Shireroth

Allright, time to do something Straylightian for a change. I Would Trust You With My Life (which will be referred to as TYWML from now now on), the kinda-sequel to The Man that Mary Built is at a point where I think I'm going to just have to finish writing the rest of it and call it a first draft, and get back to it in 2008 (and probably rewrite everything, but hey, this time I'll have a draft to base it on). So, as we won't be seeing anything in that field any time soon, I'd like to work outside of the levels of simulation and fantasy for a little while and ask for understanding (or ideas) on a problem that Straylight - and, in fact, pretty much all of Shireroth - has had since its inception.

The problem is that there's basically no way to determine an age for Straylight that's consistent with its place in Shirithian history and with all the different aspects of a Duchy's development:

- The fictional history of the foundation of modern Straylight - a document which I've lost and do not miss since I would have to rewrite all of it anyway - places the building of the first Sanct not long after the War of the Wylthean Succession. Within the Apollonian tradition occasionally followed in Shireroth that one real-world day corresponds to one micronational year, that would make Straylight a bit over 1200 years old by now.

- The culture, for how much I've thought of it, should have taken maybe 300-400 years to develop. Straylightians are definitely patriotic and, in their own adhocratic anarchic way, traditionalistic. Some traditions have become distorted from their original form, and so on.

- Many of the Sancts still standing (floating?) were architected in the fictional history (which exists in scattered bits around my brain) by one person, Dante McCallavre (and yes, I know, that name is stolen from SimCity 2000), who was present at the foundation of the first larger Sancts. This would place an upper limit of maybe 200 years or so on the age of the Duchy, given some optimism. You can easily build a city on land and have it stand for 2000 years, but the sea is different. One day it becomes more economical to just empty a Sanct of people and scrap it completely than keep fixing it as the sea wears it down, and that day, the Sanct simply reaches the end of its life.

- The oldest Sancts were built using technology corresponding to the most modern things that the United States had in the seventies or so. Now, I find it quite likely that in the real world, technological growth will keep following the Law of Accelerating Returns, quite possibly up to a point where advancement becomes so rapid that the model becomes meaningless. As such, Straylight can't technologically be more than 60-70 years old - an, in fact, just trying to predict what kind of technology we would have on Earth in 2030 seems fairly difficult, so even that might be too much...

- The stories that I'm thinking of that would involve Straylight are even more intense in this respect, as a lot of their plots depend on unique technological developments that have to be kept hidden... TYWML takes place in a company that does bleeding-edge medical research and stumbles on... well, you'll hear more about that in January . Anyway, I can't place those stories into a timeframe of more than maybe 20-30 years or so. There's simply nobody in Straylight with the resources to go more than a few dozen years ahead of the general technological state of the art without strokes of luck too extreme to justify even in fiction.


The "solution" I've using so far is to just avoid ever mentioning the actual age of Straylight (except for setting the foundation at the end of the War of the Wylthean Succession). I've been fairly careful to always just use vague terms like "a long time" and so on. Now, however, it's just not cutting it anymore. I have to establish the age of everything, otherwise there's no way I can get anything to make sense.

Unless anyone comes forward with compelling arguments to change this, I think I'm going to pick approximately 400 years as the age of the Duchy of Straylight. Let's make it explicit... The day where the events of The Man that Mary Built take place is, in Straylight, exactly 400 years after the day Lacrymosa II took the throne. The Straylightians just happen to be really good at keeping old Sancts afloat and safe to live in, and while rapid technological development is the norm, some kind of invisible hand reaches in every 50 years or so and erases all the technology anybody's come up with to keep everyone from doing something rash like uploading everybody's mind into a computer . Oh, and the rest of Shirithian history since the war? Well... we'll see where that can be fitted in.

Ari, you know every historian has this problem. The history ends up fluid ... that's the only real way to think about it ...
I've imagined in the period Shireroth was sorta on "life support" (which was for a year or two, yes?) as a couple centuries of territorial government and almost verging on a dark age ... so you could say that for a century or two on there the Straylightian's regressed technologically, and just had enough to keep the things floating but didn't develop much more ...if that helps ...

Two years? Not really... we were doing fine in 2006 until September or so...

... a dark age, however... I think... I could make something of that...

*schemes*

Oh, only September 2006 ... well, I only joined MN's December 2006 so no surprise I'd mess that up ... still, a year is three and a half centuries, plenty of time for a dark age ...

In fact, we weren't even nearly "on life support" all the time during the last year or so, either... I'm partially to blame for this notion, since as *I* was absent all that time and things were going badly when I left and only just looking up when I returned, so I assumed they must have been looking bad all the time when I was gone...

Oh well, put it this way ... Shireroth did little of note from about September 2006, and at various times was almost declared dead. But now it's working again and that's the important thing.

I really believe a lot of the malaise in Shireroth had its genesis in conflicts between two factions. Both eventually left, along with many old-time Shirerithians, tired of all the negativity. One faction has since left micronations, and with Eric's return a number of others had the courage to look in on us again and rejoin one by one. It is good not to have to deal with the emotionalism of the past. However, the time after the two factions left was a time without direction or purpose, and the new citizens who tried to lead the country were without the historical reference points or imagination necessary to give this country the needed direction. We ended up with a few people posting and replying but no one giving direction to it, and so it dwindled to what you saw when you joined.

Please, O Mother of Hypatia, describe these factions to us, and tell us the no doubt epic story of their no doubt earth-shaking conflict. I've had enough fictional history for one day and am in the mood for some more substantial fare.

I feel it necessary to apply to one of the members of the factions for details, but suffice it to say that it was primarily an ongoing problem with religion as a basis for all things micronational. Solaralism vs. Cedrism almost killed off this country when the arguments became too personal and contentious. As you might have noticed, there is no longer the endless argumentation, and Cedrism seems to have prevailed (even though, in real life, many of us adhere to more traditional , real world faiths).

In otherwords it was all Bill's fault.

In otherwords it was all Bill's fault.

Whew, at least I didn't do it.

For myself, I've found a link between BOO/\/\/\/\ism and more "traditional faith" by assuming that God (Iluvatar??) was the original BOO/\/\/\/\ist, "who set off the Big Bang, which continues to this day, and all things draw sustinance from it".

Devoutly lights M-80.

(Small Boom.)

Ari,
I would not worry about the time differences. Time is relative, and perhaps moves faster or slower depending upon the needs of the story. Don't let it "cramp your stylesed to say in the 60's.

OMG!! Jacobus, it sounds as though we must be contemporaries! None of these children could possibly remember those days. Please tell me I'm not the only one to live through those days. It's good to finally not feel like a fossil here.

It's good to finally not feel like a fossil here.

But think of how famous trilobites are! *Ducks*

Thanks so much, Shiriath. I'm feeling ever so much better now.

Besides, Ari, Shireroth is constantly moving back in time anyway (or forward, depending on how you look at it) ... because each day on earth is a year here, but only a day in many other micronations, and thus if the present is at the same time in both places, the past in Shireroth gets a lot further back very quickly ...