Drafting a New Government.

[Erik Mortis]

In response to initial negotiations with Elwynn, and the results there in. I'd like to get the ball rolling on a new structure for the government based on the ideas of confederacy, local prerogative, and the death of Houses.

1. Houses are to be abolished and a return to Duchies.
2. Duchies will be granted complete protection of internal culture, decorum, governance, justice and other local matters.
3. Duchies will submit to the Imperial Government on matters of administration, citizenship, foreign affairs, unified military and trade.
4. Shireroth shall no longer use Republic in it's title, but shall be recast to designate it's more confederated nature.
5. duchies shall be solely responsible for choosing their rulers and form of governance, and representation in the Landsraad.
6. The Kaiser and Landsraad will be restricted in the laws they can pass that interfere with local matters. Not a bill of rights, but a clear definition of purview.
7. The Kaiser, Ministers, Landsraad and Judex shall remain in more or less then traditional function.
8. Landsraad membership may change, and not require the persons voting there in to be nobles.

Just a starting draft. I'm sure more will ferment later.

[Harvey Steffke]

Try to change things from within; you're a miserable complainer and should just leave the country.
Steal Shirerithian land and hold it ransom as a bargaining chip; get all of your demands met!

All is right in the world.

[Ari Rahikkala]

That is how Actual Shirithian Politics runs, after all. As for this proposal, well, yeah, you guessed it, I'm all for it - after all, if it goes through it finally allows me to move on to phase #2 of my plan to destroy all of micronationalism

[Jacobus Loki]

1. Houses are to be abolished and a return to Duchies.

[Gman Russell]

I agree with Harvey. This is essentially a hostage situation.

[Jacobus Loki]

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME!

[Jonas]

Not that I'm saying that I'm fully against it (the Confederated Duchies of Shireroth doesn't sound too bad ), but this creates problems:

1. Houses are to be abolished and a return to Duchies.

Aye!

2. Duchies will be granted complete protection of internal culture, decorum, governance, justice and other local matters.

They just do what they have always done, with the big difference that a Kaiser can't just interfere?

3. Duchies will submit to the Imperial Government on matters of administration, citizenship, foreign affairs, unified military and trade.

But the nobles always had the right to have their own military...

4. Shireroth shall no longer use Republic in it's title, but shall be recast to designate it's more confederated nature.

Not a real problem for me (but perhaps for others it is). As long it's a nifty name.

5. duchies shall be solely responsible for choosing their rulers and form of governance, and representation in the Landsraad.

About the rulers: as long as I have been around I can remember that we had always the choice to chose our rulers. The Kaiser was a backup in case the Duke disappeared and didn't appoint a successor.
About the representation: no problem, that's just like the system we had a while ago (during the House system Kildare choosed to have one representative with all the votes while other Duchies divided them between their nobles).

6. The Kaiser and Landsraad will be restricted in the laws they can pass that interfere with local matters. Not a bill of rights, but a clear definition of purview.

Here we get the first thing that I worry about: what if a subdivision gets inactive? The Kaiser should have the right to interfere.
Secondly, I assume that the Duchies can't get dissolved without the approval of the local government, which brings problem in case that government is inactive.

7. The Kaiser, Ministers, Landsraad and Judex shall remain in more or less then traditional function.

Probably one big difference: the Judex will probably be a kind of supreme court. Because if I understand article 3 well, then the Duchies will have their own justice system (probably existing of a local noble, or some Duchies could chose to let their counts take justice in own hands if it's in their own county)...
Could make things intriguing.

8. Landsraad membership may change, and not require the persons voting there in to be nobles.

Hhmmm. As long as Kildare doesn't chose this road...

If we end up with this 'confederacy', it could give us the chance to slowly recover. I'm not totally saying no, but the Kaiser should have the right to interfere in inactive Duchies.

[Jacobus Loki]

Jonas has a good point. The Kaiser must be a back-stop of last resort.

......why take Republic out of the name? What purpose does that serve?

[Jonas]

Jonas has a good point. The Kaiser must be a back-stop of last resort.

......why take Republic out of the name? What purpose does that serve?

Yeah... Confederal Imperial Republic of Shireroth (CIROS) doesn't sound bad.

[Daniel Farewell]

Nice one, Jonas

[Erik Mortis]

Local militias won't change. Sorry. I meant unified foreign interacting military.

I'd like to see what Elwynn has to say about having the Kaiser as a complete last resort back up. Should local governance dissolve beyond recovery.

[Andreas the Wise]

At the outset I'll say that I still won't be super active in Shireroth in the immediate future whate'er the system, because Nelaga and Gralus need me more and there's only so much of me to go around; with the exception of if you start doing economic stuff again but I can at least say I'd be more motivated to do stuff if the system was better.

Also, aware that I'm proposing stuff similar to the house system. Oh well, shoot me if you will.

The advantage, the huge advantage to the Duchies was that they had stability, and a lot of continuous land; and so people could come and go within them but an overall feeling could develop and stuff could be developed long term.

The advantage, the huge advantage to the House System was that bodies could rise and fall as they had members and the like; so for example Mortis could rise; and Yardistan (read 'Annexis' if you will) could fall. None of us wanted Yardistan to fall; but we're also honest enough to say that a mildly inactive citizen and an enthusiastic citizen who nobody would give control to was not enough to run it properly.

I can see a lot of merit, particularly since I expect we'll come out of this with less than the 15+ citizens you'd need to be able to run the five traditional Duchies well, in having some combination of the best bits of two. The problem with the House System was not that it allowed people to rise and fall and gain and lose land; it was that it stripped it away too much, and made the bar ambiguous to get it back. The problem with the Duchy system was not that (too much) land was held hostage; it was that there was no proper way to keep all five or six historical Duchy's going at the same time. So what I'd suggest is something like the following.

People can form into Duchies which require (to form) at least 3 citizens. I expect we would start with the historical ones - Brookshire, Yardistan, Kildare and Elwynn, if possible - but we may not be able to support four. Duchies would get to designate a swathe of core lands - not as much as they originally would have had, but more than one county per person. The rest of the lands would be nominally Imperial but within the dominion of one of the Duchies.
So for example, Kildare might only nominate half the counties on Apollonia as core; and the other half would be in our dominion. Both sets would be in our subforum; but there would be the understanding that we could lose the dominion ones if need be and wouldn't kick up too much of a fuss. Like, for example, Elwynn and Brookshire both lost counties to form Goldshire.

If a Duchy ever got down to one person, it would be disbanded. If it got down to two inactive people, it would be disbanded. But at the same time, if, within existing Duchies, 3 citizens got together and wanted to form a Duchy, they could; and would be welcome to take some of the dominion lands from other Duchies as their own. And there would be the possibility that dominion lands could swap between existing Duchies as they got more or less citizens; and any occupied counties (every citizen would have one county to themselves) would automatically be core lands to their Duchy.

I'm rambling, I know. But I hope it's clear enough what the difference is between this and the House/Duchy system, and why it's the best bits of the two. Kildare's fuss with the House system was always that we lost all our counties, and wanted them back. This system would let us have them. But I'll be perfectly honest in saying that we don't need all of them and there are at least half a dozen on Apollonia we don't care about too much. While nobody's using them, why shouldn't we have them? But if someone can put them to good use outside Kildare, then we should let them have them, and wish them luck. The above ramble would do something like that. And of course we'd go back to the "each citizen gets a county automatically" thing; and Duchies would decide how they were governed and all that jazz. And probably One Duke, One Vote, merely because at the moment, the country really can't handle anything else. But at least the above would get us started.

tl;dr

• Summary
• All citizens get (at least) one county to call their own.
• Any three or more citizens can form a Duchy, taking their own counties with them.
• All counties are divied up between existing Duchies.
• Duchies are responsible for designating which counties are core (for historical or personal reasons) and which ones are merely within their dominion.
• The understanding is that the dominion ones can be taken by other Duchies - either new Duchies or taken over by other Duchies.
• If a Duchy gets down to two inactive citizens, probably disbanded.
• If a Duchy gets down to one citizen, automatically disbanded.
• This way, Duchies can rise and fall (like houses) based on the number of citizens we have; but between them they hold all land and designate some parts core, so we keep the continuity thing going that the old Duchies had.
• One Duke, One Vote (merely because it's simple).
• Kaiser, Ministers etc work in the same way as always. Perhaps Kaiser chosen from among Dukes?

[Jonas]

I'm sorry to say this, Andreas, and it be one of the first times I disagree with you but: we should just go back to the Duchy system (the 'one Duke, one vote-system' as well, or '1 Duchy = X number of votes and you can divide them as you like it') and get ourselves three Duchies (as that will probably be the most feasible: Kildare, Brookshire and Elwynn).

No Dominions, no cores. Just the counties. The Duchies don't have to have just the same borders as before (if Corey wants to stay in Kildare he and his county could just stay with us, for example).
Instead of cores, dominions, etc. we should better just allow counts to break away from an existing Duchy. That will be the simplest to do. We could even legalise it.

[Jacobus Loki]

The other idea is cool, but we need simplicity and the ability to act and react quickly.

[Andreas the Wise]

I'm sorry to say this, Andreas, and it be one of the first times I disagree with you but: we should just go back to the Duchy system (the 'one Duke, one vote-system' as well, or '1 Duchy = X number of votes and you can divide them as you like it') and get ourselves three Duchies (as that will probably be the most feasible: Kildare, Brookshire and Elwynn).

No Dominions, no cores. Just the counties. The Duchies don't have to have just the same borders as before (if Corey wants to stay in Kildare he and his county could just stay with us, for example).
Instead of cores, dominions, etc. we should better just allow counts to break away from an existing Duchy. That will be the simplest to do. We could even legalise it.

The problem with the old Duchies was that we had five, and people were unwilling to remove some when we went down on citizens. Either way we started now, we'd most probably have three Duchies. The question is, do we want to set it up in a way that makes it easy to add new Duchies and remove old Duchies when they're dead; or do we want to set it up in a way that we have huge and virulent border disputes every time someone tries to form a new Duchy?

[Jonas]

The problem with the old Duchies was that we had five, and people were unwilling to remove some when we went down on citizens. Either way we started now, we'd most probably have three Duchies. The question is, do we want to set it up in a way that makes it easy to add new Duchies and remove old Duchies when they're dead; or do we want to set it up in a way that we have huge and virulent border disputes every time someone tries to form a new Duchy?

Once the people were used to their Houses, not much changed either.
We could introduce regulations for requirements of Duchies. And just like inactive nations at the MCS map they could get disbanded when they don't reach those requirements.

[Jacobus Loki]

.......or do we want to set it up in a way that we have huge and virulent border disputes every time someone tries to form a new Duchy?

Could be a good thing.

I think Duchies should be created by the acquiescence of all the Dukes and the Kaiser, on an as-needed basis. I'd like to see Baronies as an interim step in-between.

[CJ Miller]

Or do as the United States does:

[N]o new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

(Article IV Section 3 of the US Constitution)

tl;dr you can't carve states/Duchies out of any other state(s)/Duchy(ies) without the consent of the state(s)/Duchy(ies) involved and of Congress/the Landsraad.

[Jonas]

.......or do we want to set it up in a way that we have huge and virulent border disputes every time someone tries to form a new Duchy?

Missed that last part. My answer: could be interesting.


EDIT: like CJ just told us.

[Erik Mortis]

So.. more thoughts.

1. Elwynn, Kildare and Brookshire reestablished territorially. Yardistan established as part of Brookshire or Kildare. Goldshire established as a Shadow Duchy ie, not used and held by the government till it can be sustained.
2. Dukes are elected by the citizens of the Duchy. If there are no citizens, the Duchy becomes a Shadow Duchy until it can be turned into a Duchy with at least 3 cits.
3. Kaiser appoints his/her heir as normal, but the Landsraad can veto the appointment.

[Kaiser B'caw I]

(edit: I see Erik's idea of a Shadow Duchy going somewhat the same way as some of my thoughts here...)

Reading this, here are my thoughts on the matter of Duchies:

On the one hand, if we make the Duchies too permanent, we'll be back in the same situation we were in before the House system was instituted; you'll get Duchies no one wants to go through the trouble of dissolving, but which you have to go through the trouble of maintaining. On the other hand, I'd rather they not be too incredibly fluid, either. I admit to this having a lot to do with my personal sense of aesthetics, but I can also forsee a situation where, for example, someone joins one of the more culturally sensitive Duchies, gets a county, and then decides to jump ship to another Duchy.

What I'm thinking sort of borrows from the Sphere of Influence idea a little bit, as well as some of Andreas' ideas:

Suppose that, like before, we divide up Shireroth, for territorial purposes, into Duchies. The counties making up each Duchy are set from the get-go; not permanently, but with some kind of high-ish bar to clear before counties can be transferred or new Duchies created.

Now, the Duchies should always have a territorial meaning, but not a constant political one. If you get three, or however many, people in the same Duchy to agree to it, they can have a Duke and/or ducal government, and full representation in the Landsraad, and official control of the whole Duchy's territory.

Now, if a Duchy ends up slipping below a certain threshold, the Duchy does not cease to exist, but exists in abeyance, a sort of official dormancy; there is considered to be no ducal government, and no one's required to wait for them to vote in the Landsraad, but they can be resurrected whenever the requirements are met again and if the participants agree to it. In the meantime, people may by default still hold or settle counties within a dormant Duchy, though it might be reasonable to allow petitions to the Landsraad for temporary stays on new settlement.

So what happens to counties in Duchies where there aren't enough people for an active ducal government? I would suggest a certain amount of flexibility here, allowing them a few choices:

1. Remain unaffiliated. On the one hand, there would be no one above them but the Imperial Government, so they might get some cultural freedom there; but on the other, they'd have no Landsraad vote, or else a very small one.

2. They could choose to affiliate with an existing Duchy. This would not be the same as actually belonging to Duchy in a permanent sense; to take an example, suppose Goldshire/Goldenmoon were to be re-Duchified. Corey, as Count of Asantelian, would be legally in that Duchy (unless his county were specifically included in Kildare from the beginning), but his would be the only occupied county there. Nonetheless, he could choose to affiliate himself with Kildare, and be counted as Kildari for population and activity purposes.

BUT, there would be a flip side. Suppose that three (or however many) other people all settled in Goldenmoon counties, and that they decided that they wanted to reactivate the Duchy. Once they did so, the whole Duchy would fall under their control, including Asantelian, and Corey's affiliation with Kildare would end whether he wanted it to or not.

3. People who a) don't/can't belong to active Duchies, b) don't want to affiliate with active Duchies, and c) don't want to go it alone, could be allowed to found unaffiliated Baronies. They would have fewer Landsraad votes than Duchies, but there would be looser population/activity requirements, and no requirements that they be in the territory of the same Duchy. At the same time, however, there would still be the possibility of being "eaten" by Duchies reactivating themselves, though maybe a way could be found to protect Baronies somewhat more than counties. Having a Barony of this kind would carry less representation, and more risk, than belonging to a Duchy, but at the same time could find that the lesser formality of the relationship was more suitable and worth the costs.

In order for the above to work, I imagine it would be imperative for Duchy boundaries, and the mechanisms for altering/creating them, to be firmly established and a matter of seriousness; and also that whatever requirements for population or activity there are should be fairly clear and unambiguous. Measuring population is easy enough, but activity is harder to define and track... number of posts per time period? Time since last post? What about the post's contents? What do you do about someone (as a fr'instance) who fills out the census every two months, and posts one one-word post every two weeks, and thereby technically fulfills a citizenship law, but contributes in no other way?

I'll leave this as is for the time being, I think, and await comment. Aside from that, I generally endorse the points Erik announced in the beginning of the thread, except to suggest that perhaps the judicial functions of the imperial government, currently seated in the Judex, could be taken up by the Landsraad itself. It might slim things down a bit.

[Kaiser B'caw I]

Also:

1. Elwynn, Kildare and Brookshire reestablished territorially. Yardistan established as part of Brookshire or Kildare. Goldshire established as a Shadow Duchy ie, not used and held by the government till it can be sustained.

If a Duchy should go formally, I suppose it'd be Yardistan. (edit: forgot to finish sentence) Nonetheless, I think that things can be done with Shadow Duchies that means that having them needn't be a bad thing.

2. Dukes are elected by the citizens of the Duchy. If there are no citizens, the Duchy becomes a Shadow Duchy until it can be turned into a Duchy with at least 3 cits.

Better to say, I think, that a Duke can be elected. So long as a Duchy can choose a leader that we can call Duke, and do so in a fashion that satisfies the Duchy's inhabitants, then exactly how it goes isn't extremely important. See my previous post for ideas about Duchies and their active status.

3. Kaiser appoints his/her heir as normal, but the Landsraad can veto the appointment.

*Nods*

[Jacobus Loki]

No objections.

[Andreas the Wise]

Shyriath, your plan sounds like an excellent way of expressing the issues and along the same lines I was working, so you have my full support in it.

For Baronies - if a Barony stays within a Duchy, could it not just be continued as a political division within the Duchy if it got subsumed into it?

[Jonas]

Doesn't sound too bad.

[Jonas]

Before I forget it: perhaps we could allow the Duchies to handle some foreign affairs itself? Or at least the permission to ally with another Duchy?

(If we're going to be a confederacy...)

[Kaiser B'caw I]

I'd prefer to reserve authority over foreign affairs to the imperial government, except maybe low-level things like cultural exchanges and such. Alliances between Duchies? Maybe, maybe...