Imperial Decree #467: Spheres of Influence

[Kaiser B'caw I]

IMPERIAL DECREE #467: SPHERES OF INFLUENCE
DONE ON 18 BITERNIONSMOON, 4003 ASC, AT SHIREKEEP

We, B'caw I, hereby amend the Imperial Decreebook, VI.B, to read as follows:

B. Imperial Lands
1: Definition
a. All counties that are not currently assigned to a House shall be known as Imperial Lands.

2: Development
a. Imperial Lands are laid open to any Shirerithian interests that wish to explore, exploit, develop, or colonize them. Citizens of Shireroth need not seek Imperial permission before attempting to develop Imperial Lands.
b. The Kaiser or Landsraad may choose to evict a person, corporation, or House from an Imperial Land if they demonstrate a willful disregard for its populace or culture. Such a person's work will be deemed "non-canon" and can be explained away by future colonizers in any way they wish. That person will be banned from any further development work in that area, or, depending on the scale of the offense, in Imperial Lands.

3: Administration
a. The Kaiser or Landsraad may choose to grant the title of Count to those who have done exceptional work developing an Imperial Land. The Count of a land, and the House to which zie belongs will have control over a land, its armies, its resources, and its development so long as zie holds the title over said Imperial Lands.
b. The Kaiser or Landsraad may choose to revoke Countships at their pleasure.
c. Any Imperial Land that is neither assigned to a House nor under active development shall be directly administered by the Kaiser.

4: Influence Maps
a. The official in charge of cartography will, at reasonable intervals, release maps showing what Shirerithian counties are under what degree of influence from which Houses.

[Harvey Steffke]

I have a question about this whole system. I'm doing some pretty heavy work on an Amity-themed story at the moment. Now, I'm not saying it will be better than MASSDIN, or that it will even compare, but let's just say for the argument that it is amazing and everyone loves it and all that. So how does that work in the spheres of influence thing? I don't REALLY want to take Amity from Greg, because I respect him a lot and I'm doing this partially for him, but I wouldn't mind some sort of fringe control. Is there any sort of compromise in the system where two people can share a territory somehow, or is it really one or the other?

[Gman Russell]

because I respect him a lot and I'm doing this partially for him,

[Erik Mortis]

As I understand it.. The land is already granted, and thus no matter what, Greg would retain control. Unless it got revoked and put under Imperial Control, it's safe from others trying to take it.

[Malliki Tosha]

Yeah, that's my understanding too.

[Kaiser B'caw I]

Yep. Strictly speaking, this applies to Imperial Lands only; once someone has official control of a land, their influence is at 100%, so to speak. In the particular case of MASS, the Grand Land Listing in this forum has an asterisk by it which indicates "guaranteed holdings"; I haven't yet found anything in Imperial law saying exactly what that means, but I assume it indicates that no one is supposed to take it away against Greg's will (i.e. for it to be freed up, he'd either have to relinquish control on his own or emigrate).

As for county-sharing, I think the legal assumption is that one person is officially Count, and that (other than House or Imperial law, etc.) they have the ultimate say over what kind of development happens there. But if Greg was happy with the idea of letting you do Amity-related work, then there shouldn't be a barrier against it.

(Incidentally... I'm quite sure that when I issued the decree, I subsequently went to the Decreebook on the wiki and edited it accordingly, and that I checked the edit to make sure it went through okay. But when I went back to look at it now, there's nothing to indicate the change ever happened. It looked exactly the same as it did before the edit, and the page history shows nothing happening after May 30, and there's nothing in the Recent Changes page about it. I've just redone it, and one again it appears to have gone through, but I am now nervous about the whole deal...)

[Kaiser B'caw I]

Also, now that I'm looking at the Decreebook, other things in the Lands chapter could stand to be clarified or reorganized as well. In particular, VI.C.4 on Developed County Grants can be removed, since that kind of grant has basically been expanded upon and covered in this recent decree.