Author Topic: Statement on Rishiri, Military Bases and Overseas Territories  (Read 1645 times)

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Offline Achkaerin

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Statement on Rishiri, Military Bases and Overseas Territories
« on: November 13, 2019, 12:12:40 AM »
The following is an official statement from the Cartographer:

Anyone who has been on Discord in the last couple of hours tonight (12/11/2019) will be aware that there's been a lot of discussion concerning the status of Rishiri due to an IC news article posted by Beatrice. As cartographer I am now going to explain my position on Rishiri (and any other similar circumstance)

The Rules

As per the RP rules the following applies to map claims:

Quote
(5) There shall be two types of nations, primary and secondary, as defined by law.

(6) Members are free to determine their own population, territory size and GDP, but must adhere to the following limitations:

(a) For primary nations:
(i) A population cap of 500 million residents;
(ii) A total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 20 trillion USD; and
(iii) Six claims on the map.

(b) For secondary nations:
(i) A population cap of 50 million residents;
(ii) A total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 5 trillion USD; and
(iii) Three claims on the map.
(c) Any additional limitations prescribed by law.

(7) A member’s nation shall be contained to their map plots, and any reasonable areas of the sea surrounding it.

(8) To be eligible to join the map with a primary nation, a member shall have made at least six roleplay posts, including those made in the Factbook forum. Members may only establish a secondary nation once they have been a member for six months and made at least four hundred roleplay posts.

A players primary nation may only therefore be six map plots in size and a players secondary nation may only be three map plots in size.

Do note the highlighted number seven, this is something that would apply to the Water Nomad islands as that island chain exists purely within reasonable distance of Lodja, Bakkermaya and Paracambi territory. This doesn't apply to Nurashima/Styx because the position of those islands at time of addition was quite removed from Heyran and NQF/Hime territory to the point where it couldn't be considered reasonable.

The Consent Principle In relation to Bases and OSTs

We are a region that RP's on the principle of consent on every level, if you want to kill off another players character you need their permission to do so, if you want to have a person of interest turn up in a nation you need the relevant players permission for it happen, if you want to have a group of terrorists carrying out an attack in another nation you need the players permission etc.

This principle also applies to Military Bases and OST's - they exist in the host nation only for as long as the host nation player is happy for them to be there. So to use the QAMB situation as an example, Rhodes said he didn't want that base there any more as such under the rule Rokkenjima had to pack up and leave. Now exactly the same principle would apply to East Moreland in relation to Red Base if Kris went inactive and Nya Aland ended up being removed from the map. There are no exceptions to this rule when it is a military base.

In terms of OST's this is avoidable by the OST being put under the players claim as a territory in a reserve if required- so for example Gowu was one of my six territories under Achkaerin's claim (4 up north, Awhaele and Gowu) as such it would not be removed if prior to NPC status being granted Toshikawa had been removed because I held a reserve claim over territory G53, I could now drop that reserve claim with Toshikawa as an NPC if I wanted. Additionally Nurashima/Styx is under Nova's claim as a territory because it is an addition that he asked for, he was granted it because he had the territories to spare. However this does require the player to have the territories in hand to avoid removal of the OST.

The Rishiri Issue

I am not going to get into the long, quite complex and irritating on an OOC level history of Rishiri, rather I will address the current situation.

1) Does Rishiri count as one of Rokkenjima's six territories?

Under the terms of the Seaforth - Rokkenjima Treaty the answer to that is no because the treaty makes very clear that the land on which Rishiri is leased is only the sovereign territory of Rokkenjima until 2119, as it's a lease the overall ownership remains with Seaforth who can curtail the lease at any point. Additionally if we ignore the OOC notes for the moment and say Seaforth were to be removed then Rishiri would also be removed in that instance. Therefore as it is a land lease it occupies space on another nations territory in this case Seaforth.

2) Does the change of Rishiri to Prefecture Status change the answer to question one?

The most reasonable way of looking at this seems to be to consider the IC statements in the news article:

In a 69-31 vote the Council of Delegates has voted to be elevated from an Imperial Rokkenjiman Overseas Dependency to Prefecture status. Such a move, which Governor Marino has attempted to delay, brings a new reality to the relationship of Rishiri between Rokkenjima and Seaforth, with the measure including language to re-negotiate the present Treaty with Seaforth to allow for a 'self-determination referendum' which would allow for a mechanism for Rishiri to effect change to its present relationship with the Kingdom of Seaforth.

Now upon reading the above my interpretation on an IC level is that there has been no renegotiation between Rokkenjima and Seaforth on the treaty between those nations and that therefore the provisions of the Treaty still apply i.e. it is still under a land lease Icly and that all the change in status does is nothing in the practical sense therefore the status of Rishiri on an OOC level remains as explained in answer to question one. I appreciate some may disagree with this but my understanding is that nothing has changed in terms of the ultimate ownership of the land on which Rishiri rests lying with Seaforth.

3) Can Rishiri have a self determination referendum?

Icly yes Rishiri can have a self determination referendum provided that Seaforth consented to it Icly.

However OOCly if such a referendum were to be held then the rules relating to the number of map plots would require that the referendum return a 'No' result because if such a referendum were to return a 'Yes' result then we would in effect have a situation where if Seaforth were removed from the map then Rishiri would be remaining as an independent entity and as it is clearly Rokkenjiman we would have Rokkenjima with seven territories and therefore in breach of the RP rules.

4) But Rhodes isn't that active Ach!

By agreement of the RP Mod and Cartographer if Rhodes goes inactive then it has been agreed that Seaforth shall be made an NPC as of no earlier than the 1st of January 2020 (date may be subject to change at the RP Mod's discretion) under such circumstances and to avoid a breach of RP rules I would hope that the status quo would be maintained in those circumstances.

Conclusion

It is noted that nothing concerning the status of Rishiri in any way hinders, obstructs, prevents or in any other way affects Beatrice's ability to RP events happening in Rishiri. The whole drive of the Seaforth-Rokkenjima Treaty is designed to retain Rishiri's status but removing the military aspects. Such a removal of capability does not prevent RP taking place but prevents military RP taking place on the part of Rokkenjima - the circumstances for which were entirely justified given IC history and if OOCly that was what Rhodes wanted then that's how the consent principle works.
 
Therefore as long as Rishiri is on the land lease I believe it would be subject to the terms of the treaty between Seaforth and Rokkenjima but if it voted for self determination (something it can't do without Seaforth's approval anyway because Seaforth has to agree to the referendum) then it would be classed as a 7th territory on Beatrice's claim and would therefore breach the RP rules.

Achkaerin
TIO Cartographer