Forum:Official collaboratives/St. Lazarus and Thilius

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This is a draft proposal for the OGF Papal States, provisionally named Confederatio Sacra Territorii Lazari Thilique (Holy Confederation of the Lazarian and Thilian Territories, named after in-world Apostles St Lazarus and Thilus. This is drawn-up in consultation with the Plevian mappers and others in the unofficial OGF discord, including Imperator and Rustem Pasha.

Overview

Confederatio Sacra will basically be OGF's analogue to the Papal States. What makes Confederatio Sacra more distinct, however, is that it would be an island nation rather than landlocked in an existing capital (there was a previous effort at an OGF Vatican City, but the mapper had long left). There is admittedly not much originality in recreating the Vatican through mapping just a cathedral, square and dozen church administrative buildings, though it's possible to reintegrate that mapping (or parts of it) into Osianopolis or similar as an exclave of the Confederation.

The Confederation is proposed to be centred on the Plevian island of Furgenia and/or Palmaria (with additional smaller islands to make it a kind of archipelago). The Confederation might still own some exclaves, which are largely church properties, spread across not only Plevia but Castellan and the region. The Confederation only exercises nominal sovereignty over these enclaves as a compromise through some treaties with the respective countries.

For now, this has been considered a subproject of Plevia.

Name

Obviously we don't want to just adopt "Papal" for the OGF Papal States. Confederatio Sacra Territorii Lazari Thilique seems to be a leading name, although other names named after possible OGF Apostles (Marcus, Luca, Lucius, Thomas, Judas, Basilides, Matthias) are being considered. This will be decided formally when the project is launched.

A corresponding proper noun name might be Lazaria et Thilia.

Alternatively these names could be used as island or city names - exempli gratia Portus Lazarenus

Mapping style and geography

Each islet under its direct political control could be dominated by a single monastery, like the Holy Cross Cathedral on Aghtamar Island in Turkey. Or like Mount Athos, with a sacred mountain or volcano, but less hermit and possibly a bit more centralised, maybe with a city with at least 150,000 people like Malta. The Papal Palace on Furgenia will be similar to the papal palace in Avignon (1309-1377) and largely fortified due to past attempts by Mazanic conquerors to take the island. Generally, the islets would be similar to the various islets in the real-world Mediterranean.

While a "theocratic elective monarchy" under the direct rule of the Pope, the Confederation could still function as an independent state handling its own foreign affairs, defence etc etc. As such, unlike the Vatican City, it will still have modern ports, airports and towns and villages of ordinary civilians.

History

The island on which the Confederation is currently centred is not the original Holy See. Like the Papal States, the Confederation once ruled over a series of territories, with sovereignty granted to the Popes by the Romantish Empire (or whichever the OGF Roman Empire is), and the See used to be centred in a Plevian city. However, perhaps due to a civil war in Plevia, the Pope was forced out of that city and fled to Furgenia. As the island was heavily fortified, the Plevians were unable to capture the Pope.

The island itself could be a metropolitan/important centre for a variety of other reasons; perhaps it is the birthplace of "the prophet(s)", perhaps it was an important trade city, perhaps the papacy was moved there, perhaps it was the place where the prophet(s) preached. Nevertheless, with the Pope and the See reorganising on the island, it redeveloped and modernised into the current era, with its independence guaranteed by various nations in the Mediterranean.

The Confederation is likely mapped in Latin, its official language.

Zhenkang (talk) 08:15, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Comments

Hi, mappers! If it is approved, would be OK to move Peritano to this island, wouldnt? -- BMSOUZA (talk) 13:04, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Not really. Bixelkoven, who is one of the admins in charge of West Uletha, admitted that the OGF Papal States should divert, as much as possible without dropping obvious connotations to Pope and Catholicism/Ortholicism, from being Vatican copy. Peritano is directly inspired by Vatican so it would be better not to use it. It may be, however, reused partially or be used as a mapping in other country. It's good mapping of old city after all. Rustem Pasha (talk) 13:20, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Ok, Rustem! I just said it because looks like Peritano and around are available, but I understand the statement. -- BMSOUZA (talk) 13:50, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

I will confess that the project is intriguing and could be quite interesting. There are two problems at this point:

• Purple territories are community-owned and cannot be split haphazardly just because someone in the project wants to. It's a new territory from a community area not a private one… make a request the appropriate way! Where was the discussion? Why that location and not multiple others that could have worked? I am aware that Bixelkoven indicated support for the project, but (to my knowledge) he did not state a go-ahead, and we hadn't had a chance to at least touch base as co-admin. We have a process for a reason.
• I can see some potential world-building content above, but the idea of it being a "subproject" of Plevia is ambiguous and actual details are not worked out. There needs to be a larger, brief community discussion about how the project is organised and structured.

Right now, I can see it is already split on the map, renamed on the map, multiple other changes already started unilaterally, and there has been no public community involvement. That's inappropriate. Since I do think the project has some merit, I am not going to revert the changesets at this moment. However, no more edits shall take place until a few things are nominally worked out. This should not take long, but let's get this done first. Further edits will be treated accordingly.

So, let's get into some very specifics that need clarification. (When responding do so below the signature and don't break up the list.)

1. Who will be allowed to participate in this project? This impacts how the process will unfold from here.
   1. If this is a proposed semi-private or invite-only territory, then this needs to be converted to a true territory request. A simple forum will not work in that case.
   2. If this is going to be a fully-open community purple, it will by necessity need to be separate from Plevia. This forum would work for this, but then it needs to remain a visible conversation… here, not elsewhere.
2. Who will oversee this? The project is not going to be under the header of Plevia. It's a completely different idea, and one that can/should succeed on its own. The person who will be overseeing it will require admin approval and should be capable of helping to resolve conflicts that can arise in active purples.
3. How will the project unfold? Is it by selection of areas? Is it by selection of projects? Who will ensure the timeline of events (e.g. when the airport gets mapped).
4. What is the proposed layout of the project from a human-geography standpoint? Where are the cities and of what sizes? Where are the fortifications and monasteries? What about infrastructure? Is there a draft plan that can clarify these things and help guide it going forward?
5. Let's talk about naming. There are some issues here, and we need to resolve them. Who are Lazarus and Thilius? Why those names, and what are they to represent? Why does it say Openge on the map? As a sub-point: We also cannot and should not stake claim to apostolic names. Important fictitious saints? Sure. Let's go for it. Messing with inherent key pieces of religion? Let's just stay away from that.

There are other things that will arise as we talk about. I'm open to considering the merits of this project, but I'm quite annoyed at the unilateral and unapproved changes. Under normal circumstances, all these edits would be reverted and treated as vandalism. I'm going to wait for now, to see if we can right the ship. — Alessa _(talk) 13:58, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi Alessa. Here is my response as the coordinator for Plevia, from which this state would eventually split.

The discussion started on the unofficial discord server, and at least 3 or 4 mappers started exchanging enthusiastic opinions. In the beginning, some landlocked territories were suggested, but then I came up with the idea of a Holy See on an island, and this idea seemed to catch the interest of most. The whole thing escalated over the course of half a day, and a certain amount of consensus seems to have been reached. Probably the enthusiasm of those involved led them to consider the whole thing settled before proposing an official forum on the wiki. For the time being, we will stop editing. (I have not been editing there myself, but I have only given permission to those who want to continue).

Here are my answers to the numbered questions.

1. I see this as a completely open project. Of course it will be separate from Plevia.
2. We need to discuss this.
3. I do not think that I have enough time and energy to be the owner of this project as well, so my role will only be that of ceding this island by removing it from Plevia for the sake of this project, and to map it on the same level as the other participants. If someone wants to take on the task of coordinating the project, I welcome them.
4. This needs to be discussed, I am not able to answer this now. I think a draft map will be prepared soon.
5. Openge was considered at first, but then it seemed to be a knightly order already taken. So we later changed it to Thilus (after Thilo) and Lazarus, another fitting name of Hebrew origin and Latin equivalent.

--Izaland Terramorphing Committee (talk) 14:46, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

4. There haven't been any definite plans regarding this, but personally I think the antropogeographical layout can mostly remain as is. I've merely changed the harbour entrance slightly to offer more protection which is important given the history.

5. Lazarus is also a reference to reinvigoration of the project. These can be saints if apostolic names is deemed a bridge too far.

--Imperator (talk) 14:53, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Hello there! As a mapper who participates in the Plevia project, I am quite interested in this idea. However, I wanted to address some of my questions/concerns regarding this project, serving as perspective of the mappers at the contributor level in the Plevia project.

1. Mapping before Discussion: As Alessa stated, I find it strange that this idea was mapped before any formal discussion was made. I do agree, I was concerned that the admin team would consider this as vandalism; none of them (as far as I know) even knew that this proposal was in the works. I have briefly skimmed through the discussion regarding this proposal on the unnofficial Discord server myself, so I may not be as knowledgable about the proposal, but my main concerns currently are:
   1. No formal decision was made on whether we had the green light to begin implementing this proposal. And
   2. Not all the users who participate in the Plevia collab are members of the Discord server, thus not all of the Plevia participants would have a say on whether they want this proposal to be implemented or not.
2. The Choice of Language Rendered on the Map: I noticed that Latin was unofficially chosen for names that would be rendered on the map. I do see this as a viable option, considering that this proposal is based off of the Papal States, whose primary language was/included. However, I am sort of opposed to having Latin as the language which names are rendered. After looking at Vatican City briefly, I saw that names of buildings, plazas, etc. were named in mixed Italian/Latin. My question here is: how will places, buildings, landmarks, etc. be named? Considering that this is being considered a 'subproject' of Plevia, here are some proposals on how the naming schematic could work:
   1. "The Pseudo-Vatican Approach":
      1. Names of places (cities, towns, villages, buildings, etc.) should generally be in Italian.
      2. Names of important places, or places of significance (i.e., Government/Church-affiliated buildings) should be named in Latin, with Italian names being tagged as name:it = * or alt_name = *.
   2. Alternatively, the system could work as:
      1. All names will be in Italian, using name = *, with Latin translations being tagged as name:la = *. (See Key:name:la)
3. Fictious "Apostles": I agree with Alessa's point of possibly referring to a list of fictitious significant individuals, but to refrain from "messing with inherent key pieces of religion." I am fond of using saints names instead.

I'll think of more points to address once more about the project is discussed. Again, I would have waited to publish any changes to the map until admin approval. Regardless, I am interested in this proposal, as it sounds like an interesting idea!

-- Geoc3ladus (talk) 23:33, 10 June 2024 (UTC)