Flag Model of Theodian history

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The Flag Model of Theodian history divides Theodian history into separate eras for each of the first eight national flags. Between 2010 and 2018, Theodia changed to a new one at a pretty steady pace: about once a year; this made Theodia's national flags a convenient proxy for the normal passage of time, and therefore a reasonable way to apportion the country's history.

The Flag Model dates back to early 2011, when Theodia changed to its second flag. That first flag change was meant to symbolize a rebirth of the nation – a separation of the past from the present. Consequently, the history for 2011 was written in a different section on MicroWiki than the history for 2010. This was repeated when the flag changed again in 2012, and then for every single flag-change thereafter. While the extremely long tenure of the eighth flag has meant an end to the Flag Model, it remains useful for the first seven years of Theodia's history.

Violet Era

The first national flag

This was the first period of Theodia's history, covering the time from Theodia's founding on 22 April 2010, to the "Rebirth", which occurred in March 2011. It was in this period that Theodia declared independence from the USA on 22 October 2010.[1] The Time of the Violet Banner occurred primarily during the Late Lethlerism and Post-Lether Eras, in the throes of the Great Recession. This period is known colloquially as the time of the "Purple Flag".

Theodia's foreign policy at this time was noticeably more involved than under the Golden Banner. At times, it has (retrospectively) been considered bordering on interventionistic. Notable reasons for why Theodia involved itself in various intermicronational affairs included discouraging war and protecting history. It also helped found the Runic Union alongside West Germania.

Theodia was founded as a kingdom by Swena, and was throughout this period mostly a one-person nation. Internal policy was fairly uneventful for a while, and generally had a politically realist and heavily monocultural theme to it. The elemental party system was the country's first major political innovation. Tiered religious legislation was also developed, designed to utilize taxes to encourage conversion from belief-systems less compatible with the dominant one, a system inspired by a similar one used in medieval Islamic societies. Although these ideas were both conceived under the Violet Banner, neither was finalized until the true ratification of the first constitution, which occurred under the Golden Banner.[2]

The economy of Theodia was almost entirely dependent upon subsistence farming with pineapples. A physical national currency was developed, but never got to be used. It was known first as the Thennar, a name inspired by the currency in the videogame Mount&Blade; and its symbol, which has remained unchanged to this day, has been , which is the rune thorn with a stroke, once used to represent Old English þæt in manuscripts.

The technology present in Theodia during this period was very much that which was present in America at the time, with the exception of the language. Theodia devoted large amounts of time and research into linguistic relativism and linguistics in general, with the goal of developing a national language that would strengthen national unity and improve the ability of Theodians to think. The ancient Milic Runic script was refined almost to its current state, and was the standard writing system for Theodian, except for a short time when the Runic Union's universal script was standard.

There was very little art produced during this time. For the most part, the official runic script was seen as the country's foremost art, and a calligraphic font was developed for it.

Early Theodian was spoken rarely, and was dramatically different from modern Theodian. The English used was also notably more archaic than modern Theodian English, especially in spelling. It was so different that the national website in the Golden Era outright explained why there were so many "typos" on the site.

Religiously, Theodia was a mixture of Liberal Protestant Christian, Atheist, Neopagan, and Catholic. The religious legislation, which depended upon an in-place economic framework, was never enforceable.

Golden Era

The second national flag

This was the second period of Theodia's history, covering the time from the Rebirth in March 2011 to 1 September 2012. It occurred primarily during the Era of Tension and the Inter-Summit Era, ending a little into the Settled Era. This period is known colloquially as the time of the "Orange Flag", and is often characterized as a transitional period between Theodia at its founding and Theodia as it is today.

Theodia's foreign policy under the Golden Banner was a little more reserved than it was under the Violet Banner. The Kingdom for the most part handled all of its foreign affairs through the Runic Union and the OAM, with the exception of its diplomatic embargo of Istoria and cession of Underwoodia.[3] Theodia also founded the SIH (Society for Improvement of Humankind), which was a think-tank designed to rethink society.[4]

During this period, internal policy was formalized for the first time in Theodia's history, with the ratification of the country's now-void constitution on 20 June 2011.[2] It revised the elemental party system devised under the Violet Banner, sortiting representatives via a complicated system of meritocracy and demarchy. A lot of attention was paid to preventing ethnic unrest and corruption of representatives.[5]

After the Tension Era, Theodia started to fundamentally rethink itself, and work began on developing a new model of legislation. The Kingdom, along with the SIH, came up with a parent-child model of legislation, with child codices organized by subject, developed with open source-code, and released quarterly. A rudimentary legislative programming language, 'GOV', was developed for it,[6] as were modlevels (in-line editing-restrictions) and optlevels (amount of research required to change a line), although these latter two were developed about a week or so into the time of the Cerulean Banner.

Theodia refined its national currency and, with the ratification of the original constitution, renamed it to the Theodian Mark so as to better-reflect Theodia's Germanic heritage. As well, plans were begun to implement an online economy which was to be managed using statistical algorithms which aren't practical with physical currencies, and lot of attention was paid to implementing a demurrage tax, such as was used in Great Depression Austria. Each province was to set its own tax rates and have its own currency (to be backed by the national currency). Some preliminary programming work in Python was done on the economy by Axel.

At the period's start, Theodia expanded all over the Web 2.0 Internet,[7] but by the end of the period, much of the country's 'enfrastructure' was crumbling. A lot of research was poured into government, the economy, linguistic relativism, and Linux throughout this period. The main Theodian directory system was redone, and important documents sorted and stored in it, with plans to host it on an FTP server, using ACL's to prevent unwanted writes.

During this period, the Theodian language changed greatly, and often. It frequently changed completely from one version to the next, eventually becoming somewhat stable in the form of what is known as Late Theodian. The old Theodspraughsk pages went into disuse, and were abandoned. Theodian English was similarly unstable, and gradually became increasingly similar in orthography to American English.

Throughout this period, the culture of Theodia gradually shifted away from germanicism, a trait that had been rather important at the country's founding. This had some influence on Theodia's foreign relations and the makeup of the Runic Union.

Cerulean Era

The third national flag

This was the third period of Theodia's history, covering the time from 1 September 2012, to July 2013. It occurred exclusively during the Settled Era, and was characterized by the death of Axel, the beginning of repositocracy as a political idea, and the end of the Theodian monarchy. It is known colloquially as the "Cerulean Flag".

Theodia's foreign policy took a few sharp turns in this period. Min Axel was expanding the country's foreign affairs ministry and coordinated a treaty with Lostisland before hirs death in September 2012. Axel's death meant the loss of most of the development that had occurred in the Ministry of FA, and in the absence of a foreign policy structure and people able to man it, Theodia's Ministry of FA lied dormant until M. Naropa (later Narba) took office in June 2013.

Theodia's internal structure began to calm down from the turbulence of the Orange Banner, and the country settled upon repositocracy for its legislative branch. Quing Sweyn78 (now Swena) set up a simple structure organized around hirmself for the executive branch, but expressed concerns with monarchism which eventually would lead to the country's transition to a republic.

Theodia remodelled its federal divisions to support participation in multiple sectors, and Mentia was repurposed into a realm for Theodia's Minecraft territories. Quing Sweyn78 began planning and modelling a capital city in Minecraft, and also began developing a micronation-centric Minecraft server called 'Governcraft'.

Theodia had essentially nothing for an economy during this period. Many of the pineapples that in previous periods were essential for the country's GDP were lost, and there existed no economic infrastructure within the country which people could use to exchange. However, there was some progress in economic thought, and Theodia settled upon its current dual-currency model, as well as decided to implement minimum vacation days and to not implement a price floor on labour (a minimum wage). The country's currency was renamed to the Thennar, the original name of Theodian currency, as the country gradually grew more and more distant from Germanic culture.

Theodia revived its Facebook and Google+ pages during this period, as well as greatly improved its MicroWiki articles. The main website, however, remained in its outdated form from early in the time of the Orange Banner.

The Theodian language gained a clear objective and an increasingly clear methodology, seeking to utlize phonosemantics to derive lexemes. Plans were made to govern a formal version of the language with a repositocracy, using a Thirdly release cycle with support for Extended Support Releases. Lastly, the writing system was moved to an IPA-style a priori script, generated from simple rune-like forms on a chart organized by place and manner in the sonority hierarchy.

The culture of Theodia too expanded notably, and the society picked up polyamory, dozenal numbers, ternary logic, abolition of gender roles and racialism, an improved calendar, and the Ergonometric system.

Banded Era

The fourth national flag

This was the fourth period of Theodia's history, covering the time from the transition to a republic in July 2013 to the country's legal bootstrapping of a basic government in June 2014. It both began and ended in the Settled Era of the Microwiki community. It was characterized by notable progress in governmental thought and infrastructure, but was entirely pre-codification, and so the government operated fairly informally, under total control of Founder Swena. With the opening of this Era, Theodia adopted a new flag to represent the republic, which became known as the "Banded Banner" or, colloquially, the "Bar Flag".

Throughout this Era, Theodia's foreign affairs were fairly low-key. Along with the transition to republicanism, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was replaced with the Ministry of External Affairs, composed of two departments: Foreign Relations, and Intelligence. A couple agreements of mutual recognition were made in late 2013; and contact was restored with West Germania in January 2014. In February 2014, Theodia ascendended to the GUM as a provisional member, with Founder Swena representing the country. After the movement of the new Charter into force, Theodia opted for membership as an Observer State, and eventually allowed itself to time out of observer status.

It was generally expected by the Theodian populace that a legislative development hub would be operational within a few days of the transition, but Founder Swena (the framer of the new constitution) soon realized that the legislative kernel module couldn't truly be completed without a formalized system of devolution. Such a system was conceptualized about a month later, inspired by those of the medieval feudal system. More, the executive was reformed, the naming policy was revamped, and the equipment of the military was standardized. In November 2013, a Coat of Arms scheme for Theodian territories was devised. Many other aspects of the legislative sytem were likewise reformed. However, as Theodia lacked a formalized system of government, the various advancements in Theodian structure and policy that occured throughout this era remained uncannonized, their legitimacy dependent upon the words of Founder Swena alone.

Theodia's national website was overhauled at the start of this Era, designed to utilize the Webs.com SiteBuilder v3 as well as to refine the functionality of the website for modern Theodia.

The culture of Theodia continued progressing, notably adopting as its own the conical Asian hat. More, the first official rules for the national sport (battlegaming) were written. Significant progress was made on the Theodian language, with many conceptual issues finally ironed out, the phoneme inventory simplified, and the grammar increasingly formalized. The national Kalendars were corrected and tweaked, as well as expanded to accommodate locations other than Earth's Northern Hemisphere. The Ergonometric system's notation for time was likewise improved. Two of the three major national holidays were finally given some form, with Liteval being particularly well-defined.

Rounded Era

The fifth national flag

This was the fifth period of Theodia's history, covering the time from the publication of the country's first legislative module in July 2014, to the beginning of 2015. It began in the Settled Era of the Microwiki community and ended in the Polarized Era. With the opening of this Era, Theodia rounded the components of its flag somewhat and hexagonalized the bars on the sides, in order to make it feel a bit more 'modern' and aesthetically pleasing; as well, the official flag was rotated 90', so as to remain sightly even in little wind. This iteration of the Theodian national flag has become known as the "Rounded Standard", or colloquially, the "Round Flag".

Swena opened this era with the publishing of the country's first legislative release, as well as the inauguration of several tribunes to assist with the management of the country. Several talks have begun to take place in the country's internal Facebook group, particularly about the organization of the economy, the role of religion in the state, and the country's bureaucracy. The country's paradigm of official language changed to have primary languages and secondary languages; and Spanish was, for the first time, listed as a [secondary] official language.

Although there was been throughout this era no revival of the Theodian economy, there were several changes made to its legal structure. As well, the national currency was renamed to the GP ('Tsipi' in Theodian), derived from the name of a currency used in several videogames.

The allophony of the language was refined, particularly regarding the effects of vowels upon preceding coronal and dorsal consonants. As well, the place-markers in the orthography for coronal and dorsal consonants were switched in order to make the script more regular; and ligatures were introduced to make the script more aesthetic. The Romanization scheme was tweaked somewhat to allow more compatibility with the orthography of Italian, as well as to fix several bugs in the ordering of the rules, and to make the scheme match more closely the rules of Latin scripts. After years of difficulties, a cursive style for the Theodian script was finally successfully developed.

The national garb was changed some to allow even more freedom of movement, and adopted pteruges for the the mantle and skirt. The military of Theodia received some improvement as well, as the spearflail currently used by Theodian polemyn was first invented during this period. As well, the lamellar pattern was completely redone.

Trimmed Era

The sixth national flag

This was the sixth period of Theodia's history, covering the time from early 2015 to early 2016. It both began and ended in the Polarized Era of the Microwiki community. The flag received a visual overhaul, returning to using violet for the field and gold for the trim. This has resulted in the flag being named the "Trimmed Standard", or more succinctly, the "Trimflag", in reference to the banner's use of a third colour.

During this period, a transitional government was declared in the face of continued inactivity by the citizenry and the consistent failure over the past 5 years of previous attempts at governance. This new government, rather than trying to govern an entire society, only attempts to govern the development of that society – a crucial distinction that allows the country in its foundational years to be managed more like a collaborative project than an already fully extant society. At the end of this period, a GitHub repo was created for legislation.

In an effort to focus efforts onto a single land-claim, Theodia revoked all of its previous claims, and formed a new claim in eastern Greenland. It then began researching ways to cultivate this land, but ultimately decided it wasn't worth the effort, and revoked its claim. Theodia also adopted several new conventions, particularly in mathematics and timekeeping, and made some advances in the Theodian language.

Returning Era

The seventh national flag

This was the seventh period of Theodia's history, covering the time from early 2016 to mid-2017. It began in the Polarized Era of the Microwiki community and ended in the Stagnant Era. The flag's crest was reverted to the classic gear symbol; this has resulted in the flag being named the "Returning Standard", or more succinctly, the "Returnflag", in reference to the banner's resemblance to some of Theodia's oldest flags.

This era was defined by relative inactivity, punctuated by brief moments of progress. In spite of this, Theodia managed to establish diplomatic relations with some other micronations for the first time in years. Theodia also reinstated its claim on Jamesonland in Eastern Greenland, in part to legitimize itself. Additionally, an elaborate system of traffic regulations was devised, several cultural systems were defined or refined, and some significant progress was made in the development of the Theodian language. This era ended during Theodia's preparations for MicroCon 2017, when the Calcuflag was unveiled.

Calculated Era

The eighth national flag

This is the eighth and final period of Theodia's history, covering the time from mid-2017 to either 22 April 2022 or the present day (it is unclear which). This era began in the Stagnant Era of the MicroWiki community, and (if we accept the 2022 end-date) ended in the Current Era. The flag was streamlined, with the central hexagon removed, all thicknesses and distances carefully calculated, and the colour changed to magenta for the sake of symbolism. This has resulted in the flag being named the "Calculated Standard", or more succinctly, the "Calcuflag", in reference to the banner's careful design.

This era was so long compared to the others that it broke the Flag Model; indeed, it may not be accurate to call it an "era" at all. Worse, it is ambiguous as to whether the era has even ended: while the exact shade of magenta used by the Theodian flag was changed on 22 April 2022 (Theodia's twelfth anniversary, when it was renamed to "Aethodia"), the rest of the flag remained identical to how it had been before. Accordingly, it is impossible to provide a summary of events for this eighth and final segment of Theodian history.

See also

References