Axelmania wrote:I like the idea that 3 blue lights glare when he's readying fire.
Indeed!
Axelmania wrote:Blue_Lion wrote:1. At the time Tolkeen was founded no nation held the terirtory as the nation before them. .
*Occupation is the acquisition of territory that belongs to no state, or terra nullius;
Terra Nullius does not apply. That's something for places like Antarctica or a space moon. "has never been subject to the sovereignty of any state, or over which any prior sovereign has expressly or implicitly relinquished sovereignty" as Wikipedia puts it.
Minnesota was subject to the sovereignty of the United States meaning it can never be subject to Terra Nullius.
But the US Government no longer exists after the apocalypse and dark ages, therefore the land basically becomes unclaimed, and open to 'discovery' perhaps 'rediscovery' especially to people who may have come upon it from other dimensions without any knowledge of Earth history, and with no one on site able to make a better claim. There are the Republicans, but I don't see them as a continuation of the U.S. Government, but as a continuation of NEMA, which was a Military Alliance, and not a Government unto themselves, so they don't have a right to MN or Tolkeen either.
Axelmania wrote:Blue_Lion wrote:The whole thread is about discussing if and how they are entitled to any rights. Justification has been proven, your own list proved that tolkeen had a recognizable source of legal sovereignty and thus a legal standing to grant rights in this case land rights.
As above, I do not agree that Terra Nullius applies here. The land was already discovered and claimed, regardless of how fragmented the U.S. government is.
See my point above. The U.S. Government in Rifts Earth isn't just fragmented, it is literally non-existent. There are no groups described that use the US Declaration or Independence, Articles of Confederacy or Constitution as the basis of their government or call themselves the United States of America any more. There are some legacy sub-organizations that have survived and evolved from US Gov entities, but not as a full fledged government. Therefore it is now only a historical entity that exists in Rifts Earth's past and not a current legal functional entity, so the territory is open to be rediscovered.
This point is important, because otherwise we'd be arguing that all the NA Rifts nations have no technical legal right to their lands, and this would include the CS, Mansitique Imerium, Ispheming, Lazo, New Lazo, Kingsdale, El Dorado, the Colorado Baronies, the Federation of Magic, and so on. Likewise New Camelot in Rifts' England, would be illegitimate as obviously the Government of Great Briton/British Royal Family has claim to England, Scotland and Wales, and Northern Ireland, and the new King Arr'thuu and his predecessor King Ebor, as New Camelot is only 50 years old as of WB3. I could go on, but I hope you see the point. Very few pre-rifts nations continued, the NGR is perhaps one of the few exceptions of a legitimate continuation of a prerifts government surviving through the cataclysm.
Axelmania wrote:Blue_Lion wrote:In this case we have a sovereign nation that had established control and land rights to its people(People has been proven to be non-human). So there is your justification of rights.
The Splugorth have established control of London England and give their monsters the right to humans. Are there any differences in sovereignty between London-of-Splynn and Tolkeen-of-Minneapolis which you can identify? I don't recognize either's sovereignty at present, regardless of them having conquered the land and built upon it.
At best these two might fall under "right of conquest".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_conquest mentions this basically got abandoned by 1974 when the UN defined war of aggression. They appear to have abandoned it in international law, so Tolkeen needs some other basis to establish sovereignty. Particularly if they want to expand it beyond just the city of Minneapolis and lord over all towns in Minnesota, including ones who don't consent to it and want their towns to form a CS state.
Just because you don't recognize London-of-Splynn doesn't mean their claim is invalid, unless you want to claim almost all current rifts nations have invalid claims regardless of their ability to enforce their territorial claims via force. Almost none of the UN treaty nations still exist in Rifts Earth, and most Rifts nations aren't signatories to the UN Convention, so they probably don't recognize the invalidation of the Right of Conquest (certainly the CS has shown that they don't). Also there is no evidence that Tolkeen was founded by conquest or war against anyone who lived there before its founders established it, thus Occupancy seems the best fit of a legal theory for their right to their territory.
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Rights only mean something if you can enforce them or someone else can enforce them for you (as several people have already pointed out). If someone comes up and is willing to kill you for your land, your "right" to hold it is meaningless unless you can defend yourself from them by one way or another. D-bees who can hold off the Coalition can hold all the land that they want. D-bees who can't hold them off can't.
