Apollo History 101

3^rd edition 652 ACS

Written By: Scott Siskind

Compiled and Edited by: E. Metzler

 

Introduction and Note from the Editor and Author

Introduction/Note from Editor

          The following history of the Apollo Sector, and other nations, was originally written as a history course taught by Professor Scott Siskind at the Boreal University in Hyperborea.  The course was later moved to the University in Jasonia where it is currently being held.  In addition this book was taken directly from the class as taught by Prof. Siskind and was compile with only a few light editions and revisions.  As well, several parts of this book are written in the first person and has personal references to the professor himself.  These are currently being left in to help with the flow of the document but may be removed in a later edition. 

          After the main segment of this book there are several appendixes. Appendix A consists of a list of common abbreviations used by the Apollo Sector.  Appendix B consists of a glossary of words and terms used in Apollo society and within this book.  Appendix C comprises of a list of important historical persons and their common aliases and nicknames.  All Appendixes including and after D are the actually official histories of nations that where once or are now in existence.  These are in place to help give a better understanding of the point of views of the individual nations and to fill in any minor details missed in the main section of this book. 

 

Note from the Author; Professor Scott Siskind of Hyperborea

          As I participated in these times and even led one side on and off, I really can't claim, nor will I claim, to be unbiased.  I've tried to get rid of as much bias as possible, but doubt it worked.  That being said, go Audentior!  Death to the Automatic scum!

 

Lesson I: In The Beginning…

The Apolyton Forum and the Grand Alliance
It all began in a forum called The Apolyton Civilization II Site Off-Topic
This forum still exists today, and can be seen at the above link, but it's changed a lot.  In August 1999, it was a vibrant community, with fascinating people, freedom to say whatever, and a great sense of friendship.  Now it's mainly a place where annoying people complain and a heavy-handed moderator deletes anything that isn't about something he likes.  In any case, the forum in 1999 was an important site with hundreds of people visiting.
One of the people who visited went under the nick of Giant Squid.  One night (August 5, 1999), while randomly scanning the Internet, he came across a Geocities site called The Grand Alliance.  While he did not know it, he had stumbled upon an example of micronationalism, a totally new concept to him and everyone at the forum.  Excited, he immediately started a thread at Apolyton asking if anyone else was interested in this concept.  He got a number of replies showing a cautious interest, and one person who seemed extremely excited.  This person went, of course, by the nickname Evan von Christoph.

Evan von Christoph
Evan was a very interesting character, as anyone who knew him (and there are still a few people left in the Apollo Sector who did) will be able to tell you.  He claimed to be a German fascist (but not a Nazi, he couldn't stand being called a Nazi) who led a small terrorist organization called the Truppen des Todes.  No one quite believed him on this one, but he definitely tried very hard to make it plausible.  He spoke quite a bit of German and was always up to date on the latest conspiracy theories involving the CIA.  Most people hated Evan, and he usually hated them back.  But everyone agreed that he was intelligent, humorous (if not intentionally) and definitely interesting.

The First Chat and its Aftermath
Evan and Giant Squid immediately met at the Apolyton Java Chat to arrange a plan.  In meeting lasting no more than a half-hour, they decided that Apolytoners should start their own micronation.  Squid and Evan were to be co-leaders until a normal government could be set up.  Evan immediately registered a Geocities site at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/7777/ (this is historically interesting, but the site has long since been replaced with something else, so don't bother going to the link).  Later information turned the fact that it was due to some superstitious fascination of his with the number 7, but that wasn't known until later.  Giant Squid then registered a forum with www.eesite.com.  In an incredible historical tragedy, Eesite deleted these fora about 6 months ago, but Duke Caruso may have backup copies.  About 10 or so Apolytoners immediately starting posting and formed a little community.

The Creation of the Site
The website was designed and created mainly by Giant Squid.  It featured a logo similar to that of the Apolyton Civ Site, and a flag of which unfortunately no copies have survived.  It consisted of two units from the game Civ2 on either side of the game's logo, a planet earth with a pyramid by it.  The website has of course long since been replaced by the Audentior site.

The Economy
The basis of the economy was never really in doubt.  A few months before on Apolyton, a group of people, who were obsessed with their post count there, created a unit, the @, which represented the post.  @’S became the basic Apolyton currency unit.  People were given @s by the government based on their post count at Apolyton.  The ways to spend these were few and far between.  There were a couple of the ever-popular fictional-product stores; however, the most popular business was Makeo's Casino.  In this, you could bet @s on the outcome of sporting events or on whom the moderators would ban next from Apolyton.  Makeo became extremely rich through this.

Politics
Giant Squid and Evan von Christoph were provisional leaders, meaning they could do whatever they wanted.  However, as Squid had a chronic fear of leadership positions and Evan knew that everyone hated him, they decided it would be best to have a "puppet government".  They looked for someone who was popular at Apolyton and willing to serve, but very unlikely to get anything done.  When Squid asked Mark Laanen whether he would be Prime Minister, and Laanen replied, "As long as I don't have to do anything", they knew they had found their man.  Laanen was immediately appointed Provisional Prime Minister, and elections for a more permanent government were set for August 20th or so.
The elections spurred a move to make an absurd number of parties.  In a nation which had, at the time, about 20 people, there were at least 7 parties, with an average membership of only about 3.  As there weren't many real issues, these tending to be groups of people with a single agenda.  For example, the Apolyton Veterans Party, one of the largest, thought that people who had been on the Apolyton fora the longest should become something of an aristocracy, while another party of newbies vigorously opposed them.  There was a Libertarian Party, which was like every other Libertarian Party in the Universe, a party that thought that the micronation should be less serious, and all kinds of other things.
The major political event of this period was the Sort Of Coup on or around August 15th or so.  Evan von Christoph had grown increasingly paranoid about plots to overthrow him.  He had created a Secret Police, and appointed Makeo the leader, which was somewhat comical, as he was horrible at secrecy and kept on bragging that he was head of the Secret Police when technically no one was supposed to know it existed.  On the 15th, or whenever it was, Evan's paranoia reached a climax, and he decided that either Giant Squid or an unknown faction within the country was about to overthrow him.  Therefore, he took GSquid's power over the fora away, making him sole admin.  Shocked and disappointed, Squid decided to strike back by blocking Evan from the site.  The standoff continued for about 5 minutes, after which Evan hacked into the site and took it back, leaving Squid without a leg to stand on.  However, for reasons unknown, Evan then gave control of both site and forum back to Squid, making him promise first not to take it away.  While the motives are still not clear, possibilities include the fact that Evan didn't want to do the whole thing on his own, or that he feared that Squid (who had Laanen's support), would be able to take away all the citizens and make a country of his own.  Evan's official response was that the coup was just a trick to provoke any plot against him to come out into the open, and since none did, he was satisfied and was very sorry that he had to test Squid like that.

The fall of Apolyton
On or about August 17th, Squid had to leave for a family vacation.  Before leaving, he instructed Laanen to make sure to hold the elections on the 20th as had been planned.  However, few of the parties were prepared for the event, and Laanen gave into their demands, pushing it forward to an undisclosed date.  When Squid returned, he was furious, and demanded that the elections be held immediately.  Laanen said that would never work and would result in the fall of the country, which had already been weakened by people gradually losing interest in the past week.  Although the two tried to come to a compromise, more and more people left while they were negotiating, including Evan, who was later to say that he was captured by Israeli spies and held him in a secret jail in Turkey during the period.  In any case, both of them soon had other things to do, and the elections were never held.  By September 1st, 1999, Apolyton Independent Nation was completely dead, and it was doubtful that anyone suspected that they would ever be hearing of micronations again.

 

Lesson II: The Audente Age

On November 27th, Evan von Christoph returned to Apolyton.  He claimed to have been held in a Turkish jail between August and then, but the reasons are immaterial.  In any case, he immediately checked the old site of Apolyton Independent Nation and noticed its fall.  He talked to Squid, and the two agreed that the time was ripe for a recreation of the country.

Originally, they hoped to call it Apolyton again, and they again asked the owners of the Apolyton Civilization Site for permission.  Unfortunately, they said no, worried by Evan's growing reputation as an unusual person.  The two immediately worked on a new name.  They wished to keep the AIN acronym because of work that had already been done on the site, and thus needed only another word that begun with "A".  In his Latin class, Squid had heard a motto that stuck with him: "Audentior ito qua tua te fortuna sinet"…continue to go more boldly where fortune allows.  The two agreed that the word Audentior, meaning more bold, would be an optimal new name.

The AIN website is probably the best known in Apollo Sector history.  Rather than describe it, I will give you a link to the Great Audentior Museum, maintained by Bill Dusch at http://www.geocities.com/audente/.  This is a very good copy of the original site, although a few images are broken.  The distinctive cloud and rainbow motto pattern is well known.

The flag was a difficult matter, and originally Squid was appointed to design it himself.  In all innocence, he suggested a flag based on the spectrum of light, but Evan, a violent homophobe (he later turned out to be gay.) informed him that that was the gay flag and would not be acceptable for the nation.  Squid submitted a number of designs based on fractals, but everyone else thought they were too complex and weird.  Finally, the design fell to Adam Stone, who had some experience in graphic arts.  He created the "rising sun" flag that can be seen on the front of the museum page, and that was continued for the new Audentior, which will be discussed later.

Audentior first met in early December on a UBB forum provided by "MasterBob" (real name unknown).  Its first government was a Parliament of five people, directly elected by the citizens and without a definite leader.  The first Parliament consisted of Squid, Ming (real name known, but not public), MasterBob, Adam Stone, and MarkL.  Mark was chosen Prime Minister.  For the first month, the nation was involved in, well, domestic stuff.  I don't think anything important really happened.  There were a few laws passed, and Ross Alexander wrote the first constitution, which can be seen here: http://www.geocities.com/audente/hiscon.html. 

Before going further, it will be necessary to discuss Bill Dusch, the keeper of the museum, in more detail.  Dusch, at the time this was occurring, believed in a form of government he had invented, called Demesos, which was more or less a combination of democracy and socialism.  Fundamental principles of Demesos included a Watcher branch, which would make sure that the other branches did their job, a powerful President who ruled until impeachment, and a prohibition of racism.  These principles, while controversial, attracted a small following.  For more on Demesos, see the Demesos Presentation at http://members.nbci.com/_XMCM/bill90/DemesosP/index.htm

On December 28th, 1999, Bill founded the United Demesos, which has more or less been preserved as the Great Demesos Museum at http://members.nbci.com/unitedemesos/ (the page is really bad without IE, so consider yourself warned).  The Audente reaction to this was cautious optimism on the outside and extreme annoyance on the inside.  The Audente leadership did not want everyone and his brother going and founding a new country: they wanted a monopoly power in the Sector.  (Originally called the Apolyton Sector, it was shortened to the Apollo Sector when Apolyton Civ II Site asked us not to use their name).
Thus, they covertly tried to prevent the UD from really getting anywhere.

This failed.  Bill and the United Demesos discovered dual citizenship, and got about 15 citizens early on, many of who were active.  Eventually, Audentior decided that, since Demesosians could still be Audentior citizens, a partner to interact with would be a benefit.  They officially recognized the United Demesos.  Until this they had done almost no foreign policy.

Around this time, Squid was trying to increase Audentior's citizenship, so he talked to various people at his school.  None of them really thought much of it except for John Sager, who was in the same English and History classes.  Sager originally laughed off the idea and ridiculed the participants, but eventually he got more interested and became an Audentior citizen.  He then started no end to trouble.

He first founded the Automatic For The People party, named after A R.E.M. album.  The platform of this party was to increase participation in government and to fight what he thought of as a dictatorship by Squid and Evan.  At first the government laughed off his efforts, but he soon grew into a political force.

 

OutOfTime
Unregistered User
(2/10/00 8:05:36 pm)

New Political Party Forming For Audentior
[01-08-2000 21:25:58]

Hello, I am forming a "perfect" political party of Audentior.  I hope you will take the time to read this & consider its benefits.  Signup below the message.  Automatic For The People Political Party Of Audentior "Come As You Are" We are a party that wants equal rights & give every willing individual a chance to make a decision in affairs of government.  In our party everyone is equal, & everyone gets a say in the decisions made by our parliementarian.  (On 02/01/00, we will have to band together to vote to put an Auto in parliament.  Two would also be a great accomplishment.  Once we get an Auto in parliament the ideas & reforms of our people can go into effect through the Auto).  All people of a party, who choose so, can get a say in the decisions of our parliamentarian. 

Members of the Party:
1.  Leader (voted the weak before national elections)
2.  (3) Associate Leaders (voted the weak before national elections)
3.  (2) Parliamentarian Candidates (can be leaders or autos)
4.  (*)  Autos (anyone who wants to be an auto can be an auto & vote regularly & constantly participate in party & national decisions.  You must parcipite in 3/5 voting measures to keep status as an Auto. 
5. People (the people of the party who wish not to take the responsibility of the decisions but still may participate in discussion & become an Auto)

Priorites of Automatic For The People: (no order)
1.  Expand Audentior
2.  Promote equal rights & all participation everywhere
3.  Win imperialism
4.  Raise money through advertising for charities. 
5. Make changes for the better. 
6. Participate in real life political forums. 
7. Spread ideas of equality, toleration, and humanity. 
8. Have fun. 
9. Reform Audentior Government. 
10. Improve Audentior

There are still faults in this system.  Many details have not been worked out with the party.  We need to form the party to work out details & we need to win a seat in Parliament on 02/01/00. 

Timeline Of Automatic For The People:
Signup 01/08/00-01/23/00
In Party Elections- (discussion in forum to be decided) 01/24/00-01/31/00
February 1st 2000 Vote for our representative in parliament. 

This party is searching for the perfect government.  To do so change is needed & we will make change where it will benefit humanity.  Everyone counts in this society.  Audentes: Please consider joining this party Non Audentes: Please join Apolyton & consider joining this party.  If you have any questions please contact [email protected]

Signup Form-
Name:
Email:
Audentior member?  (Y/n):
Will you be a loyal member attempting to benefit humans & will you back up our views?  (Y/n):
Do you want to be an Auto?:
Do you want to run for Leader or Associate Leaders?:
Do you want to be a candidate for parliament?:
Comments:
Thank you very much for consideration!*

 

* Original post announcing the creation of the AFTP.

 

Sager, who took the Internet name "RainbowJDS" and “OutOFTime”, immediately attracted some new people to his party.  The first was a new micronationalist named Jason Steffke.  After a week, party membership had reached 5, and it looked like they would get a Parliament seat in the next election.  Because of their emphasis on the current government being a vehicle for a dictatorship by Squid and EvC (which, to be fair, it more or less was), the government didn't particularly like them.  Evan especially started sounding off propaganda pieces against the AFTPers, and AFTP responded by filling their party newsletter with anti-AIN propaganda.  Soon the two factions absolutely loathed each other.  At about this time, Sager found a new forum service called EZBoard, which he started using.  Evan used spies to discover the EZBoard while it was still under construction and opened an AIN EZBoard at about the same time, to the great annoyance of Sager, who was hoping to get a leg up on the competition.  This is the first recorded use of EZBoard by any micronation, and one of those micronational accomplishments the Apollo Sector is proud of.

In any case, the intra-party government of AFTP and its conflict with the AIN government made a revolt inevitable.  In mid-January, AFTP started doing things that were not normal for a party to do, and which hinted that they were becoming their own country.  On February 4th, they officially declared independence.

Audentior's ally, the United Demesos, immediately declared war on them.  Squid and EvC led a motion in Parliament to declare war on the secessionists, but it narrowly failed, defeated both by pacifists and by AFTPers who had actually won seats in Parliament (they conveniently waited until after the election to secede.).  The UD, while relatively large, could not fight the war alone, and called upon a new nation, which they had just discovered and established relationships with, Ceres.  (Ceres is the country, which is now known as Blackrock).  Cerean/Demesosist troops disrupted the AFTP forum in a struggle that is now known as the Automatic War, probably the largest conflict ever in the Apollo Sector.  While banned by Parliament from participating directly, Audentior's first-class spy network, led by Evan, wreaked havoc on the rebels as well.  The Audentior plot was to provoke a rebellion among the Automatics, and around February 15th they did just that.  Jason "Djugashvili" Franz, leader of the Automatic For The People Secret Police and Automatic Communist Party, seceded with his followers to form the Great People's Republic, which joined the allied Ceres-Demesos troops in invading AFTP.  In the midst of the chaos, Jason Steffke decided he had enough of the war and created the Flying Islands Of Jasonia as a huge refugee camp supposedly made by using antigravity generators on an Automatic fortress to flee the Allied invasion.  We will come back to the Islands eventually.  Squid approached the same problem in a different way, founding the Apollo Confederacy as a force for peace within the Sector.

After two weeks of war or so, the UD and AFTP made a peace treaty, although they still didn't like each other, and Ceres followed.  The conditions of the peace were that Ceres and a neutral nation would maintain peacekeeping garrisons in AFTP territory.  The neutral nation chosen was the Purple Bunny Federation, a friend of Ceres's.

After the war was over, the Great People's Republic and Automatic For The People saw their differences fade away, and merged into the Great Automatic People's Republic, or GAPR.  Franz was chosen Commissar, the highest position, and Sager had most of the real power.  From the beginning, Audentior and GAPR hated one another.  As a former Audente myself, I can't really tell you the GAPR side of the cold war that followed, but I know that Audentior successfully put a few spies in high-level GAPR positions and caught (and fed misinformation to) a few of their spies in our army.  In any case, it was pretty ugly.  Eventually Squid got tried for something or other in the GAPR fora and was banned, and Evan banned John from Audentior under security pretenses.  The GAPR built up a large fake army and navy, commanded by Patrick Foley, the Commander in Chief from AFTP (if anyone wondered why we sometimes call him CINCAFTP, that was his nickname then due to his position) The UD, which was firmly on the Audente side during this conflict, also built a large fake navy. 

Evan then took a short trip.  When he returned, he started spreading rumors among the army.  Parliament got sort of worried that he was planning something.  And indeed they should have been.  Evan announced to Squid that, with or without his approval, he was going to overthrow the legitimate Audentior government and replace it with a dictatorship under him.  Squid decided that it would destroy Audentior to try to resist the change, and instead tried to temper Evan's plans.  What it finally resulted in was that Evan, backed by the army, proposed a new constitution giving him a huge amount of power and declaring him Emperor, and that it was accepted.  On March 21st, 2000, the Audente Empire begun.

The point of the Empire, it was immediately made clear, was to carry the struggle against GAPR to a new level.  Ties were made with Ceres and the United Demesos that formed a major defense alliance that was obviously opposed to GAPR.  In return, GAPR recruited the Flying Islands to sign an alliance with it, polarizing both factions.  Now, in the middle of this brewing conflict from which both nations could not emerge alive, I want to interrupt this to explain some things I left out that will be important later on.

 

First is the MyNation affair.  Matt "The Brain" Lamantia from Apolyton thought that micronations were silly and created a satirical country called MyNation.  Their flag was a smiley face, and their major industry was Spam mining.  Eventually, Matt and his friend Greg "Gman" Shaddinger tired of it, and let it laps into inactivity, where a joint Ceres/Demesos force invaded it.  During the Audente Empire, Emperor Evan managed to convince the allied occupation to give a large chunk of the country to Audentior.

Second is what was going on in the United Demesos at the time.  The nation was now mature and built up, and, after someone or other who's not important resigned as Vice-President (Bill, of course, was President), an election sprang up between Clifford "Dracon" Smith and a new recruit named E. "UEC" Metzler.  (Mr. Metzler doesn’t want his first name revealed).  Metzler won by one vote.  This took on major significance later, when Bill, due to mental problems that I don't know the details about, either attempted or came close to attempting suicide.  Due to treatment, talking with his parents, etc., he was unable to participate in micronations for a while.  Metzler ran the country, and reformed many of Dusch's policies.  When Dusch returned after a few weeks, he got angry with Metzler for his policy changes.  In return, Metzler accused Dusch of micronational genocide due to some order of his like kill all GAPR supporters.  I never was too clear on that one.  In any case, Metzler left the UD and joined the FIoJ, in the midst of all this other madness, which brings us back to Audentior.

Mark Laanen, former Prime Minister, was strongly against the Audente Empire.  He asked for asylum in GAPR, claimed he was the legitimate Audente leader, and operated a Government-in-Exile.  As you can imagine, the GAPR was all too happy to have him.

A Parliamentary election was scheduled for the end of March.  The Constitution had given most power to the Emperor but still allowed Parliament to make some important decisions or even contradict the Emperor if they had enough support.  GAPR flooded Audentior with new citizens.  I'm not sure how many of them were fake, inactive, or what, but they now controlled a large part of the voting base.  The Parliament and the Emperor's council met on what to do, but there was no consensus.  Democracy advocates strongly opposed just calling off the election.  Finally, Evan made an Imperial Decree that double citizenship was illegal.  Any person who was a member of another Apollo nation would just have to leave.  And they did, en masse.  Jason Steffke, the Lord in charge of Science/Technology, left.  E. Metzler, an Admiral of the Navy, left.  Various other less important people also left.  In despair, Evan resigned the Emperorship and invited the Laanenists to return and create a new democratic government.  They did, but the GAPR interfered and no one was really too interested anyway.  On March 27th, Squid, the Lord of Domestic Affairs, and Adam Stone, the Lord of Justice Stuff, left and on March 31st, the nation was pretty much dead.  Some refugees fled to the United Demesos, some to the Flying Islands, and some to GAPR.  A good number went to all three.  Thus did the greatest empire the Apollo Sector has ever known collapsed into ruins.

Sic transit glorio mundi.

 

Lesson III: The Dark Ages

Remember that history is written by the victor, or at least by the people who end up having enough time.  In this case, the person who had enough time was I.  I didn't like this period, so it's the Dark Ages.  But a fan of GAPR could equally well call it the Golden Ages…it was not a time of rampant inactivity and barbarism like the first Dark Ages in September 2000 and so on.
It begins with the fall of the AIN.  GAPR is now without doubt the major power in the Sector, with at least 40 members and perhaps 10 to 15 active ones.  The GAPR hoped to control the Sector from now on.
In early Audentior, there was the ADEX, or Audentior Stock Exchange.  It was similar to today's stock exchanges with the exception of the lack of Dstryker.  There was the similar problem of the fact that no one would ever buy anything unless bothered incessantly, in particular.  When the UD came into being, it seemed like a great opportunity to expand the currency system.  For this reason, Gsquid invented the first exchange formula, a vastly simplified version of the one used today.  Rather than the International Currency Exchange Organization, it was simply the Inter-micronational Currency Exchange.  A version about halfway between the first and the current one can be seen at http://www.geocities.com/audente/currency.html
I don't remember exactly when Dstryker came, but it was around this period.  He was a citizen of the GAPR; he might have been a citizen of AIN before this.  He soon revived the defunct formula, added a few new pieces to it, and started an economy not unlike the one today.
The Dark Ages were probably the most economically active time in history (with the exception of the second CHE).  Because some people had little or no country to hang onto, or because few international relations took place, people turned to business as an outlet.  Probably the most important of this time was MEGACORP, whose motto was "We own you".  It dealt in pretty much everything, from WebPages to plasma rifles, and had branches in almost every Apollo nation.  Other major businesses included the Texas Stock Brokerage in the GAPR and Drunken Yeltsin's Hacking Supplies in the Flying Islands.  Despite all these businesses, few transactions actually took place.  Though enthusiasm for the economy was high, most governments mismanaged it, and few economic breakthroughs occurred.
Now back to the GAPR.  They attempted to get an alliance with the Flying Islands, and yes.  It…did not pass, and would have been illegal anyway.  However, they did encourage E. Metzler to create the nation of Shireroth by convincing him that Jason was an evil dictator (although the convincing didn't really stick).
Other important events during this period included two trials, among only three I can think of in history that ever ended up concluding.  These were the trials of Mleonard and Gsquid in GAPR.  Gsquid was accused of using a double login in the GAPR forum (which he did; he had pretended to be the President of French Polynesia, for reasons too weird to get into here).  He tried to defend himself by saying it wasn't technically illegal, but the prosecution, led by Adm. Foley, fought back with the bold statement that it was technically illegal.  Squid was found guilty and was banned from the GAPR forum.  The trial of Mleonard was for desertion.  The charge was leveled against two other soldiers, but for some reason that I can't remember, only Mleonard was important.  Maybe the others decided not to have a trial or something.  In any case, this was for actions in the Demesosia. 
The Demesosian War sprang from the conflict between GAPR and the UD.  Bill Dusch of the UD believed (probably correctly) that the GAPR had its sights set on making it a satellite state.  Although Dusch was in the GAPR at the time, the UD was part of the former AIN-allied block of nations, and, to resist possible annexation, he started verbally attacking the GAPR in manifold ways.  At about this time, he founded a lot of little leagues and military organizations, none of which ever worked out.  Then, on or about April 6, he somehow obtained the GAPR forum password from EvC.  So, he immediately conquered the GAPR.  He replaced all their graphics with UD ones and put in a message that the United Demesos had annexed it.
When John saw this, he was enraged.  He immediately declared war and asked Jasonia to do the same (Squid and he weren't exactly on speaking terms, and Hyperborea was neutral anyway, so he didn't ask them).  However, John ran into a stroke of good luck.  Due to something about the board system he used (it wasn't EZBoard), it required two passwords, and Bill had only taken one of them.  John got in using the other password, and not only blocked Bill, but managed to get HIS account's password (it was "Alsace").  He then used this knowledge and had the Jasonian, UEC take over the United Demesos forum.  Bill immediately complained to EZBoard, who gave it back to him, but the damage was done.  Though the UD sort of floundered on for a few more days, everyone left it, and it was dead within a week.
Anyway, back to the Mleonard trial.  During the Demesosian War, the GAPR government had sent messages to all of its soldiers to report for duty.  Mleonard, along with the two others I mentioned, had not, and the government took that as desertion.  During the trial, Mleonard's lawyer, Squid (always happy to have something to do that would bother the GAPRians) presented the following defenses: 1.  He didn't check his email too often, and 2.  He had emigrated from GAPR weeks before anyway.  The prosecution, under Foley, said that this was no excuse.  The climax of the trial came when Leonard said he didn't care anyway and the whole thing was a pathetic farce and left.  Squid would have tried to cover the losses, but he had been called away from the computer for a few minutes.  With this, the jury expelled Mleonard from the country, which of course had no effect since he had already emigrated.
Never one to rest for more than a few moments, Bill, less than a month after the UD's death (so this would be late April/early May), founded Tapfer, a "new UD".  JDS then approached Squid, Bill, UEC, and Jason with a proposal: merge all of their countries into one.  They all thought it was an interesting idea, and debated how it could be done.  However, the Automatic leader had not expected debate, and was hoping everyone would just acknowledge his leadership, since GAPR was by far the biggest of the nations involved.  So, about two days after suggesting the idea, he stepped out of it.  To his dismay, everyone continued to negotiate in his absence, and while the Flying Islands were not big on the idea, Hyperborea, Tapfer, and Shireroth discussed it almost daily.  Through some astute political maneuvering, Squid managed to convince everyone that the new nation that would be thus formed would be a resurrection of Audentior.  The three nations started the plan up, and then asked Jasonia to join.  About two weeks later, it did.  It was a harrowing vote.  As you probably know, all Jasonian votes on important stuff like merging must be unanimous to pass.  Originally, this seemed likely, but Gman voted against it.  With only hours left, Squid, Jasonian, and others convinced Gman to change his vote, and the Dark Ages were over.
I still have to mention what happened in GAPR in the time between the first merger meeting and the completion of the merger.  Activity had begun a steady decline.  This was not helped by the GAPR's decision to change its name every few days for little to no apparent reason (the final one being the Temoe Confederation of Oceania).  Finally, Commissar Djugashvili, the de jure leader of the nation, resigned.  The supporters of the merger saw a great opportunity to get someone into power in GAPR.
This next part of history is a really delicate one, and I still don't know all sides of the story.  However, basically the proto-Audentes had UEC run for Commissar and managed to turn the vote in his favor with extensive political manipulation.  His rival was Patrick Foley.  The election was clinched when JDS, to the shock of the proto-Audentes, publicly supported UEC, although later research suggests he knew what the Audentes were doing.  UEC won, and, although he served as a good Commissar, little was done to stem the tide of inactivity, and in the last week of May, he helped push through a bill to disband GAPR and give it to Blackrock.  Before this, the proto-Audentes had made a secret deal with Blackrock that they would deliver GAPR to them if the Blackrockians would later give Audentior half.  The Blackrockians agreed, and all went according to plan.  This is why Blackrock had a province called Temoe when it broke up, and this was the province that WarVoid and Thomas Hubert vied for control over.  Istvanistan also made contact in this period.

 

Lesson IV: The New Audentior

On about May 12, the AIN fora were refitted and Tapfer, Shireroth, and Hyperborea officially merged.  The former leaders of the three merging countries (Bill, Squid, and UEC) formed a provisional government to take care of stuff until a better one could be formed.  The provisional government did a few things, like reinstate the @ as currency, erect monuments, and create an incentive program for new citizens.  On about May 15th, Jasonia joined the merge after a long and sort of worrisome vote.  Jasonian votes to do something like merge must be unanimous.  While it went well for the first day or so, Jasonian himself was sort of vacillating, and about halfway through the second day Gman voted no.  Jasonian and Squid were able to convince him to change his vote to abstain, and the merge finally passed.  Audentior had a big celebration, and the islands also had a festival which concluded with them landing in Audentior (no records survive about what the people they landed on thought about this).  Eventually, elections got held under a constitution written in about 10 minutes by Squid.  He still likes the constitution, but no one else really did, something that would prove important later.  Basically, it provides for a strong "cabinet" of officials called PICOs, for People In Charge Of.  For example, the PICO: Military ran all military-related matters.  It also had each province elect one representative to a legislature called the Tetrapole, which would do stuff like declare war or anything else that was really important.  The Legislative, Judicial, and Executive branches would each choose one Chair, and the three Chairs would elect one leader to co-ordinate everything.  In theory.  In practice it didn't work at all.  The chief Chair was didn't do much.

Only one position actually had two people running against each other.  In this position, PICO: Military, Imran beat Lukedu (VH Fenrir) by a small margin.  Squid was chosen webmaster, Imran was chosen Judge, and Lightening was given a medal of honor for making a really cool bank program which I don't know why we stopped using.  The Tetrapole seats were given to Squid, Bill, UEC, Lukedu, and Imran.  With the exception of the addition of Jasonian and WarVoid, this was to remain the Tetrapole throughout the nation's history.  This would also become important.

A few things happened in this early period.  For one, Imran and Bill started yelling at each other and just generally fighting.  Squid was forced to intervene, for which everyone got sort of annoyed at him.  JDS founded Paramount after the death of GAPR, which was a secret plot to destroy the AIN.  Stodlum convinced JDS that he was on his side, but fed us at Audentior most of the information, which we found sort of amusing.  JDS also just generally tried to annoy us, and we tried to annoy him back, which was a fun feature of this period.  If you're looking for interesting insults, the AIN forum of this time is full of them, between me and Imran and JDS and Bill and all.  The Paramount/AIN problem intensified when Squid told the Prince of Alameigh about a Paramount plan to attack them.  The Prince was decidedly ungrateful, deciding to tell Paramount that we told,.  JDS almost declared war, but eventually everyone cooled down except Squid, who was still sort of annoyed at the whole thing.  During this time also Bill coined the name "Airosamente" for the Audente capital, and it stuck.  The old Airosamente website's still up at http://geocities.com/dr_tapfer/capital/index.htm.  If it looks a little like Manhattan, well…that was Bill's young and stupid period, to quote CoD.

In the first week of June, Bill teamed up with a new Apolytoner who had been recruited to micronationalism.  Named Ryan Caruso, he went by the nick WarVoid, and, although originally part of Hyperborea, he soon founded his own province, the Universe of Allied Nations.  This dissolved pretty quickly, and he went back to Hyperborea.

The Great Audentior Riot occurred on or about June 24th.  Basically, a couple of people, led by UEC, were unhappy with the Tetrapole.  They were used to FIoJ style Direct Democracy, and had noticed that the Tetrapole was taking forever to get the smallest things done.  So UEC jokingly suggested a riot.  Squid decided to make a thread for discussion and titled it "riot thread".  People started going insane and posting all kinds of horrible riot-related messages.  Then UEC used a smiley bomb.  The smiley bomb was a horrible B00/\/\ist weapon invented around this time that either crashed your computer or otherwise caused you grief if you tried to open a thread that had it.  So Squid banned UEC and imposed martial law.  UEC used double logins to riot some more, and the nation came to the brink of civil war.  Shireroth announced that it was about to secede.  Finally, Jasonian called a chat with UEC and Squid in which the following was decided:
-Squid would unclose all fora
-UEC would stop rioting and clean up the smiley bombs
-Squid would pay a fine of 5@ for banning without due process
-UEC would pay a fine of 5@ for disrupting the peace
-JDS would pay Jasonian 10000@ for working out the solution.
Obviously, JDS was not present at this meeting.  Which brings me to a minor economic crisis.  When he saw Paramount wasn't going to work with destroying AIN, he dissolved it and confiscated its treasury.  There were no laws against this back then, so he converted it all to @s and became insanely rich.  He funneled most of his money into a company called Red Hot Entertainment, which had grandiose visions but failed when JDS went on vacation and then lost interest.

 

The solution worked for a few days, but then Squid went to summer camp.  Radical factions decided this would be an opportunity to take control.  So, led by WarVoid and UEC, they staged a revolution thing.  WarVoid blocked Squid from the forum, UEC worked on a provisional government, and Jasonian aided the effort.  About this time, Evan came along and deleted the site for no apparent reason.  Chaos ensued.  When Squid got back, he was not happy.  He demanded his admin back.  WarVoid refused.  He bothered Jasonian incessantly about it, but Jasonian refused, for which Squid still hasn't really forgiven him.  Luckily, the two factions managed to work out a deal.  Squid got admin back, and the Tetrapole voted to disband itself in favor of a new constitution.  The deal worked for about a week.

However, the new Constitution provided for a President.  Before this, the nation had deliberately avoided such a position, due to the strife it would cause.  Political division was at an all time high.  Although the Libertarian Party, led by Imran Siddiqui, existed, the two main parties were the BOO/\/\ists, led by UEC, and the Demesosians, led by Bill3000.  Although these two parties didn't have much of a difference in policy, they absolutely loathed each other.  Both parties put up a candidate for President.  The BOO/\/\ists supported WarVoid, and the Demesosians supported Bill.  During the election, Bill, while not actually doing anything illegal, sort of pulled a G.W. Bush and legally rigged the election in his favor.  He got old Audente citizens back from March or earlier who had been gone for months and had them vote for him.  This swung the results widely in his favor.  I'm not sure what the results would have been if this hadn't happened, but the BOO/\/\ists were pretty sure the election had been stolen from them.  Shireroth decided their only option was secession, which they did.  Bill immediately invaded as a countermeasure...but he did it using ".gif wars", in which he just sort of does stuff like say "Our armies are now outside your capital, you have no choice but to surrender, I win, haha".  Shireroth laughed this off.  Finally, embarrassed at his failure to win, Bill resigned from Audentior and had Tapfer secede (or, as he called it, 'succeed').  Jasonia seceded next just because that sort of seemed like the popular thing to do at the time.  When Squid returned from the next session of summer camp, he had Hyperborea secede too since there wasn't much left anyway.  Thus died AIN.

 

Lesson V: Jasonia's Golden Age

When AIN broke apart, its provinces became free.  There were a few attempts to revive AIN, but the most important, which I'll briefly describe here, were Operation "D" and Atlantis.  Operation "D" (which stood for Democracy, despite anything JDS may tell you to the contrary) was the brainchild of Squid, and was supposed to be the same as Audentior before its fall, under the ingenious theory that what failed miserably before would work perfectly under the same conditions.  Who knows what would have happened had Squid not had to go on vacation and abandon the project.  Atlantis was the work of WarVoid and a temporarily returning Evan von Christoph, who had originally renamed it, Apolyton but had to drop it due to pressure from the real Apolyton.  It was to be a role-playing type nation with WarVoid as Emperor and Evan as High Priest and de facto leader.  It too failed, leaving only the provinces left.  Jasonia was by far the largest.

The provinces, though, were not accustomed to independence.  I believe it was Shireroth that first asked for Jasonia to incorporate it.  They did.  Tapfer followed, and, finally, grudgingly, Hyperborea.  This begins the time known as the Golden Age of Jasonia when it was the Sector's major superpower.  Also, there was Antarctica, which was founded by WarVoid but never achieved any real importance.  And Hau'oli 'Ena, which didn't do much at this time but became more important later on.

Things that took place in the Golden Age include the proposal for the first RPG, Control of Destiny, the founding of the Apollo Fireball, various fictional projects like the GravTrain, Ocean Palace, and a few new Flying Islands, a revival of interest in JASO, a healthy economy, the introduction of Assassinite to micronationalism, the creation of various works of fiction like The Black Omen, and about the third time UEC left.  This was a time of incredible culture, second perhaps only to the beginning of New AIN.  With a stable Jasonia, there was little need to worry about politics, so energy went into building up the country.  This is the time Jasonia got a lot of its international relations as well.  And don't forget the Jasoniad, Jasonia's unfinished epic.  Less happy events from this period include an almost constant judicial battle between UEC and Bill, which Bill usually ended out winning, seeing as he WAS the High Judge.  The Golden Age of Jasonia did not officially end until the creation of the UAS, but its cultural renaissance part was over by around October.  The highlight of the period, without a doubt, was the Infernal War.

The story of the Infernal War starts in an odd place...Jasonia's decision to change its name.  The whole Flying Islands thing seemed odd to a lot of people (as it still does), and Jasonia sounded downright egotistical.  So the name was changed to Aeronesia at the suggestion of Squid, who knew something vaguely resembling Greek.  (Aeronesia means Flying Islands).  The vote was extremely close. WarVoid, although originally a proponent of name change, was very annoyed.  So was UEC, though for different reasons;  After going on one of his random incoherent periods he was banned from Jasonia.  The two of them, with UEC's old friend VH Fenrir, left and started plotting.

Fast-forward a week or two.  Squid, making his pointless rounds of the old fora, went to Antarctica, which had long been dead.  Surprisingly and somewhat worryingly, it had been changed to the People's Republic of Hell, with graphics to match.  (To see them, check the Great Infernal Museum).  Squid reported it to Jasonian, and they decided to keep it secret so as to see if they could gather more information unobserved.  But bill also noticed, and announced it to the world.  WarVoid confirmed that this was a new nation he was working on for people who didn't like Jasonia, but said that they just wanted to be left alone.  Jasonia didn't believe them for a second, and the fact that they were technically a secessionist province because of the Antarctica thing didn't help much either.  Hawks, especially Bill, began pushing for immediate war of re-conquest. 

The main effect of this period was the addition of the word PRH to the Apollo vocabulary.  For example, a confused Apollonian might ask "What the PRH?” while a problematic country might be "going to the PRH in a hand basket".  The other thing was the identification of Jasonia with Heaven.  It was in the sky, and they had to make it sound like fighting against Hell was a good thing, so they launched a subtle propaganda campaign.

Anyway, things started heating up (pardon the PRH related pun...you'll see more of them).  JDS invited PRH to take over Hau'oli 'Ena, which had the slight problem of its being a Jasonian province.  JDS made the argument that he had created it so he should control it, while the FIoJ made the argument that it was given to them, so now it was theirs.  The PRH, meanwhile, was growing at a hellish pace, annexing Paramount and then Norfolk.  Norfolk was a relatively unimportant nation founded by Admiral Foley after GAPR's collapse that was later annexed by Jasonia.  For reasons unknown, Squid found that he had admin powers in Norfolk, and so he locked the Infernals out.  In return, WarVoid threatened to destroy the Great Audentior Museum, a favorite of Squid's.  Squid thought he was bluffing (and was right).  Eventually, the two worked out a deal where Norfolk would be a museum, neither Jasonian nor Infernal, a condition it remains in to this day.  This was the Battle of Norfolk.  Unfortunately, Stodlum, who hacked in and randomly changed it to “The Pornocratic Republic of XXX”, interrupted it about halfway through.  Eventually it was de-changed, but then Hell went and invaded Hau'oli 'Ena.  Jasonia declared lukewarm war, which is somewhere between cold war and hot war.  They then retook Norfolk.  The PRH got mad and retaliated.  Jasonia declared full war.  Thomas Hubert declared himself an ally of Hell, and was spammed by Assassinite in return.  WarVoid then announced that the whole Hell thing had been part of a weird, convoluted plot to unify the Sector by force.  It was pointed out that a much easier way to unify the Sector would be for Hell to merge with Jasonia, thus making the FIoJ the only nation, as it had been before the war.  WarVoid thought about it for a while and then decided it was a darned good idea.  The nations negotiated terms of merger (mainly, everything stayed Jasonian, but WarVoid got some cool titles which he never used) and the war was over.  WarVoid's plan for unity resulted (eventually) in the Apollo Pact, which will be discussed next time, along with the Three Hours' War, the economic boom in Hau'oli 'Ena, and random other stuff.

 

Lesson VI: The Hubert Wars and the Apollo Pact

The period from the Infernal War to the creation of the UAS was one in which quite a bit happened, but the events are hard to group into any real theme like "The Golden Age of X".  The titled events were important because those are the two major concepts of this period, both of which collide in the final event of this period, the Three Hours' War.

Treesia was Apollonians in late August, when it tried to claim MyNation.  MyNation was a nation founded by Matt Lamantia in February 2000 that had, after a long set of conflicts and treaties, passed into Blackrockian control.  Thomas Hubert, the Prime Minister of Treesia, saw that Blackrock wasn't doing much with it and decided it would be easy to take it and therefore have Treesia look more important.  Due to an uncommon Blackrock security lapse, Hubert was able to take the website.  Blackrock issued an ultimatum...give it back or else.  The Flying Islands and various other nations that were friends with them backed them.  Hubert finally grudgingly gave back the territory to the Blackrockians.

However, the Blackrockians were still not satisfied, mainly because Hubert was just generally being annoying to them.  So they covertly started a revolution in Treesia, led by a DL of the Blackrockian called SidneyL.  The Treesian army rather easily crushed the rebellion (with help from some Apollonians who happened to be there at the time), so Blackrock started another long-term plan in motion.  As part of it, Eoin Dornan joined Treesia under the name Scythe and worked his way up to quite a bit of power.  Then Hubert left on vacation for a little while.

The Jasonian government started an evil plot to overthrow him.  Dornan would attempt to impeach Hubert as PM, and would probably succeed due to the political climate.  He would then take his place.  Unfortunately, at the last possible moment, this plot collided head-on with the Blackrock plot, but luckily they were able to work something out.  It didn't matter, though, because as soon as Hubert came back, he deleted the whole country.  Blackrock annexed the empty fora.

 

Hubert then fled to Mar Sara.  Mar Sara was something of a cross between Treesia and Hyperborea...it was located in a small island in the Arctic.  Some of Thomas' friends from Treesia followed him there (including Jordan Borders, who was later proven to be his double login), but almost immediately, for little to no reason, he disbanded it in favor of a Communist nation, the People's United Republic.  The PUR annexed all the old places like the Treesian states (except for Fabon, which rebelled and got under Rasinate protection) and Mar Sara.  About this time, Hubert managed to make enemies with everyone who wasn't his enemy already by doing not-particularly-intelligent stuff like calling the Rasinate fascist.  (He narrowly avoided a war). 

Meanwhile, back in the Apollo Sector proper, the FIoJ was still dominant.  However, JDS was back, and the Infernal War had convinced him to secede his old nation of Hau'oli 'Ena from Jasonia.  Other stuff that happened around this time were the founding of the Apollo Fireball, which, somewhat miraculously, has been in continuous operation since then, Blackrock elections, and the Hyperborean Renaissance, where stuff briefly happened in Hyperborea, which then reverted back to its normal inactive state.  From this point on, I urge anyone with more interest in a specific event to search the Fireball archives.

Hau'oli 'Ena began to grow.  A new Istvanistani citizen named Caesar Augustus joined, as did Wombat, Dstryker, the old Automatics like Foley and Czerka, and many others.  Due perhaps to the bad will coming from the CHE (Confederation of Hau'oli 'Ena) secession, Jason and John started very much disliking each other, a problem which continues to the present.  CHE and FIoJ started trying to one-up each other, something that was to cause major problems in the Apollo Pact and even worse problems later on in the UAS.

After the PRH was absorbed, Ryan Caruso worked on revitalizing the Apollo Confederacy, which hadn't really done anything since March.  He formed the Apollo Pact, which was more than an international organization but just short of being a merger.  It united the foreign policies of all member countries, as well as attempting to unite the economies.  A problem immediately came up: Jasonia was the only country willing to make the sacrifices needed to join. 

Back in Hau'oli 'Ena, the focus had quickly shifted from politics to economics.  The CHE Economic Boom was probably the most intense economic activity the Sector has ever known, and will probably continue to be for a long time.  The CHE currency, the Kala (¤) quickly become very highly valued.  John tried to rub this in the face of the Jasonians, who had traditionally had the Sector's best economy, but they responded that it was just beginner's luck.

Finally the Apollo Pact was formed.  Florencia, a small island nation that was created by Caesar Augustus, entered in, and the concept of Partial Membership was created to appease CHE, which joined under that condition.  Gsquid attempted to create the unified economy based on the Aureon and Argenteon currencies, but despite his extremely stubborn determination, it failed.

 

Then, catastrophe struck.  Stodlum went missing for a while, and when he returned, he announced that he was disbanding Blackrock.  Not only was this a cultural disaster, but also it upset the delicate balance of power as everyone scrambled to pick as much off of the skeleton as they possibly could.  The Blackrockians provided for two of their territories; Treesia was to go to Eoin Dornan, and MyNation was to go to Brandon Frymire.  The Automatic State, however, was a little less clear, and it was taken over by Thomas Hubert illegally, although Blackrock actually gave it to Ryan Caruso.  Caruso pretended to accept this, but then used his position in the PUR to take the Automatic State over.  Hubert attacked.  This started what was called the Three Hours' War.  The Apollo Pact issued an ultimatum, and Hubert had little choice but to agree or to be wiped out.  The war was also precipitated by the rumor that Hubert was cooperating with the PBF to take over the Apollo Sector, although this has never been confirmed or denied. 

The state of Fabon, which had been under the leadership of former Treesian Kevin Tennent, elected to merge with the newly independent Treesia.  Together they took on a medieval theme and became the Barony of Treesia and Fabon.  Brandon Fry mire did not really have the interest level needed to maintain MyNation, so he gave it to Treesia, where it became one of the Knightships. 

Then came another catastrophic blow.  Istvanistan disbanded after a long period of inactivity.  Although most outsiders were unable to sense it, there had been something special about Istvanistan, because everyone who was in it was unable to forget it, and they always reminisce about its "good old days".  The only thing even vaguely resembling a successor nation was Caesar Augustus's Florencia, which did not attempt to publicize itself as such. 

Thus, at the end of this period, we have the Apollo Pact mainly failing in its attempts to unite the Sector, a small external threat in the form of Hubert and the PUR, fierce economic competition between CHE and FIoJ, and a number of little nations not doing much of anything (including, for a brief time, New Blackrock, which was an unsuccessful attempt to resurrect the old one).  In other words, it was a perfect situation for one of the Sector's trademark events: the Huge Pointless Merger, which immediately occurred in the form of The Union of Apollo States.

 

Lesson VII: The Union of Apollo States

O Muse, relate, for you can tell alone
(Wits have short memories, and dunces none)
Relate who first, who last was laid to rest
Whose heads were partially, whose completely blessed
How shame and sense were lost, how right and wrong
O sing!  And hush the nations with thy song!

The Union of Apollo States.  If I believed in God, I'd say He gave us a second chance to really make something out of micronationalism.  And we almost did.  This was probably the time when the Apollo Sector had the most power and influence relative to other micronations But, like all the other best-laid plans of mice and men it failed miserably, and led, more or less, to the present situation.

It was pretty obvious that the Apollo Pact was failing.  No one adopted the Unified Economy, and the refusal of CHE to be a full member had crippled it politically.  So, Scott began to formulate plans for a more complete merger.  Everyone seemed to like the idea, but had different ideas for the details.  So, for about two weeks in late October/early November, we started having chats to iron out the details.  There were a LOT of chats.  Probably one for about two hours every day.  They all had the same title: Stuff.  And nothing got done, either.  Usually Jasonia would mention that they would never agree to a merge unless condition A was met, and Hau'oli 'Ena would respond that if we even considered condition A and didn't outright ban it in the Constitution then we could pretty much count them out.  Then the whole chat would be Jason and John flinging accusations at each other that they were being proud and selfish rather than keeping the good of the Sector in mind.  Ryan and Scott tried to keep the peace, but usually failed.  If we were lucky, everyone would get tired of that issue and we'd agree to put it up for a vote when the nation was finally formed (which was how just about everything ended.)  Probably the most heated debate was whether the nation's currency should be the CHE Kala or not.  No one was willing to budge.  By some miracle we got the Jasonians to agree that the currency might officially be called the Kala, but if they wanted they could refer to it as the µ.  Sound stupid?  It was.  But we were desperate.

Finally, we were ready to go ahead, but we needed a name.  Of course, there was the same problem...if John had an idea, Jason would reject it, and vice versa, while none of the rest of us were really powerful enough to get our influence felt.  Finally we settled on the least offensive thing humanly possible, the Union of Apollo States. 

John made the website and Bill made the forum.  Bill did (in this historian's opinion) a pretty bad job, so Scott fixed it up a little.  A model of what the UAS fora used to look like (although this is not the actual UAS forum) can be found here.  Because of evil Geocities stuff, you can't see the pictures, but if you try to open them individually it should be fine.  Opinion was divided between those who loved and hated the little rotating suns.

The election went about as much without incident as could be expected in a nation where one half hates the other half.  Scott and Jason both ran for President, and Scott narrowly won mainly because most of the CHEans who hated Jasonia voted for him and a few Jasonians and the smaller nationalities did too.  The other interesting thing was the map.  Bill, Ryan, and Scott had all made maps, and they all wanted theirs to be used.  Scott's map won the election and has been the model for all Apollo maps after that time.  He expanded it into the Apollo Atlas, which can be seen here.  (Or at least what's left of it, GC has lots of problems.  If you see any Kill Bill signs, that was a minor problem that resulted from one of the riots and you can safely ignore them).

The law was that no nation that formerly existed could become a province.  The nations solved that by changing their name and then becoming a province.  Hau'oli 'Ena became Gong Li. Jasonia became New Jasonia, thus winning the UAS Creativity Award.  Treesia became Erior.  So the law didn't work out.

The major crisis in the UAS's early days was the Land Crisis.  Basically, on the map, Gong Li had gotten less land than New Jasonia, and the Gong Lians were angry.  So John, who was independently wealthy, offered to buy a large portion of unused land for an absurdly high amount of money.  This would give them slightly more land than New Jasonia, and would also start a precedent for selling map land.  President Siskind said no, and the Direct Democracy supported him.  So John took advantage of an economic loophole to bankrupt the Apollo Treasury, thus making us desperately need the money.  He then offered it at a higher price, noting that it was probably a good idea to agree, since we didn't have enough money to pay government officials.  Fearing that it would corrupt the integrity of the nation to agree, Scott still said no, using high-sounding phrases like "holding the nation hostage".  The Jasonians, of course, supported him because this was a great way to prove that it was really the Gong Lians who were evil devil-worshippers out to destroy the Apollo Sector.  It created a minor problem for Scott, since he was supporting the people who didn't vote for him against the people who did, never a good move politically, but finally a compromise was reached in which only a small amount of land was given to Gong Li, the Gong Lians promised not to want any more, and the Treasury got refilled.

The next crisis was a riot.  UEC and Lukedu were taunting Bill mercilessly, and Bill was getting really annoyed.  Being forum moderator, Bill closed their threads, causing a riot.  It was pretty fun while it lasted, especially since the whole thing was as much a mockery of the old AIN riots as it was an actual demonstration, but then it threatened to get out of control.  Scott issued horrible threats against everybody if they so much as thought of continuing, and since he never really threatened anyone before (or since), everyone was surprised enough to stop.

Time passed, and the UAS expanded.  Stjepan Aracic joined and started the state of Novi Dalmacija.  HIH Diga Makonnen of the Rasinate joined and started the state of Lesser Attera.  No one worked on the webpage (in the whole history of the UAS, it never did have a web page except a little temporary one Ryan put up.)  There were a lot of John vs. Jason court cases that Kevin Brenneman, the Supreme Justice, did his best to defuse and treat fairly.

The end finally came when someone spammed the fora of Hubert's latest micronation, Umoja, without government consent.  No one really cared about the spamming, but the Jasonians wanted to accuse UEC and Lukedu of doing it, so the accusations started flying.  Somehow the New Jasonians got it into their heads that the government knew who did it and wasn't telling.  So they rioted.  Really badly.  Poor Stjepan, who had finally finished going through a lengthy bureaucratic process to get Novi Dalmacija territory status, was disgusted with the whole thing and left.  Ryan was also disgusted and left.  Scott was also disgusted and left, after the one time he was ever known in the history of Apollo micronationalism to go totally crazy and start yelling at and insulting everyone (you can ask people who were there...they remember it).  Then John also got disgusted and left, or at least thought it would make it look like Jason had destroyed the UAS if he did.  However, under the leadership of Patrick Foley, the UAS tried to stay around a little longer.  Unfortunately, John, who had teamed up with Thomas Hubert and the Umojans, used the Spam Cannon to utterly destroy the UAS's remnants, erasing most of the nation's history in the process.  The nation fragmented, and was eventually annexed by Shireroth. 

Sic transit gloria mundi

 

Lesson VIII: The UAS Aftermath

The post-UAS Sector was divided among four nations: Treesia+Fabon, Jasonia, Shireroth, and Hyperborea.  Of these, it was the last three that interacted most strongly; Treesia often seemed to be on the outside of the action, although probably the second most powerful nation of the time.  Hyperborea was created as soon as Scott left UAS.  He had been reminded of the old nation by someone and begun to long for the good old days and lack of strife that had accompanied it.  On December 21, while the UAS was still technically alive, he revived Thule in the Solstice Declaration, which stated that Hyperborea was to be more or less a one-man nation and placed stringent moral requirements on any possible citizens.  However, Ryan, who had briefly been a Hyperborean in the old AIN days, and who had left UAS in the general exodus, asked to join, and not wishing to pass up such a chance, Scott reworked the laws so that Hyperboreans living on the outlying Isle of Volsung need only follow a less stringent set.  Ryan immediately set to work getting a few of his friends as citizens, as did Scott, and eventually the nation grew to the size of five.  By this time, Ryan's government on Volsung had begun to operate more efficiently than Scott's on the larger island of Bifrost, so Scott ditched the original laws and took up the Volsung ones with a few modifications.  Hyperborea's hope was to become a major cultural center, which it partially of achieved with its constructed language, new calendar, and.

The next nation to arise out of the UAS's ruins was Shireroth.  Strangely enough, Shireroth got its start in a chat, when Metzler was complaining about the UAS collapsing and how he didn’t wish to join the FIoJ, and Scott suggested he revive Shireroth (you may recall that Shireroth was a small nation in April '00 that merged into New AIN).  On the spur of the moment, Metzler agreed, and left UAS.  After a while agonizing over a suitable title, in which Shah, Tsar, Grand Poobah, and others were proposed and rejected, he finally settled on Kaiser.  He divided Shireroth into Goldshire and Brookshire, and made them Duchies.  His friend Dan K. was made a Duke, and various others, such as Dstryker, became citizens (despite strong anti-dual-citizenship policies).  After the spamming attack on the UAS, Patrick declared himself President (very few other people were around to object, although Bill certainly tried) and annexed it to Shireroth under the name of the Duchy of Kildare.  This sort of started a rush to annex anything and everything, which can be evidenced by the Shirerothian territories of Gong Li, Norfolk, Greater Automatica, Florencia, PUR, and others.  However, the problem came with the attempted annexation of Amity.

 

Activity in Jasonia during this period was rather slow.  One of the highlights was Switching Day, which was inspire by the infamous Gsquid Chat, in which everyone pretended to be someone else, leading to fun and good-natured criticism.  A minor problem came when John and Jason, who both hated one another, were selected (at random) to be each other, but everything passed without incident.  About this time Project 6 was created to help improve the nation; it is now unclassified and may be seen at the bottom of the Jasonian fora.  It was nothing more than a lose collection of ideas on improving various departments, but they were good ideas, and it would've been nice if the project had actually carried them out.  Another minor incident was when someone named Lisa Chill tried to join FIoJ, but was run out of the country as a suspected DL (she probably was, but it was never proven).  To test the system, Eoin and Kevin B. created a fake applicant named Dermot Kelly and found that, to everyone's surprise, he was accepted.  (Ironically, this made the Jasonians much more wary of potential citizens).

Thomas Hubert around this time disbanded Umoja, which had been completely destroyed by Bill as retaliation for the spamming attack on the UAS.  He then merged it with the Automatic Republic under John Sager to found the New Automatic Republic.  Hubert then managed to anger even more people than before by attacking Lyrica and Babhka, as well as unilaterally seceding from the People's Republic of the New Soviet Empire, which had taken him in as a satellite state.  The League of Micronations, in which the Apollo Sector had just become active, declared a total diplomatic embargo of the NAR.  After Hyperborea was attacked (unsuccessfully), and Treesia was bombed (more successfully) they and Jasonia declared a posting embargo as well, hoping that the forum would die with most of the Sector ignoring it.  While relatively effective, it was not enough, and Hubert remained a threat.  This finally ended when "Siberian Fox" of the PRNSE somehow obtained his phone number and had his parents restrict his Internet access.

In case you didn't notice from the above, there wasn't really that much interaction between the major three powers at this time.  Each sort of went its own way.  They all, however, joined the League of Micronations, although none of them took a major role with the partial exception of Jasonia.  Between Jasonia and Shireroth there was a sort of cold war; Shireroth's expansionist policies were beginning to anger Jasonia, and various people who just didn't like Jasonia for one reason or another, such as John, were joining Shireroth as the major alternative and influencing its policies.  There have been rumors that Shireroth actually planned an attack on, but nothing came of the rivalry except, of course, the Amity Crisis.

 

The Amity Crisis occurred when Shireroth's expansionist policies finally reached the Jasonian borders.  The island of Amity had served as a base for JASO; the Jasonian Aeronautics and Space Organization, Now the Jet-propulsion Astrophysics and Space Organization, for some time.  (It was determined that it was not a good idea to launch directly from the Flying Islands in case of explosions).  Metzler had long been the leader of JASO, and had come up with the idea for Amity, as well as its website and fora.  The island, however, technically belonged to Jasonia.  When neither side was going to give up their claim, the Sector came rather close to a major war.  There were efforts on both sides to try and defuse the crisis, and a rather interesting one by Ryan to just outright buy the island, but neither side would relent.  Lord McClelland of the Purple Bunny Federation called a conference to defuse the situation, but no one really listened.  Finally, an 11th hour deal was reached in which Shireroth got Amity, Jasonia got some money, and JASO remained neutral, and was geographically based in Apollo City.  Shireroth is still in control of Amity and silently moved JASO back there. 

About this time, rumors began to surface that there was something wrong with Jason...

 

Lesson IX: Oh, What a fall...

The Collapse, the Little Dark Ages, and The Recovery

Jason Announces an Intention To Leave

I still remember where I was when I first heard the news.  It was like the micronational equivalent of Kennedy being shot.  I was at my computer; first Jas told me not to tell anyone and definitely not to put it in the Fireball, and then he said he was planning on leaving micronationalism.  I didn't really respond very much, people say that all the time, and it never comes to anything, although this was the first time he'd ever said it.  Basically, I wasn't worried, especially since a week or two passed and nothing further came of it.

The fall of Shireroth
About this time, Shireroth was declining.  Kaiser Metzler had left due to one of his periods of depression and mental illness.  Patrick Foley was now more or less Kaiser, although whether he was ever officially given the title is sort of in doubt.  He and Shireroth left the League of Micronations, and he did try to keep something going, but due to the sporadic nature of his micronational involvement, and the fact that it was basically a one-man nation, Shireroth gradually dwindled away into nothingness. 

Jason Announces His Departure

On February 7th, Jason announced publicly his intent to leave.  He gave many reasons.  Jasonia, he thought was more or less dead.  Inactivity had been steadily increasing, and Project 6 had had absolutely no results.  It was better, he thought, to let the nation peacefully disband when it was at least nominally active than to have it go "not with a bang but with a whimper", as Shireroth had before.  He announced that he would hold a vote to disband the nation on February 20th, right after its one-year anniversary.  Next he condemned the UAS in what was thought as pretty bad attempt at some kind of rationalization or projection of his actions.  Then he went into personal business and the evil of mankind.  Everything can be seen in this thread, which is one of the treasures of Apollo history due to its long, meaningful, and important content:
http://pub6.ezboard.com/fjasonianforumsgeneraldiscussion.showMessage?topicID=682.topic

Reactions

People took it in a variety of ways.  Bill, of course, was extremely disappointed.  Metzler found it "interesting".  Ryan was very sad and wanted Jason to stay for micronationalism's sake (ironic, since he himself left soon after).  Greg responded in a way contrary to the shocked resignation of most people; commendably, he decided that this would only up his resolve to improve Jasonia, and I have a lot of respect for him for that.  John predictably attacked Jason for his UAS comments.  Eoin was able to sympathize with Jason.  Kevin and Patrick were disappointed, while Shane was, understanding.  Almost everyone asked him to reconsider, but he stayed firm.

The Final Days

Very little happened in the last few days of Jasonia.  It wasn't that people were all fearfully awaiting the end or mystically contemplating the supposed last Skyline ("What lies beyond?"), it was just that inactivity had become even more rampant than before.  Some people tried to hold a party for the first year anniversary, but it didn't work out, no one was in a particularly celebratory mood.  No one ever really started the vote to disband; because it was obvious it would fail.  Jason, as he said he would, resigned, and, of course, everyone protested, and, of course, he stood firm.

Post-Collapse Jasonia

Not much happened here.  I guess it's hard to write a history about a period whose distinguishing feature was the lack of anything happening.  Greg sort of became de facto leader; there was talk of an election, but nothing ever came of it.  Kevin T. announced his intent to run for president, but did not push for the election. 

Post-Collapse Hyperborea and Treesia

So far, Hyperborea had mercifully been spared the effects of the Collapse.  While Jasonia and Shireroth had lost their leaders, Hyperborea was still going strong, and even got delusions of grandeur like being the new superpower of the Sector.  It was not to last.  In truth, Hyperborea was only two people: Scott and Ryan, with some help from An and Matt, who would attend Councils if someone made them.  Ryan, however, announced that, due to real life concerns and wanting to work on the Civ2 Scenario League, he had to resign.  (It may be necessary to include here that, despite all the damage this caused to micronationalism, the Scenario League has STILL not been updated since early March).  An was appointed new Duke of Volsung, but there really was absolutely no hope for the country without new citizens.  Scott desperately searched for new people who had interest in micronationalism, but his only success was a poster on Apolyton named KhanMan, who, by some astounding coincidence, had already founded his own nation, Machiavellia, without any knowledge of the greater micronational community.  Unfortunately, he remained too isolated to do much good in this period.  Treesia was also rather isolated, and I would say it was lucky enough to escape the Collapse nearly unscathed, although it lost a lot of double citizens like Ryan, Jason, and Bill, which, depending on your view may not even be a problem.  However, little new progress was made there, although they did hold their ground.

Attempted Solutions

The most obvious solution was a merger.  There were only enough people left in the Apollo Sector to support one nation, so it made sense to make it into only one nation.  The problem wasn't so much an unwillingness to merge, as it was an unwillingness to organize things.  Hyperborea and Jasonia considered merging on equal terms, but that has always been difficult: whose name should we keep?  Whose fora?  Whose site?  The plan was dealt a deathblow when the Hyperborean Council rejected it, along with a plan to become an independent part of Babkha.  Gradually, people began to notice that the whole micronational world was suffering from a similar problem.  The League of Micronations, in which both Jasonia and Hyperborea still had representatives, passed a resolution to eventually do something about inactivity, but, being as bureaucratic as it was, nothing got done until after the problem was long over.  A chat was planned in the Sector to discuss possible solutions, but when no one showed up, it was opened to everyone, and the Emperor of Pacifica go the assembled group to support his plan for a micronational portal.  As far as I know, nothing ever came of this

 

The End Of The Collapse

The end of the Collapse was the beginning of modern history.  It was based on a direct reversal of two of the three factors that had precipitated the Collapse in the first place: the return of Jason and Metzler.  It is possible that the fact that Hyperborea alone did not have its leader return contributed to the eventual decline of that nation.
Jason was the first to return.  He announced it over ICQ and EZBoard simultaneously.  Originally, he did not plan to do anywhere near as much as before.  He would not run for President or Minister of Information, and would sort of just remain in the background.  Of course, everyone else in the Sector knew that that was about as likely as being hit by a meteor just when you're about to win the lottery.  The Shireroth Crisis quickly propelled him into the front seat once again.

The Shireroth Crisis

One of the things on Jason's agenda after his return was to occupy Shireroth.  This was not intended in a hostile manner...it was just that people had been taking over dead nations at an alarming rate recently and the FIoJ didn't want this to happen to the RS.  Unfortunately, the Rasinate had the same idea at about the same time.  The two nations discussed the matter civilly, but with some hint that they would not tolerate the other nation's stance for long.  Then, in the middle of the negotiations, Machiavellia, which had hitherto done absolutely nothing in the Sector, annexed Shireroth under the command of a certain General Trantor, who appeared to have control of the fora.  Also, Foley showed up about this time and said that he was the leader of the legitimate Shireroth government.  Things really went to the PRH in a hand basket after that.  However, in a stroke of luck, it slowly became obvious that General Trantor was actually Kaiser Metzler, although both of them strenuously denied it.  Everyone acknowledged his right to rule, and peace was more or less restored (with the exception of the occasional nation that barges into the LoM and demands to know what's being done about Shireroth two months after the fact.).  With Metzler and Steffke back, the Collapse was officially over, and, after a month of hanging on the brink, Apollonians (and Shirerithians) could return to their normal lives.  Everyone was overjoyed with the possible exception of the Fireball staff, which had prepared an article on the end of the Sector that they now had to throw out.

Appendix A: Acronyms

 

AIN: Audentior Independent Nation; (Originally: Apolyton Independent Nation)

AC: Apollo Confederation

ACS: "Ab Sectora Condita"

AFTP: Automatic for the People

AFTR: Automatic Federation of Temoe Republic

BGI: Badass Games Industries

BR: Bill of Rights

CHE: Confederation of Hau'oli 'Ena

CinC: Commander in Chief

CoD: Control of Destiny

CoS: Chief of Staff

EvC: Evan von Christoph

FIoJ: Flying Islands of Jasonia

GAPR: Great Automatic People’s Republic

GC: GeoCities

GPR: Great People's Republic

GS: Giant Squid (Gsquid)

ICEO: Inter-Micronational Currency Exchange Organization

JASO: Jet-propulsion Astrophysics and Space Organization (Originally: Jasonian Aeronautics and Space Organization)

JDS: John Drake Sager

JLH: Jasonia, Light of Hope

LOM: League of Micronations

LOSS: League of Secessionist States

MCS: Micronational Cartography Society

NAR: New Automatic Republic

NB: New Bruges

NCBR: Non-Citizen Bill of Rights

NoH: Nation of Hyperborea

OECM: Organization for Enhancement and Cooperation of Micronations

PBF: Purple Bunny Federation

PICO: Person in Charge of

PRH: People’s Republic of Hell

RoA: Republic of Antarctica

PRNSE:  People Republic of New Soviet Empire

PUR: People’s United Republic

RoB: Republic of Blackrock

RoI: Republic of Istvanistan

RoN: Republic of Norfolk

RoQM:  Rasinate of Qattera-Macusiaa

RS: Republic of Shireroth

SC: Spam Cannon

SSPC: Stupid Soviet Product Company

UAN: Universe of Allied Nations

UAS: Union of Apollo States

UEC: United Empire Confederation (Originally: United Empirial Confederation)

UD: United Demesos

WV: WarVoid

 

 

 

Appendix B: Glossary

 

Apollo Sector, The: Group of Micronation that can trace their origins back to the original AIN and/or label themselves as an Apollo Nation.

 

Ab Sectora Condita: Latin for "From the Founding of the Sector"

 

ASC Calendar, The: Calendar system started in Hyperborea based on the founding of the Apollo Sector on August 6, 1999 on the Gregorian calendar.  One ASC year passes for every Gregorian year after the starting date of August 6, 1999. 

 

B0O0/\/\ism: Prominent, highly militaristic religion in and outside the Apollo Sector.  First seen in the New AIN but founded in Shireroth.  

 

B0O0/\/\ist, A: An individual who is versed in the religion of B0O0/\/\ism and fallows it’s militaristic codes. 

 

EZBoard: Forum service used by many micronations, and primarily used by Apollo Nations.

 

Flying Islands of Jasonia: Apollo Nation founded on direct-democracy and pacifist ideals.  Briefly known as Aeronesia. Founded by Jason Steffke.

 

Great F*ck Up, The:  Uncommon, slang term, occasionally used in reference to the time of New AIN and its fall.

 

Jasonian, A: Citizen of the Flying Islands of Jasonia

 

Republic of Istvanistan: Non-Apollo Nation founded by Stjepan Aracic.  One of the B0O/\/\ist Holy Lands. 

 

Republic of Shireroth: Founded by E. Metzler as an alterative to the FIOJ and as a break from Apollo history.  Original B0O0/\/\ist Holy Land. 

 

Sic transit glorio mundi: Latin for "Thus passes away the glory of the world"

 

Smiley Bomb: Forum weapon invented by B0O0/\/\ists that can freeze or otherwise cripple any browser that attempts to open a post containing said bomb.

 

Spam Cannon, The: Weapon designed and created by the Republic of Blackrock that can be used against EZBoard Forums.

 

 

Appendix C: Aliases

 

Adam Foley: CINC Patrick, Admiral Foley, Patrick Foley

Bill Dusch: Bill3000

Caesar Augustus: Augustus Caesar

E. Metzler: UEC, Kaiser Metzler I, Rrakanychan, Gaelen Ly'Teçnomaezj, General Trantor, TonerMan

Eoin Dornan: Funky Wombat

Greg Nordman: Assasinite

Jason Steffke: Jasonian

John Drake Sager: JDS, RainbowJDS, OutOfTime, BruinJDS, Ras John, Comrade John

Lukedu: VH Fenrir

Ryan Caruso: WV, WarVoid

Scott Siskind: GS, Gsquid

Shane T. Odlum: Stodlum

Tomislav Trpimirovic: Stjepan Aracic

 

Appendix D: Official Hyperborean History

 

History Text: Apollo Sector

Era I: ApolytonNation
The history of Apollo micronationalism begins with the creation of ApolytonNation in early August 1999.  People from the Apolyton Off-Topic forum migrated en masse to the new country, thus giving it its name.  It created a currency, the @, a small army and navy, and made a Constitution with it being ruled by a Parliament Founded and led by Evan von Christoph and Giant Squid, the two soon gave up power to MarkL as a temporary Prime Minister until the first elections were held.  This was to be in the middle of August.  Unfortunately, by that time a number of people had lost interest in it and the elections were never completed.  By late August, it was gone.

Era II: Birth of Audentior
In November 1999, Evan von Christoph returned to Apolyton and reminded Giant Squid of the nation they had once helped run.  The two of them spent most of the month rebuilding the old site, and finally, by December, the country (renamed Audentior) was once again ready.  Many of the old people came back, and a few newcomers were invited.  MarkL was again made Prime Minister by the two provisional leaders, but this time an election was held for Parliament.  MarkL was retained, and the first Parliament, with five members was created.  MasterBob lent the fledgling nation an UltraBoard, and the nation prospered.

Era III: Apolyton Fragments
However, at about this time, Bill3000 developed the Demesos government.  Demesos was based on democracy, but gave greater power to the President, reined in corporations, and banned racism.  After repeatedly trying to convince other people of the value of Demesos, he decided the only way to do this was to show it in practice.  He founded a country, United Demesos, and attracted many Audentes and a few others to it.  Audentior, while not particularly happy to have a competitor, eventually decided the Demesos was a legitimate nation and made peace with it.  However, another faction was being created in Audentior, led by a newcomer named RainbowJDS.  He used Audentior's formerly weak party system to create the Automatic For The People party, and then turned it into a province.  Because he advocated secession from Audentior, the government began to distrust him, and tensions grew.  Finally, in February 2000, Automatic For The People seceded.

Era IV: The Automatic Wars
Audentior was in shock.  Many Audentes advocated declaring war on the rebels, but another faction noted that war would be difficult to fight and that many Audentes were in the new nation, and therefore advocated a policy of peace.  Eventually the latter faction won, giving AFTP free rein to expand.  However, many high-ranking Audentes still distrusted the new nation, and they began to plot its downfall.  Meanwhile, AFTP had also divided into two factions.  While many citizens were personal friends of RainbowJDS, others opposed his autocratic style of leadership.  Finally, led by an Automatic named Djugashvili, former head of AFTP intelligence, these people revolted.  Bill3000, who had personal disagreements with RainbowJDS, came to the rebels' aid, as did a new nation, the Republic of Ceres. The war was fought for a while until the King of Morovia and an AFTP diplomat named Jasonian helped to work out a solution in which the rebels would get their own country, the Great People's Republic. As a final act of spite, the Automatic loyalists used knowledge of GPR passwords to invade their forums, but this did not significantly disrupt the peace. Both UD and Ceres then settled their disputes.

Era V: Apollo Confederacy and the Raising of the Islands
After the Automatic Wars, many nations realized the need for an organization to keep the peace. Giant Squid, at this time a Parliamentarian of AIN, formed the Apollo Confederacy, and was elected the first Chief-Coordinator. But it was destined to have more than just the five nations already mentioned. The Brain, a former Audente, decided that micronationalism was too serious and created a parody he simply called MyNation. And Jasonian, disillusioned by his experiences in the Automatic Wars, took some islands owned by AFTP and used powerful engines to raise them into the sky, naming his domain the Flying Islands of Jasonia. Many former Automatics and Audentes immigrated to Jasonian's new nation, led by his promise of peace. GPR and AFTP then forgot their differences and merged into one nation, the Great Automatic People's Republic. The last part of this era has been called the Golden Age of Apolyton micronations, with FioJ, AIN, Ceres, UD, and GAPR all peaceful and prosperous, and with Apollo and a newly developed economic system keeping them bound together.

Era VI: Conquest And Revolution
Meantime, MyNation had, because of lack of seriousness, been expelled from the Apollo Confederacy. The United Demesos and Ceres, therefore, decided to use this opportunity to conquer it. Their combined forces easily overwhelmed The Brain's small country, and they divided it among the two of them. In Audentior, however, internal war seemed looming. Evan von Christoph, one of Audentior's founders, was disgusted at the policies of the government, and resolved to get the military to lead a coup. As he gathered strength, Parliament began worrying. Finally, in a settlement negotiated by Giant Squid, Parliament voted him Emperor, and in return he agreed to greatly limit his powers.

Era VII: The Audente Empire and the Cold War
Evan immediately set to work reforming Audentior. He appointed six prominent Audentes as Lords, had an influential Parliamentarian named LordStone1 write a new Constitution, and negotiated with Ceres and UD to gain a large part of the conquered MyNation. He expanded the army and navy to a size worthy of an empire, and changed various Audente symbols to reflect the change. Giant Squid, along with Stodlum of Ceres and Bill3000, led a failed incursion into ACOL to try and gain a new province, but the ACOLers did not agree to the idea. Eventually, MarkL, former Audente Prime Minister, led a group of citizens who wished to end the Empire and bring back the Parliamentary system. Supported by GAPR, they were very vocal on the Audentior forums. GAPR itself had grown greatly, and was now in direct competition with Audentior for leading nation in the area. The two often exchange threats and insults, and RainbowJDS and Evan were personal enemies. Apollo, by this time, was moribund and could not help.

Era VIII: The Fall Of Audentior, The Demesos War, and the Dark Ages
In their quest to take over Audentior, GAPR decided to control the Audentior elections, which were happening around this time. They nominated candidates for office, and the Laanenists supported them. As elections drew closer, it became evident that GAPR would win or at least come close. As Evan tried to suppress them, his actions gave more credence to the rebels, who pointed them out as examples of tyranny. Finally, Evan resigned in disgust, and Giant Squid resigned in sympathy at the same time. Without these two leaders, and with the remaining populace split, Audentior fell. Evan, hoping for revenge against the GAPR, hacked them, and gave a crucial password to UD, their enemy. UD then briefly conquered the GAPR forums, but a resistance force led by RainbowJDS managed to completely expel them and push on to take the UD forums. Ceres, who had formerly supported the UD, left the Apolyton Sector in disgust. The United Demesos was almost crushed, and mental problems with their leader prevented it from reforming itself efficiently. Audentior tried to save itself, but the political strife inside was too much. Finally, only the Flying Islands and GAPR remained, along with the remnants of UD and a few disgruntled Audentes who were plotting on the side.

Era IX: A New Hope
At the end of the tunnel of the Dark Ages was a glimmer of light. Three new nations rose up out of the ashes of the old to bring new life into the Apolyton Sector. The first to appear was Istvanistan. A little-known citizen of the old ApolytonNation named Tomislav had been inspired to participate in micronationalism, and had gone off his own way, missing the creation of Audentior and all later events. When he was refound by Apolytoners, he led a great nation called the Republic of Istvanistan, which immediately became part of the Apolyton Sector. The next new nation to rise was the idea of Giant Squid and a few other disillusioned Audentes. This was, of course, Hyperborea, which you are in right now. LordStone1 and Giant Squid worked in secret for a few weeks to make the site, and then told the world. Hyperborea's restrictive citizenship policy stopped them from getting more than 5 citizens in this era. The last new nation was made by UEC, former vice-president of the United Demesos. It was called Shireroth. With these new states and the old nations of FIoJ and GAPR (now renamed Gran Tierra) Apolyton was fast approaching its former glory.

Era X: Brave New World
For a long time after the Demesos War, UD was completely inactive...almost a ruin. Bill3000, however, was unable to let his vision die, and he reforged his nation into the Democratic Republic of Tapfer. German for "brave", he quickly added things like military training and a forum. In the economic sector, Giant Squid created MegaCorp, a gigantic conglomeration with branches in every nation except GAPR. GAPR had lost their fearless leader, Djugashvili, and was in a state of turmoil trying to recover. In the meantime, secret negotiations were made between it, Hyperborea, and Shireroth for a merge, but were ended or scaled back when GAPR changed their mind.

Era XI: The Re-Re-Surrection of Audentior (Early June 2000)
However, there is no force in the world as powerful as an idea whose time has come, and the leaders of Hyperborea and Shireroth began "testing the waters" for enough nations to complete the merge when GAPR withdrew. They found another nation willing to join with them in the new Tapfer, and Jasonia also expressed some interest. For purposes of prestige and convenience, they decided to to use the old Audentior website, resulting in the second resurrection of the nation. Finally, Jasonia joined, and Blackrock, though staying independent, expressed their support. Peace and unity had been achieved at last. The only storm clouds on the horizon were the Audentes' determination to add GAPR to their mix and Blackrock's escalating problems with a far-off nation named, oddly enough, The Purple Bunny Federation.

[eras XII and XIII written by Bill3000, edited by GSquid]
Era XII: The Climax of Audentior (Middle-Late June 2000) Audentior soon had elections, with the Libertarian and Demesosian Parties having the majority of the Tetrapole, the name for the new AIN Parliament. Soon, the PBF-Blackrockian Cold War ended, and the only thing that was disrupting peace were the newly founded nations of Paramount and Norfolk. They threatened to invade Audentior, but the threat quickly subsedded with the death of the nations. Then, GAPR Commisioner UEC lead a drive to annex GAPR into Blackrock. He succeeded, and JDS said that half of GAPR would be part of Tulsa, half Blackrock. Tulsa, in disgust, gave its half to Blackrock. Blackrock then made it a joint territory with Audentior. The old AFTP province was returned to Audentior at last.

Era XIII: Riots and Revolution (Early July 2000)
The Tetrapolewas believed by many to be incredibly inefficent, and was always arguing. The UAN province was disbanded in hopes of uniting Audentior. UEC, in disgust, resigned as Legislative Chair, and his "BOO/\/\ist Party" incited a riot. It soon escalated, and Martial Law was declared after a bomb threat. The riots eventually ended a day later with some help from Jasonian, used by both sides as a negotiator. An uneasy peace started for a while. Then, a vast revolution started leading with UEC to instate direct democracy. With a couple of problems, including the deletion of the entire website, the democracy forces won out. At this time, Imran Siddiqui, founder of the libertarians, emmigrated in disgust. Bill3000, WarVoid, and GSquid managed to create the site after GSquid found a backup copy and Bill got some extra web space. Bill3000 was made an Administrator along with GSquid (who had been away while the revolution was occuring. But with everybody blaming problems on Bill3000, some things were not solved. The remaining issues would have to wait for the elections, which were to be on July 10,2000. About this time, WarVoid founded a new nation called the Republic of Antarctica, and JDS founded one called Hau'oli 'Ena.

Era XIV: What Goes Up Must Go Down (Mid July)
On July 10, the elections were held as planned. The most closely watched race was that for President, with Bill3000 of the Demesos Party and WarVoid of the BOO/\/\ist Party contending for the new and important position. By a small margin, Bill3000 won, but the fact that he was the administrator of the election, as well as the fact that some voters were inactive citizens, made the BOO/\/\ists question the election results. When Bill was announced President, they, and some others in the BOO/\/\ist-dominated province of Shireroth, seceded from Audentior. Surprisingly, Bill3000's own province of Tapfer seceded just after this, with Bill deciding that he and Audentior were hinderances to one another. By far the largest province of Audentior, the Flying Islands of Jasonia, decided that, with these problems to face, staying in the AIN was no longer profitable to it either, and left as well. At this point stodlum of Blackrock realized decisive action would be needed to hold the country together, and staged a coup by the military. Evan von Christoph, former Audente Emperor, chose this time to return and take over the military government. When GSquid, who had been away while all this was happening, returned, he also got worried about the present state of AIN, and Hyperborea, calling a Council, left the nation as well. Evan and the military government then set up a new regime, in which Evan would be High Priest and his friend WarVoid Emperor.

Era XV: What Goes Down May Also Come Up (Late July)
After this, the Apollo Sector was left in shambles, with a defunct Audentior, a frozen Istvanistan, two new nations, still-strong Blackrock, and four rather confused former Audente provinces. However, the province of Shireroth, first to secede from Audentior, decided to merge with the large former province of Jasonia. This set off a chain reaction, and within two weeks or so, the three other former provinces, as well as Antarctica and Hyperborea, had joined with Jasonia, which now became nearly as powerful as the old Audentior. Jasonian, the President revived the site and political structure, DStryker worked a minor miracle on the economy, and AngelGuardian and others began creating works of literature there, creating something of a renaissance. New website techniques were created in Hyperborea, and Kajar Beta became host to a prosperous trade in Civ2 scenarios. Within half a month of the fall of a great nation, another had risen to take its place.

Era XVI: A New Golden Age; New Foreign Contacts (August)
Istvanistan, which had been frozen for the summer, began to stir again furing this period, but the two main Apollo nations were still Jasonia and Blackrock. Blackrock had an international incident with Treesia, a new nation that claimed some of Blackrock's land, but the situation was resolved to the satistfaction of both parties (particularly of Blackrock, as they got to keep the land). Jasonia added Hau'oli 'Ena and Aeronesia to its overseas territories, set up a tour (along with Tapfer) similar to the one you have just seen in Hyperborea, and changed its name to Aeronesia. Treesia, and a micronational power called the Rasinate of QM (for short) both came into greater contact with the Apollo Sector at this time.

Era XVII: The Bold New Era; Treesia Conflicts
One symbol of this time was the Rasinate's Bold New Era plan, which said that all micronations should work together in peace and harmony and be very happy. This was adopted by Aeronesia and promptly forgotten, because the next event that occured was the Treesia Conflict. Various factions in Treesia began opposing Prime Minister Hubert's administration and, with the help of Blackrock, which was still bitter about the incident above, and Aeronesia, which just felt like interfering, the rebels won. Hubert resigned from Treesia and destroyed most of it, and the remainder was annexed by Blackrock. Another important event during this time was the founding of the Apollo Fireball.

Era XVIII: The Infernal War
Meantime, a secret cabal in Aeronesia created a "hidden" micronation called the People's Republic of Hell. Aeronesians quickly found this new country, and the two begin an era of very bad relations.  These came to a climax when Hell attempted to annex the Aeronesian province of CHE.  Aeronesia responded by blitzing Thomas Hubert's new nation, the People's United Republic, which was allied with Hell. All out war seemed inevitable until it was realized the Hell had not annexed CHE at all, despite everyone's beliefs to the contrary.  Deciding that the time was ripe, Hell leader WarVoid declared that Hell was part of a grander plan for the unification of the Apollo Sector; however, no one really liked the plan, and it and WarVoid both quietly went away. Aeronesia annexed the Republic of Hell and its provinces

(Official History ends at this point, No Further updates where made after this point)

 

Appendix E: Official FIoJ History

 

            One might wonder why Jasonia are flying islands. Indeed, it has a story. The story is more diplomatic then technological, and will explain why the island exists rather then how it flies above the clouds.
 

Part One: The Raising of the Islands

    Everything started in the AIN, the Audentior Independent Nation. A citizen by the name of Rainbow started a new political party named AFTP (Automatic For the People). This party called for drastic reforms in freedom and rights of the AIN citizens. Rainbow was a very vocal party leader, and the AIN started to despise him quickly.

    After several days, a conflict broke out, and the AIN threatened to declare war on their own political party. The conflict was negotiated away by an inexperienced diplomat named Jasonian, but the hostilities were not and tension remained high.

    Soon, the rebellious citizens simply could not stand the unfair AIN government any longer. The AFTP broke away, taking a considerable amount of AIN population with it. Jasonian went as well due to his loyalties to the party.

    In the new nation, Jasonian had gained quite a bit of fame for his work preventing war. He was promoted to Head of the Ministry of Diplomacy for his work, and set out to negotiate further and find allies for the new nation.

    Despite the declaration of war by the United Demesos and their ally (to be later known as Ceres), the growing tension between the AIN and the AFTP, and the lack of civil order in the nation, things progressed. It seemed the wars would end and the nation would see peace for the first time since it's birth.

    That was when the United Demesos (UD) launched an assault into AFTP territory. Simultaneously, the head of the secret police, Djugashvili, began a People's rebellion against the government headed by Rainbow. The military was cut in half: The loyal troops began resisting the UD forces while the rebel troops let the invaders pass.

    The United Demesos forces eventually signed a truce with the rebel forces, promising to evacuate the country once it was in the hands of the rebels. This combined might, along with a rebel sympathizer group from the AIN, made the future of Rainbow's reign look bleak. Jasonian sided openly with the rebels, as it seemed to be the best way to keep the country intact.

    As the rebels closed in, Jasonian began to panic. What if the UD didn't back off? What if Djugashvili was a worse leader then Rainbow? He made his decision: he would leave, but he was taking part of the country he vowed to protect with him!

    With technology being developed to raise Mao's Coffee Shop into the sky, but on a much larger scale, Jasonian began to search for an ample piece of land. He found it near the south-eastern part of the country: a grassy mountain area. Using the antigrav technology, along with controlled explosives, he wretched the mountain from the ground and pulled it into the sky, to remain free from the chaos of the world below.
 

Part Two: The Golden Age of the Apolyton Sector

        After the FIoJ raising above the ground, the UD backed out of the AFTP, which had split. Djugashvili ruled the AFTP Communist Party (AFTPCP), while RainbowJDS rules the new Automatic Republic (AR). A peacekeeping garrison was established in the AR to maintain peace, naturally, by Cersean and Purple Bunny Federation peace keepers.

    During the period of peace in the Apolyton Sector, there were seven nations. Listed about in order of population and activity, they were: the AIN, AR, RoC (Republic of Ceres), UD, FIoJ, AFTPCP, and MyNation. MyNation was a joke against micronations, but it was counted none-the-less as one of the Apolyton Sector.

    As Jasonian nurtured the islands, increasing it's population and improving it's infrastructure, the Apollo Confederacy was formed. This United Nations-like union attempted to keep peace between the seven nations. During it's time, two nations disappeared. AR and AFTP recombined into the new superpower GAPR. MyNation was expelled from the Confederacy and conquered by the RoC and UD. However, on a whole, the union was unable to enforce it's decisions. It died a sad death.

    Nearing the end of the era, the economy and research departments of the FIoJ flourished. JASO was formed, as was the stock exchange. Jasonia was making a name for itself in the Apolyton Sector.

    Then, crisis erupted. EvC abolished the AIN democracy and declared himself Emperor. All citizens of the AIN that were also citizens of any other nation were expelled, including Jasonian. AIN's activity dropped. Giant Squid, one of the main leader of the nation, grew sick of it and left AIN. Even after the protesters regained power, AIN still has lost a lot of it's key members and influence.

    Apparently tired of GAPR threats of annexation, the UD surprised us all by attacking and conquering the GAPR's forums. The GAPR and FIoJ led a counteroffensive that ended when Rainbow regained his forums AND took over the UD-controlled ones. With the UD down to almost zero members and support, UD has been dealt a severe blow.

    RoC (now named the Republic of Blackrock) has decided to exit the Apolyton Sector. With AIN down, RoB gone, and UD mortally wounded, only the FIoJ and GAPR remain active. This was the end of the Golden Age. The FIoJ was in a dying sector with an excellent reputation and formidable support.
 

Part Three: The New World

       Shortly after the UD crisis, with the FIoJ still booming from the war frenzy, a previously unheard of nation named RoI (Republic of Istvanistan) made itself known on the Jasonian forums. This nation, led by Tomislav Trpimirovic, had watched the AIN for some time. They used the AIN as a basis for the new nation, and grew it in secret. Satisfied with it's growth, they contacted the FIoJ first. FIoJ and RoI recognized each other, and hoped to be forever at peace.

    Also, a mysterious person posted on all the major forums. After reading all the posts, it was clear that there was a new nation around. Calling itself Hyperborea, it gave away only mysterious clues about itself. All that was known is that is was to the far north and the citizens lived like Gods. Sure enough, the nation went public about a week later, and the details were known. Hyperborea didn't allow dual citizenship or relations with other countries. The leader was none other then Giant Squid, who was working on the project since he left AIN.

    After these events, FIoJ fell into a short period of inactivity. On April 21st, just over two months since it was created, the nation regained it's activity and continued to be an active player in the coming events.
 

Part Four: The Unity

    Shortly afterward, two new nations appeared on the scene. The first was the Republic of Shireroth. UEC, disgusted by the workings of the sector but feeling unable to change things, started this nation on April 24th in order to get his ideas out more efficiently. He remained a citizen of the FIoJ, and Shireroth and FIoJ soon signed a powerful peace treaty.

    The second nation was the Demesosian Republic of Tapfer. Using graphics from the old Republic of Demesos, Bill returned to the scene with his new nation. Despite comments against the name, the nation began to slowly grow.

    At this point, the number of obsolete and current nations began to become staggering. Simply remembering names was a problem, and the diplomacy between them was more then anyone should have to handle. Many leaders of the sector realized this, and Giant Squid launched plan to deal with it.

    Rebuilding the ancient ruins of the AIN site, he proposed a grand unity there. Hyperborea joined up first, followed quickly by Shireroth and Tapfer. GAPR promptly refused; their hatred of the AIN still boiling. Istvanistan also refused after a great debate with UEC that has gone down in their history. FIoJ was next up, and it was put to a vote for four days. With 100% yea/nay required, any nay vote would stop the vote. Pinky voted nay, but decided to abstain later. Finally, after the four days, FIoJ became a province of the AIN on 5/15/00, 5 days short of it's 3 month Independence day.

    At this time, the crosswinds server crashed and Jasonian locked the forums. After about half a month, the nation was rebuilt as a complex monument to honor the successful project known as the Flying Islands of Jasonia, which was thought of as finished.
 

Part Five: The Audentior Age

    Several weeks after the FIoJ Museum was started, several citizens began to become upset in the AIN. The AIN's republic voting system, known as the Tetrapole, was found to be inefficient and corrupt. A riot was started to burn off frustration, and a "smiley bomb" was detonated in a thread clearly marked as bombed. This caused the forum administrators to lock all forums besides the general discussion one. Enraged by this action, the riot became serious, and AIN was flooded with protest threads. After threatening to bomb another thread, UEC was banned. He returned with a double login and bombed several more threads before that too was banned. A chat was called to discuss this matter; it was decided that both UEC and GSquid would be fined 5@ and the matter would be dropped. Both paid up, another peaceful riot thread was started, and operations continued as normal.

    The frustration caused by the Tetrapole remained, however. Several ICQ chats and debate threads were called to peacefully discuss possible replacements for the Tetrapole. Two systems were created, and both were presented to the Tetrapole. They both passed. Infuriated by the Tetrapole's lack of decision, a Direct Democracy revolution was started. The Tetrapole was declared disbanded, and it was replaced by the Omnipole - a place where all Audentes could vote. After some brief troubles with site and forum management, things continued once more towards the elections of July 10th.

    Ironically, the democratic elections that the Audentes has striven so long to establish were to be a death blow to the AIN. Bill3000, running for President, got several more people to join the nation just before the elections. These, along with some inactive citizens, all voted for Bill3000 and the other members of the Demesosian Party that were running. As a result, in every position that had more then one candidate running, a Demesosian won. An immediate investigation was called, but it turned out that Bill didn't miscount the votes: he simply gathered enough inactive support to win. Frustrated and angry with Bill for misusing the Direct Democracy system so blatantly, Shireroth seceded from the AIN. Bill launched an invasion of Shireroth and quickly moved to make any further defections illegal.

    Seeing a closing door of opportunity before them, FIoJ quickly voted to secede themselves. After 5 votes were received in favor, it was clear that there would be no opposition. FIoJ too declared their secession, and AIN made no action to force them back. Stodlum then launched a coup and seized control of the AIN, disbanding the Omnipole and President position. Feeling totally betrayed, Tapfer seceded as well.
 

Part Six: The Great Merger

    In the days after the secessions from the AIN, FIoJ managed to stabalize a great amount of activity. The government was re-established, the economic system started up again, and relations with nearby nations were secured. The FIoJ's recovery was swift.

    In the AIN, however, things were not so pleasant. The remaining people of the AIN demanded that Stodlum give up his power he had over the AIN. In response, Stodlum revoked his and Bill's administrator powers, declared WarVoid the 'king' in jest, and fled the country. Taking Stodlum seriously, WarVoid assumed control over the nation.

    EvC, historic leader of the nation, returned after saying he wouldn't ever come back. He began a plan to make the AIN an "RPG nation" with more focus on people and less on the government. He also asked the former provinces to return, which they refused. Most citizens of the Apolyton Sector scoffed at this idea, especially Giant Squid. Hyperborea, last of the nations to join in AIN in The Unity, seceded to escape the chaos there and GSquid launched "Operation D", a Direct Democracy Audentior to compete with the RPG Audentior, which was renamed Apolyton Independent Nation: it's historic name.

    Meanwhile, the Apolyton Sector was filled with nations once again. Along with the former provinces of the AIN, the Republic of Antarctica and Hau'oli 'Ena gained popularity. This was not to last. Shireroth opted to merge fully with the FIoJ, which it did. Next came Tapfer, which was inactive and unpopular after Bill's elections that caused the AIN to collapse. Hyperborea followed, and GSquid's "Operation D" Audentior was disbanded. FIoJ had managed to bring the nations under peaceful unity, a goal the AIN never truly managed.

    The mergers didn't stop there. The Republic of Antarctic under WarVoid opted to merge so that WarVoid would have more time to work on Apolyton Independent Nation with EvC. Shortly afterward, Hau'oli 'Ena joined the FIoJ because their citizens were unwilling to continue the nation.

    With over forty citizens and a host of active and contrasting people, the FIoJ experienced further development, economic growth, and activity levels. The Golden Age of the FIoJ had began.

(Official History ends at this point, No Further updates where made after this point)

 

Appendix F: Official Treesian History

 

“A History of Treesia 

- a Most Unusual Place” 

-from the quill of the Baron himself 

 

Originally the Barony was one of the five Baronies of the Five Islands Kingdom. The other Baronies were Shleg, Khas, Ahans and Reath. The Kingdom was situated on a huge lake, which the happy Kingdom citizens had never bothered to explore further than to know it was a lake.  

 

The Five Islands Kingdom 

(Click on the Map for an enlargement) 

 

It is fabled that a king will come, called Rex Cuig, and he will bring the five Baronies back together. When the Cataclysm came over a thousand years ago, the other four Baronies disappeared into fountains of molten rock. When the skies cleared, the Treesians found themselves alone on their lake. A tremendous sense of loss, perhaps conveyed through the land itself, wrenched at the heart of every being on the island. That day, when the Barony found itself alone, is still mourned as the Loss. After thirty days and nights of mourning, the Baron at that time, one Halberd the Grey, sorrowfully proclaimed himself head of the Barony of Treesia. He refused to take the title King out of respect for the last King, his uncle. Times were not all bad, however, as they met new allies who had come to investigate the apocalyptic happenings of the Cataclysm. It turned out the island had drifted closer to the shore of the great lake. 

 

The Apollo Lands  

(Click on the Map for an enlargement) 

 

Their first allies were the Jasonians, powerful mages who helped the startled and still saddened Treesians to flourish and grow. The Q’attera Macusiaans came next, soldiers who allied themselves with the Barony. The Alterians approached the Barony next, civilised diplomats and philosophers, who contrasted deeply with the barely developed Barony. Finally the explorers sent forth by the Baron found the Hyperboreans, who were wise warrior priests who lived in the frozen plains of Hyperborea. They held themselves aloof from all but nevertheless extended the hand of friendship towards the Barony. The talking dogs that frequented the Knightship of Llacheu were particularly communicative with Hyperborean philosophers. 

 

Following the Age of the Cataclysm was the Golden Time, in which the Barony flourished and grew more powerful. One day, however, an advisor to the Baron Ambrose of the House Dornan, Sir Tomas, turned rogue and threw the Barony into anarchy. He declared himself the Lost King of the Islands and the Principality of Treesia was soon within his grasp. The Baron and his family fled to the Republic of Blackrock, a nation of fanatical soldiers. There they plotted against Sir Tomas and eventually, after more than fifty years, the previous Baron’s son, Gerard, staged a coup where he, forgotten by the citizens of the Principality, came to Prime Minister Tomas II, since the Barony had since undergone so much change of administration that it was almost unrecognisable. There he won the Prime Minister’s confidence and came to the position of President through a process known as democracy. 

 

He was then approached by an individual with the bearing of a Hyperborean paladin who answered to the name Arjuna Pandava. He told Gerard that he could bring the Barony back under his power if he was prepared to take measures. The plans of the Republic melded almost perfectly with the newly formed Movement’s plans. A man named Kevin of the House Tennent was the third member of the Movement. Within months the tyrannical rule of Tomas II was overthrown and the newly selected Baron Gerard took over. He had little support however, and made the Barony a protectorate of the Republic until he had seeded support for himself.  

 

When the Republic of Blackrock died due to the death of it’s main ruler, General Odlum, the Barony was back under it’s own power. Baron Eoin rules there now and things have never been better. The newly knighted Sir Kevin, Sir William, Sir Ryan, Sir Jason, Sir Augustus, Sir Brandon and Sir Diga joined him. Sir Kevin kept his old territories of Fabon, and kept to the strict rules of chivalric conduct and weapon finesse. Sir William, the Bearer of the Holy Sword Einlanzer, an old ally of the House Dornan, stationed himself in Hundland. Sir Ryan brought peace to the warring barbarian Draken tribes. The Draken were men who could assume the form of dragons. He ruled at Castle Dagoda in the middle of the Wickhighan plains. Sir Jason, a mage of amazing talent, found the place on the island where magic was strongest, Llacheu, and originally had to cope with waves of rioting dogs, the situation is now under control. Sir Augustus, a centaur chieftain, was given rule of the area where his people inhabited most, Breigh, Land of Horses. Sir Brandon, originally from Blackrock, gave his nation of Vembria, a land seceded during the reign of Tomas, back to the Barony and reigned there. Sir Diga IV, the ruler of the Rasinate, was given a piece of land closest to his domain out of gratitude for his House’s continuing alliance with Treesia.  

 

The Barony Today 

(Click on the Map for an enlargement) 

 

Much has changed. Today Sir Ryan, Sir Brandon and Sir Diga have departed. Sir Ryan succumbed to the Dragon Rage, permanently turning into a majestic golden dragon. Sir Brandon went missing on a quest to find new lands. Sir Diga departed and was given his Knightship of Ecosse as a parting gift. Iain de Vembria, a member of the former ruling class of Vembria, was knighted and given custodianship of his lands forever. Sir Anthony, a genius mathematician, was asked to take over Wickhigh, since he had being a long-time resident at Castle Dagoda and did not seem as likely to succumb to the Rage as his predecessor had.             

 

(Official History ends at this point, No Further updates where made after this point)

 

Appendix G: Official Istvanistani History

 

A Short History of the Republic of Istvanistan

 

Early History of the Republic

          The Republic of Istvanistan as we know it today, was founded in the early days of 2000, however, its history can be traced back all the way to 1999, as the Republic of Humanistan.

            Tomislav Trpimirovic, one of the two founders of the Republic, was spurred on by two events. The first was the creation and subsequent collapse of the Apolyton Independent Nation. Tomislav had been familiar with micronations for quite some time at that point, but had not joined one until the Apolyton Independent Nation was founded. Micronationalism appealed to Tomislav's own fascination with government and history. However, seeing the confusion around him and sensing that it could not last long, Tomislav never did much there and sure enough, Apolyton collapsed. It is at this point that Tomislav came to the conclusion that the only way to start off a micronation would be to have certain key institutions in place, and have them operate as efficiently as possible in order to support the growth of the nation.

            However, Tomislav did not start off making the nation at this time. The Republic needed another spur before it would take shape and this would come from Tomislav's Croatian roots and his interest in the politics of his ancestral homeland. This last spark was the 1999 Presidential and Parliamentary elections in Croatia. The authoritarian President of Croatia at that time, Franjo Tudman, had died and the stage for a completley new Croatian government was set. Tudman's corrupt party, the Croatian Democratic Union(HDZ) was utterly smashed in the elections, losing to a coalition of the Social Democrats and Social Liberals who later formed a coalition with the Croatian Peasant Party, Istrian Democratic Assembly, and Croatian People's Party. A completley new Center-left government was brought in and the course of Croatian political history was greatly changed.

            So it was at this time that the Republic of Humanistan was formed. It had no website, or a population, but it had a political process that would become the embryo of the Istvanistani political system.

            Soon the new micronation was going to build itself from the ground up. A web page, the symbols of state, a new constitution, everything was going to be built on the internet. For help, he was joined by SpriteLemming, the second founder of the nation, and they began turning the theoretical Republic into a micronation and soon the initial base of citizens, centered around our local high school, Governor Livingston High School, developed and grew.

What's in a Name?

 

          Initially, the name was the first thing to come into question. I was the only person who liked the name, Humanistan. Several ideas were thrown around, one of the most popular was by Glissando, the Republic of Pacmanistan. Although we thought it was a brilliant idea, we believed that it was too light hearted. Eventually, I somehow randomly came up with the name Istvanistan, we decided we could tolerate it, and so it stuck and we all grew to be proud of it.

Glissando's Pacmanistani Flag:

Growth of the Nation

          The government began functioning in due order. The citizenship list had expanded steadily, drawing on personal friends from Governor Livingston High School. However, we began to expand outward. At one point we were steadily acquiring citizens from the Newark Academy thanks to Mazzuca, a friend who had attended the same Middle School with the rest of us who had since went to the Newark Academy. He became the first Newspaper Editor of the Republic and an influential character in politics. Through his influence, we were able to gain citizens from Newark Academy.

            When the government deemed that we were ready, the Republic of Istvanistan decided to open up relations with other nations. Istvanistan particularly focused its diplomatic efforts on the various spin-offs of Apolyton(then called Audentior) and began to gain new citizens from those nations. However, Istvanistan would not let itself get caught up in the constant upheavals and intrigue of the Apollo Nations and continued to set an independent course for itself. Istvanistan has never been in any of the wars which frequently floated around its neighbours.

            However, this does not mean that we ignored them. We maintained dialogue with all of them, and sustained friendly relations with everyone. We took part in the same intermicronational economic simulation which the Apollo Nations took part in, and we quickly began to dominate in that aspect.

            Istvanistan would revise its political process, and its Constitution many times. Culminating in a unique 3 House Legislature, an Upper House, a Lower House, and the National Assembly which consisted of all citizens not in Parliament. In the month of June, the first Presidential and Parliamentary elections were held, which saw Tomislav gain his first Constitutional term as President and the creation of the first true Parliament. Istvanistan's political system, however, has never stopped evolving and does so to this day.

            Istvanistan has never abandoned its independent spirit, and has resisted all efforts to be forced into unions and alliances that were trumpeted in the support of unity, but did not serve Istvanistan's interests and sought to limit our national sovereignty and independence. Istvanistan has stayed clear of all binding military agreements, despite the efforts of many, and has consequently remained in a state of peace and complete independence which continues to this day, and hopefully will for all time.

(Official History ends at this point, No Further updates where made after this point)

Appendix H: Official United Demesos History

 

 

History of the United Demesos

THE FOUNDING FATHERS

The United Demesos was founded on 28.1 BMY. That day, the creator of Demesos, Bill Dusch, had an idea for a experimental micronation. Unlike many other Micronations, this never succeeded from a mother country, but was founded in the fertile plains of Xoom. Soon, the founding members came in to join. It was time to create a constitution. Three Citizens, Clifford Smith, Bill Dusch, and Provost A. Bug created the constitution. After checked by some citizens, it was ratified. Then the President was elected. Bill Dusch had won, with Clifford Smith right behind. Clifford Smith was pronounced Vice-President, and is one of the most loyal citizens today. The founding fathers are the first Seven Citizens in the Citizens page

THE COLONIZATION PERIOD

After the election, a currency was made, the Demot, and came the citizens. These pioneers established new provinces and founded large cities. Among the most important Pioneer was Sahib. He founded the what will be the most Importand Providence in the East, Badenia, and it's capital, Elephantopolis. Elephantopolis is the Second La.rgest City in the United Demesos Today. Soon, there were no more free territory to settle in. But there was an incedent in the providences of Phoenixia, Tembuh, Tembania, and Tong. These providences were concluded and merged into the United State of Temba. The United Demesos is proud of this unification. Also, colonies were founded at the South coast of DStykara, what is today known as the Province of the Marxist Commune.

THE AUTOMATIC WAR

The United Demesos supported Audentior since the UD's founding, and there was trouble in the AIN providence of Automatic For the People. It's Ruler, RainbowJDS succeeded AIN. UD had supported Djugashvili, a leader of AFTP, against the dictator JDS. Bill3000 was framed and placed under arrest. The Citizens of the UD voted to declare war. UD troops marched into the providences, and as planned, the future GPR rebelled. The UD troops at the end, captured almost all of AFTP. But a tragedy struck and the rebels were forced to only succeed. The Automatic War wasn't as successful as it was meant to be, and President Bill Duisch was put into shame. 

TODAY

The MY system was made for a better year system. Also, the Apollo Confederacy, inlcuding all of the nations of the Apolyton, seeks for Apolyton Unity. But alas, the GAPR is threatning to annex the UD. We are fiercly independent. We will not give in to the RainbowJDS Dictatorship!

Presidents/Vice Presidents of the United Demesos

Presidents

Bill Dusch - 1BMY –

 

Vice Presidents

Clifford Smith - 1BMY - 3MY

E. Metzler - 3MY -

 

Awards presented to UD Citizens

Bill Dusch

(Official History ends at this point, No Further updates where made after this point)

 

Appendix I: Official  History

 

 

 

(Official History ends at this point, No Further updates where made after this point)