TODAY!

[Ari Rahikkala]

is April 24th. Shireroth was founded on April 24, 2000.

Eight years and still strong!

I urge everybody to post a story, an anecdote about our great nation!

[Maksym Hadjimehmetov]

My land is pretty
My land is proud
My land's great squares are filled with crowds
Old and young, foreigners allowed
shouting out deafiningly loud
my land's most glorious incomparable name
Shireroth! Shireroth!
Belching its fame.

It may be an oddball,
It's name can't be spelt
But from Shireroth's furnaces
Best weapons are smelt
In Shireroth's fields,
Best mangoes are grown
By Shireroth's rivers,
Mighty dams are blown
Up to the skies
In smoky debris
Beyond the clouds
Where nobody sees
The crispy B'Caw
In Cedrist Heaven
Dropping his nachos,
Tacos and spice...

Can't finish the rest. Bad writer's block.

Hail Shireroth! w00t w00t!

[Jacobus Loki]

I cried.....

[Jonas]

Eight years!

[Kaiser Hasan I]

Survived this long and still going strong! I remember Shireroth 7 years ago, strangely not much has changed in its feel, but much development and sophistication in its culture.

[Ari Rahikkala]

You know, it's kind of difficult to say anything meaningful about having survived and thrived for eight years. It's not a nice round number (unless you are a Unix user), and it's also not one less than a nice round number. You can't say "let's just wait a year, because the next time the festivities will be huge"... but the thought is there nonetheless: What will Shireroth be like when 2010 rolls around?

Well, we'll still be here. That bit's fairly certain. We're way too stubborn, and simply way too Shirithian to even do anything about that. If all the forces of Balgurd conspired to destroy this forum tomorrow and prevent us from ever associating with each other again... well, I'd still be at least eating a mango on 3914 ASC.

With that said, where do you guys see Shireroth in two years' time? Or, no, let's not try to make predictions, let's talk about what we know right now. What are your personal long-term plans? We've already heard a whole lot of good things from the Kaiser, and can only hope that his workload eases a bit so that he could actually implement those ideas (well, the ones he hasn't already implemented)... but what are you planning to do?

My plan is to finally get the MCS to represent Straylight properly on their map before Shireroth's tenth birthday. As a matter of fact that's pretty much my only long-term plan for Shireroth - the specifics of the other things I've been thinking of aren't really all that important in the end. You might say it's a bit of a strange goal, but hey... this is Shireroth .

[Jonas]

What are your personal long-term plans?

Making Batavië a duchy of Shireroth!
A dutch great power with an english great power... this could make agreater power

If a Batavian citizen reads this message... I'm doomed...

[Erik Mortis]

hhehe. I remember when I was president of the Republic of Shireroth. I always found it annoying how people put the 'o' from Of in the acronym. so I declared that it was the RS not the RoS... Gman was one of the first citizens. Then JDS... who tried to help me write a constitution. and by help.. I mean he tried to write a communist government in law.. I saw this.. found it amusing and kinda went with it... but I don't think he realized I was just doing it because it amused me...

We never did get the 5 people needed to invalidate the provisional constitution... Yet we eventually... wait.. no.. it wasn't till Tymaria that I wrote a constitution to reflect the way we ran things. When I revived the nation after one of the AIN merges, and proclaimed myself Kaiser Metzler I, I simply made stuff up and there it was. No formal documents.. nothing. Technically, we were still under the provisional constitution, which is how I justified my power.

I wish I could find the document to back it up, but one of the goal I had with founding Shireroth was to actually break free of the history of the apollo sector. With the constant fighting, bickering, wars and other crap. I wanted a nice peaceful, democratic nation, without the infighting of the AIN, or the hypocracy of Jasonia. Sadly, I lost the document, I believe it was a write up for JDS' newspaper. If only I could find a copy. Maybe it's in my ICQ logs, if I ever find those. This is why when people say we are an Apollo nation, or called us an apollo sector nation I was always so angry. and still am. I always felt that the apollo sector was a disgrace or bullshit and bickering, and longed to be free of it and branch out on my own.

I guess in some ways I did succeed. The apollo sector is dead. and Shireroth lives. With a vibrant original culture that developed on it's own. Evolved from the early seeds of the 7th republic. I guess it wasn't until then that Shireroth could really be called something different from the Apollo nations. Apollo nations didn't do monarchy. They didn't have nobles, nor nations that claimed to love their military. Ones with no rights. We did make something different. We had no courts. We didn't try to pretend we were a democracy when really we were a dictatorship. We lauded it. We embraced it. We had a Kaiser and we loved every moment of it!

Though the early Republic of Shireroth may have been derived from Apollo ideals. By the time it took its current form, in the time of the 7th republic, it was something new, something different. And to this day remains, something new and something different.

[Andreas the Wise]

I look forward to Cedrism developing more fully, and uniting my Shirithian and Gralan histories (which actually seems reasonably plausible at this point, though uniting with Jasonian is impossible since they used a completely different timeline. That's where alternate realities come in)

[Jacobus Loki]

I think the first Kaiser I remember meeting was Kaiser Mors I. There was this spooky background, all this tongue in cheek polytheism. I have to admit, it concerned me at the time.

My old MN career as a rabble-rousing quasi-satiric trouble-making occasional freedom-fighter and freelance emperor took me through a lot of countries, the vast majority of which are no more.

Yet every time I came through Shireroth there was something new to read, and it was frequently something worth reading. Heck, when I was banned (a lot) I'd find ways to check it out anyway.

The tunnel-vision I endured being what it was put me into multiple conflicts. I raised my hand against multple states, sometimes at the same time.

Yet I was never able to raise my hand against Shireroth, no matter what preceived reason or "policy" might be my project at the time.

Maybe Malarbor hypnotized me. Maybe I sensed the innate goodness. Perhaps it was the minimum of hypocrisy. As Erik said there were Republics of This, That and Something Else all over the place, filled with bickering would-be politicians. So many of them pretended to democracy when they were in fact ruled by very small cliques or one Big Shot, manuevering for power to be the biggest rooster on diminishingly small dungheaps.

Shireroth, with its Kaiser, nobles, gods and demons and all, was the freest place that there was.

That was why I was so concerned last late summer / early fall when Shireroth was limping through a severe doldrum. I started hanging around, more and more, reading , harassing Malarbor, poking sticks trying to jump start things. Finally it just made sense to stay, and then it made sense not to belong to nay other MN. There is so much to do here!

So, all bombast and gamesmanship aside, my time here has been the best, most productive and the most fun of my MN career.

Will I be here in 2010? Hope so.

Straylight needs to be acknowledged, and we need to maintain the Empire against the ravages of time, and the occasional barbarian.

I hope the idea of a Commonwealth continues, and that mayhap the events of the last 24 hrs. may prove to be the birth pangs of that. I'd like us to explore ideas of Shirithian colonies on other worlds, if not Giess, perhaps Tarisca, Juno, maybe even Earth.

I'd like to see literature rise again, and art.

May Death Spare You All!

[Orion]

I argue that while Shireroth may itself not have been founded under the precepts of being Apollo, it inherited Apollo ideals by having annexed formerly-Apollo nations and the mere fact that you had Bill, Jason, Scott, me and other Apollonians here contributing to the culture. And yes, the Apollo Sector was all bullshit and bickering, but we still kept at it, always trying to create the perfect micronational democracy. In fact, I'm still at it. But then, I always have been stubborn...

Anyhoo, congrats to Shireroth's eighth year. It doesn't seem that bloody long ago. So thank you for making me feel even older.

[Scott of Hyperborea]

Mmmm, let's see. My first memories of Shireroth are as one of five or ten little countries that people were creating around that period that weren't worth the time it would take to learn more about them. So I didn't. Then we had all that fun stuff like Audentior and UAS and Tymaria and everyone forgot about Shireroth for a long time.

I don't remember why exactly Hyperborea ended up allied with Shireroth; it might have just been it was close by on the map and Erik was forging a Commonwealth of Benacia. But those were the days when all alliances led to mergers eventually, so we merged, and then there were lots of Tymarian state reshufflings and eventually we became a Shirerithian territory.

I didn't do much in Shireroth until Erik made me MiniEx one day after I was the only person who knew how to deal with some recognition request or other. This was after most of the Apollo Sector proper collapsed, and what really made Shireroth home for me was that it was the only place that the Apollo legacy remained - despite what Erik always says. So I guess I felt a little patriotism towards Shireroth as the last Apollo nation, even though I'd ended up there kind of by accident. Handling the exterior affairs was a big challenge, because it had a bad reputation thanks to the fallout from all the Menelmacar stuff. Even today, there are some people who think we're about elves or something. But it was fun working uphill to disabuse people of that sort of thing, and I eventually came to like Shireroth itself, apart from the Apollonian aspects.

I don't expect much to be different in two more years. Shireroth's already proven it doesn't change much. We've liberalized a bit from the old days, and I wouldn't be surprised if we liberalized more and the Landsraad became closer to a democracy without ever actually quite getting there. I still think there are some flaws in the feudal system that need to be worked out. But other than that, I expect it to stay mostly the same.

If there's anything that I would consider a decent "goal" for Shireroth, it'd be winning back some of the old people. Bill, Jason, Eros, Ryan, and the like. But I recognize that it's their choice to stay away, and after a while, bothering them about it becomes harassment.

I'd also like to see us merge with or absorb someone else, because we desperately need new single-cit faces. But I'm not holding my breath.

[Orion]

I enjoy helping out the newbie nations that pop up sporadically at the MCS/MNN/et all. Revoke that bloody tri-cit law and you'd see more of an influx of citizens. I'm not the only one that's avoided joining Shireroth because of it. While it may have been a good choice back in the day, it's an outdated law that no longer has proper bearing on present micronational society. People like Shireroth, but they won't join because of that law.

[Jess]

Yeah do that!

Im gonna protest now!

[Erik Mortis]

Actually Scott, I seem to remember you liking Shireroth because of our flag. At the time it was rather nifty.

[Jacobus Loki]

If we are going to find ways around one kind of restriction, lets fold the tri-cit restriction in half and see what comes out of it.

Jacobus Loki

[Andreas the Wise]

No, with the new economy the last thing we want is to hand out money to people who will appear for a moment and then leave ...

[Jacobus Loki]

It could be handled. Divide money by number of citizenships held...

[Orion]

That might actually work as a form of taxation based on number of citizenships.

Just like when you live in one state and work in another and the gov makes you do double the taxes.

[Scott of Hyperborea]

Actually Scott, I seem to remember you liking Shireroth because of our flag. At the time it was rather nifty.

Wait, what? Our flag is, and always has been, the worst in micronationalism.
...except for maybe the really early Jasonian and AFTP flags. And Hubert's Treesian one. But it's still pretty far up there. Maybe I was being sarcastic, and you didn't pick up on it.

[Kaiser Hasan I]

The Hyperborean flag is actually quite nice. But yes, The flag of Shireroth is about as hideous as a Babkhan avatar image.

[Scott of Hyperborea]

I don't like the Hyperborean flag. Adam made it, back in the day, but it looks kind of bland and generic. I've got a plan for a new one...blue field, with a silver star in the middle of a silver logarithmic spiral. I'll make it when I get home.

[Erik Mortis]

Nope.. you said no sarcasm in the statement. It was back when I was considering brining Shireroth back. You said you had liked Shireroth, and our flag was good, or at least better than other ones around at the time.

[Orion]

Heh. Hubert's first Treesian flag was a credit card image minus the text. I still have it around somewhere....

I happen to like the Hyperborean flag. And I ripped the eagle off the Kazakh flag for the FIOJ.

[Erik Mortis]

Didn't I do that image the eagle was placed on for that flag? I remember doing a bunch of design work for that...

[Gman Russell]

You punks don't know anything! Back in the day, when this was all just 3 kids holed up in their rooms, forming friendships online because we were too weird an anti-social to do anything else...

...now were very grown up, traveling the world, working jobs and going to college... and we're STILL weird and anti-social. I blame you. Over time memories fade, friends become enemies, and enemies become strange bedfellows, but Shireroth remains distinctly... Shireroth.


Cheers!
And long live the Golden Mango throne!

[Erik Mortis]

I'm anti-social?

[Gman Russell]

*opens mouth, closes it*

...


*opens mouth again, closes it again*

........


dangit.

[Erik Mortis]

That's what I thought...

[Orion]

Didn't I do that image the eagle was placed on for that flag? I remember doing a bunch of design work for that...

I remember you re-did the flag because the original one I did was all grainy and since all I did was add the eagle I believe that Jason's original flag had really blurry lines (it was a jpeg if I recall) so you spiffied it up.

I'm not sure but I think that flag was picked during a contest in the Aeronesia era.