NationStates Jolt Archive

This is NOT a game.

This is NOT an advertisement.

This is about people starting new countries FOR REAL, or at least talking about it.

So don't try to say that this breaks the rules against advertising a game and call in the mods to delete the thread again. And if the mods do have a look at this, please bother to read what's on these links instead of just taking some jerk's word for it that it's an ad for a game.

Micronation that controls an offshore tower and platform near Britain:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand

Micronation that controls 18,500 acres of land in Australia: platform:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutt_River_Province_Principality

Micronation that has 50,000 citizens and was featured on BBC:
http://www.citizensrequired.com/unit/site/index.shtml

Does anyone find this interesting?

I hear you and yes it is interesting ;)

Micronations have always intrigued me, mainly because I've always wanted to found one and am amazed others have the audacity to actually do so and pull it off.

I'm not sure I see why some people recognize Sealand as a micronation, but I can definitely see why the Hutt River Province Principality would be. Fun stuffm though that article might not be entirely accurate.

Iv'e already heard of these countries.

Well, it's a neighbourhood, not a nation, but this thread reminded me of this article (http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/comm-oddities/2007/05/oceanview_property_worth_a_100.html) I was reading yesterday...

The term "Micronations" is used for a very broad range of organizations. It is applied to nations like the ones described in the links above. It also includes people trying to get to their level. It includes political simulations and half-serious websites and non-serious websites set up by teenagers playing around. Many "Micronations" are just one kid with a website and a forum basically pretending to be the king of a country like the people playing Nation States. You could easily categorize all the Nation States nations as "Micronations". The United Nations even uses the term to refer to small countries that are U.N. members.

Micronations have always intrigued me, mainly because I've always wanted to found one and am amazed others have the audacity to actually do so and pull it off.

I'm not sure I see why some people recognize Sealand as a micronation, but I can definitely see why the Hutt River Province Principality would be. Fun stuffm though that article might not be entirely accurate.

Hutt River Province ha ha ha it will never get recognised by State or Federal Government

believe it or not, cameroi knew about micro-nations before even stumbling upon nation states. its just something we never quite got arround to doing as much about. and incidently, micronations, well as anyone who fallows the links in the opening post would likely notice, isn't one site or even one webring, but a concept, or more actualy a closely related collection of concepts, shaired and represented by a number of sites, rings and linkfarms.

ns could even be considered to be at the edge, one of the many edges, of the micronation concept's many fringes. which is even actually, if i remember right, how i found this place. (and how i look at it and why i'm here)

looking as i was, for a place to interactively simulate how a nation, its infrastructure and ways of life, could actually be. i didn't, as most do appearently, come here from the perspective of stratigic conflict simulations, but rather indeed, with the thought and intententions of realisticly testing the challanges that face building a more universaly gratifying way of life.

i'm still looking for a place that combines the best of both worlds. i should perhapse get back to surfing more often the micronations universe, or perhapse multiverse as might be the case.

=^^=
.../\...

I remember that 'Citizens required' from the BBC a couple of years ago. Amazing to think it's grown to 50,000 people!

Do they need to be recognized by the State or Federal governments in Australia? They have de facto sovereignty now.

Hutt River Province ha ha ha it will never get recognised by State or Federal Government

Oh, come on. Surely you'd want your own little pet Vatican City/Andorra/Lichenstein, wouldn't you?

...

I would.

Do they need to be recognized by the State or Federal governments in Australia? They have de facto sovereignty now.

that still means nothing to State and Federal

Oh, come on. Surely you'd want your own little pet Vatican City/Andorra/Lichenstein, wouldn't you?

...

I would.

if Federal wont let WA leave why should they

If you had a choice between de jure soveriegnty and de facto sovereignty and you couldn't have both, which would you prefer?

De Jure sovereignty by itself means that your nation has a right to exist according to applicable laws and is perhaps even recognized by other nations, but you are not actually in control of the territory. This is usually because someone else's army is there and they don't recognize your right to exist as an independent nation even if the rest of the world does. The governments in exile of the Baltic States were in this situation for a long time. So was East Timor. So were many others. Quite a few are in that situation right now and may never get actual control of their territory.

De Facto sovereignty means you are actually in control of your territory and you do exercise all the powers of independence, but other countries say it's illegal that you are doing it and that you are "really" part of some other country.

If you could have one or the other, which would you prefer?

Which one does Hutt River have? Which one does Sealand have?

Hutt River is the last one you said, Sealand i have no idae first time i heard of it ,it was up for sell

Yes, Hutt River is de facto and really, that's better than just de jure. Having both would be great, but hardly any new nation these days has both right at the beginning. You have to start somewhere.

i think its a great idea building ur own micronations i always wanted to but you no

Kyronea, and NAR, you're right that it would be cool to have your own country. I think it's pretty cool just to have a simulated country. That's one reason I play Nation States. My brother and I also started a micronation.

At the lower end of micronations, they are quite easy to start. They are also very fun. Some of the less serious micronations even put together fictional maps of fictional worlds where they role play diplomacy and battles over fictional territory. That's one of the things that made me think that people on Nation States would be interested. Some of the micronations are a whole lot like NS nations except with more people per nation and a lot more sophisticated.

I'm afraid to post a link to any of that because some people figure it's a game advertisement and howl for the thread to be deleted. (That happened twice already today.) I especially don't dare link to the micronation I started because we have referred to it as a "game" instead of the usual term "political simulation".

But you can set up your own micronation any way you want to. It can be a game or a "simulation" or it can be completely serious. I think this is interesting because so many people really would like to have their own small country. I suspect that's why we're all here playing Nation States.

The main point I'd like to ask about it is whether this sort of thing is just a game or whether we could or should or would be allowed to go just a little farther with it. Hutt River Principality is a tourist attraction that makes money and apparently doesn't pay taxes. Sealand got to the point where a German diplomat came to visit them and request the release of a "prisoner of war". Now Sealand is advertising that they'll let somebody use their platform to make money so long as the prince gets paid a few tens of millions of pounds or dollars.

That seems to me to be getting kinda real.

If a lot of the people on here really wanted to start their own country or dozens of new countries, I wonder if they could do it.

I know that they could start a micronation that would be a lot bigger than most micronations. I mean, there's thousands of people on here, right?

Most micronations have less than ten people. I doubt Sealand even has that many actual citizens.

Sure, they wouldn't get recognized. That was my point about de facto sovereignty instead of de jure. So what if you don't get recognized as long as you actually have territory and actually control it.

Hutt River got their territory just by buying it. THat's not impossible, especially for a large group of people.

They are fascinating. I bet we may see more as the state becomes less broadly defined. Do city-states count as a micronation, btw? I think we'll see a revival of those, too.

There are different definitions in use. The U.N.'s definition could fit a city state if it were small. The other main definition would fit if it were not recognized by other large countries regardless of its size.

This is NOT a game.

This is NOT an advertisement.

This is about people starting new countries FOR REAL, or at least talking about it.

So don't try to say that this breaks the rules against advertising a game and call in the mods to delete the thread again. And if the mods do have a look at this, please bother to read what's on these links instead of just taking some jerk's word for it that it's an ad for a game.

Micronation that controls an offshore tower and platform near Britain:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand

Micronation that controls 18,500 acres of land in Australia: platform:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutt_River_Province_Principality

Micronation that has 50,000 citizens and was featured on BBC:
http://www.citizensrequired.com/unit/site/index.shtml

Does anyone find this interesting?

Aren't the self-appointed forum police annoying? I call 'em "FAPs" ;)

OT, it would be cool to be my own country, on an old oil rig in the ocean. I could set up banks and be a tax dodge!

The "forum police" as you call them seem to have backed off now.

Does anyone here want to start a micronation? I know how. I've done it before.

The "forum police" as you call them seem to have backed off now.

Does anyone here want to start a micronation? I know how. I've done it before.

Got a clicky linky? Or would that maybe be a rule violation for real?

What do you want a link to? My micronation?

What do you want a link to? My micronation?

I was thinking of a site with, you know, instructions ;)

There are several sites like that, but none of them are very good in my opinion. They are very vague and not too helpful.

Some aspects of it look sort of like a game, but, for anyone out there, It's NOT a game.

Anyway, you could go here:

www.mnn.mncentre.net

and click on "Start a micronation" but I could tell you how to do it better than that myself.

Does this mean me and my friends can get guns and take over my street and surrounding suburb, confiscate all property and conscript the population, then declare a 'Red Revolution', that sure would be fun;)

Does this mean me and my friends can get guns and take over my street and surrounding suburb, confiscate all property and conscript the population, then declare a 'Red Revolution', that sure would be fun;)

well it doesn't mean you could get away with it except on paper. real nations still have real guns. and i rather seriously question you're idea of fun.

even in the abstract.

for clickey linkies, there's a whole wonderful page and more by googling "micronations", besides the three cited in the o.p.

i remember having visited two or three much better ones then mentioned so far, though i don't remember off hand where or what. the wikipedia one is probably pretty good and may have links from there. haven't visited it in a while myself either. about the only thing i'd say for the kingdom of dave/bbc one, beside the population, is the nome chomski interview, which i do highly recomend. to anyone who wants a bit of clearity on the whole concept of soverignty and democracy and all that. to anyone who doesn't i suppose it would bore or simply go over their heads.

in an ideal world, all nations would BE micronations, and those run by indiginous tribal elders in accordance with the natural environment in each place. though there'd also be tecnoinfrastructure, run by robots or hobbiests, but also held strictly harmonious with the surrounding natural environment as well.

i suppose what makes me a little wierd is i could care less about the accumulation for myself of wealth or power, but only and rather certain very specific uses of them as affect the kind of world we ALL have to live in.

=^^=
.../\...

I'm not sure I see why some people recognize Sealand as a micronation,

Because it is not actually an Island: It is just a platform.

Now if the people who lived there had found an Island and rebuilt the platform as an extension of that Island then they would be in a good position to declare themselves as a seperate state.

if Federal wont let WA leave why should they

That was the queen who refused WA's independence.

One prospect for the future will be the possibility of de facto underwater micronations... perhaps ones which started off as large scale underwater mining operations, aquaculture installations etc. There's certainly a great deal more seafloor out there than dry land, even if much of it is at crushing depths by today's standards.

One prospect for the future will be the possibility of de facto underwater micronations... perhaps ones which started off as large scale underwater mining operations, aquaculture installations etc. There's certainly a great deal more seafloor out there than dry land, even if much of it is at crushing depths by today's standards.

Now that would be amuch more viable contender to be declared a state.

Only problem is how you would practice agriculture at extremely low depths.

Now that would be amuch more viable contender to be declared a state.

Only problem is how you would practice agriculture at extremely low depths.

Here's (http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Oceanic_20Agriculture_20_5bFor_20Small_20Remote_20Island_20States_5d#1092848400) one idea :) (God bless the Halfbakery!). I guess there's no reason why an underwater microstate couldn't have a topside...

Here's (http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Oceanic_20Agriculture_20_5bFor_20Small_20Remote_20Island_20States_5d#1092848400) one idea :) (God bless the Halfbakery!). I guess there's no reason why an underwater microstate couldn't have a topside...

I didn't like the 'labour intensive' part: You would need a larger manufacturing industry to support the maintenance of the ocean floor settlement.

Wasn't there a plan out there to build very large barges/boats and move them around the world? These were to be used as gambling, offshore banks and residences. Don't know if the idea ever took off. I believe they were under the same idea as micronations and would stay in international waters to avoid any particular nations laws.

That was done. Sort of. The ship in question is gigantic and is still sailing around. It's just making port in Venice, Italy today according to their schedle.

Here's the schedule:
http://www.aboardtheworld.com/uploads/documents/2007_Itinerary_Sep_01.pdf

The name of the ship is "The World".

Most cruise ships offer gambling when they are in international waters but this one does much more. On the other hand, it's not a micronation and it is subject to national laws when in port or in the territorial waters of any nation. Also, when it's in international waters, it is under the legal jurisdiction of the Bahamas because that's where the ship is registered.

There's information about it here from a sort of hostile source:

http://www.cruise-bruise.com/the_world_unannounced_port_of_call_november_10_2006.html