Octavius
Christopher Michael George Mules (born 7 June 1987), probably better known by the micronational community as Octavius Me or just Me, is best associated with Antica, especially since he hasn't been a member of any other micronations, and also because he started it in 2001, and founded the Dinarchy of Antica along with Delphi in mid 2003. His history is deeply interwoven with that of Antica itself, so some of this may sound like it fits in the separate Antica article. Oh well.
The Forging of Antica (circa 2001)
In 2001, Christopher was a 9th grade in high school. He began to think about the world, and the problems of the world, and how they could be fixed. He was already interested in languages and culture, conlanguages and conworlds, so he created for himself a place to work with and fix things. He never got really far with it, hashing and rehashing constantly, but here he started Antica. He invented the name Antica, from a shortening of Antarctica, unknowingly creating a name that was both already an alien planet in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation Star Trek: The Next Generation] as well as an Italian adjective. During 9th grade (2001-2002), he befriended a classmate in his Latin 2 class, who would in a couple of years become Delphi Augustus. Later, in 2002 and early 2003, he would talk with him and a few other Latin classmates jokingly about plans to conquer the world and how it would be divided up afterward between them. Also during 9th Grade, his english teacher required of him to write a letter to himself, which he would collect and hand back to the participating students when they became high school seniors. In it, Christopher asked himself if he had done anything more with Antica. He couldn't be more correct. == The Founding of the Dinarchy of Antica (17 June 2003) == When Jordan (later the founder of Korhal) was still roaming the micronational world, Christopher Mules was still oblivious to it, until one day when he logged onto the [http://www.spinnoff.com/zbb/ Zompist BBoard], and had received a PM. It was from Jordan, inviting him to become a citizen of the micronation Empire of Corumburg. Micronation? Christopher had to investigate, and investigate he did. Googling Google (yeah, I know), he quickly found out plenty about micronations and hobby micronationalism. And then he had an idea: Why not bring forward Antica as a new micronation, as a way to help propagate it. It was at this point that he turned to his friend, later known as Delphi (Augustus), and asked him if he wanted to be in on it. His friend accepted, and they registered for a website, and on that website, they began The Dinarchy of Antica and took the pseudonyms Octavius Me and Delphi (later Delphi Augustus) to hide their true identities. But this new Antica was different from the Antica that Christopher had began in 2001, these differences directly related to Delphi's own ideologies entering into government formation. Some of these were:
- Severe militarization
- Ruling echelon being active head of the military
- Judiciary run by military officers
- everyone expected to possess military rank
- Power resting mostly in the ruling echelon rather than the Legislature
- Dinarchs having power to regulate the size and composition of the
Senate
- Dinarchs have unrestrained capacity to appoint government positions
and titles
- Dinarchs not answering to the Judiciary
- Dinarchs having sole control to change the Constitution
- Lack of garenteed Free Speech or Expression
- Ruling echelon is required to be held in high respect
At first, Christopher, now Octavius Me, lived with it, but felt that it wasn't quite right, but then again, the system could be fixed in time. During his time as Dinarch, Octavius Me had provided many additions and changes to the Antican government:
- the website (later replaced by one based on Delphi Augustus's work)
- the military structure (which Octavius Me would later rework again and
again just as when Christopher Mules worked on the original Antica)
- legislation creating awards and such
New Constitution and the Reform Movement of 2005
Fracturing between the Dinarchs Delphi Augustus and Octavius Me began to form. A new constitution was written up, giving more rights to the Antican people, but it was still written with several Dinarch-favoring loopholes and written with a "Dinarchs looking down on Citizenry" feel to it. A Reform movement began near the beginning of Summer 2005, and Octavius Me was a part of it, but supported it from the side rather than leading it. Delphi Augustus, upon hearing the Reform movement's wishes for reform (some of which involved taking many powers away from the Dinarchs), utterly refused the Reform movement and began acting and talking irrationally, prompting Octavius to make a backup of the website, should Delphi decide to remove it, in order to save the information stored within it. Delphi discovered this and removed Octavius's access. Still the Reform movement was strong, and one bit of reform was accomplished before the Reform Movement stagnated and broke apart: The Dinarchial Argument Act. This, however, solved none of the problems experienced by the dinarchial government, and so a few of the members of the Reform Movement, including Octavius, Olorix, and Steven, began to plan a new Reform movement. This reform movement lay in secret, drawing up a basic plan for their goals so that others could understand their goals and choose to join in. This new plan was for a Republic rather than a Dinarchy, believing that the Dinarchial system was too prone to corruption and stagnation in any way it was arranged. == The Revolutionaries and the Abdication of Octavius Me (August 2005) == (It's coming...)
