Principalities and Population

[David KUIJT <kuijt@umiacs.umd.edu>]

Poster: David KUIJT <kuijt@umiacs.umd.edu>



Greetings to Cheapside from Dafydd ap Gwystl!


> >Lady G writes:
> >> Principality??  In a kingdom this small?  Think of poor Atenveldt when it
> >> stretched from Arizona to Montana.  It takes 7 hours to speed from around
> >> Tuscon to Flagstaff.  And that's just part of ONE state.
> >
> >Your example is poorly chosen.  That was a long time ago; the Kingdom of
> >Atenveldt now consists of nothing but Arizona.  It just finished splitting
> >off its most recent principality and is now just a single state.  In other
> >words, Atenveldt has now made itself smaller than Atlantia.
> 
> No, I did not choose my example poorly.  I said ,"Think of poor Atenveldt
> WHEN it stretched from Arizona to Montana.  WHEN.  I know because I lived
> there. Been there, done that.

I say again, you chose your example poorly.  Atenveldt has made lots of
principalities, and is now much smaller.  Just off the top of my head, it
made the principalities of Meridies, Ansteorra, Outlands, the Sun, and
whatever the new one is (Artemisia?  Avacal?  Some A place).

Atenveldt stands as an example for principalities, not against them. 

By the way, I started in the SCA in Alberta.  The first event I went to
was in Washington State, 17 hours drive away one-way.  When I started, my
home group was a part of the Kingdom of the West, which stretched at that
time from Alaska and Alberta to Northern California, a considerably
greater distance than Arizona to Montana.  Within six months of my first
event An Tir went Kingdom; I moved to the East (Baltimore) just before
Atlantia went Kingdom.


> >You're also simplifying a complex issue into a single factor, geographical
> >distance..
>  
> The thread was ONLY talking about University. Other events, where or when
> is a non-issue here.  If you had read what I had written, you would have
> noticed that I said that it was reasonable that most of the University
> sessions were in the north due to population concerns.

Please, let's be polite to each other.  I read what you wrote. I wasn't
responding to what you wrote about University; if I had responded to that,
I would have quoted what you said.  I was responding to what you said
about Principalities.  Which is what I quoted. 

If you are saying that I should have changed the title of my response, you
are correct.  I'm sorry if that confused you; it wasn't intentional. 


> >Principalities is not a dirty word.  A principality is a reasonable
> >solution to the downside of the growth of the SCA and the kingdom.  It
> >isn't a question of _whether_ we should have principalities.  It is a
> >question of _when_.
> 
> >Dafydd ap Gwystl, who loves Atlantia
> 
> Lighten up, the pricipality thing was a joke.

Hmmmm.  Jokes don't translate well on email.  Please don't blame me
because I didn't understand you were being facetious -- I'm sure lots of
other people failed to understand it also.  And whether or not you
intended it as humour, the way you wrote it will guarantee that many
people thought you were entirely serious. 


> Meaning that the distance
> thing is not at all as bad as many seem to think it is.

Oh, I agree completely.  Distance isn't relevant.  Which is why I said
what I did.


> And I love Atlantia too.

I certainly never intended to imply that you did not.  I inserted that
ending because one of the common arguments against principalities is that
to suggest them, you must not love your Kingdom.  Since I was saying that
principality is not a dirty word, I thought it prudent to head that
argument off.


> I love it because
> I've lived in Meridies, Drachenwald, Atenveldt, and the East and I know
> this is the best kingdom yet.  But wouldn't the division into a
> principality eventually mean the break-up of Atlantia into 2 separate
> kingdoms?  Hasn't this been the usual progression of events?

Certainly.

Let me take the other tack, to approach it from a different direction.  If
we do NOT make principalities in Atlantia (eventually -- the timing is a
separate issue), then Atlantia will become a version of the East Kingdom. 
The East should have been spawning a principality every 5 years starting
20 years ago.  If it had done that, it would not be the impersonal place
it is now, where 90% of the people don't know more than a half-dozen
people from outside their state. 

Atlantia is more than four times as big (in number of members) than it was
15 years ago.  This growth will continue.  It is far less personal than it
was 9 years ago when I was on the throne.  Why?  Because of population.
If Atlantia doesn't do something, it will become the congested, impersonal
East Kingdom or Middle Kingdom.  Because it will continue to grow.

Atlantia is a great kingdom.  It was a better kingdom 10 years ago,
because it was smaller, and everyone knew everyone else.  What has
changed?  Very little.

The people are still wonderful, just as nice as they were then.
The politics is no worse than it was before.
The geography is no different.

All that has changed is the population.  And the population is going to
keep getting bigger. 



Dafydd ap Gwystl


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