Acteriendian model countries
| Acteriendian model countries | |
|---|---|
 | |
| General information | |
| Located | Western Exeter, loosely Devon |
| Sector founded | October 2014 |
| Sector founded by | Glastievens δ and N |
| Sector dissolved | August 2016 |
| Membership | |
| Nations in area | Skovaji DRoH B'lardland (first wave/I) Kingdom of Smith (I) Alfieland (I) Trebor (II) The Demorcatic (II) Myré (III) |
| Organisations in area | Exeter United Nations Exeter Union Devon Union |
| Notable people in area | Glastievens A, E, N, P, V and δ |
The Acteriendian model countries were a sector of micronations in western Exeter in the mid-2010s, based around the later members of Acteriendia before it formed and the Chill Group, two stages in the history of the friendship group that created Glastieve in 2017. The Democratic Republic of Howe (DRoH) and the Republic of Skovaji — known as the Nation of Bedroom from October 2014 to early 2015 — were the two most significant nations in the sector, each founded in October 2014 and declining in August and October 2016 respectively. For three non-continuous periods, known as waves, the DRoH and Skovaji were accompanied by clusters of short-lived, less-serious micronations and an organisation based on the European Union, called the Exeter United Nations (EUN) in the first wave, the Exeter Union (ExU) in the second and the Devon Union (DU) in the third.
The Acteriendian model countries had a profound impact on the early First Republic of Glastieve, influencing its culture and its political system. Interest in them then waned over time as New Secessionism shifted the historiographical focus from Glastieve's micronational predecessors to the friendship group and emphasised Seanad derinvart hSkovagee as a more important type for the republic, and as the rise of Glastieven T and the departure of Glastieven N made the sector seem more distant from Glastieven politics.[note 1] The term "Acteriendian model countries" was coined in 2018 and reflects the influence of New Secessionism, where the nations of the sector would be classified as "model countries" rather than "micronations" because they were dominated by a single person each rather than by friendship groups.
Foundation and first wave
Nation of Bedroom and DRoH founded
On 9 October 2014, δ founded the Republic of Bedroom, a micronation claiming half his bedroom; following a brief conflict with his brother, this was founded again on 14 October as the Nation of Bedroom, claiming a larger territory in his house and with δ's brother as head of state, the Lord Wesley,[note 2] though the Lord Wesley mostly left δ to run international affairs alone. Inspired by the Nation of Bedroom, on the 16th, δ's friend N founded his own nation, The Empire of the Democratic Republic of Howe (officially abbreviated to TEOTDROH), also known as the Democratic Republic of Howe (DRoH), but never as 'Howe' or any other shorter form.
Start of the first wave
In September or October 2014, δ and N founded Coltheart Trains Club, an unofficial student-run group for railway enthusiasts at their school. Subsequently, most likely in October, they encouraged the other members of Trains Club, A and V, to create their own micronations. A founded B'lardland and V founded the Kingdom of Smith. Neither A nor V was as committed to their micronation as δ and N were to theirs, but A was considerably more committed to B'lardland than V was to the Kingdom of Smith, which only really existed at Trains Club meetings. The four nations together founded an organisation, the Exeter United Nations, under the Treaty of G028. The EUN was effectively the micronational name for Trains Club — for instance, Trains Club meetings were also called Exeter United Nations meetings.
The Nation of Bedroom and the DRoH competed with each other to be regarded as the foremost nation in the EUN. The Nation of Bedroom was regarded as more developed, whereas the DRoH had more diplomatic influence, with B'lardland its close ally and the Kingdom of Smith more aligned to it than the Nation of Bedroom.
Currency War
The Currency War was a competition between the Nation of Bedroom and the DRoH where their existing rivalry over status in the EUN turned into a race to develop a better economy than the other. Initially good-natured, the Currency War eventually divided the Exeter United Nations to the extent that activity dropped.
In late October or early November, δ established the Nation of Bedroom Economic Area (NBEA), which he described as "an extension of the Nation of Bedroom's domestic economy to other member states". B'lardland and the Kingdom of Smith both joined. In practice, what the NBEA meant was that δ gave a starting balance of the Nation of Bedroom's currency, wesleys, to A and V in an attempt to create a small market economy. This strengthened the Nation of Bedroom's diplomatic position in the union and gave it a convincing lead over the DRoH for the first time since their foundation.
N responded by creating his own currency, the token. Whereas wesley banknotes were simply pen-on-paper, token banknotes had a more sophisticated design that used index flap Post-It notes owned by δ, and they were regarded in the EUN as superior.
A short time later, δ encouraged a somewhat-younger family friend to create their own micronation, Alfieland, with the understanding between them that it was a sort of protected state under the Nation of Bedroom. He chose the title Lord. That family friend then had no further involvement with Alfieland and the nation effectively became defunct, but δ claimed it as the Lordship of Alfieland, a new quasi-autonomous region with a contrived formal relationship to the Nation of Bedroom that is no longer known completely known. He then told A, N and V that Alfieland was joining the EUN — meaning that the Nation of Bedroom now had another member of the union under its influence — though naturally, this so-called member state existed in name only.
N then persuaded A to withdraw B'lardland from the NBEA and declare the token the official currency of B'lardland, and telling δ that he had to respect B'llardland's alliance with the DRoH, A complied. δ retaliated by refusing to let N use any more of his index tabs to create token banknotes, meaning that N would not be able to create a currency area like the NBEA without forfeiting the title of best banknote design. N tried making some token without the index tabs, but being unsatisfied with the design, he switched focus to raising GBP reserves to back the token. δ matched him and the DRoH and the Nation of Bedroom briefly raced to reach £20.00, the DRoH getting there first.
End of the first wave
A and V had only ever had a passing interest in micronationalism and the Currency War had hastened the decline in their enthusiasm. In addition, activity had declined in Trains Club due to the tensions, which were blamed on δ, and so N became the dominant figure in the group and shifted the focus back from the EUN to non-micronational railway enthusiasm activity. On 1 December, A and V announced that B'llardland and the Kingdom of Smith were defunct, and with no need to keep up the pretence, δ announced that Alfieland was defunct. These events marked the end of the first wave. There were also events in internal Nation of Bedroom politics at around the same time that marked the end of a period of stability and territorial expansion known as the "bronze age".
In later Skovajan history, the end of the bronze age was called GAME OVER., a reference to the Homestuck flash [S] GAME OVER, where nine of the comic's eighteen main characters died in a single four-minute period. This term was subsequently used in some Glastieven historiography to refer to the end of the first wave of Acteriendian model countries, though it was never accepted as standard.
Events up to and including the second wave
Weekly Wesley spat
Following GAME OVER., the Nation of Bedroom focused on internal affairs, with δ pushing forwards a scheme called Project Realistic Basis (PRB) that aimed at accelerating the micronation's development and transforming it into a serious project. PRB included changing the country's name to the Republic of Skovaji, extending its territorial claims to a Cornish beach, and joining MicroWikia. N also moved his focus to internal DRoH affairs, changing its full official name to "Democratic Republic of Howe" and appointing his pets to government posts. PRB brought δ into conflict with N, as he felt that the DRoH's more simulationist policies made it unbecoming for Skovaji to publically treat them as equals. Particular flashpoints were Beddon Airport, a so-called "national airport" with a Blu-Tack runway on N's bedside table, and N counting his pets in the DRoH's population figures.
In February 2015, δ published the following article in the Weekly Wesley — Skovaji's national newspaper, but also covering DRoH news and read by N and N's mother:
- Skovaji change recognition status of Howe to "recognise autonomy but not full sovereignty"
- Howe, or more properly the Democratic Republic of Howe, is a nation in the city of Exeter, which associates itself with the address [censored]. The country has previously made little progress towards sovereignty, although over the past 4 months it have slowly added features such as websites and newspapers and "formally closed" less realistic features such as so-called "airports" within the boundaries.
- Despite this effort, Skovaji (as part of their attempt to distance themselves form the Exeter UN and connect with micronational bodies such as MicroWiki) have changed their recognition status to an unflattering description of them as a minor sub-micronation. The country have previously threatened not to recognise them as a state to protect their own dignity when the nations came to loggerheads over Howe’s recognition of animals as full citizens and members of the population. Skovaji continue to recognise them as allies and claim, "This re-classification is a simple measure to try and be more honest about our relationship with other nations. This act does not aim to portray them as a proxy sate or in any way downplay our alliance or their significant micronational accomplishments"
N said that the Nation of Bedroom had broken the Treaty of G028: abbreviating "Democratic Republic of Howe" to anything other than DRoH was illegal in the DRoH and was regarded as equivalent to high treason, and N contended that it was also against the sector's international law. It is possible that the Treaty of G028 required its signatories to respect one another's law in international contexts. N claimed that, as Skovaji had broken the treaty, it was null and void, and that there was no longer any diplomatic relationship between the two countries. Unsurprisingly, N and his mother also stopped taking the Weekly Wesley.
Second wave
In March 2015, both N and δ were working on the DRoH and Skovaji at Coltheart's gifted and talented group. Shortly after the breakdown of relations between those two states, δ encouraged two other members of the group, his friend E and E's friend P, to create their own micronations. E created the Kingdom of Trebor and P created the Demorcatic Republic. The two nations were active on Wednesday afternoons between 26 March and 22 April 2015. Trebor was completely facetious — the nation never even had a flag and its "king" was a fictional golden toilet — whereas the Demorcatic, whilst firmly simulationist, was a fairly serious project for P and it is even possible that he even did some work on it outside the Wednesday afternoons. Skovaji, Trebor and the Demorcatic were all members of a nominal organisation, the Exeter Union, though the ExU was much less prominent in its member states' diplomatic relations than the EUN had been. It is not known whether the ExU was regarded at the time as a completely new organisation or as a continuation or revival of the EUN.
The main activity of the second wave, and the work that E, P and δ did at Coltheart's gifted and talented group, was creating Wix.com websites for the micronations.
N and δ made good and restored relations between the DRoH and Skovaji in mid-April. Skovaji recognised Howetanese sovereignty, and as a gesture of goodwill, declared that it believed the DRoH had won the Currency War back in November 2014 (though δ still refused to recognise the DRoH's continued policy of treating animals as citizens and government officers). The DRoH joined the ExN. N and δ also negotiated an alliance treaty, though the Lord Wesley blocked the idea of a Skovaji–DRoH alliance, saying he disliked N.
E changed the Trebor website to remove most of its content on 22 April and subsequently ignored the micronation, meaning it was effectively defunct. In Glastieve: A History, it states the Demorcatic survived until May, though it is not clear that there is any evidence for whether it went defunct in late April or early May. Following Trebor and the Demorcatic going defunct, the EUN was regarded as defunct as well.
Skovaji–DRoH relations, May 2015–June 2016
DRoH reforms
After the end of the second wave, N changed his approach to the DRoH, embarking on an ambitious programme of reform similar in spirit to the PRB. He wrote a full constitution for the DRoH, adopted in May 2015; relaxed restrictions on referring to the DRoH by other names, abolishing the criminal offence and introducing "Howetanese Republic" as an alternative name permitted in diplomacy; and stopped recognising animals as citizens in June. These reforms strengthened relations with Skovaji and the two countries' competitive relationship started to evolve into regarding each other as soror gentes (sister nations).
In July, δ joined the MicroWiki community after Ned Gunderson contacted him on MicroWikia, suggesting that he move to MicroWiki proper, and Skovaji opened diplomatic relations with the Republic of Nedland. At some point before 12 September 2015, Skovaji became an autonomous republic of the Empire of Paravia, still permitted to carry on its own diplomatic relations. These were the first interactions that any of the Acteriendian model countries had with states beyond the sector.
Beale War
Improving Skovaji–DRoH relations were interrupted in late 2015 by the Beale War, a conflict between the nations triggered by a communist revolution in Skovaji. Encountering fresh resistance from the Lord Wesley over the country's involvement with MicroWiki and Paravia, and having recently persuaded the Coltheart Green Team to reconstitute itself as the Anarcho-communist Green Team, δ announced the creation of the Skovajan Anarcho-communist State (AC Skovaji), with himself as the "organiser of democracy". He then put the DRoH under pressure to become a communist state as well.
Initially, δ tried to use his citizenship of the DRoH to register an opposition political party to N's ruling National Party; N refused to allow this. δ responded by calling N a dictator, accusing him of "crushing the people", and graffiting DRoH documents with the hammer-and-sickle and communist slogans. The DRoH subsequently declared war on AC Skovaji. The DRoH officially had an army, with N as general, whereas Skovaji did not officially have a military, so the troop numbers are usually given as one to zero. N and δ met at the Battle of Beale, where N struck δ with a scale ruler and he offered the anarcho-communist state's unconditional surrender. The DRoH formally restored the Lord Wesley and the previous Skovajan government.
In November 2015 — at around the same time as, though unrelated to, the Beale War — Acteriendia emerged as a single friendship group for the first time.
Skovaji–DRoH alliance
Following the Beale War and the formation of Acteriendia, Skovaji and the DRoH became close allies. On 19 January 2016, δ made a MicroWiki entry for the DRoH, and N made a MicroWiki account on 30 January and became an active contributor to the wiki, though he never really became involved with the community.
Also in January was the Wesley Union proposal. N decided to replace the token with GBP and δ made the counter-proposal that, if he was phasing out the token, he should replace it with the wesley instead, creating a single-currency area similar to the NBEA in 2014. N did seriously consider the idea and the two had extensive talks about how a Wesley Union could work, though he ultimately decided against it, citing Skovaji's national debt and his personal unwillingness to contribute GBP towards a micronational currency scheme.
Third wave and end
Devon Union
In June 2016, one of Acteriendia's core members, U, left the group. The remaining Acteriendians — known in this June to October 2016 phase as the Chill Group — had a significantly changed dynamic, and the group's de facto leader E, enlisting help from δ, wanted to strengthen it by anchoring the group in a new core activity. Several ideas were tried, including a revived Green Team, going out on Devon's railways with ranger tickets, and creating a village called "Brulant-Myré" on a Minecraft server. The third wave of Acteriendian model countries was one of these ideas.
E created a new micronation to join, the Republic of Myré, formally declaring the Kingdom of Trebor defunct at the same time. Initially, Skovaji, the DRoH and Myré revived the Exeter United Nations from 2015, leading to the EXU being apparently anachronistically referenced in some sources from 2016, such as the Bank of Wesley's website. After a short period, the EXU was re-constituted as the Devon Union (DU), a much more active organisation. The DU had its own flag and online forums, though the forums were rarely used, oversaw trade treaties being signed between Myré, Skovaji and the DRoH, writing documents in traditional Devon dialect, and holding dedicated meetings in the Skovajan territory (as opposed to the EUN and ExU co-opting meetings of Trains Club and Coltheart's gifted and talented group). δ invited the Empire of Adammia, as it had the territory of Borealia in Crediton, to join the union, but Adammia ignored the request. He also invited Skovaji's closest ally, Nedland, to join as an observer state, which Nedland did.
Myré was never active outside the DU. Like the DRoH, it had a MicroWiki entry, though it was only ever stub-length and E never engaged with the community.
DU replaced by Seanad derinvart hSkovagee
Though the DU was a micronational success, E decided it was unsuitable as a core activity for the Chill Group. He had found that, though he enjoyed attending the DU meetings, he had little interest in working on Myré outside the organisation. More seriously, the Chill Group's fourth member, R, had not been persuaded to create his own micronation. Concordantly, the DU and Myré were abandoned.
The group subsequently tried a micronational venture that is considered distinct from the Acteriendian model countries — the already long-inactive Lord Wesley was pushed aside and Skovaji was briefly transformed into a de facto directorial republic led by Seanad derinvart hSkovagee, the High Council of Skovaji, on which E, N, R and δ all sat.
Fate of Skovaji and the DRoH
The DRoH did continue to exist during the Seanad derinvart hSkovagee period but became inactive before September 2016. As it was never formally declared defunct, N played with the idea of "reactivating" it in March 2018, though he had abandoned this plan by May and confirmed in June that he was not ever intending to revive the DRoH. He left Glastieve on bad terms in November 2018 and now has no contact with anyone in the group.
Seanad derinvart hSkovagee fell back into inactivity in July or August and Skovaji effectively became δ's one-man nation. Skovaji achieved some notability in micronational economics through the Micronational Economic Group after the end of the Acteriendian model countries sector and established diplomatic relations with the Shorewellese Empire. It was renamed from the Republic of Skovaji to the Kingdom of Skovaji on the advice of Patrick I, Emperor of Paravia on the grounds that the Lord Wesley was effectively a monarch. The kingdom was then formally abolished by a Liquidation and Dissolution Act that ceded its claims back to the UK and wound down the state as δ suddenly (and temporarily) left micronationalism due to a family crisis.
Position in Glastieven history
Conventions
The Acteriendian model countries had some unique shared assumptions, particularly in nomenclature, diplomacy and in what the goals of a micronation were — though it is impossible to establish with total certainty which of these were authentic to the sector itself and which emerged from Skovajan historiography.
An abandoned micronation was referred to as having "gone defunct" or as having been "declared defunct". For instance, it would be conventional to state that "B'llardland went defunct on 1 November 2014." δ disliked this terminology and Skovaji instead used the term "dissolved", as in "B'llardland was dissolved on 1 November."
All the nations were simulationist to some extent and made claims about their internal politics that were quietly known by all parties to be impossible given each nation's small size — for instance, Skovaji told an extensive story about the Isotoniae Corporation's collapse which included the claim that the Skovaji Economic Times (which was just δ) had reported that Isotoniae (also just δ) had adopted a "culture of defiance" against the regulator (also just δ). Within the Acteriendian model countries, these were seen as good-natured fun and just part of the micronational process, whereas in the MicroWiki community and later in Glastieve, similar claims were regarded as serious breaches of trust, such as in the case of the Lethler Experiment in MicroWiki or the Spingate controversy in Glastieve.
It was also an unstated assumption that almost all micronations were one-man projects like the DRoH, Kingdom of Smith, B'llardland, Trebor, the Demorcatic and Myré, which was a strong enough assumption that it even extended to scepticism from N and A that the Lord Wesley was really an active part of Skovaji and not just an invention of δ's.
Relationship to Acteriendia
Though referred to as the "Acteriendian model countries", only the DRoH and Skovaji ever existed at the same time as Classical Acteriendia (the only iteration of the group that bears the name Acteriendia without contention), only three of the six people involved with the sector were ever Acteriendians, and core Acteriendians U and R were never involved. The traditional view is that the model countries were an important factor in bringing the group together, though the first and second waves were actually much more distant from this event than was traditionally believed,[note 3] and neither brought together future Acteriendians who were not already friends. Indeed, the idea that they even could have helped bring a group together is dubious, as the second wave involved both P and δ, who had no prior relationship, but this did not lead to P making friends with δ or having any subsequent involvement with the group.
However, the existence of the Acteriendian model countries and their association with Trains Club in October and November 2014 and the Chill Group in June 2016 established micronationalism as a long-standing aspect of the group's culture. Furthermore, A — who moved to Northwich, near Manchester, in 2016 — later became a member of Glastieve and was a long-distance member of the group's social periphery for much of 2018, connecting Acteriendia with his group of friends, who called themselves the "Edible Pug Squad" in 2017 and were referred to by the Acteriendians as "the Manchunians" in 2017 and 2018, meaning that B'llardland was not completely unrelated to the later group.
Evolving legacy
The early First Republic of Glastieve was seen by N and δ at the time as a successor to the Acteriendian model countries,[note 4] and these ministers' influence in the Foundation Period meant that the Acteriendian model countries left their mark on the republic's political system and culture. Because of the strong belief in the model countries sector that all micronations were effectively one-man projects, it was initially assumed that Glastieve and its seven active citizens would dominate the MicroWiki sector. The name Glastieve was constructed using Irish place-name elements, seen as being in the tradition of Skovaji, which had used Cornish place-name elements, and it was given a made-up pseudo-mediterranean pronunciation, in the tradition of Myré. The early First Republic inherited Skovaji and the Devon Union's relationship with Nedland. It was determined in N v δ, a court case over whether Glastieve claimed Evonia, that the First Republic of Glastieve's territory was legally defined as the territory that Skovaji had ceded to the UK with the Liquidation and Dissolution Act.
They were less important in the later First Republic as T — who had only moved to Exeter in January 2017 and joined Glastieve in May 2017 — rose to prominence and displaced N as the second-most powerful minister, and as Glastieve developed a political culture and history of its own. New Secessionism, originating in November 2017 and in the ascendancy from January 2018 onwards, took a dim view of the Acteriendian model countries, refusing to classify them as micronations, and it shifted the focus on pre-2017 Glastieven history away from them and towards the friendship group, as well as emphasising Seanad derinvart hSkovagee as a more important micronational predecessor to Glastieve. N left Glastieve on bad terms in November 2018, and X and K joined in 2018 and 2019 and became leading figures, making the DRoH in particular seem even more irrelevant to Glastieven politics.
In Glastieven posthistory, following the Baisser de Rideau, the friendship group of E, K, R, T and δ, which carried on some Glastieven traditions, became more interested in Myré, pairing it with Skovaji in the third wave and treating those two as the most important of the Acteriendian model countries. This reflects E's view that N was never truly part of Acteriendia, which he says was mostly himself, U and δ. The few cultural elements that E designed for the Republic of Myré in 2016 have been added to in retrospect by conflating Myré with the Minecraft village Brulant-Myré: for instance, the motto of Myré was translated into the "official language" of the Minecraft village, an English cypher called "Myriz-iznglalsh".
Diagram by Glastieven T
This diagram, created by Glastieven T in 2019 and subsequently updated, shows his interpretation of the position of the Acteriendian model countries in Glastieven history.
Features of particular interest include the "(MicroWiki)" after the Empire of Paravia, reflecting the attitude of Glastievens other than δ to that community, and the connection between B'llardland and the two subsequent instances of his Northwich friendship group being involved with Glastieve. An earlier version of the diagram did not connect the Republic of Myré to the First Republic of Glastieve; the addition of this link reflects the re-evaluation of Myré in 2020 due to E's prominent roles in Acteriendia and later in Glastieve. Note that the reference to "Acteriendia" in the chart does not refer to the 2015–17 friendship group usually known by that name — it means the constituency of Acteriendia, a confusingly-named sub-unit of the Second Republic that referred to the members of Glastieve proper during the constituencies model in January and September–December 2018, when other friendship groups joined the republic as the equivalent (though, not surprisingly, less active) constituencies of Chartersville, Northllando and Glastieven Manchester.
Notes
- ↑ Micronationalists who were involved with Glastieve are referred to by "uniliteral name codes" (letters of the alphabet) to protect their identities.
- ↑ "Wesley" is the second word of the title, not a regnal name; a holder of the office called John would be styled "Lord Wesley John I" or "John, Lord Wesley of the Nation of Bedroom".
- ↑ Traditional Acteriendian historiography — first codified in late 2017 but based on oral tradition — wrongly believed that the group formed in late 2014 and that there was a "2015 golden age" in spring 2015. It would have placed the first wave just weeks before Acteriendia formed and the second wave as contemporaneous with Classical Acteriendia.
- ↑ E did also say that he saw it as "a new Skovaji", though he was probably taking the more modern view that it was a successor to Seanad derinvart hSkovagee.
References
- Old revision of "Skovaji" in MicroWiki [website]. 14:50, 8 June 2017.[note 1]
- Blackwood, Ives and Glastieven T. Glastieve: A History. Starlight Green: Glastieven University Press, November 2019.
- Glastieven E. trebor [website]. 22 April 2015.
- Glastievens N and δ. Old revision of "Beale War" in MicroWiki [website]. 12:44, 23 November 2018.[note 1]
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