I had a bit of a medical (cardiac) scare a couple of months ago, I was hospitalized for a week, but am very much on the mend now, and the offer remains open.  Just haven't been to active with anything.

I have a smattering of old Talossan documents in my Google Drive.  Three issues of TNN, Ben's post about pagans, the '97 OrgLaw, a few stray chapters of Ar Pats, etc.  I'm a little reluctant to post the lattermost, because in the "Old Growthers are often too Talossan to have Talossan names" vein, real names are used.

Anything not quoted is agreed with or not contested at this time.

I first met Ben in the pre-Talossan era.  He and the others were all a year ahead of me in high school, and at this great remove I'm not sure if it was one or two years before.  I was a frequent houseguest; as a budding science fiction fan (even then), his Micronauts toy collection was huge, amazing to me.

Quote from: GV on July 08, 2025, 09:33:53 PM26 December 1979 to 25 November 1980: Era 1, ending with the Battle of the Garage

26 November 1980 to the day of Frederic Coriu's first visit in 1981(?) and ending at the end of 1982: The Expansionist Era.

It was not until 1983 Ian M. came on the Talossan scene...

I would consolidate all of this into a single "pre-Cheap Glory" era.  The Garage War ended my involvement with Talossa for a long while (for obvious reasons), but it did not change Talossa itself.

IM may not have been a Talossan, but being in the same school and same year, also participating in the same activities (Debate, Forensics, minitures wargaming -- especially WWII simulations, surprise surprise) he was certainly known to Ben, Wes E., Geoff T., and the aforementioned Dan & Bob.  Ián Anglatzara and I were in the Drama Club and Stage Crew; it's quite likely that was how he first got involved with Talossa.

Quote from: GV on July 08, 2025, 09:33:53 PMcertainly the most colorful (as Ben put it, "mostly red, white, and black").

Yep.

Quote from: GV on July 08, 2025, 09:33:53 PM1983 to Ben's re-coronation in 1988: The IM Era (for lack of a far-better name). 

[...] Davron was there.  Dan L. was there.  IM was there.  I'm pretty sure Cona was there, too. 

I was not.  My involvement with Talossa had ended with the Garage War, a year or more prior, and we were not friends at the moment.  Ben & company graduated from RHS in 1982, and I didn't see them again for years. Over a decade, in fact.

I happened to run into IM walking about a half mile from UWM.  We exchanged pleasantries, and he told me about the expansion of Talossa, the "Cheap Glory", which included my childhood home. 

I jokingly said, "How would you like it if somebody walked up and claimed your childhood home?!  I may have to go to war again!"

This apparently caused a bit of panic within Talossa.  But with communications reopened, I was able to reassure them than, no, I wasn't really angry, Ben & I buried the hatchet, and I (re)joined Talossa. 

The Talossa I returned to was very different from the Talossa of high school.  First and foremost, I must mention LOSS, the League of Separatist States, which Talossa founded.  Ben's (wild) idea was that of World Singular Secession, that everyone should have their own "their home is their castle" country.  IM had the Kaiserlich J_ Konigreich (sp?), Ián Anglatzara had the Kingdom of Thord, I had a measly bathtubbia, the Glib Room Empire that had evaporated even before the Garage War was settled (but I'd signed the peace treaty with Ben in its name), and a second attempt, the Confederacy of One (C/One) that went equally nowhere.  Other micronations joined in, and LOSS still exists out in the www somewhere AFAIK.

Somewhere in the decade-plus I was away, Ben decided that he didn't want to spend his energies playing diplomacy in a "Micronational United Nations", he wanted to devote his time to his Kingdom, and worked to persuade people to become Talossans.

Quote from: GV on July 08, 2025, 09:33:53 PM1997-1998: The next wave of Cybercits come to Talossa.  Not all of them buy into Ben's creative direction for Talossa and wish to do Talossa in somewhat their own way, while keeping well within the Talossan representative-democratic-monarchist structure and system.  The Uppermost Cort's vetoing the citizenship process for Miestra Schiva is infamous.

There have not been many Living Cosas.  I was present at two very significant ones.  One was where the so-called "Greek God Guy" had his application essentially rejected.  I'd tried to find a middle course, taking the standpoint of "You all have questions that weren't answered, let's put this on hold, ask your questions, and see what the answers are."  But, rejection on religious grounds is just that, and he [insulted and not wrong for feeling so] joined the penguin colony. To my shame, I didn't ask the more important question -- "Why is this guy's religion even being questioned?" I encountered him, years later, in another forum, and we made peace then.

Ben (newly Christian after being rabidly atheist in H.S.) had a very jaundiced view of paganism.  The handful he'd met (in and around UWMilw) were weirdos (even by the lights of other pagans!) and had really soured him on including any such in His Kingdom.  If he'd simply allowed himself to see the better examples, Talossa's history would be very different.

Quote from: GV on July 08, 2025, 09:33:53 PM1997 sees what I believe to be the first mass-exodus in Talossan history: Miestrâ and certain others, I think.  I don't have my notes in front of me, and this is before my time.

Penguineia.  I tend to think of it as The First Schism.  Of course, following this loss was a recruitment drive.  And like the folks who had just left, some of the newcomers didn't like everything about the Kingdom they'd just joined.

Quote from: GV on July 08, 2025, 09:33:53 PM1998 sees the second mass-exodus from Talossa: Dan Wardlow and others in dramatic fashion.  Dan burns his Talossan materials, and with them go much documentation of Talossa's earliest Cybercit past.

June 2001: the next mass-exodus - this time the third Liberal Party of Talossa.  Ián Anglatzara is among those who flee.

What led up to this?  The second significant Living Cosa I was involved in.  It was combined with 2000's Talossan Independence Day celebrations, wherein I provided the site (the elegant and professional rooming house I lived in) and hosted, the first one NOT held at the Ancestral Founding Site.  There are photos of me in my night security guard uniform.

I did not personally hear the insult that Ben said was given to Queen Amy, so I cannot comment on it.  Call it confirmation bias if you will, but from what I saw of the other party, in person, I found it all at least very plausible.  I didn't like the man's personality; accurate or not, my impression was "arrogant jock", and he was the antithesis of the introverted tabletop wargamers that the Talossa I knew had grown out of.  There's been a lot of water under the bridge since then, but that was my frank assessment back then.

"Truth is a three-edged sword", there's Ben's version, the other guy's version, and the truth -- which sits somewhere between the two.  But it absolutely consumed Ben.

Talossa's orientation towards expansion and encouraging activity now worked against it.  The only "crime" that could readily & instantly end a citizenship was that of not participating, of not voting in the Clarks.  There was no mechanism for removing bad citizens -- irrespective of whether the man genuinely qualified as that or not.

By the way, this was the origin of "pocket votes".  To prevent historical figures like Tony R., Florence, Jean W_ (another teacher of Ben's from high school), and so forth from being "administratively beheaded" (denaturalized), Ben would get their opinions and submit their votes for them.  Eventually, they said, "stop asking, whatever you want is fine."  Being his friends, and also knowing the people he was representing, this was eminently plausible, and we had no specific reason to distrust him.  That's fine for a tight-knit IRL community, not so much across the www.  Even though the Constituzion and the '97 OrgLaw that followed it essentially prohibited proxy voting, that's basically what this became.  Now enshrined as an honored tradition across all parties.  Of course, because he needed the bloc, he held these votes even after denaturalization for inactivity was relaxed and later ended. 

The only other way to boot a citizen out would be for something really heinous -- the insult, whatever it was, didn't rise to a legally actionable level -- that would be adjudicated in long and drawn-out Uppermost Cort proceedings.  With Ben's personal ire in full flower, and no Talossan crime committed (although, for example, if a Brit did something like call Queen Victoria a "fat ugly cow" to her face, I'm sure it would have been considered a crime somehow in that kingdom) the Talossan system could offer him no relief. 

Yes, Ben went real-world, and because what he found using publicly accessible (for a fee) records had some bearing on the fractious interaction with the Queen, he tried to use it as leverage.  Nowadays it would be called doxxing; the word hadn't been coined yet, back then.  Again, I found the discoveries plausible, and didn't hold Ben's usage of such against him. Others did.

There were those who simply cleaved to the martyred "jock".  There were those, like Ián Anglatzara, who recognized that Ben's actions amounted to an end run around his authority as Chief Justice of the Uppermost Cort, and repudiated Ben as well.  These were the founders of the Republic, from the perspective of those who didn't join the exodus, like me. 

With control of all web assets in Republic hands, royalist supporters like myself were unceremoniously deleted from the Wittenberg of the time, and the websites.  It angered me greatly at the time, but that is also water under the bridge, and I have had some wonderful conversations with M-P over the phone since.

The wake of this was how I became the first nominally Opposition (I was voting ZPT) PM...because I'd stood by my friend, Ben.  I made a pretty inauguration speech, but didn't get much accomplished after that; I was promptly replaced in the next election.

This post is getting long enough.  I'll offer my perspective on what led up to Ben's Final Abdication in another missive.

And of course all the contact info was changed so I can't reclaim it.  I've created a new account, DM me for details if desired.  Disregard and distrust anything that comes out of the old one!

Once upon a time, it was a hallmark of Talossans to WANT to meet live.  As someone who participated in -- if not actually hosted -- Live Cosas, I also feel this is a crucial ingredient.

Of course, meeting live and discovering how discordant someone is in person can ALSO lead to ongoing (and permanent) problems.  Ask me how I know.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on April 30, 2025, 02:52:39 PMYou seem to be upset about this, but the bill was just a joke.  No need to worry!

Not upset, per se.  One never knows how seriously the micronation thing gets taken by others.  More a case of "just clarifying".  Also articulating some concepts involving the line between micronation and real world.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on March 28, 2025, 12:44:32 PMWHEREAS the government of the State of Wisconsin in the United States of America has openly declared its intention to burn a substantial portion of the province of Maritiimi-Maxhestic, specifically Lakeshore Park,

The area in question did NOT constitute a significant portion of the province.  9.5 acres out of a 22 acre park, not even 1/10th of the province.  Under WHAT measure is this "significant?"  Also omitted was the minor but crucial detail that the area in question was UNINHABITED PUBLIC land, an artificial peninsula ISOLATED from the mainland.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on March 28, 2025, 12:44:32 PM
WHEREAS this arson will be further accompanied by the forcible seizure of the same territory, violating Talossan sovereignty,

1. "Arson"?  It was an environmentally-decided "controlled burn" of (I repeat) UNINHABITED PUBLIC PARK SPACE.  Limited in scope, specific in target, and carefully controlled, with Milwaukee Fire Department mere minutes away if something somehow went wrong.  Hyperbolic spin like this serves only as clickbait and ragebait and damages ecological causes.

2. The space remains open, before and after the event, as PUBLIC PARK SPACE to Talossans and non-Talossans alike.  The only exclusion was during the event itself, a necessity for health and safety!  Flame = ouch!

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on March 28, 2025, 12:44:32 PMWHEREAS at no point has the State of Wisconsin or the federal government of the United States engaged in any treaty which would permit such outrages, nor have they obtained the prior agreement of His Majesty's Government, and accordingly such conduct constitutes an act of aggression that must not be permitted,

While there is no specific paperwork codifying this, it is an unwritten and immutable fact that all public services within the Greater Talossan Area (and any other place where Talossans physically reside) are essentially subcontracted out by the Regipats out to the applicable local governments.  This includes the Wisconsin Department of Public Resources, the City & County Governments of Milwaukee, and extending all to way up to various US Federal Agencies.  So, yes, they DO have authority to act, even without specific directions from the Regipats.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on March 28, 2025, 12:44:32 PM
WHEREAS under the current circumstances, there's a good chance that during any conflict the American Secretary of Defense will accidentally text us their plans, giving us a substantial advantage,

LOL, good one!

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on March 28, 2025, 12:44:32 PMTHEREFORE it is declared that a state of war now exists between the Kingdom of Talossa and the United States.

Uréu q'estadra så:
Alexandreu Davinescu (MC-PROG)

Suffice to say, I am glad this was not enacted.  The enviromental controlled burn was a good and necessary thing.  Video of the event

Let's not be too harsh or hasty here. Given Vuode's historicity and its role as The First Province, merging it would run directly counter to all that.  Real life always comes first.  You can't demand more time from citizens than they can spare.  It's always been a problem.  Back in the (pre-Penguinea) day, strict minimum activity requirements to maintain citizenship (failure resulting in what was called "administrative beheading") were deemed too draconian.  The efforts to keep people on the rolls evolved into the proxy system now known as "pocket votes" a tactic abused by all sides and still seemingly thrown around as a political slur.  It's a fine balancing act; be careful what you wish for.

I would be more than happy to play tour guide, my work schedule permitting.  I am occasionally required to travel so I might not always be available.  Feel free to DM me for that or other impromptu gatherings.

I, Xheralt Cona, called DelEncradier, claim my right to be seated in the next Estats Xhenerais

Oh, absolutely.

Quote from: Sir Ian Plätschisch on March 31, 2025, 08:34:28 PMUnfortunately we can't take any more nominations this year, since we are currently voting on the final round. The good news is that you still have about 15 hours left to vote on that.

Make sure to save these for next time.

Oh, doggone it.  Will do.

Apology accepted, the mistake was understandable and easily made given the complexities of OrgLaw and the minimal amount of lead time between my certification as a citizen and this past election.  My original home address was very firmly in the Greater Talossan Area, roughly the intersection of Oakland Avenue and Locust street.  In the very beginning, of course, Talossa was literally just Ben's bedroom, then his entire house on Prospect Ave.  I may joke about my "deep knowledge" but even w/o the specific text, I knew/dimly recalled that I ought to be grandfathered back into Vuode. 

I remember enountering fellow Old Growther John J. about a decade after graduation, my first contact with any Talossan since then.  He told me about the Cheap Glory, and that my ancestral home was now within the boundaries of Talossa (specifically, Vuode Province).  I (jokingly!) responded "Well, that wasn't very nice of him to swoop in and claim it like that!  I may have to declare war again!"  Ian, bless his soul, is a very serious and often literal man, and his report back to the Regipats of the time sparked a momentary panic!

Not too many months after that, I encountered other Founders at Oakland Gyros, we sat and talked over dinner, and that's when my post-War reconciliation with Ben and the RT took place.

Well, hopefully we can hammer out the necessary clarifications and amendments before it ever comes to actual cases!

It will IMMEDIATELY need further amendment!  There are features in the amendment that I do not see as natural or necessary consequences of simply regularizing the electoral date (the stated goal of the legislation), but were someone's "bright idea" to include at the same time.  Some of the text did represent useful simplification of the OrgLaw, and would certainly be worth revisiting if the amendment as presented during the about-to-be concluded general election does indeed fail passage.

What concerns me most is the little nuclear bombshell tucked in there, the revisions to Art VII Sect.8, which utterly changes the result of a failed VOC, turning it from an immediately new election (drastically shortening an already nearly-too-short legislative year) to an instant reversal of power.  While the quick change does save the Kingdom the muss, fuss, and time spent on a full election (a laudable goal), two things in particular bother me about this. 

First is the baked-in presumption that the Senechal (who is removed by the failed VOC) is the one purely at fault.  Coalition building is a major part of the post-election maneuvering by a freshly elected Seneschal, and distributing Cabinet seats to allies outside of one's own party (i.e. bringing them into the Majority versus the Loyal Opposition) occurs regularly.  It could come to pass that an allied Minister, who while embraced by the Majority does have agendas of their own, could take unpopular actions using that position.  Remember, the VOC asks if we wish to continue "the government" as currently constituted.  This is not just the Seneschal!  So, in this scenario, a main-line party Seneschal ends up taking the fall for a rogue allied Minister!

The other concern, the BIG concern, is that as written, it basically just says "the Opposition Leader takes over".  Period.  For how long?  The remainder of the former Seneschal's term?  Is it considered the beginning of a fresh 7 (or 6) Clark cycle?  If it is, do the things that normally occur during a leadership change occur, or are things otherwise left as-is? 

With no limit specified, could the elevated Oppositional Seneschal remain in power indefinitely?  These are things that need to be spelled out in properly constructed electoral law!  Are the remaining Cabinet members considered to be defrocked immediately as well and needing replacement/reappointment?  Is the Cosa dissolved or not with this new "instant government"?  What other adjustments might be forced by this sea change in leadership?