Shireroth

...and you shouldn't either.

Here's the first reason. Right now, three quarters of the population of Shireroth are potentially, and in many cases actually, ruling nobles. A Duchy's got to have four people. Two of them are Barons and one of the non-Barons is the Duke. That leaves us with one Duke, two Barons, and one commoner. More of a feudal rhombus than a feudal pyramid. While people don't seem to be doing anything quite this bad yet, Antica's got a noble to commoner ratio of 3:2, and I think just about everywhere's at 1:1 or above. Having the vast majority of the country be nobles cheapens the whole idea of nobility.

Here's the second reason. The relationship between Barons and Dukes has gotten really awkward. In a few cases, the Duke is both below the Baron and above zir - ie, the Duke is a citizen of one of zir own baronies, which puts both people higher than one another and gives each the right to order the other around. As we know, too many contradictions cause the Universe to explode in a puff of logic. You don't want that to happen.

Even the cases where Dukes aren't in a barony are awkward. In some cases, they seem to just kind of be floating around, not in any Barony at all. In others, they are a baron of zir own Barony, making zir the head of two fiefdoms at the same time, one of which encompasses the other. It may be historically accurate, but it's legally atrocious.

Here's the third reason:

Duchy of Naudia'Diva
Barony of Northern Brookshire (3 Counties)
Barony of the Holy Lands of Shireroth (2 Counties)
County of Straylight

Vote Calculations
#counties (C): 6
#baronies (B): 2 (neither of which is the Duke's)
being a duchy: 2
Barony of Northern Brookshire
Counties: 3
votes = 4
Barony of the Holy Lands of Shireroth
Counties: 2
votes = 3

Total votes: 6 + 2 + 2 + (4) + (3) = 17

10 votes held by Duke Fax Celestis of Naudia'Diva (Steward Shyriath)
4 votes held by Baron Shyriath Bukolos of Northern Brookshire (Steward Darth Miho)
3 votes held by Baron Angel-Guardian of the Holy Lands

That's the algorithm used to calculate votes for one of our Duchies. It is pretty much a nightmare. One of the problems with the Landsraad right now is no one quite knows how many votes they should get and they all end out being odd numbers. There have been three or four proposals put before the Landsraad to amend the system, which right now is extremely skewed in favor of a certain type of feudal structure, but very few people understand it enough to care and I believe the proposals have all died off.

If we were to get rid of Baronies, we could have a wonderfully simple "four people, one Duke" system that keeps the nobility firmly capped at 25% of the population. We could have a "one person, one vote" system that would let the Dukes know exactly how many votes they had and circumvent tedious calculation and manipulation of the feudal structure. We could avoid the problem with rank names (everywhere except Shireroth, a Count is higher than a Baron). And since the derecognition of the rank of Baron would only be on the national level, individual Dukes could do whatever they wanted within their Duchy, including maintain the old feudal structure and give their Baronies subforums.

Of course, this would disenfranchise a lot of people who probably want Landsraad votes and would need to get them via some other means. It's sure been a long time since I last suggested this, hasn't it?

PS: Discussion of an important political issue in the general forum! It's almost as if discussing national policy was a major purpose of Shireroth's existence or something!

mmm.....you have a point.....

though I think there should still be a low ranking non duke type voter...say, 2 people, who are not in a duchy, could be a...county...with a single vote.....which makes them weak, but will do for people who desperatly want to be in the landsraad

Hmm, interesting. You make a good argument, Scott. However, why wouldn't instead of it being a 1 duke, 1 vote system, have each duke have as many votes as he has counties in his duchy?

That would seem to make the most sense to me.

Delphi Augustus wrote:Hmm, interesting. You make a good argument, Scott. However, why wouldn't instead of it being a 1 duke, 1 vote system, have each duke have as many votes as he has counties in his duchy?

They would. By "one person, one vote", I meant a six-person Duchy would have six votes. Don't worry, I'm not turning into a democracy activist on you.

You're turning into a feudal activist!

//screams

The moment I lose Antya is the moment I emmigrate. Sorry.

You wouldn't have to lose it. It would just be reconstituted under Kildari rather than Imperial law and not necessarily have Landsraad votes.

He does have a point, however: the barony is an important cultural aspect of Shireroth: not only is its' placement in our feudal structure unique to our system, but the majority of cultural advancement takes place within the borders of Baronies, not Duchies. The way I see it, Duchies are politicial bodies, while Baronies are cultural ones. The current system has found a way to conveniently intermingle the two, and I rather like it.

Exactly. If there was no such thing as baronies, Nauda'Diva would not be as popular today. Elwynn would not become a Duchy. And most importantly, I would have left Shireroth because I felt that there was no place where I could consider to be my own, because I don't control Kildare, and I don't want to pull something like what Oz did and assume control unilaterially over a part of it.

However, Scott has a point about nobility being a majority of the populace. It doesn't quite seem right. If Baronies have been places of cultural advancement, and we'd simply be putting them into that role more sturdily, then what would be the objection?

I don't have an objection to their cutural presence. If the majority of the populace decides that the Barony is a cultural body instead of a legistlative one, I'll side with that. But if the Barony will not be abolished.

And what exactly is an objection about the nobility being part of the populace? Other than the fact that it may not feel right, remember that we are a micronation. A Republic of any sorts will not use the representative ideology that would occur in macronations, simply because it is too small, and it becomes a matter of exclusion from the elite, which would just alienate people. It is better as it is now, to have at least a small vote for the Baronies as opposed to the duchies.

While getting rid of voting power for Baronies would exclude some people, think about the 1 or 2 non-voting counties in each Duchy right now. They're getting excluded for being the "lower class" (just a prhase for imagery). At least if we had it the other way around, most people would be "excluded", and it would hardly be exclusion, but privilege for those who can vote.

Well, the compromise we had prior (a few years ago, in fact, when the Barony was founded) was that Barons can talk but not vote.

nicer compromise...
duchies have 1 vote person in it
baronies have 1 vote only.


(though call baronies something else, I never liked that name

How about we keep the baronies, but the idea of 1 vote for a duchy, and 1 vote for each county? I could live with that. Whatever happens though, it must stay simple to make the Landsraad work.