Ashelor

Ashelor
Republic of Ashelor
General
Location	4140, 4933
Demonym	Ashelori
Capital city	Denver
Settlements	Denver, Old Ashelor
Government
Government	Parliamentary Democracy
• Lord Protector	7misun
Formation
Foundation date	8th January 2019
Foundation document	Lord's Prerogative
Culture
Language	English
National anthem	Horn of Plenty
Links
Subreddit	/r/CivAshelor

Ashelor (pronounced Ash-ell-ore) was a Civilization on the CivClassic 2.0 server, in the +,+ quadrant, and was founded and ran by Orinnari.

History

First Founding

Orinnari and dBeatzx sought greener pastures on 6th January 2019 due to disagreements with fellow Bloomean, ThirdOfFive. They discovered a roofed forest area in the +,+ and decided to settle there. Orinnari successfully negotiated the land from the Free Territory of Kropotnia on 8th January 2019 via the Treaty of Mutual Recognition. The name was suggested by Orinnari as a nod towards Ashford, a farming district of Orinnari's within Bloom, while also fulfilling dBeatzx's desire for a fantasy sounding name. The lore of the nation was to have two competing houses, the "House of Siata" and the "House of Oak" represented as blue and orange respectively in the flag, with the white representing peace between them. Aleh soon joined under an alt.

CivEx Abandonment

After dBeatzx had already gone somewhat inactive, Orinnari and Aleh were invited on 28th January 2019 to join Yoahtl on CivEx, which they accepted, effectively abandoning Ashelor. In a spur of activity, on 17th February 2019, dBeatzx attempted to revive the Ashelor by negotiating to become a state of Bloom, however this was quickly vetoed by Orinnari due to fears of malicious interference by ThirdOfFive and other Members of Bloom's Parliament, though this sadly made dBeatzx go inactive again.

Second Founding

On 5th September 2019, after Orinnari and Aleh became frustrated with Yoahtlan drama, they began exploring old Ashelor. In the months since the abandonment, the Federation of Adina had claimed the territory. Orinnari found himself exploring Dithmarschen since it was an autonomous town of Yoahtl at the time, potentially smoothing out any future agreement. Orinnari requested permission for a settlement on the eastern coast which was then referred onto the "Central Comité". At the same time, Orinnari had joined the Adinan Discord and was discussing a potential Ashelor comeback, which many Adinans were receptive to. Given that the Central Comité was slow to respond, on 10th September 2019, Orinnari and Aleh decided to pursue reviving Ashelor in its original territory.

Not all was well, however: Adina was unwilling to cede the territory as the Free Territory of Kropotnia had done, primarily due to Kaly's (the leader of Adina) distrust of Orinnari and Aleh over their Yoahtlan citizenships, calling Orinnari a "Yoahtl agent." Nonetheless, Adina allowed Ashelor to be revived as an autonomous territory, which was hoped could be steered towards independence at a later date, however negotiations would soon collapse.

Under the Adinan constitution, autonomous territories were allowed to request opt outs of federal law, so as part of the negotiation process, Orinnari read through Adina's laws and noted any concerns. One concern was communal storage, the remedy for which was exempting Ashelor from that law: that Ashelor would not have access to Adina's communal storage and vice versa. Another concern was that of "Koric Law", a set of religious doctrines that imposed some odd restrictions in the context of Minecraft such as: the prohibition of the mutilation of dead bodies, the prohibition of TNT'ing trees, state protection of burial grounds, state protection of foetuses, etc. Orinnari respected the doctrines protecting freedom from discrimination but felt that requesting micro-opt outs would be too bothersome on both parties and so suggested a general opt out since many of the relevant freedoms, like freedom from discrimination, would be included in Ashelor's constitution regardless. This however was not taken kindly by Kaly who saw the suggestion as a fundamental insult to the very fabric of Adinan society, and announced this to the Adinan populace. ImperatorMendes then acted as a mediator, offering Ashelor the compromise of being subject to Koric Law but under a strict system of Judicial Review, that only qualifying cases would be accepted, and Ashelor begrudgingly accepted.

On the next issue however, that of defence, Orinnari and Kaly clashed again, and it became clear that neither liked nor trusted the other. Orinnari feared that this would become the ongoing relationship with the Adinan government; that it would always be hostile and at odds with Ashelor. Orinnari made the decision on 12th September 2019, two days after negotiations began, to withdraw from negotiations. Ironically, Adina would dethrone Kaly within the next week or so and would later officially become the Republic of Adina on 28th November 2019. After the withdrawal, Orinnari renewed the request to Dithmarschen, who allowed the settlement. Exact borders were not finalised until 7th October 2019 and not released until a month later (3rd November 2019) as to not invite raiders.

Statehood of Adina

On 10th January 2020, Ashelor was griefed for the second time within the span of a week by seanfpa and xVANCEx. Orinnari and Aleh were increasingly demotivated and so offered Ashelor as a state to Adina so they could use the land for farms or harvest the desert without seeking permission should Ashelor be effectively abandoned and thus without a government. Ironically, Ashelor's accession to statehood revived activity, with Orinnari and Aleh becoming interested in national, Adinan politics, which lead to Adina adopting a version of Ashelor's Habeas Corpus statute. Adina passed the "Ashelor Integration Act" on 17th January 2020, and Ashelor responded by passing the "Recognising the Ashelor Integration Act" on the same day. On 24th January 2020, Ashelor passed "Integrating into the Republic of Adina" which officially transitioned Ashelor into a state of Adina.

Secession from Adina

On 24th February 2020, ImperatorMendes approached the government of Ashelor with a proposition to build a vault within Ashelor's red desert. Orinnari and Aleh had immediate concerns, mostly to do with its proximity to the the town of Ashelor and the implications that would have but also what it would mean in terms of borders since it would be a dramatic reduction in Ashelor's then already small land claims. After some research into Adina's laws and constitution Orinnari found that there wasn't anything specific pertaining to land jurisdiction with the sole exception of the "Ashelor Integration Act", which stated that Ashelor would retain its borders thus implying that those borders meant something. This was backed up by the fact that Adina was requesting Ashelor for the land rather than acquisitioning it, thus also implying that Ashelor could in fact refuse.

On 25th February 2020, Ashelor passed "Land Negotiations with Adina" which empowered the Governor - an newly formed governmental role created under the requirements of Adinan statehood - to negotiate the desired area of red desert with Adina. At first there were discussions of a land exchange, but Ashelor quickly asserted that a land exchange should be mutually beneficial, that it shouldn't be land area for land area but rather useful land for useful land, but that caused that line of negotiation to end pretty quickly. Adina then bragged about having sold Phylon, an area they had recently been gifted, to Odresh (yikes) for 192 diamonds. This inspired Ashelor to suggest a land purchase, but while Adina understood, they felt it wasn't within their budget.

"yeah i totally get why you guys do want to be compensated, we just may have to move location if it is too pricey" - matanic, President of Adina

Ashelor came up with the price of 64 emerald blocks, and after some discussions of a zero-interest payment plan, Incentives offered to pay bill in full himself, so it seemed like construction would start in a matter of days.

On 14th March 2020 - two days after a newly elected Adinan government - the mood suddenly changed: matanic sent Ashelor a rather scathing message which stated in no uncertain terms that the government of Adina was disappointed with the request for compensation; that they understood that Ashelor (supposedly) didn't feel Adinan; that other states do feel Adinan and thus would give up their land if it were them; that Ashelor should start acting like a state; that Ashelor doesn't deserve to be a state; that if Ashelor citizens wished to exercise their Adinan rights (such as running for election) then they should act like Adinans; that Adina will be "clarifying" its laws and constitution to give powers to the federal government to be able to take land from states without asking.

This was not surprisingly taken poorly by Ashelor, but civil discussions began nonetheless about how to transition Ashelor into a (supposedly) more appropriate arrangement, leaning towards an autonomous territory. However they were soon made privy to the fact that Adina was, as part of their "clarifications", updating the constitution to strip autonomous territories of their voting and candidacy rights. This was seen by Ashelor as a blatant attempt to coerce them into either handing over their land or accepting a form of self-imposed and federally enforced isolation from Adina, thus giving credence to the idea that Ashelor wasn't really Adinan. It was also not lost on Ashelor that the federal government could, in theory, pass federal legislation requiring Ashelor to relinquish its land anyway, so in an abundance of caution, Ashelor pursued independence, becoming independent on 19th March 2020.

Township of Yoahtl

Civclassic was experiencing a general decline, which saw a massive reduction in players in and around the +,+. With his continued and ongoing citizenship of Yoahtl and their reasonable though mostly meta-bound activity, Orinnari offered Ashelor as a non-autonomous town of Yoahtl via the Treaty of Terestai, signed 7th August 2020.

Bloomification of Ashelor

On 11th October 2021, Orinnari convinced several Bloomeans to migrate to Ashelor, triggering a large set of law and treaty changes including secession from Yoahtl. Within a week, Ashelor had gone from one active citizen to sixteen. Among the many changes was the abolition of the Royal Prerogative, which put the law into disarray, requiring many proposals through the Citizens' Assembly to piece the law back together in a form that the Bloomeans consented to. The day after (12th October 2020), Slushhi was elected as Prime Minister, and soon after came the beginnings of the trenched city, which named Denver and designated as the capital, the idea being that the city would offer reasonable security to all citizens who resided within it, thus avoiding some of the issues that open planned cities often fall prey to.

Dissolution of Ashelor

On 11th December 2021, Orinnari requested and was given ownership of Ashelor's Discord server for old time's sake. Sometime later, Orinnari understood that Ashelor would not be re-established on future iterations and so used DiscordChatExporter to archive pertinent channels before deleting the Discord server.

Executions

• On 20th March 2020, Mr__Wiggles began breaking chests, thinking Ashelor was abandoned. Still skittish over the raid in January, Orinnari called in reinforcements. Onederful from Adina offered to help. Wiggles was pearled and Onederful was compensated for his troubles. It turned out that Wiggles thought that Ashelor was abandoned because while wandering around for a few minutes, he didn't see any activity. Orinnari only noticed the raid because he was up late and AFKing in his home. Wiggles was then sentenced to five days exile pearl, as well items known to be taken from neighbours in similar raids to be confiscated and returned. However, in Ashelor's laws, someone who is sentenced to pearl time must be ceremonially executed. Wiggles was executed by guillotine on 25th March 2020. (Watch here)
• On 12th October 2020, Orinnari was ceremonially executed as part of the transition from the Kingdom of Ashelor to the Republic of Ashelor. (Watch here)