede too since there wasn't much left anyway. Thus died AIN.Lesson V: Jasonia's Golden Age When AIN broke apart, its provinces became free. There were a few attempts to revive AIN, but the most important, which I'll briefly describe here, were Operation "D" and Atlantis. Operation "D" (which stood for Democracy, despite anything JDS may tell you to the contrary) was the brainchild of Squid, and was supposed to be the same as Audentior before its fall, under the ingenious theory that what failed miserably before would work perfectly under the same conditions. Who knows what would have happened had Squid not had to go on vacation and abandon the project. Atlantis was the work of WarVoid and a temporarily returning Evan von Christoph, who had originally renamed it, Apolyton but had to drop it due to pressure from the real Apolyton. It was to be a role-playing type nation with WarVoid as Emperor and Evan as High Priest and de facto leader. It too failed, leaving only the provinces left. Jasonia was by far the largest.The provinces, though, were not accustomed to independence. I believe it was Shireroth that first asked for Jasonia to incorporate it. They did. Tapfer followed, and, finally, grudgingly, Hyperborea. This begins the time known as the Golden Age of Jasonia when it was the Sector's major superpower. Also, there was Antarctica, which was founded by WarVoid but never achieved any real importance and in fact I totally forgot about it until I was halfway done with the class so I'm adding it on later. And Hau'oli 'Ena, which didn't do much at this time but became more important later on.Things that took place in the Golden Age include the proposal for the first RPG, Control of Destiny, the founding of the Apollo Fireball, various fictional projects like the GravTrain, Ocean Palace, and a few new Flying Islands, a revival of interest in JASO, a healthy economy, the introduction of Assassinite to micronationalism, the creation of various works of fiction like The Black Omen, and about the third time UEC left. This was a time of incredible culture, second perhaps only to the beginning of New AIN. With a stable Jasonia, there was little need to worry about politics, so energy went into building up the country. This is the time Jasonia got a lot of its international relations as well. And don't forget the Jasoniad, Jasonia's unfinished epic. Less happy events from this period include an almost constant judicial battle between UEC and Bill, which Bill usually ended out winning, seeing as he WAS the High Judge. The Golden Age of Jasonia did not officially end until the creation of the UAS, but its cultural renaissance part was over by around October. The highlight of the period, without a doubt, was the Infernal War.The story of the Infernal War starts in an odd place...Jasonia's decision to change its name. The whole Flying Islands thing seemed odd to a lot of people (as it still does), and Jasonia sounded downright egotistical. So the name was changed to Aeronesia at the suggestion of Squid, who knew something vaguely resembling Greek. (Aeronesia means Flying Islands). The vote was extremely close, and, while I forget exactly what tactics were used, they were certainly not good ones. Anyway, WarVoid, although originally a proponent of name change, was very annoyed. So was UEC, though for different reasons. After going on one of his random spamming attacks (or maybe just threatening to...I forget), he was banned from Jasonia. The two of them, with UEC's old friend VH Fenrir, left and started plotting.Fast-forward a week or two. Squid, making his pointless rounds of the old fora, went to Antarctica, which had long been dead. Surprisingly and somewhat worryingly, it had been changed to the People's Republic of Hell, with graphics to match. (To see them, check the Great Infernal Museum). Squid reported it to Jasonian, and they decided to keep it secret so as to see if they could gather more information unobserved. But bill also noticed, and announced it to the world. WarVoid confirmed that this was a new nation he was working on for people who didn't like Jasonia, but said that they just wanted to be left alone. Jasonia didn't believe them for a second, and the fact that they were technically a secessionist province because of the Antarctica thing didn't help much either. Hawks, especially Bill, began pushing for immediate war of re-conquest. Now I'm going to have to do a typical Irritating Historian Thing, which is interrupt the middle of a tense situation to talk about its Effect On Culture. The main effect was the addition of the word PRH to the Apollo vocabulary. For example, a confused Apollonian might ask "What the PRH?” while a problematic country might be "going to the PRH in a hand basket". The other thing was the identification of Jasonia with Heaven. It was in the sky, and they had to make it sound like fighting against Hell was a good thing, so they launched a subtle propaganda campaign.Anyway, things started heating up (pardon the PRH related pun...you'll see more of them). JDS invited PRH to take over Hau'oli 'Ena, which had the slight problem of its being a Jasonian province. JDS made the argument that he had created it so he should control it, while the FIoJ made the argument that it was given to them, so now it was theirs. The PRH, meanwhile, was growing at a hellish pace (told you), annexing Paramount and then Norfolk. Norfolk was a relatively unimportant nation founded by Admiral Foley after GAPR's collapse that was later annexed by Jasonia. For reasons unknown, Squid found that he had admin powers in Norfolk, and so he locked the Infernals out. In return, WarVoid threatened to destroy the Great Audentior Museum, a favorite of Squid's. Squid thought he was bluffing (and was right). Eventually, the two worked out a deal where Norfolk would be a museum, neither Jasonian nor Infernal, a condition it remains in to this day. This was the Battle of Norfolk. Unfortunately, Stodlum, who hacked in and randomly changed it to “The Pornocratic Republic of XXX”, interrupted it about halfway through. Eventually it was de-changed, but then Hell went and invaded Hau'oli 'Ena. Jasonia declared lukewarm war, which is somewhere between cold war and hot war. They then retook Norfolk. The PRH got mad and retaliated. Jasonia declared full war. Thomas Hubert declared himself an ally of Hell, and was spammed by Assassinite in return. WarVoid then announced that the whole Hell thing had been part of a weird, convoluted plot to unify the Sector by force. Squid pointed out that a much easier way to unify the Sector would be for Hell to merge with Jasonia, thus making the FIoJ the only nation, as it had been before the war. WarVoid thought about it for a while and then decided it was a darned good idea. The nations negotiated terms of merger (mainly, everything stayed Jasonian, but WarVoid got some cool titles which he never used) and the war was over. WarVoid's plan for unity resulted (eventually) in the Apollo Pact, which will be discussed next time, along with the Three Hours' War, the economic boom in Hau'oli 'Ena, and random other stuff.Lesson VI: The Hubert Wars and the Apollo Pact The period from the Infernal War to the creation of the UAS was one in which quite a bit happened, but the events are hard to group into any real theme like "The Golden Age of X" or something. I have titled the lesson this because those are the two major concepts of this period I could think of, both of which collide in the final event of this period, the Three Hours' War.Treesia was founded...well, I forget, but we Apollonians found it in late August, when it tried to claim MyNation. MyNation, if you, by some odd stroke of fate, remember the earlier course, was a nation founded by Matt Lamantia in February 2000 that had, after a long set of conflicts and treaties, passed into Blackrockian control. Anyway, Thomas Hubert, the...oh, I think it was Prime Minister...of Treesia, saw that Blackrock wasn't doing much with it and decided it would be easy to take it and therefore have Treesia look more important. Due to an uncommon Blackrock security lapse, Hubert was able to take the website. Blackrock issued an ultimatum...give it back or else. The Flying Islands and various other nations that were friends with them backed them. Hubert finally grudgingly gave back the territory to the Blackrockians.However, the Blackrockians were still not satisfied, mainly because Hubert was just generally being annoying to them. So they covertly started a revolution in Treesia, led by a DL of the Blackrockian called SidneyL. The Treesian army rather easily crushed the rebellion (with help from some Apollonians who happened to be there at the time, including Gsquid), so Blackrock started another long-term plan in motion. As part of it, Eoin Dornan joined Treesia under the name Scythe and worked his way up to quite a bit of power. Then Hubert left on vacation for a little while.Gsquid began to change his mind about Hubert and, with the covert aid of the Jasonian government, started an evil plot to overthrow him. Dornan would attempt to impeach Hubert as PM, and would probably succeed due to the political climate. He would then take his place. Unfortunately, at the last possible moment, this plot collided head-on with the Blackrock plot, but luckily they were able to work something out. It didn't matter, though, because as soon as Hubert came back, he deleted the whole country. Blackrock annexed the empty fora.Hubert then fled to Mar Sara. Mar Sara was something of a cross between Treesia and Hyperborea...it was located in a small island in the Arctic. Some of Thomas' friends from Treesia followed him there (including Jordan Borders, who was later proven to be his double login), but almost immediately, for little to no reason, he disbanded it in favor of a Communist nation, the People's United Republic. The PUR annexed all the old places like the Treesian states (except for Fabon, which rebelled and got under Rasinate protection) and Mar Sara. About this time, Hubert managed to make enemies with everyone who wasn't his enemy already by doing not-particularly-intelligent stuff like calling the Rasinate fascist. (He narrowly avoided a war). Meanwhile, back in the Apollo Sector proper, the FIoJ was still dominant. However, JDS was back, and the Infernal War had convinced him to secede his old nation of Hau'oli 'Ena from Jasonia. Other stuff that happened around this time were the founding of the Apollo Fireball, which, somewhat miraculously, has been in continuous operation since then, Blackrock elections, and the Hyperborean Renaissance, where stuff briefly happened in Hyperborea, which then reverted back to its normal inactive state. From this point on, I urge anyone with more interest in a specific event to search the Fireball archives.Hau'oli 'Ena began to grow. A new Istvanistani citizen named Caesar Augustus joined, as did Wombat, Dstryker, the old Automatics like Foley and Czerka, and many others. Due perhaps to the bad will coming from the CHE (Confederation of Hau'oli 'Ena) secession, Jason and John started very much disliking each other, a problem which continues to the present. CHE and FIoJ started trying to one-up each other, something that was to cause major problems in the Apollo Pact and even worse problems later on in the UAS.After the PRH was absorbed, Ryan Caruso worked on revitalizing the Apollo Confederacy, which hadn't really done anything since March. He formed the Apollo Pact, which was more than an international organization but just short of being a merger. It united the foreign policies of all member countries, as well as attempting to unite the economies. A problem immediately came up: Jasonia was the only country willing to make the sacrifices needed to join. Back in Hau'oli 'Ena, the focus had quickly shifted from politics to economics. The CHE Economic Boom was probably the most intense economic activity the Sector has ever known, and will probably continue to be for a long time. The CHE currency, the Kala (¤) quickly become very highly valued. John tried to rub this in the face of the Jasonians, who had traditionally had the Sector's best economy, but they responded that it was just beginner's luck.Finally the Apollo Pact was formed. Florencia, a small island nation that was created by Caesar Augustus, entered in, and the concept of Partial Membership was created to appease CHE, which joined under that condition. Gsquid attempted to create the unified economy based on the Aureon and Argenteon currencies, but despite his extremely stubborn determination, it failed.Then, catastrophe struck. Stodlum went missing for a while, and when he returned, he announced that he was disbanding Blackrock. Not only was this a cultural disaster, but also it upset the delicate balance of power as everyone scrambled to pick as much off of the skeleton as they possibly could. The Blackrockians provided for two of their territories; Treesia was to go to Eoin Dornan, and MyNation was to go to Brandon Frymire. The Automatic State, however, was a little less clear, and it was taken over by Thomas Hubert illegally, although Blackrock actually gave it to Ryan Caruso. Caruso pretended to accept this, but then used his position in the PUR to take the Automatic State over. Hubert attacked. This started what was called the Three Hours' War, because it lasted about three hours. The Apollo Pact issued an ultimatum, and Hubert had little choice but to agree or to be wiped out. The war was also precipitated by the rumor that Hubert was cooperating with the PBF to take over the Apollo Sector, although this has never been confirmed or denied. The state of Fabon, which had been under the leadership of former Treesian Kevin Tennent, elected to merge with the newly independent Treesia. Together they took on a medieval theme and became the Barony of Treesia and Fabon. Brandon Fry mire did not really have the interest level needed to maintain MyNation, so he gave it to Treesia, where it became one of the Knightships (I think Wickhigh).Then came another catastrophic blow. Istvanistan disbanded after a long period of inactivity. Although an outsider like me was unable to sense it, there must have been something special about Istvanistan, because everyone who was in it was unable to forget it, and they always reminisce about its "good old days". The only thing even vaguely resembling a successor nation was Caesar Augustus's Florencia, which did not attempt to publicize itself as such. Thus, at the end of this period, we have the Apollo Pact mainly failing in its attempts to unite the Sector, a small external threat in the form of Hubert and the PUR, fierce economic competition between CHE and FIoJ, and a number of little nations not doing much of anything (including, for a brief time, New Blackrock, which was an unsuccessful attempt to resurrect the old one). In other words, it was a perfect situation for one of the Sector's trademark events: the Huge Pointless Merger, which immediately occurred and which will be discussed in the next session of this class: The Union of Apollo States.Lesson VII: The Union of Apollo States O Muse, relate, for you can tell alone(Wits have short memories, and dunces none)Relate who first, who last was laid to restWhose heads were partially, whose completely blessedHow shame and sense were lost, how right and wrongO sing! And hush the nations with thy song!Ah. The Union of Apollo States. If I believed in God, I'd say He gave us a second chance to really make something out of micronationalism. And we almost did. This was probably the time when the Apollo Sector had the most power and influence relative to other micronations (although now's coming close, with Jas rising up the LoM hierarchy and stuff). But, like all the other best-laid plans of mice and men (as you can tell, I've been reading too much poetry tonight), it failed miserably, and led, more or less, to the present situation.It was pretty obvious that the Apollo Pact was failing. No one adopted the Unified Economy, and the refusal of CHE to be a full member had crippled it politically. So, Scott began to formulate plans for a more complete merger. Everyone seemed to like the idea, but had different ideas for the details. So, for about two weeks in late October/early November, we started having chats to iron out the details. There were a LOT of chats. Probably one every day for about two hours. They all had the same title: Stuff. And nothing got done, either. Usually Jasonia would mention that they would never agree to a merge unless condition A was met, and Hau'oli 'Ena would respond that if we even considered condition A and didn't outright ban it in the Constitution then we could pretty much count them out. Then the whole chat would be Jason and John flinging accusations at each other that they were being proud and selfish rather than keeping the good of the Sector in mind. Ryan and Scott tried to keep the peace, but usually failed. If we were lucky, everyone would get tired of that issue and we'd agree to put it up for a vote when the nation was finally formed (which was how just about everything ended.) Probably the most heated debate was whether the nation's currency should be the CHE Kala or not. No one was willing to budge. By some miracle we got the Jasonians to agree that the currency might officially be called the Kala, but if they wanted they could refer to it as the µ. Sound stupid? It was. But we were desperate.Finally, we were ready to go ahead, but we needed a name. Of course, there was the same problem...if John had an idea, Jason would reject it, and vice versa, while none of the rest of us were really powerful enough to get our influence felt. Finally we settled on the least offensive thing humanly possible, the Union of Apollo States (although today probably Shireroth would start protesting they weren't Apollo and I'd say they were and it'd be yet another argument, but things were simpler then).John made the website and Bill made the forum. Bill did (in this historian's opinion) a pretty bad job, so Scott fixed it up a little. A model of what the UAS fora used to look like (although this is NOT, we repeat is NOT the actual UAS forum) can be found here. Because of evil Geocities stuff, you can't see the pictures, but if you try to open them individually it should be fine. Opinion was divided between those who loved and hated the little rotating suns.The election went about as much without incident as could be expected in a nation where one half hates the other half. Scott and Jason both ran for President, and Scott narrowly won mainly because most of the CHEans who hated Jasonia voted for him and a few Jasonians and the smaller nationalities did too. The other interesting thing was the map. Bill, Ryan, and Scott had all made maps, and they all wanted theirs to be used. Scott's map won the election and has been the model for all Apollo maps after that time. He expanded it into the Apollo Atlas, which can be seen here. (Or at least what's left of it...GC has lots of problems. If you see any Kill Bill signs, that was a minor problem that resulted from one of the riots I'm going to mention, and you can safely ignore them).The law was that no nation that formerly existed could become a province. The nations solved that by changing their name and then becoming a province. Hau'oli 'Ena became Gong Li. Jasonia became New Jasonia, thus winning the UAS Creativity Award. Treesia became Erior. So the law didn't work out.The major crisis in the UAS's early days was the Land Crisis. Basically, on the map, Gong Li had gotten less land than New Jasonia, and the Gong Lians were angry. So John, who was independently wealthy, offered to buy a large portion of unused land for an absurdly high amount of money. This would give them slightly more land than New Jasonia, and would also start a precedent for selling map land. President Siskind said no, and the Direct Democracy supported him. So John took advantage of an economic loophole to bankrupt the Apollo Treasury, thus making us desperately need the money. He then offered it at a higher price, noting that it was probably a good idea to agree, since we didn't have enough money to pay government officials. Fearing that it would corrupt the integrity of the nation to agree, Scott still said no, using high-sounding phrases like "holding the nation hostage" and stuf